11
Ignacia is right about Jela not returning, although I sense it isn’t just me who lies awake hoping the door will open at some point during the night. My stomach is full and uncomfortable but I think the sickening sensation I have is more to do with what I have seen in the past few hours than what I have eaten. I sleep in fits and starts, sometimes jolting awake when I feel as if someone is nearby, even when the rest of the room is unmoving. Eventually, as the darkness outside the windows slowly turns into the dim dredges of morning, I allow my eyes to stay open, lying still until someone else dares to move first.
Aside from the light, we have no concept of time as there are no clocks and our thinkwatches have been useless since we arrived. Some of the girls seem more traumatised by this than anything else, which is perhaps no surprise considering thinkwatches are part of our daily lives. They provide us with reminders and alerts and allow us to interact with our neighbours. It isn’t quite the same for me as I have seen the inner workings of mine and spent years trying to find ways to subtly manipulate it.
As we hear the sounds of the door unbolting, we all look as one, hoping to see Jela returning, but instead it is Ignacia again. Her hair is flatter and she is now wearing an impressive dark brown robe. She doesn’t mention Jela and tells us that she is there to take us to our morning welcome and then we will be told what roles we are to perform while in service to the King. In the short period of time she gives us to change into our jumpsuits, I feel a sense of us all becoming resigned to our fates. Faith doesn’t look up from her bed and nobody wants to catch another’s eyes.
Ignacia leads us through the bewildering warren of corridors and up more stone steps. At first I think we are returning to the main hall but quickly lose my bearings. Eventually, we reach a room with rows of tables. The male Offerings are already there but their unease mirrors ours as they struggle to make eye contact. The space reminds me of our classroom – there is a huge screen at the front, although it is larger and cleaner. After we have all sat, Ignacia presses a button on the wall and the display comes to life.
Old-fashioned vehicles are skimming across the screen as a voice informs us that, in the not too distant past, we were overrun with cars. The film goes on to tell us the story we have all been brought up with. Twenty-five years ago, the oil ran out. It had been a gradual process with nations around the world panicking and then countries declaring war on each other. For most, it was quick and brutal with nuclear weapons destroying much of the Middle East. For us, there was civil war with the starving lower classes – the rebels – fighting against the ruling upper classes – the nationalists.
My mother has always been reluctant to talk about these events, but what she did say was how bad it was in the lead-up to the outbreak of fighting. With little food to eat, people did what they could to survive but it wasn’t enough and everything spiralled from there.
Millions died as armies loyal to the ruling nationalists battled the lower classes over eight long years. The screen shows us images of men, women and children lying dead, some through violence, some through hunger. We might have heard these things passed down through our parents but this is the first time I have ever had to see anything like this. The nauseating feeling in my stomach is only growing as we’re shown huge pits of burned, blackened bodies. Someone at the back starts to sob at the sight of a dead child who is lying in the dirt clutching a soft brown teddy bear.
I can feel my emotions being played with as the screen pales to white before an image of King Victor fades into view. A hardened woman’s voice tells us that he stood up to both sides, uniting the country behind him by providing another way that didn’t involve fighting. She doesn’t say anything else but my mother has told me in the past that people were tired of the battle and that he came along at the right time for people to support him. I always asked what was different – people were hungry before the war, hungry during it and, aside from the feast of last night, I can barely remember a day where I haven’t been hungry myself.
Her words were always the same: ‘You don’t understand.’
Although she is not as patriotic as someone like Opie’s father, Mum has always assured me life is better with the King than it was before.
I continue to watch the pictures of him in a hospital talking to an injured soldier and another of him helping to rebuild a damaged house, heaving bricks and smoothing cement. He is younger and thinner, a far cry from the man we saw last night. As delicate music plays gently in the background, I am forced to remind myself what he did to Wray because it would be too easy to think of him as the kind, uniting person being shown on the screen.
After becoming our leader, the King divided the nation into four Realms, where we were expected to work together for the well-being of us all. The East and the West farm their lands, providing food for us. In the East they also fish, while the West is also responsible for defence. The images tell us this is where our nuclear weapons are stored deep underground if we are forced to defend ourselves. It feels as much of a threat as an assurance.
The South deals with finance, international trade and future research. In the North we produce textiles and electronics. The film misses off the part where we act as a giant dump for everyone else too. Despite that, I feel a longing for home as the screen shows us vast greenery, small untouched villages and enormous lakes. I don’t know exactly where they are but the thought they are in my Realm makes me feel proud.
The broadcast tells us about the King’s innovations: the thinkwatches which help us live our daily lives and the cross-country trains which are the main way of transporting people and goods.
Finally, it moves on to the Reckoning. I am hoping there may be some explanation but instead it tells us that the King devised a test for all his subjects; something which would figure out how everyone was best suited to serving the country. It shows us rows of soldiers, laboratories full of people in white coats and a group of workers helping to build a bridge. Given everything I have seen in the past day, I want to feel hostile but it all seems so sensible. Is it really such a bad thing to utilise everyone in the best way in order to enhance all of our lives? I want to say no, to think that the way people such as Wray and Faith are discarded is wrong but then I remember all the dead people I have just seen on screen.
The screen fades to an image of Offerings being led onto a train, telling us that this is the way the four Realms repay the King for the sacrifices he made. That each year, he takes thirty young people to assist him in making the country better by doing whatever he deems necessary. None of that fits with keeping us locked inside and murdering Wray, but then I suppose that wouldn’t be the best thing to put into a film which is telling us how lucky we are.
It finishes with a mother and son being given a basket of food, ‘to show the King’s gratitude for your service’, and it’s hard not to see Mum and Colt in their places. I try to console myself that, despite what could happen to me, they will at least be looked after.
As the footage ends, the lights switch back on and a ripple of applause spreads around the room. At first, it is just one or two people but quickly everybody starts to clap. Not wanting to be singled out, I join in too, hammering my hands together loudly as the noise turns into cheers. Ignacia is standing at the front, a curious half-smile on her face as if she knew what was going to happen. Quickly it has become a competition to see who can make the most noise. People are banging the tables; others are making hooting noises that sound more like the ones I am used to from the woods. After a while, Ignacia raises her hand to quieten us and says the King would be grateful to hear of our appreciation.
It is as if last night did not happen.
‘All of our Offerings are given roles to perform to serve the King,’ Ignacia says. ‘These will be judged based upon your performance in the Reckoning.’ She presses something on her thinkwatch and ours burst into life. I feel mine buzzing at first before the screen lights up, displaying the word ‘technology’.
‘You should all now see where we have judged you to best aid your country,’ she adds. Around me, everyone is checking their wrists and I feel a hum of satisfaction. I assume most people, like me, have been given jobs within areas they have an interest in.
Ignacia seems cheerier than the previous night as she tells us it is time for a tour – but her demeanour makes things all the more confusing. Is being an Offering a blessing or a curse? It is hard to reconcile the differences with everything we have seen.
More identical corridors, more echoing footsteps and then we are outside. As we exit into a courtyard through wide wooden doors, I realise it is the first time I have been anywhere but inside since stepping onto the train. The air is cool but refreshing as I gulp it desperately, enjoying the feeling as it fills my lungs. I look at the deep, endless blue of the sky and the fluffy clouds before Ignacia’s voice brings me back to the present.
She asks who has been assigned to the barracks and nods approvingly as a few boys and one girl raise their hands. It seems strange that there is a need for an army of this type when we all know there are bombs that could destroy us all so easily, but then there are many things I don’t understand about the mix between the old and new. Ignacia leads us towards a door at the far end and then invites those assigned to the barracks to go inside and meet their Head Kingsman.
She explains that each of us will have a Head Kingsman to answer to and then leads us towards another door at the far end of the courtyard. I stay towards the back, taking my time to enjoy the last remnants of what feels like freedom before we are back inside again.
More corridors, more stone, more footsteps. The dark-skinned Elite boy who was looking at me last night catches my eye again but he is harder to read this time. We are all nervous, not knowing how to deal with the situation we find ourselves in. I realise I have spoken fewer words since arriving at the castle than I have at any point in my life.
Intoxicating smells drift around us as we enter a giant kitchen. There are piles of vegetables and racks of meat which makes me hungry again. I have become so used to eating once a day that the longing in my stomach at this time of the morning feels unnatural and fills me with guilt. Faith, the Elite boy and a couple more Offerings are left in the kitchen as we move further into the castle.
A few more of the Offerings are left in an area where they make clothes and I realise the castle is divided much like our Realms are but on a smaller scale.
We make more stops in various areas, some with an introduction, some without. As our numbers have thinned, a strange thing has happened; with a growing excitement our little group seems to be latching onto the hope that being an Offering isn’t as bad as people feared last night. I remember the way Faith tried to explain the King’s behaviour and, even though none of us left on the tour have said it out loud, the fact we are talking to each other again is a sign that we are becoming more optimistic. One girl from the South tells another that she can’t wait to get to work and it is as if we have all blanked Wray and Jela from our minds. I sense it too, the combination of the footage, the tour and Ignacia making me feel as if everything will be all right.
As we move, I have been looking for potential ways out; unguarded doors, corridors where there are no cameras, walls which could be low enough to climb and windows which might be worth trying to see if they open. But the further we travel, the more I feel resigned. I can’t explain my own feelings but suddenly I’m wondering if Wray did something wrong after all. Perhaps he was incredibly disrespectful to the King? Maybe Jela is a fair price considering all he has done for us?
Soon we arrive at an area where Ignacia tells us she does her daily work. At the far end of the corridor I can see a couple of Kingsmen but she doesn’t take us that far, instead leading us through a doorway into another passageway with openings on either side. She asks which of us have been marked as clerical and three people put their hands up. She points to a door on the left and says it is the Minister Prime’s office, then the one opposite, which is hers. I peer through the open door to see banks of electrical items, including thinkpads, thinkwatches and other things I don’t recognise. The clutter of items reminds me of my objects from home and suddenly I realise the one thing I have missed. Despite the more positive thoughts of what it means to be an Offering, I wonder what happened to last year’s – and every year’s before that. We didn’t see anyone around the barracks and there were only one or two people in the kitchen and textiles area. If Wray was a one-off and we are so valued, then where are last year’s thirty? Plus those from all the years before?
I hear footsteps echoing away from me and find I have fallen behind Ignacia and our remaining numbers, lost in my own thoughts. As I turn, I bump into someone’s solid chest and step backwards, muttering an apology and hoping I’m not in trouble for being on my own in this area. The person apologises too and, as I look into his face, it is as if I have gone back in time. Staring down at me, almost as confused as I am, is Hart – Martindale’s last Offering.