The Ward (23 page)

‘Really?’

‘Sure.’ He nods frantically as if he’s trying to convince himself of this. ‘Someone’s going to come looking for you, aren’t they?’

‘No one knows where I am, Farrell. I left without telling my father where I was going. If I disappear, no one will know where to look.’

‘Yeah. But me and Katya… we’re connected.’ He strides over to the door. ‘You hear me?’ he shouts. ‘You’re not going to get away with this
shit!’ He kicks it again.

‘And what about me?’ I say.

‘What about you?’ Farrell says. The sneer in his voice makes me feel like I’ve been hit in the gut.

‘What about
my
face?’

He blanches as if this is the first time he’s thought of that. ‘Well, they’ll have to sort that out as well, won’t they?’

I swallow the lump in my throat. I can’t resist running my fingers over the smooth skin again. Farrell doesn’t seem to notice, he’s mumbling to himself.

What if I… What if I kept it?

You can’t think like that
.

‘Katya’s dad, he’s probably got half the Metro cops looking for her right now,’ Farrell says. ‘Not to mention his own people.’ He nods. ‘That’s
why they’ve brought us here. That’s why they haven’t just… made us disappear.

They’ve realised they’ve made a mistake, that me and Katya, we’re not nobodies.’

Unlike me.

‘That must be it,’ I say. He needs to cling to something to get out of this intact. We both do. He smiles at me gratefully. Maybe he does care what happens to me after all.
‘It’s going to work out just fine, Farrell. If they removed Katya’s face, they can put it back on.’

‘Lisa?’

‘Yes?’

He kneels down in front of me and takes my hand. ‘Can you do something for me?’

‘What?’

‘When we see these Administration fuckers, let me do the talking, okay?’

I try to pull my fingers out of his grasp. He’s squeezing them so hard it’s beginning to hurt and I’m pretty sure he’s not aware of what he’s doing.

‘I can promise you something, Lisa,’ he says, finally loosening his grip and standing up. ‘They’ll be sorry they ever fucked with me.’

Before I can reply, the door clicks open.

I’m expecting that yellow-haired freak, but a different, dark-haired woman is standing expectantly at the door. She’s tall, almost skeletally skinny, dressed in an
efficient tailored suit. She’s overdone the perfume; I smother a sneeze as her cloying scent wafts up my nose. I can’t tell how old she is – she’s got that waxy, stretched
Joan Rivers skin. Plastic surgery overkill.

‘Client Cassavetes?’ she says with a rigid smile. ‘And Donor Farrell?

Please pursue me.’

At least she hasn’t looked at me as if I’m dog shit, which makes a change around here.

Lisa looks at me anxiously, but I ignore her. I’m going to need all my energy to convince these fuckers to sort this out, and I’m tired of babysitting. She can look after herself for
once.

The skinny woman unlocks the door next to our waiting room and leads us down a long, marble-floored corridor, which ends at a heavy wooden door. The cramps in my legs have eased up, and I
don’t have any trouble keeping up with her – her knee-length skirt is so tight that she can barely move her thighs as she traipses along. She heaves open the door and ushers us into
another large waiting room. There’s a red suede couch against one wall and two matching orange armchairs opposite it, flanking a pair of solid-wood double doors. The thick carpet is royal
blue with that same nauseating piss-yellow pattern they’ve used everywhere. Jesus, whoever designed this place must be on some seriously bad acid.

‘Please be comfortable here,’ the woman says. She indicates an antique table against a wall hung with closed drapes. ‘There are beverages and refreshments here. Do help
yourselves. You may ablute in here,’ she says, pointing at a heavy bevelled darkwood door.

Unlike the limbo room we were just in, it’s like a bad-taste five-star hotel in here. The materials are all thick and opulent, the cups and glasses on the beverage table whorled and cut.
And here I am in the pyjama pants I woke up in, T-shirt and bare feet, and Lisa, with her dirtstrung hair, gown and my jeans.

This receptionist or whatever she is seems approachable enough. I should try to get some answers out of her, but I don’t know what to ask her first.
Why are you doing insane medical
experiments on my girlfriend? Who are these people who want to chop me up? Where are we exactly? How the fuck do I get out?
I settle on ‘Um, do you know when we are going to get
discharged?’

‘Oh.’ She smiles, her mauve lipstick perfectly applied, her teeth like something out of a buyers’ guide. ‘You must discuss that with the deliberation panel.’

‘This hearing is about correcting the… error… concerning my… Ms Forrest, isn’t it? And discharging us?’ I say, doing my best to talk in their official
jargon. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in life, it’s that bureaucrats are big on respect.

‘I am unable to illuminate that, Donor Farrell,’ she says with that same fixed smile. She’s got something painted on her two front teeth but I’m not close enough to make
it out clearly. ‘Please repose,’ she says, gesturing to the chairs. ‘The panel will be ready for you in a few moments.’ She opens one of the double doors only as far as she
needs to and slips inside. As she closes the door behind her, I read the golden plaque mounted on it: ‘The Moreau and Verwoerd Memorial Deliberation Chamber’.

I can’t help looking at Lisa’s arse in my jeans as she turns to sit. I prefer that view of her. That way I don’t have to look at her… face. Katya’s features with
her eyes. I sit on one of the orange chairs so that she won’t sit next to me, and immediately realise it’s the wrong decision. Now Lisa looks lonely and small as she perches on the
couch, her legs clasped together at the knees, the lank golden hair hanging limply over her… the face. It’s not her fault, I suppose. I’d see less of her face if I were sitting
next to her.

I go for some water. I can’t remember the last time I drank anything, and now, without the drip in me, I’m parched. I pour water out of a cut-glass carafe with ice and unidentifiable
fruit floating in it. I’m not sure whether to trust it, but it looks and smells appetising. I knock back three glasses.

‘Water?’ I ask Lisa.

‘Please,’ she says.

I take a glassful to her, and, as I do, my bladder tells me it needs to ‘ablute’. Can’t remember when last I did that either.

I push into the bathroom. It’s also like something in a five-star hotel. Green-veined black marble tops, designer brass fittings, spotless grey travertine on the floor and
black-and-opalescent mosaic urinals on the walls. I enter the furthest of the two stainless-steel cubicles and the newfangled toilet bowl standing in the middle of the space flushes itself. I take
a long and satisfying piss, gazing up at the framed sign on the back wall of the cubicle – ‘Ministry of Modifications: Carving for You’, it reads, with a corporate blue-and-green
ideogram of cupped hands – and notice how dark my urine is. I’ve been seriously dehydrated. ‘Carving for You.’ I can’t believe this illegal scheme has the balls to
advertise. Jesus, it just goes to show: money makes its own rules. Whoever’s behind this racket, they need to employ a fucking proofreader. Bastards.

I’m heading for the bathroom door when it opens and I hear two male voices. Shit. I duck back inside the cubicle.

‘I don’t know why they’re allowing it a hearing now. It should be on intensive preparation. Now it’s karking around, without its meds. We’ll have to move the
donation schedule back again. And it’s a high-risk Donor…’

My left leg cramps and I have to squat over the lidless bowl, gripping onto the rim, trying not to breathe.

‘The Auditor says it was inducted early. Some… domestic situation,’ says a second voice. This man sounds like he’s got a blocked nose; he snuffles heavily like a bulldog
between sentences. ‘Did you know it’s a glamour photographer? Works upside with fayson mowdels.’

‘Aah, mascots.’ The first man chuckles knowingly. ‘That explains the Auditor’s interest. He’s so transported by shopping, you’d swear he was a player. It
wouldn’t surprise me if he auditioned for General Manager at the Ministry of Consumption next term.’

‘Ssh! Kark, Mutual. The Auditor’s in the chamber. Do you want to be recycled?’

‘These walls are thick, Federal. Auditor’s orders. Anyway, we shouldn’t be karking around with irregular hearings, Client-requested or not. The Donor’s high
risk.’

‘There have been higher-risk cases. Remember when we harvested Donor Lewis?’

‘I don’t get these browns. You give them a chance to be a Client, give them a primo face interplant, offer to modify them to anything they want, and still they choose to kark around
with Donors, making irregular petitions. It’s asking for reversal, for contract’s sake! The interplant was primo work. I saw the mimeographs.’

The cramp shifts up my leg, my grip slips and my arse bumps onto the bowl. I hold my breath, praying they haven’t heard me.

‘Lewis would have been a better Donor if she was—’

Fuck
. My foot slips off the seat and the toilet flushes. I hoist myself up before my arse gets too wet, trying to shake off the cramp, preparing to run.

‘Kark. I hope it’s not the Auditor in there.’

‘The Auditor uses the golden restroom, Federal.’ I hear them zip up.

‘Anyone there?’ snuffles bulldog.

Another moment passes. ‘Just backflush,’ the first man says, and at last they leave.

I struggle to understand what I’ve just heard. They were talking about me, I’m sure of it, but what the fuck did it mean?

The only way I’m going to get to the bottom of this is to be direct and demand answers face to face. They’re going to tell me what sort of game they’re playing, they’re
going to apologise and reverse what they’ve done to Katya, and after that they can talk to my lawyer. Someone’s going to correct this. And somebody’s going to pay.

I wash my hands, spurting a snot of green hand soap over my T-shirt. I look at myself in the mirror. Christ, I look like shit. The first thing I need to do when I get home is get a shave and a
haircut and a serious facial. Thank God no one at the studio can see me like this.

But I have to try to keep positive. I glance around the well-appointed bathroom again, with its smart finish and shining fittings. You’d think that any organisation that kept its toilets
this clean would have nothing to hide. So, what can I learn from this? The opulence here, the sheer organisation, means that this is not just random insanity, surely. They’re open to reason,
to negotiation. There’s a system, there’s accountability. They’re not behaving like this is some banana republic. I should be thankful that this isn’t a back-alley
operation. If it were, I’d probably be rotting in a shallow grave by now.

I head back into the waiting room. Lisa’s paging through a magazine, so absorbed in it that she doesn’t look up as I approach. I catch a glimpse of a double-page ad: ‘Cut it
off on Credit!’ the copy screams in cheesy pink letters. The model in the spread is too thin, and I’m sure she has a stump instead of a hand. Jesus.

I sit down next to Lisa and she guiltily slaps the magazine face down on the glass-topped table in front of us. She blushes as if I’ve just caught her looking at porn. Ugh. I never saw
Katya blushing and mottled colouration looks disgusting on her skin.

‘There were some horrible photos in there,’ she ventures, although she doesn’t sound too badly affected. ‘Weird stuff.’

‘I’m not surprised. Did you see the two men who came out of the bathroom just now?’

‘Kind of.’ She waves at the magazine. ‘I wasn’t really paying attention.’

‘What did they look like?’

‘One was a bit on the big side, I suppose.’

‘Did you see where they went?’

She points to the double doors. ‘Through there.’

The receptionist pokes her head out of one of the doors, keeping it closed behind her. ‘Just a few more moments, valued Client and, uh, Donor,’ she chirrups. ‘The committee has
almost finished rehearsing the case, and they’ll be hearing your submission in just a few moments. Please continue to repose.’ She ducks back inside.

Feeling self-conscious, I sit as far from Lisa as I can get. I grind the thick pile of the carpet with my bare toes. Lisa presses her hand against her face and the space between us is heavy with
the horror behind it. I can’t look at her, and I can tell she would prefer to be anywhere but here. I pick up a pamphlet from the perspex holder on the coffee table. It’s designed in
the same inoffensive colours as the sign in the toilet, and has the same wording: ‘Ministry of Modifications: Carving for You’. I notice that the hands in the ideogram aren’t the
same size. The one on the left is shorter than the one on the right and between the hands, where you might expect a symbol of the earth or maybe a classic heart shape, there’s a shapeless,
unidentifiable blob.

I open it up. ‘MoM, Severing You, Severing Your Community.’ These people seriously need some new blood in marketing. I put it back in its holder.

The burn of a cramp starts up in my glute and I stand up immediately to try to tease it out. The spasms are far less intense now than they were when I came off that drip. How long has it been? A
few hours? It seems like weeks. I don’t even know what date it is, never mind what time it is. I walk across to the drapes behind the drinks table and push one aside to check out the view.
Only there’s no window, just another bricked-in alcove.

Lisa comes up behind me. ‘What’s there?’

I draw the curtain wider and show off the wall. ‘We went quite far down in that lift getting here. We’re probably underground.’

‘It’s like we’re in a casino or something,’ she says. ‘Like they’re deliberately trying to deprive our senses. Why do they bother with the curtain?’

‘It must be something to do with these… experiments they’re doing.’

The receptionist appears again. ‘Please proceed into the chamber.’