Honourable Mention - Lunar Awards Season Five: Short Story Category
Game Over 2497 words Copyright Linnhe Harrison 2024
The gargantuan screen - positioned up high on two concrete stacks - blasts forth a gargantuan, numerical 42. Pixel white on digital blue.
I chose 42 because I like the book. And because I never want to put any more thought into it than absolutely necessary.
My iD chip is glowing the same unnatural, electrical shade of cobalt. I can see the light coursing from beneath the sleeve of my overall, turning my hand purple. I lift my hand up before my eyes, letting gravity do the grand reveal for me. It is my turn.
I have ‘won’.
Although to ‘win’ at the age of 39 was taking the fucking piss. On my 40th birthday I would have been booted off the Rota / lottery / production line or whatever the hell you wanted to call it.
Shit show.
I could have got a job, of sorts. I could have left this holding area.
The pent-up silence of the crowd dissolves into a despairing hubbub of human conversations, and I can hear the usual pattering of pointless platitudes shared with no further thought.
‘You’re young enough yet.’
‘There’s always next time.’
Until today, I had been on the receiving end of these pathetic utterings. Pressure from the System crushing me from above, and a reluctant awareness of my own body clock grating at me from within. The System keeps telling us all that we want to win. It gets to you. Even when you know you would rather remain forever a loser.
The atrium clears as quickly as it had filled. The brutalist concrete surroundings – now devoid of female softness and shadows – seeps back into my peripheral vision as a series of unforgiving hard lines. Weak, municipal lights pepper the walls, small orbs entombed within vertical sheets of cement. A few of them don’t work and haven’t done for a while. There’s a row of three that looks like Orion’s Belt, a manmade constellation that manages to achieve a blacker black than black. The opposite of starlight.
That’s when I see her. The other woman. Of course, there are always two of them. Us.
One winner, one randomly assigned ‘buddy’.
She is standing on the far side of the space, her right hand gripped in her left, staring at the blue light emitting from her wrist.
The only colour in this frozen moment of time is blue. The ethereal glow from the huge screen and the smaller halos of our iD chips.
Her hair is probably black, but it looks – like mine I’m sure – blue. She is tall, slim. I think she is much younger than me. She starts walking in my direction, reaching out with her right hand while she is still a few yards away. Her illuminated iD chip becomes a weird, cybernetic headlight.
‘Kass.’ She says, with a practised tilt of her head. Her lips part into a wide smile. Blue teeth.
‘Sally.’ I shake her hand, which feels all the wrong kinds of formal considering what is waiting in store for us. I look at the woman whose life will be entwined with my own for the next eighteen years. She must be under 25, if she isn’t, she is wearing it well. Her overall is cinched in at the waist, the ankles and sleeves taken up a couple of neat rolls. Hair in a sleek bob. A tasteful dusting of make-up.
I can feel her eyes and assumptions take in my loose body and loose fitting overall. Spiky cropped hair. Zero make-up.
‘Lovely to meet you.’ I had never heard anyone trill before. And is it? Really?
I shove my hands in my pockets and let the silence hang. My mood is low, and this is an effort. I think I want her to question my age, or my attitude, my hair. Anything. Give me an excuse to get arsy and vent some anger. But she is looking at me with a great deal of expectation and none of my bristliness.
I relent. ‘Tbh I usually watch it on the idiot screen in my quarters. The novelty of waiting around in this doom room soon wears thin.’
Kass laughs/trills. It’s hard to tell where the laughter stops and the trill starts. ‘I didn’t know people still said tbh anymore.’
‘Well I’m old.’ I throw the three words at her with the frustration that should have been directed at the System and their gigantic forty-fucking-two. Or maybe my attitude did smack into the numerals, as at that moment the screen goes black and red strip lights flicker into life around the feet of the concrete columns. It looks a little like emergency lighting.
I suppose it is an emergency. Just a very slow moving one.
Neither of us move. For my part it is ignorance - I know what happens next-next. Just not the now-next. I’m guilty of paying less than zero attention to the monthly refresher feeds.
A drone approaches us from behind. It skims over our heads, turns 180 degrees to face us and spends a couple of seconds staring us both down. There is a steady blue light at the centre of its eye / lens. Eye. Our iD chips pip as some kind of unseen registration process happens, the drone turns again to show us its plastic arse, and a green arrow begins to flash. It moves forward a couple of meters and pauses to check if we will follow.
We both take two automatic steps forward, and I think wow. At what point did intelligent human beings become subservient to non-verbal flashing electronics. I glance at my buddy.
Kass is patting at her bob with well-manicured fingers, checking for any rebellious hairs that might have strayed out of alignment. ‘It’s taking us to the Lab, isn’t it?’ I say it looks that way and my heart begins to pound at an unhealthy tempo. Fuck. We are going there straight away.
I don’t want this.
We follow the drone through one of the wider corridors that lead off the main atrium. Black boots pound along the concrete floors, weak shadows slip along concrete walls. Above us, concrete, below us. Concrete. Even our overalls are concrete coloured. My buddy walks with her shoulders back, chin up. She takes a sideways glance at me, and I can see adrenalin sparking in her eyes. She wants this.
To be so young and confident and keen when I’m so old (relatively speaking) and cynical and devoid of any enthusiasm is tipping me off balance.
‘How old are you?’ Bit blunt. But hey.
’20.’
Our footsteps beat away a few seconds. 20. I’m old enough to be her mother. I don’t want to be anyone’s mother. Ahead of us, the drone whirrs the endlessly recycled air into something less stale, its backside still flashing the green ‘follow me’.
’Jesus. You must be one of the last…’ I stop, unsure on whether this could be viewed as offensive. ‘…sorry. I’m sure you must get that all the time.’
Kass laughs, not quite the trill from earlier. ‘S’ok. Yeah, I get that a lot. Which is why the Rota is so important, not to just me. To us all, really.’
‘Whatevs.’
Kass’ perfectly shaped eyebrows twist into a beautiful frown. ‘You don’t agree with the Rota? Are you serious? What’s wrong with you?’ The look I receive is a mixture of self-righteousness and petulance. She has bought into the whole she-bang - hook, line and sinker. Not her fault, but still, it makes for a depressing relationship going forward.
‘What’s the point. Time for us to roll over and let nature have another bash at it.’
‘Well. I can’t understand why anyone would ever think that.’ Her nose tilts a little higher.
‘Christ Kass, even the youngest sperm they could use would be 19 years old. It’s nearly as old as you for fucks sake. And most likely it will be older. Can’t you see how fucked up that is?’
I’m not proud of what I said. But the message had to get though somehow. And it did. Seedlings of uncertainty flutter across Kass’ youthful features as my crude words tear into her mad belief system. It is ultimately a pointless victory, but I take the small win because that’s all that’s on offer. She slows enough to fall a half stride behind, her silence increasing the thump thump thump of our boots.
Our iD chips flash and pip as we approach the security check point, opening the door to Ai Lab #2801 without us having to break our step or converse further. Just as well, as I have managed to kill off any cosy bff-pyjama-party vibes within five minutes of us meeting.
We pass a corridor signposted Kindergarten. And another signposted Maternal Wing. I wonder if any colour is allowed within these spaces. It easier to assume that their grey walls are lined with monochromatic flopsy bunnies bouncing through charred flora with black dead eyes.
Ahead of us is a reception area. The walls in here are a lighter shade of grey, someone has pushed hard for a more optimistic first impression. Perhaps circling ‘Sunshine Granite’ or ‘Happy Shale’ on a paint chart.
The drone switches off its arse light when we get to a desk and a man. The desk carries a hand-held scanner and a grey scuffed beaker of either strong tea or weak coffee. The man carries the air of a non-important person who has been told he is doing an important job.
The man is about my age and is wearing thick glasses and a white version of our cement overalls. He welcomes us with a smile, which Kass returns with a subdued ‘hello’. Only the circumstances allow my grunt of nothingness to pass as a greeting. The man blips our iD chips with the scanner.
‘Any questions?’
What a fucking strange opener.
Kass raises a cautious hand. Like we were back in school or some shit. ‘What about our things?’ Credit to her though - she said ‘our’. I am still her buddy even if I am a lousy one. I grunt again to show willing. I think for Kass’ sake. Not the man.
‘They will be brought to your quarters. No need to worry.’ Kass says thank you. She must find his tone to be reassuring, I’m leaning past patronising towards insulting. Of all the things to worry about right now, my toothbrush is not one of them. And I’ve just thought of a question.
‘Do you enjoy this, then?’
Kass takes a quick, short sidestep away from me, a reflex action to prioritise reputation over ethics. The man blinks. I wonder how often he has to deal with women going off-piste. From the number of blinks and the length of the silence, not that often.
‘Sorry?’
I rest my hands on the desk and lean over his crappy looking cup of tea-coffee. The droid bleeps into life, its eye now irrational-woman-harasses-staff orange. The man holds a hand up before its front sensor, ready to release his hovering fun sponge if I don’t calm down.
I’m not going to calm down. I’m just getting started.
‘Playing God? Forcing us to carry babies? Being a part of this…’ I wave an arm at the empty grey room. If walls were clothes, this place would be a straitjacket. ‘…shit show?’
‘Baby’
My turn to blink. How the hell can you have an argument with someone who cannot leave a script. ‘What?’
The man’s right hand is still keeping the defensive droid on pause. In another life – one with birds - he would have made a good falconer. He holds his left hand before us with just the index finger standing proud. ‘One. It’s just one baby. We are very careful. We monitor both the population growth and the gene pool.’
He blinks again.
I want to tell him that putting the word ‘just’ before ‘baby’ only makes my argument stronger. And I want to tell him that I refuse. I want them to lock me in my quarters, take away my rec centre privileges. Cut my rations. Execute me, please. But I can’t. The System will get their babies, no matter how antsy and uncooperative their walking wombs are.
So instead I pick up his coffee-tea and throw it in his face.
The man reels backwards. Undignified, spluttering. The brown liquid drips down the inside of his glasses and down the front of his overalls. Beautiful. Shame it was cold.
‘You fucking bitch!’
The lights dim and an alarm sounds as the drone whines into action. It flies over my head, a hypodermic needle unfolding from its belly, the solid orange eye now angry flashing red. I hear it spin and then I hear, see, feel nothing at all.
When I next open my eyes, I see grey ceiling tiles. I’m in a bed that is about as comfortable as some bricks wrapped in a doormat, and I’m wearing a short, faded medical gown. My unshaven legs are blotched with goose bumps. I’ve censor patches on my wrists and chest. Two screens on the side wall blip two sets of steady vitals.
I shuffle myself upright and a drone / the drone begins to flash don’t-even-think-about-it orange. There are two large duffel bags by the door, one of which I recognise as my own. There are two cots.
‘You’re awake.’
Kass’ voice. Less trill, more resentment. I turn my head to look at her. She is lying on an identical bed, her right foot turned inwards on top of her left foot, her knees pushed together. Her eyes are red, her face is drawn. Her previously immaculate hair is frizzing for freedom. She looks about 12, going on forty-fucking-two.
‘Did it hurt?’
‘What do you care.’ She wrinkles her nose, and tugs at the hem of her medical gown. ‘And why did you have to make such a stupid fuss. There’s much more to do in here than there is out there. There’s a gardening club. And a cinema.’
My skin prickles in disagreement and the dregs of my soul sink through the non-mattress into the thin carpet tiles. Poking at pale seedlings in test tubes isn’t gardening. Watching old movies set on beaches and in forests isn’t a nice thing to do. But the biggest problem I have with Kass’ bitterly spat reassurance is that she thinks of ‘out’ as in the concrete confines outside of Ai Lab #2801. When I think of ‘out’ I mean out and up. Up. Where there has been absolute sweet nothing for 19 years and counting. The air is unbreathable. Everything is dead.
I don’t say any of this out loud.
There wouldn’t be any point.
I gently stroke my finger over my belly. I will never, ever forgive these immoral attempts to outsmart our fuck-up.
Humanity doesn’t have to survive.
We’ve had our go on Earth, and we didn’t play nicely.
Game Over.
Subscriptions are free, but if you like you can buy me a coffee…
I can feel the sizzle of anger and resentment. Interesting concept and great execution. I want to read more!
'Silo' suffocation meets 'Twelve Monkeys' madness meets 'The Lobster' dystopia, with many a dark shade of Black Mirror grey. Nicely done.