I Am Margaret (6 page)

I just shrugged, but she looked pleased.

“
I’m glad to find another one. There’s me, Polly here, you and Rebecca. Everyone else is
rather
on the dim side.”

Just what was I supposed to say in response to
that?

“You’re Jane?”

“Janita, really, but everyone calls me Jane. No one can pronounce British A names nowadays. Myself included.”

The Registration laws were so strict they’d forced the majority of most ethnic minorities to return to their ancestors’ homelands, simply to be able to find a partner. An unintended consequence, if you believed the EGD.

“I hear you’ve been here longest?”

“Yeah, our school’s only over the next pass. I managed to have a good talk with one of the Old Year before they were marched off for their exercises. There’s a whole gym on the ground floor or something.”

I couldn’t help glancing around the room at the milling girls. All new, surely, and the door was locked.

“There’s a loose cinder block,” Jane grinned and pointed. “In that bunk over there… Courtesy of some industrious predecessors. The Old Year’s dorm is next door, on the other side of that barred gate; it’s all mirror-imaged, apparently.

“Lessee, yeah, that hatch there is the trash chute.” She pointed to the right of the little window. “It goes to an incinerator, so they say, so don’t chuck anything you want down there. Recycling chutes beside it, obviously. The washrooms are next door, ‘parently, and the showers are immediately below, beside the cafeteria, and that’s about all you need to know. The Old Year reckon the boys’ block on the other side is just a reflection of this one, but of course they’ve never been there.”

“Do we get to see the boys at all?” I couldn’t help thinking of Jonathan. Someone else who knew Bane…

“
Nuh-uh,” Jane shook her head decisively. “And it sounds like it’s no loss. Apparently that Major Everington just lets the boys do
whatever
they like over there and they go positively
feral
. Emily—that’s the girl in the Old Year—said sometimes at night they can hear the boys fighting—I don’t mean just a couple, but all of them, fighting and howling like packs of wild animals.”

My eyebrows went up.

“Can’t imagine us behaving like that.”

“Well… no. Don’t think the Menace would ignore it, anyway.”

“That’s what they call the warden,” put in Polly.

“
Yeah,” said Jane. “Sounds like she’s a bit of a sadistic cow. Emily said they’d hardly been here three weeks and the Menace marched them all to the Lab—that’s the smaller building furthest from the gates—and forced them to watch an execution. The whole thing. Does it to every year, Emily thinks, so that’s something to look forward to,
not.”

My stomach churned slightly—I just said, “Sick bitch.”

“Yeah. Most of the other guards are all right, apparently, but Emily said there’s one you’ve got to watch. New guard, name’s Finchley. Just after he arrived she called him to let her out to go to the washroom—there’s a buzzer there by the door, see—and he tried to follow her in there. Fortunately she managed to dive past him back into the passage where there’s a camera. But none of them have ever pushed the buzzer when he’s on duty again. Finchley—I’d remember it: their names are sewed on their pockets.”

I grimaced.

“Great. I reckon we should just hang on, then, if we can, or go in twos if we have to, ‘least until we see how most of them are.”

Jane nodded.

“Yeah, that wouldn’t hurt. They aren’t allowed cameras in the washrooms or in here, so the guards come up once an hour and open the hatch in the door to take a look. There’s a few women guards who do the nightshifts, apparently.”

Polly looked pleased.

“We’ve some privacy, then. What’s the food like?”

Jane looked rather scathing.

“You know, I didn’t think to ask. A perfectly balanced diet, I expect; probably suit you.” Her eyes flicked up and down Polly’s svelte figure. “Probably tastes rubbish.”

“It’s a fair enough question!” said Polly.

“I expect we’ll find out soon enough,” I remarked. “It must be nearly dinner time.”

“Emily said it’s at six,” said Jane.

I checked my watch.

“Quarter of an hour, then.” Half my mind was on the bunks, though. “Twenty beds exactly. All full.”

“
Yeah,” said Jane blackly. “And Emily said their dorm has twenty beds and twenty girls failed their Sorting. And twenty boys. And the same for the Old Year when
they
arrived.”

“So. Not rumors after all.”

“You mean the rumor there’s no actual pass mark for Sorting?” asked Polly.

“
Yeah,” said Jane. “They
do
just choose the twenty worst. Bastards. Not that it would’ve helped me if there
was
a pass mark.”

“What did you fail for?”

“
Nothing
,” said Jane. “My
parents
failed
me
. I’m unregistered.”

I winced.

“Oh. Now that really must suck. Though… you’re rather lucky, aren’t you? Not to have been called for dismantling before now?”

Jane shrugged and pulled a face.

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Lucky, lucky Jane. But it still sucks.”

Didn’t it just. To grow up knowing that any day the inspectors could arrive at your house and take you away, just because of something your parents didn’t do. But the rumors were true. No pass mark. Well, didn’t that expose the supposedly high-minded arguments for Sorting for what they were. Something that comes from a bull’s behind. Supply and demand was the truth of it.

“Do we ever get to go out of the building?” Polly was demanding.

“
Yes, apparently we get daily exercise in a yard outside and a weekly walk on the
battlements—
that’s what Emily called them.”

“Really, we’re allowed to go up there?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, it’s not like we’d get through that wire,” I pointed out. “If you fell through it by accident—or at all—I reckon you’d be dead before you got anywhere near the ground.”

“Is it that sharp?” Polly seemed surprised. Clearly she lacked a best friend well-versed in such matters.

“They call it razor wire for a reason. Imagine falling through that many razors.”

Polly’s mouth opened in a little ‘o’ and Jane’s eyebrows rose slightly.

“Well, considering the drop and the machine guns, I don’t think that’d be my preferred method of escape, but it’s worth knowing.”

“Are you going to escape?” asked Polly. “Can I come with you? I thought it was impossible?”

“It is,” said Jane brusquely. “Honestly, I wasn’t being serious!”

Yes, you were
... She just didn’t intend to take Polly into her confidence, not yet, not so easily...

“Huh.” Polly looked disappointed, then brightened as the sound of footsteps came from the passage. “Ah, dinner time.”

It was early and I would’ve remarked on it, but Jane jumped in.

“Do you think of nothing but your stomach?”

Polly bristled.

“A bit of decent grub will improve the next year or so immensely, so sue me for being interested what it’s like!”

The door opened and the warden stepped through.

“Inspection!” she barked. Could she actually talk normally?

Two men in white coats followed her and two guards. Uneasily, I stepped over to my detail card, glancing to check that Sarah’s bunkmate had steered her into position.

“Hurry up,” the warden was grumbling. “It’s not exactly difficult!”

But everyone was in place now and I could feel the tension. Sarah could too, she looked anxiously at me but when I mustered a reassuring smile she beamed back and stayed put.

“
All yours, Doctor Richard,” said the warden happily. Doctor? Well, that had to be a courtesy title; a dismantler’s training might have some similarities to that of a medical practitioner but it was
considerably
more limited in nature.

“Right…” One of the men in white coats was consulting a clip board that looked a lot like the one the warden had earlier. “Two ZB3a tissues in this lot; about time, we’ll process one straight away.”

“I still think it’s rather late, Richard,” objected his colleague. “We won’t be finished until…”

“They’re clean out and demanding more,” interrupted the first man. “We process one tonight, Sid. You want a black mark on our supply record?”

“
It wasn’t our fault we didn’t
have
any,” grumbled the other, but ‘Doctor’ Richard was walking along the room, looking at the cards.

“Well, here’s one…” My blood froze in my veins as he peered at Sarah’s card. Then looked her up and down as though she were a piece of meat. “Huh, not in very good condition. Let’s have a look at the other one…”

Sarah’s chubbiness might’ve just done her a favor. Richard was moving up the room, Sid and the two guards trailing behind. I glanced at Polly… She was dead white; I could actually see her trembling. Oh no, she
wasn’t
, was she?

Richard and Sid stopped in front of us.

“Here’s the other, a nice O+, C18c…” Richard’s eyes ran up and down Polly’s trim figure. “Oh yes, looks close to Prime Condition already. This one will do nicely.” He flicked his fingers at the guards. They stepped forward and took hold of Polly’s arms. Every last hue drained from her face and she tried to pull away.

“
Please don’t take me!” she gasped. “I’m
really
unfit, really, really
unfit
, you don’t want me!”

Richard didn’t appear to hear her. He was engrossed in his clipboard, no doubt reading Polly’s entry. He tilted it to show something to Sid.

“Excellent,” said Sid, and they both turned to go.

“
Please! Please!” cried Polly, struggling wildly, but the two guards dragged her along easily. “
Please!”

My heart thudded in my chest, helplessness choking me. I couldn’t help her… anyway, fear flowed through my veins instead of blood, paralyzing me…

“
Please!” screamed Polly, throwing herself from side to side as she tried to break free. “Please don’t take me, please don’t take me! Please, please… why don’t you take her! Why don’t you take
her!”
She jerked her head at Sarah as she was towed past. “Please, take
her
,
look
, she doesn’t even
understand
, take her, please…
please
…”

The two men in their white coats walked on as though the room were silent, still engrossed in their clipboard.

“
Oh, that’s good,” said Sid. “Shame about the ears, but they’ll be glad of
that
…”

The door slammed behind them and the sound of Polly’s begging echoed its way along the corridor and muffled, descended the further stairwell, to be finally cut off by the closing of another, distant door.

The room erupted into nervous whispers, but grief for Polly and dismay at my own weakness rooted me to the spot.
There was nothing you could do, Margo
. But if there had been, would I have acted? Or just stood, trembling, hoping it would not be me? What if they did come, some time before our months of Prime Condition, for one of my own tissue type? Do for your neighbor what you would have them do for you, and all that?

I shuddered as a cold finger seemed to run down my spine.

“Margy, Margy, what wrong?” Sarah was clutching me, unsettled by the fear and distress filling the room. I forced the thoughts to the back of my mind, slipped an arm around her and smiled.

“It’s all right, Sarah. Polly has to go and stay somewhere else now and everyone feels sorry for her because of that. But it’s a very nice place she’s going, so she’ll be right as rain. Don’t you worry about it. We’re going to have dinner now, are you hungry?”

Sarah nodded eagerly and looked around as Jane came up, her face pale and pinched.

“Hi, Jane,” Sarah greeted her.

“Hi… what’s her name again?”

“Why don’t you ask her?”

“Sarah!” Sarah said, unasked, tapping her chest. “You’re Jane with pretty skin. I’m Sarah. Sarah knows names.”

Jane just snorted, but... secretly flattered?

“Yep, you always remember names, don’t you?” I tried to speak lightly. “Your hair’s all over the place, you know.”