Inkers (3 page)

Whenever she saw the vats Lily got an almost overpowering urge to climb up the ladders and find a way in. She had seen an overdose once, when she had lived rough in Glasgow, an old homeless man called Rodge. Lily had been approaching a dealer to try and beg or flirt a hit of ink when Rodge had burst out of a bush, pressed a knife to a dealer’s throat, grabbed his stash and drank half a litre of yellow before the dealer could get his gun. Lily had run away across Richmond Park and then, unable to ignore the noise of it, turned back.

Rodge had become a huge yellow moth.

As she watched, horrified, he swooped on the running dealer and bit his head clean off. The monster rose several metres into the air, burst into flames and then dissolved into a cloud of ash.

But then Rodge had not been able to afford much ink in his lifetime. Lily had never met anyone who had taken a tenth of the ink she had, and she fantasised that, like an immune, she would not be killed. But so far she had always resisted the urge, and now she simply led the way between the tanks, walking steadily.

They passed between the final vats into the open area at the end, where the four scientist’s desks sat, actuator ropes hanging from the ceiling with the VR suits attached to the end like shed skin, and beyond, the four huge black blocks of processors and memory drives, solid cubes each easily a metre in diameter, tangled with hundreds of cables for power and information transmission. Their dull hum combined with the whine of the air conditioning to create a constant level of noise she could never bear for long.

Brian went to his desk and started moving bits of electronics about, brushing away metal dust from around a drill. He had the bent–neck posture of the pre–VR internet addict. His stomach pushed out of his t–shirt and rested slightly on his desk.

“What did you give us?” Lily said, her heart beating faster.

“I told you,” he said, picking up a stack of papers and knocking them together on the surface of his desk, not looking at her. “It’s a new mix. A bit experimental.”

“You never said mix!” she said.

“You’re still here, aren’t you?” he said, half–turning his back to her, rustling through a desk draw.

“What are these?” Lily said, touching her belly, anger rising in her. He turned his head a little to look.

“Spots?” he said, turning back to his desk. “I have no idea.”

“They were
holes
.”

At last he turned to face her. There was anger in his face.

“Do you understand what we’re trying to do here? The risks we take, we have taken every day for nine years, long before you arrived? Do you know what would happen to us if we got caught?”

“Yeah, of course I know,” she said. You didn’t need school to know what singularity–tech was about or what the punishment was: first the ITSA inkhunters came, and then, if you survived that, they locked you up forever in a prison full of inkers in permanent withdrawal.

Brian pushed both hands back through his hair and took a step towards her, his podgy white face flushing red in the cheeks.

“And they all think it’s gone, it’s not coming back, so when it does come back we’ll have nothing to fight it with. But you know better than maybe anyone what it’s capable of. One day the sun will go out and the GSE will just bear down and crush us all. And we’ll have nothing. But we’re getting so close. I can’t believe it, every day I’m expecting a knock on the door or a drone bullet to the back of my head when I cross the courtyard, but we’re getting so close. We could literally save the world from destruction; if we can build something to do that, and you and Tom had helped, not just helped, been key – so yes, there are risks, of course, massive risks–”

“J–jesus, shut up!” she interrupted. “What did you give us? Why were my dreams different?”

“I told you! It was a new strain, a mix, but it’s still ink, and it worked, didn’t it? Like normal? A bit more intense maybe, but it worked, didn’t it?” Despite the conditioned air she could see beads of sweat forming on his forehead. She had to admit that it had worked, had been ink, undoubtedly, she could almost remember them taking it, around the fire, Brian’s big pale face…

“Yeah, but no, I can’t remember hardly anything, and I fell asleep inside, which I never, never do in the summer, and my dreams changed, which they haven’t since, since Cheltenham, whatever I’ve taken, ink or anything.” She shook her head and turned away from Brian, looking up at the rafters of the barn. Three years ago they had had terrible problems with pigeons nesting there, until Tom had figured out a trap using seeds and a cage. The pigeons were gone but the rafters were still streaked with vertical lines of white shit. Brian spoke from behind her, his whining voice blending with the drone of the cooling devices.

“Well, that’s good, isn’t it? And maybe it wasn’t the ink, maybe you’re growing out of it or something, or getting better, getting over it.”

“And the holes?” she said, turning back to him.

He didn’t break eye–contact with her, shook his head, a nasty expression spreading over his podgy features. “Look, you probably leaned on some nails or something when you were sleep–walking last night. You did it to yourself, and you just want to blame me because you’re too cracked to sleep properly.”

She wanted to walk forward and hit him in his fat face. She wanted some ink, too, as much as she’d ever wanted some, not blue or yellow or red but black, a huge pipette of black to make her feel something good.

“You have to try and act like an adult. When we’re done, it’ll be worth it, we’ll be able to do anything we want, we might even be able to go and find the GSE, find your parents. You know what’s at stake. Just have some patience, and we’ll be able to get out of here, do whatever you want.”

There was a moment of silence amid the hum of the computers and the air conditioning. Lily felt tears pricking at her eyes, a lump growing painful in her throat.

“You shouldn’t have given us weird stuff,” she said, “you shouldn’t have. Tom’s going to hurt you when he gets back.” And she turned and walked out of the ink barn, punching the silver vats of ink on her right as she passed them, black, blue, yellow. She kicked the door open and slammed it without looking back. She ran out of the gate, left it swinging open behind her. Before he put the stack of papers on top of it she had seen the long glinting syringe on the desk, and beyond the anger she was scared.

Amber hooked the hood of her VR
top over her head and settled back, the deep seat adjusting itself to support her back in almost the right places. She glanced out of the window before she switched on. Men in glowing clothing were dashing about the runway in the afternoon light, clearing up for the jet’s departure. She checked her watch. ITSA jets were not late in take–off or landing except in exceptional circumstances, and Amber suspected the exceptional circumstance in this case was the only empty seat on the large, first–class only SCRAMjet, which happened to be the aisle seat right next to her. She slid the shade down on the window, blinked her eyes to signal her implants to go full VR, and the window, the large screen on the back of the seat in front of her, and the long tube of the jet and its contents of murmuring hooded passengers faded silently from view, replaced with the early–morning beach vista she preferred as her VR desktop. Gradually her spinal and cortical implants kicked in and the seat behind and beneath her was replaced by the feel of the sand. She was sat on a dune, looking down over the beach, the air warm and smelling of salt. Blades of grass scratched at her arms.

“Who’s missing from this flight, in the seat next to me, please?” Amber said, using the “inside” voice that would not make her physical body speak. “Use my clearance, this is an ITSA matter.”

After a barely perceptible pause, a female voice replied from somewhere in front of Amber —“This flight’s roster and current occupancy status is classified below Area Commander level, I’m afraid.”

“Haven’t you heard?” Amber said, pushing herself to her feet and walking off the dune towards the surf with sinking strides. “I’m in the promotion round. I’m technically an Area Commander–.”

“I’m aware,” interrupted the voice with an exasperated note. “Actually you’re a
Trainee
Area Commander, with none of the relevant clearances unless specifically assigned to you by an actual Area Commander, or higher, for a specific mission. And as far as I can tell no such assignation has been made to yourself, recently, or ever. Indeed until you actually set foot on Nepali soil it could be argued that –”

“Oh, fine,” Amber said, entering the water and stopping where it was just lapping at her ankles. A seagull beat past in front of her, scanning the water for dinner. “Your best guess, then. For personal reasons.”

The reply was instant. “Going by the departure and destination locations of the flight and the recent widely–publicised US speaking engagements of various high–ranking members of ITSA command, as well as the preset on the seat, which indicates a tall, heavily–built male, my best guess would be one General Howard S. Dryer, Country Commander for ITSA Nepal and Disputed Regions since 2032, not to mention your new boss.”

“Yeah,” Amber said. “I thought so. Couldn’t you have just said it was him in the first place?”

“No,” the voice said.

Amber took several more steps into the water, feet sinking into the giving sand beneath.

“You know,” she said, “I’m pretty sure you’re just trying to annoy me. A lot of people would get their implants reset for that.”

“Yeah, well,” Emily said. “Good luck getting anywhere with a new admin.”

Amber shook her head. “Got any recent footage of the guy?”

“Assuming you’re referring to your new boss, yeah,” the voice replied after a moment. “A lot of identical speeches, actually. There’s one in a high school in Ohio from two days ago – want to watch?”

“Yes,” Amber said.

“You might not like it. On your mark,” Emily said, and Amber dived forward into the waves.

She opened her eyes dry, clothed, wearing a suit, sat in the centre of a high hall, three rows from the front, in the midst of dying applause. A tall man in the black ITSA uniform, silver stars glinting on his lapels, was standing at the wooden podium in front of her, smiling broadly. His gingery hair was cropped close about his ears, kept a little longer on top. The air smelled of cleaning fluid.

“I would just,” he said, his accent Texan, voice ringing too loudly over the packed hall, “just like to say something about a topic which I have become somewhat notorious for, at least in certain circles. And perhaps not without good reason.”

He paused. There were chuckles from a few members of the audience. He did not smile now: he seemed to be looking straight at Amber. Amber shifted in her seat.

“The topic, as some of you are perhaps aware, is the inclusion of certain members of society in the ranks of ITSA. It is a fact that these people possess unusual and possibly unique attributes. It is also an undeniable fact that these people are, without exception, current or former criminals. We can know this with one hundred percent certainty just by looking at them. Now, normally, we do not hire anyone with a criminal record. This is because our work is extremely sensitive; it is melodramatic but it is not an exaggeration to say that the fate of the entire world may rest on the work that ITSA performs. Therefore, however useful these former criminals might be, there are always many more worthy candidates, all eager for a chance to join up. And, just as in the military, when hiring and training our troops we look for brains and brawn, yes, but also, crucially, a strong basis of character, a basic knowledge of the difference between right and wrong. A basic self–discipline. I believe, and there are many like me, that it is this basic character which makes a good soldier; and a basic lack of character cannot be compensated for by physical attributes, however potentially useful.

“Normally, therefore, we do not hire criminals. But, an exception is made, a key exception, for immunes; that is, ink addicts who have taken so much ink, and, through hardiness or luck, managed to survive for long enough that their entire body is permanently desensitised to the effects of the drug. And not just that terrible drug – as it turns out, most recreational drugs, and many which are used for medical purposes. This is a blessing upon these creatures, freeing them from the devastating addiction, but their irredeemably discoloured skin is also a curse, permanent evidence of their past or present problems. As a result of their staining, rightly or wrongly, immunes find it very difficult to find gainful employment following the end of the addiction.

“But, on occasion, ITSA does hire these people. They are selected on the basis that, as part of their work, our brave soldiers must regularly go to places where the most dangerous drug on Earth is sitting around. Sometimes it is sprayed into the air – sometimes it is thrown. Sometimes the soldiers are touched by large quantities of the ink and they die immediately, in a manner which I do not wish to or need to describe to you here. Immunes by their nature are, of course, immune to this danger. But it is a fact that, if these people did not have their ill–gotten immunity, they would not be hired into roles at ITSA. Their criminal records would be painted on their skin; they simply would not be hired. And yet they are, and quite often. I personally consider it to be a pernicious kind of discrimination against those with no criminal record whatsoever, who are, make no mistake, losing out on jobs and careers in favour of the immunes. As a result, it is one of my long–term objectives to stop this unfair hiring procedure. In doing so–”

The General froze mid–sentence.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Emily’s voice said from next to her, “but the man himself is approaching. Might want to pull that hood over a bit more…”

“Exit,” Amber said abruptly, and the room, the faint smell of cleaning fluid, and the people sitting on wooden chairs around her were replaced instantly by the heavily conditioned air of the jet. The General’s podium disappeared, too, but the man was still there in front of her, dimly lit in the aisle, wearing a black greatcoat over his uniform. He was approaching, bending to check seat numbers. Amber’s heart began to beat faster. She pulled her hood further over, so that her face would be as hidden as possible, and turned away to her side so that she was looking at the closed window. Her seat adjusted to try to keep her comfortable.