Ectopia (2 page)

The Book of Paul

 

;O(

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Bender's Book

 

0.01

2.10am

Bugger Dad. I slope in, click shut the gate, wake no-one. Two steps in and the path gives way. An edge collapses inside a hole and I'm over.

- Shut the fuck up, Dad says – Don't move.

I'm on my face, a line of barbed wire stretched under my chest, the blade of a spade pressed against the back of my neck. Dad's been digging again.

- We don't want you hurt, he says – Not more than we have to. I'll hold the wire. Press down with your hands and lift straight off.

He sets down the spade and stands over me, one foot on the wire to either side. I get up. Three cuts. I can feel em, feel where the barbs stuck in. A new shirt fucked.

- What do you say, boy?

His voice is a whine plus a hiss. Licker's on his breath. You don't answer back to Dad. Not when he's in drek mode. The drink turns to fire in his stomach and the fire smokes his brain. You can watch his brain pulsing in his forehead, a little bump that makes his skin throb. On the streets we chase down dreks like him. At home I avoid him.

Now he's got me. That's enough. That should see him happy for the night.

- You think you rule those streets, Steven? You rule nothing. You can't even walk down your own garden path without getting creamed.

We've not got a dog. No-one's got a dog. Dogs are extinct. Dogs are history. Dad's our dog now. We let him out at night.

He's had it though. Shagged out. Soon be time to put him down.

My chest will scar. Fuck him.

 

7.40am

Boards crack as Mom crosses the floor to my bed. She strokes my hair then licks her finger to wipe it round the barbed wire cuts.

- Your Dad been playing with you again? she asks.

You don't answer back to Mom in the mornings. You let her have her way and get it over with. She grips hold of my nipples. I look up. Pimple eyes button nose and walnut mouth on a ball of fat. Moonface, Paul calls her. She's his Mom too but there's no love lost between em. He turns over in the other bed so he can't see her.

Mom nods, the folds creasing in her neck, and stares down. My early-morning hard-on's poling the sheet.

- Lose that, she says - There's enough cock in the world. Tits are what you need. I'll pull em bigger.

Her fingers are so pudgy she gets no grip. Tweek tweek.

She wakes me tomorrow my hair'll be gone. She wants to stroke something she can stroke my dick.

 

8.30am

I shaved my head. Did it myself. Cut it first so it was jagged on my scalp then took a blade to it. Picked handfuls of ginger hair off the floor and chucked em out the window.

Dad's out there.

It starts, this thing I do. It came on when I was seven. I look out at the present and see the future. I don't know if I just see these things or make em happen. My cut hair falls and looks like flames and I know Dad's going to burn some day soon. I let the pictures run in my head. Lick him, I tell the vision of flames. Fry him. Burn him. Catch light at his ankles and burst out of his skull. I want to hear him pop. I want to smell his fat fry as it spurts out.

Dad's strutting the perimeter, checking his defenses. Crabs go sideways. Snakes slither. Dad struts. Thinks coz he squeezed a last-gasp girl out of his cock he's got hero tattooed on his balls.

Think again Dad. Fire's coming.

It'll shine your bald spot like a sun. Then bubble and burn it black. Black like craters. Your scalp'll be a planet of black craters, black and edged with purple.

I see it. That's what I see coming.

 

Paul says nothing when he sees my baldie. Just wipes his finger over the cuts on my scalp, sticks the finger in his mouth, and sucks off the blood. It's like the taste sets his mind working. Ping. His eyes widen. He trots off for a piece of clear plastic, wipes his finger over my razor cuts again, and smears the finger clean on the plastic scrap. He's got himself a sample.

- Great, he says – Karen's promised me some from her next curse. I'll do a comparative analysis. The blood of two twins, you and Karen, one a boy just about and one a girl. See if the computer can tell me the difference. Build a program on the results.

- You're fifteen, I remind him – Nearly sixteen. It's time you knew the difference between boys and girls. It doesn't take a computer to do it.

- Fuck off, he says.

Fuck him.

 

Karen's working her treadmill and sees me through her open door. - Cool, she says – Hang on. I'll shave my hair off and we'll be identical. Twin maggots.

- You wait, I tell her – Fire's coming. The big one. I've seen it. Do you know what happens to redheads like you, with bushes of hair like yours? Whoosh. Your scalp'll burst like a volcano.

She lets the treadmill go idle and stops still to look at me. I don't speak the future as a rule. It freaks people out. The sight of burning Dad's got me excited though. It's the kind of news to cheer Karen up. I don't feel like doing that.

- You seen something? she asks – For real? You see me? Something happen to me?

She knows that's not how it works. I don't see her future, like I don't see mine. We're too linked. The most I can do is lie down and know what she's going through. I experience her nosebleeds. I know when blood's trickling down her inner thigh. I know when girlchat gets hot with fancy and makes her flush. I know when Dad revolts her.

- You have, she insists – You've seen my future and you're not telling.

- Yeah, I say, and make my eyes bulge and my voice go all trancelike. Serves her right for thinking she's special, thinking her future's worth a fuck. I'll save news of Dad's burning for later – I see bad juices bubbling. A body swelling. Clearer, clearer, it's coming through. I see it now. You're as big as Mom. No you're bigger than Mom. This is it. This is ultimate. You're swelling, you're growing. You're becoming the perfect sphere.

- That happens, she warns - That happens to me, maggot head, and you'll know it. I swell like that, I get that round, and I won't stop till I find you. I'll find you and roll you till your guts squeeze out of your nose. I'll roll you till you're flat as dirt. Then I'll piss on you. Piss to water all the weeds that'll grow up through your body.

She ups the notch on her treadmill and starts running.

 

11.30am

This bed's a cesspit. The sun belts in through the window. I lie here, I leak, I melt. Most of my body's water and most of my water's sweat. What's left of me lies on a sodden mattress.

I get up.

Dad's crashing round the garden, drilling spikes into fenceposts. Fencing us in coz he can't get close to Karen and won't let no fucker else close. He'd have Karen's slit under lock and key if Karen'd stay still for him. She's the meaning of his life, that girl. He keeps looking up from the garden, making bug-eyed longing faces at her window.

Clank clank, the treadmill goes round. Keeping herself trim. Mom says she had a hamster once that did the same job. Hamsters were creatures that looked like mice only fatter and fluffier and stupider. Mice lived in houses and hamsters in cages. Fat lot of good staying trim did hamsters. They went extinct before I was three.

Dad's on his steps. Gloves up to his armpits. Coiling razor wire between two spikes.

- It's my duty, Dad says. He's stuck on what he calls the good old days when men had duties not details. - A man's got a daughter then he's got to take care, he says - Keep her safe till the right time comes. Civilization's counting on it.

Civilization counts on a prick like Dad, it might as well pump artificial intelligence into worms. It might as well burst and be done with it. Karen won't wear out. She could sprog five times and not wear out. Keep her lubed, keep her limber, keep her hot for the big day, that's a good way to treat Karen.

The big day. The right time comes. I'm forcefed so much crap I'm spewing it out myself.

I'm outta here.

 

10.40pm

Mom's grunting up a wind. Snoring a breeze. Snatches of her breath work under the door and touch my skin.

The electric's off. I'm speaking this by the moon.

I see the face in the moon sometimes. The man in the moon Mom calls it. It looks like Mom. Mom staring down with that puzzled popping vacant look of hers.

Day One's a bummer.

I'm really outta here.

0.02

7.20am

Mom's fingers are sponge. She chews the skin around her nails. She pulls on my tits.

- Tits on boys, she says - God fucked up from the beginning. Dicks on girls, that'd be a miracle. That'd set the world straight. God should pull his finger out and give us a miracle like that.

I look at her….

And I look at Dad….

And I think if they're the sum of a world set straight, they can stick it.

 

1pm

My teensquad's been on details all morning. Street cleaning. All 24 of us. 6 abreast, 4 rows deep.

Fuck load of use that is. Dreks scarp. Streets go clean before we turn em. The breath of us, all our lungs breathing as one so a wind blows down the road, the stamp of 24 in sinc, no drek'd wait on that. We crunch their bottle litter and steam on.

Who cares. Dreks can spoil a good run. It's like running has a purpose more than running. Sniff the trail of a drek and a run turns into a hunt. Hunting's reaching out of yourself, chasing something more than you've got. When we're running and not hunting we've got everything there is. We're churning power and living inside it.

Then running ends.

The uniforms get piled in a heap by each team. We put on one-size skinner shorts wet with the last kid's crotchsweat. Muscle-strap shirts, olive stained brown. Pumping shoes still pooled in their inners. It gets me, slinking into damp castoffs. Gets us all. Stuffing boners into skinners, we're aching for it.

Then at the end when we peel em off, leave the uniforms in a heap for the next crew, when we put on our own stuff and get set to leave, it's not like we're back where we started. We're changed. Running changes things.

Details are OK.

 

Put me in charge of drek hunting and I'd change the rules.

They say you can't hunt dreks in their homes. You have to let em step outdoors.

That's what I'd change. I'd say target homedreks first.

Starting with Dad.

Dad's the saddest fuck of a drek there is. He's always dribbling licker of some kind down his throat. He calls it whisky, claims they're malts, but anything will do. Here's what we'd do on our first drek hunt. We'd take him down his cellar. Maybe drag or maybe shove, I haven't thought that bit out. We'd break his bottles. Make him dance barefoot on all the shards. He drinks so much that it fills his veins so when he begs for a drink we'd force him to his knees. He could lap up his own lickered blood from the floor.

 

9.40

Paul's on the scanner. His head's held in the padded headclamp Mom knitted out of orange wool then stuffed with scraps of foam. It keeps his face stock still so the probe can count every dilation in the pupils of his eyes.

Dad's pressing keys on the IQ card, upping the level of questions that stream across the screen. Figures flash in front of Paul's eyes. The recognition count zips up the scale. Nothing tricks him. He stares a blank at every dud. His pupils dilate at every bingo.

He's good. I've tried. You can't fake scores like that.

Paul snaps off the visor.

- Trig scores, Dad smirks - Off the chart. Genius and rising. Well done Paul. No teensquad streetcleaning for you.

- I'll get the prize? Paul asks.

- Rates like these? You'll get to jerk your load into every tube in the lab. We're going to clone some girls, they may as well be geniuses. It's a new start, boy. A new race. Your sperm's going to seed the next universe.

Dad begets Paul. Paul begets the whole fucking universe.

I get to teensquad.

 

One more day not worth a repeat.

0.03

4.20pm

Just back from the undertow.

It's good fizz, the undertow. We're the same team as teensquad, only dressed in our own clads. No uniform, no record, no rules, just our own. Our rules are made up, not written down. Till now.

Rule 1

Alcohol stinks. Target dreks.

Rule 2

Women are soft. They can be herded not hurt.

Rule 3

The undertow's a democracy. Mob rules.

Rule 4

When in doubt, take qual.

Rule 5

When things need to stir, run up our own wind.

 

We came across a drek on the reckie – a loner. No pass-out. Full mind, full of chips, bright burner, turned on.

- Yo! he shouts.

We're hanging not running. Dreks are teensquad stuff. You get scores for a drek in the teensquad rankings so you can't just run em by even when the running's great and you're flying. You don't want a drek when you're in your undertow clads. But you do what you have to do.

- Bumfluffs, he yells.

The drek's shaved his head, but his beard's five days of real stubble. Some of us have beards and some don't. The beards we've got are soft. That's what he's getting at.

- Your heads are so ugly you've swapped em for asses.

You don't challenge a boy's beard. Some shave, some don't, that's it, no sweat. You can't tell a boy by the softness of his beard. You can't do that. You don't do that. Do that and you make a big mistake.

- Soft beards and soft in the head. Fuck off, bumfluffs. Run back to your mammies. They'll give you a good wipe and put you to bed.

Teensquad or undertow, we're a unit. We share brains. Some of us have em, some don't. Those without, the more brainless ones with the soft beards, are impulsive. It'll be hard to keep em back while we perform our inquo.

The drek goes eye-on-eye with me. They do that, the bright ones. It's a crash choice, zoning me for support. I listen, but it's not my job to spare em. They want a pet empath, they can go clone a dog.

He's bug-eyed, this drek, but the bug eyes shine.

- How old? I ask.

In teensquad we card em for their age, making sure it's official. In undertow we go on instinct. 21's the cut-off for release. Younger than 21 we give em count-down, give em the chance to run for home. Older than 21 and they're ripe for the cull. This one's worn. He's old. I'd guess 23.

He gives no answer.

Malik's our prime examiner. He's the one who scans the evidence, comes up with the questions.

Here's the evidence:

The drek's kneeling like he can't stand.

Six bottles, all wine, are screwed into dry earth in front of him so they stand up.

Evidence is clear.

- You're a drek, Malik announces.

The drek smiles. Most dreks smile like a newborn, a bubble of gas bursting through soft lips. This drek's smile is tight and shows white teeth.

- Yeah, he says.

No dreks admit to being dreks. It's not what they call themselves. I see that now. Too fucking late to see it but I see it now. I was too lazered to see it then.

- You know what we do to dreks?

- I know what you want to do. He drawls like the licker's weighing heavy on his tongue. His lips are wet with it. His voice is trying to sing but there's no music in it. Just a whine - Doubt you can do it. Fucking Bumfluffs. I hoped for better than you.

Malik's no bumfluff. His face is clean. Still, you don't have to listen to crap. He picks up two bottles and smashes one against the other. They're half-full. Wine splashes on Malik's legs and pumps. The drek is wearing an old button shirt. Its white turns red as the splashes hit it. He pulls the shirt open so the buttons burst off. His body's thin, his chest is pale. It's an invite.

- I've analyzed you bumfluffs, he says - In my job. I'm a teensquad analyst. I feed in the figures, feed out the results. I've done it for years, but never met you. Least now I know. There's no future for me, and no future for you. I ran the data and factored you out. Good to meet you, bumfluffs. Good to take you out. Clearing the streets of pricks like you, it's worth a man's life.

He throws aside his shirt, pulls off his pants, and stands there. His little cock's blazing away.

He's a stagey. He's asking for it.

I get it. Malik gets it too. We're mainbrain for the group.

Brain won't stop em now. It's gone too far. It's time for mainbrain to numb itself and go dumb.

- I'm meat, the drek says – Fresh meat. You know what that makes you?

He's calling in the butchers. Malik holds his broken bottles to the sides for others to take. He's prime examiner, not butcher. We've got butchers. They move in. Bottles smash on bottles. The first slice is to the throat. It's ritual. When the throat's gone the drek's safe. No more licker can pass down it. We can drain his body, purify it. This drek gurgles but never shouts. He turns his head to watch the blood soak into the earth till his eyes glass over. His limbs kick but in spasm not attack.

We don't react. It's a dance of death. It's a show. It's a good way for a drek to go.

I don't slice, examine or butcher. I watch. Watching's my role. I stand close and witness without blinking.

Malik penscans the drek's card at the close.

The drek's ass is still heaving as we leave. His death throes are cute in their way. He got what he wanted.

One less I suppose.

One more for the bodysquad.

This journal's worth a squirt for once. Writing about the drek, it's like he gets to leave a suicide note.

 

I took a short break. Had to throw up.

We let the drek get to us. He tore us apart. OK, we tore him apart but he started it.

We sliced him coz we could. Coz he got to us. Coz it's easier to go animal than bright. Coz what's a boy meant to do when you call him bumfluff? Grow up?

Killing changes you though.

Do it once and you get the taste.

 

11pm

Malik's texted a message.

The drek was no drek.

We meet tomorrow, Mal and me. Mainbrain the data.

Sick news. The taste's gone sour.