Inkers (2 page)

“Bastard!” Lily shouted.

“Stay there!” Annie said. She began to cross the courtyard.

Lily swung back into her bedroom. Her mirror faced her across the room. Lily scowled at the reflection. The spatters of colour and darkness were just visible on her skin. Her scars ached; across her back, left shoulder to right hip, and in the tips of all her fingers. She desperately wanted some ink. She jumped to her feet. Her clothes smelled like smoke.

Her rucksack leaned against the mirror. Lily rummaged inside, found her gear box and cracked it open. The little vial of blue was still in there. She stuffed it away, swung the rucksack over her shoulder and went out into the dark corridor. She reached the stairs and clattered down the first flight. Annie, halfway up, saw her coming, turned and ran back outside, her stout body making it a slow sprint. Lily followed her. Annie hustled across the courtyard and put her back against the heavy door to the ink barn, spread–eagling her short arms. Lily stalked towards her and considered whether Annie would die rather than disappoint Brian.

“You can’t go in!” Annie said, breathing hard.

Lily clenched her fists. “Move,” she said. Annie looked ridiculous, her eyes wide, a strand of straw stuck in her curly red hair. Lily could smell sweet perfume. Annie wore it every day though there were only the four of them to smell it. The four of them and the robots and the cows.

“He’s busy,” Annie said, her voice rising in pitch, “just talk to me instead!”

“He —he gave us something weird!” Lily said, towering over her. A string of spittle flew out of her mouth and stuck to Annie’s forehead. Annie did not move to wipe it away.

“You’re high!” she said. She was still breathing heavily. Her hair bobbed.

Lily growled, grabbed the door–handle and shook at it. Annie smacked Lily’s hand away and then stared, shocked at her own violence. Lily grabbed Annie’s shoulders and yanked her away from the door. Annie came away more easily than Lily had expected and stumbled. She was too slow to catch herself and she hit the slabs hard, yelping in pain. Guilt washed through Lily. She bent to pick the woman up, but Annie pushed her away and struggled up on her own.

“We’re trying to help you,” Annie said, rubbing her arm with her thick farm–girl hands, tears running down her face.

Lily growled and shook the door handle again, slammed her palm against the solid door.

“Brian!” she shouted hoarsely. There was no response.

“Just go away!” Annie shouted. Lily screamed and stalked off into the southern garden, still shaking and trying not to think about Annie’s contorted tear–streaked face. Lily glanced at her watch, a primitive piece of plastic that Tom had got her for her fourteenth birthday three years ago. It sensed her glance and lit up —3:03am. The sea could be heard lapping at the shore not far away. She stopped for a second to look over the gate to the other barn. She could see the silhouettes of the cows in their pens, two dozen chewing, sleepy faces looking back at her.

“Hi,” she whispered in to them, her heart–rate decreasing gradually. She liked the smell in there, it smelled like manure, like safety, the outdoors, harmless animals. The door slammed in the courtyard as Brian let Annie back in. Lily turned away from the cows. She started up the path and almost cried out. There was a silhouette standing at the gate to the garden, cut out against the sea. She half–expected it to turn to her, claws raised, but she knew that hunched posture. It was cold, and Lily wrapped her arms around herself as she approached him.

“Tom,” she called out. He turned slowly to her. His eyes remained half–closed for a long time, and he stood still, his face all lined and tired, his trainers fluorescent in the moonlight. His mouth was open and she could see his crooked yellow teeth. He was wearing the thin green sweater he always wore.

“I had a weird dream,” Lily said, feeling stupid. He seemed to see her and his eyes widened. She took another step towards him. The tide was quite high, lapping audibly against the stones of the shore. Tom took a deep breath, shifted his shoulders and rubbed his eyes.

“It’s always the same,” he said, at last.

“No. Different,” she said. “I got out.”

Tom blinked, then shook his head and stretched his arms behind him, yawning. He leaned back against the gate. He smelled like cigarettes and sweat. “You remember what he gave us?”

Lily grunted, looked behind her.

“Yeah, I tried to explain to Annie.”

Tom cackled. “He wouldn’t go and do something unethical, now would he, eh?” he said. She didn’t respond to that.

“Well?” he said, smiling. He reached out and mussed her cropped black hair. She grabbed his arm and ducked back, attempting to suppress a smile.

“Stop it,” she said, holding onto his wrist. “It’s this place. It’s getting to me.”

Tom pulled his arm back and turned away.

“You’re too young,” he said.

She knew what he meant. He meant they would see the ink–colours all over her and know her for what she was. Anger rose in her.

“What difference does it make? I’m always going to look like this!”

Tom shook his head, his back still to her. Stars were visible above him, winking through trails of clouds.

“We look after you, you know,” he said. “It’s very hard outside.”

Lily clenched her fists. She could tell he was struggling to control the rise of feeling. Lily raised her fist to strike him and then lowered it again.

“I’ll just take the rib, then,” she lied.

“You wouldn’t dare,” Tom muttered, and his control failed. He spun to face her as the wave of ink flooded up his carotid into his brain. His face looked wrong, the eyes too large, the mouth too thin. Lily took a step back.

“Tom–” she said.

“You wouldn’t
dare
,” he repeated, his voice distorting. His arms were too long. He reached a hand towards her, fingers hooked, clawed, growing black.

She ran back towards the house. He shouted after her but it did not sound like words. She dashed across the courtyard, out to the vegetable garden on the other side, across the soft beds, clambered over the fence and ran along the track up the hill towards the trees. They were bending in a building wind. The clouds accelerated high above.

When she reached the trees she checked behind her. Nobody was following. She slowed to a walk, panting. She turned off the main track, climbed a steep bank and followed a narrow path up the mountain. The need was building in her already, the need to take away the pain, nervous energy in her arms, an excitement in her chest. She wanted to stop and do it right there but the thought of Tom following her, still mutating from the ink, and the still–fresh memory of her dream made her push on. It was very dark. As she walked she swung her rucksack off her shoulder and reached inside, rummaging until she found her knife in its plastic sheath. She pushed it into her right pocket, a comforting hardness.

She came at last to the tall oak tree and peered up. The gnarled trunk loomed over her in the darkness. She checked around her and finding no visible monsters swung herself up onto the first big branch, kicked against the bark to find her footholds and then climbed up with practised ease. When she felt the planks of machined wood beneath her fingers she pulled herself over the lip onto the wooden platform. Above, the rustling leaves shuddered against the sky, backlit by a bright thin crescent of moon. Her heart beat faster. She pulled out her sleeping–bag, unrolled it and laid it out on the wood, carefully as the space was not very big. She manoeuvred herself into the bag.

She took her tin out of her rucksack and opened it, her heart pounding. Inside were two glass vials and a stained pipette. One of the vials was half–full with the blue liquid. She picked it up, took a pipette with her other hand, flicked the cork out of the neck of the vial with her thumb, tilted it a little so that she could get as much of the ink as possible from the corner, and, squeezing the end to push air out of it first, stuck the pipette into the blue. The dark liquid rushed into the pipette. She pointed the open end at the sky, returned the empty vial to the tin and shoved it back in her rucksack.

She lay down, keeping the pipette pointed away from the ground, straightened her left arm, the skin already blotchy with the stains from a thousand similar occasions, and squeezed the bulb of the pipette above it, sighing as the drops of blue ink touched her. The ink spread and ran over the skin, gradually slowing as it was absorbed. She tucked her arms into the heavy sleeping bag. As the ink hit her bloodstream and her heart pushed it around her body, she tasted the familiar garlic taste and felt the sadness and sleepiness build in her in a wave of emotion that rushed up her arm and across her chest and over her face. She closed her eyes and sank into blissful blue darkness.

Lily woke up in the winter sun, warm in her sleeping–bag. She checked her watch – midday. She felt like death. She extracted herself from the sleeping bag, rolled it up, recovered and packed her pipette and climbed down from the tree. The air was fresh and cold. She set off for the farm, feeling dirty, hungry and wanting more ink. Halfway there, the singing of the birds was interrupted by the whirr of an engine. She jumped on a large flat rock and saw through the trees the rib motoring across the waves. Tom. He went down to the city about once a month to sell enough ink to buy any food and supplies they could not grow or make. She stamped in anger.

It was not until she was back in the farmhouse and undressing for the shower that she looked down and saw the three dark spots on her belly. Each had a little circle of dried blood around it. The night before was more gap than memory, and the memories she did have were like dreams, but she could remember a sharp pain and a pale face leering over her. She put her hand on the marks; it hurt to press on them. Shaking with anger, she pulled her clothes back on and left the bathroom.

Brian and Annie’s bedroom door was closed. She walked quickly along the corridor and banged hard on the door. There was no response. She banged again, shaking the door in its frame.

“What?” came the sleepy, muffled response.

“Brian,” Lily said.

There was silence, followed by the sound of footsteps creaking across the floor of the bedroom. The door opened and Brian stuck his pale face through. His weight could be seen in his face and chin. He was wearing a dressing–gown, but she could still see his white, hairy chest. His crooked nose, beady eyes and greasy hair did not make him any more attractive. He blinked at her blearily.

“Are you OK?” he said, rubbing an eye. Despite his looks he was charming. He always made eye contact and listened to everything you said. That, she supposed, was how he had managed to convince Annie to come with him nine years ago, and how he had managed to make the deal with Tom. And how he had managed to keep them here for so long, despite the apparent lack of progress. As far as Lily could tell the huge quantities of lethal, massively illegal ink growing in the vats in the barn were the only thing they had managed to produce.

Lily silently lifted her t–shirt and showed him the bloody mess on her belly. Concern registered on his face. She was pretty sure he could make his face do almost anything, regardless of what was going on inside him, so she ignored it and just said, “I need to talk to you.”

He nodded. “OK. Um. I’ll be out in a sec.”

The door shut. She leaned against the whitewashed wall opposite to wait. She could hear him talking to Annie in words too muffled to pick out, and the sounds of Annie’s brief replies. After two minutes he stepped out again, dressed in white t–shirt and cut–off jeans, and closed the door on the dark room. He rubbed at his eye with the palm of his hand.

“Let’s go to the barn,” he said.

They descended through the farmhouse and went out into the courtyard. The shutters along what would have been the front of the ink barn, back when it was used for livestock, hadn’t been opened since Lily had arrived, four years ago; now the only way in or out was the big solid door on the end of the barn, facing the front of the farmhouse, that she had been unable to get through the night before. Brian wore all the keys to the farm around his neck. He fumbled for the right one and opened the door.

“After you,” he said.

Lily went in, into the cold, suddenly aware that she didn’t feel safe with him behind her. She walked on anyway. It smelled like cut wood. Big air conditioning units powered by the generator behind the barn and solar panels on the roof whirred day and night, even in winter, to keep the temperature at a steady fifteen Celsius, the optimum for ink–growth.

Her heartrate increased at the sight of the six big vats.

From this side, she couldn’t see over the lip of any of them to where the glass windows on top showed their almost priceless contents, but she knew the colour of each of them by heart. Yellow on her left, green on her right, blue ahead on the left, red opposite that, and finally black on the left and white on the right, and behind each one a great tank of cow’s blood and anti–clotting agent, gradually leaking into the vat for the nanites to feed on.

Tom had showed them how to do it, in the beginning. He had figured out how to grow it himself using darknet guides, when he was a drug dealer in Manchester. He had learned to catch pigeons in his attic to drain and feed to his tiny ink–cultures. He always struggled to find a safe way to sell it. He had heard from one of his clients about a pale nerd trying to buy massive quantities of ink; entrepreneurial, he had used his contacts to find Brian. He went with him back to the island, and, finding he liked the isolation and wildness, stayed there, teaching Brian and Annie how to grow the ink and selling it for them on the mainland whenever they needed money for supplies. He didn’t really understand what they were trying to do and he didn’t really care.