3
YESTERDAY
I feel the goosebumps rise on my arm as the chilled rush of the breeze skims across the remains of the gully, a reminder the warmth of summer is almost over for another year. I can hear my mother in my head, telling me it’s time to go in, that tomorrow is a big day and the last thing I need is a cold to go with the nerves, even if most of the anxiety is hers. The truth is, I am sat here gazing at the pile of shattered electrical goods for a reason, waiting for the snap of a broken screen or the crunch of an old piece of plastic to disturb me. Maybe Opie believes the gentle howl of the wind will be enough to cover his footsteps or, more likely, he still has no control over how much noise he makes as he blunders through the mounds of other people’s rubbish. It’s not as if I haven’t told him to be quiet enough times when we’ve been out. But there it is, a brush of broken glass against boot that makes me want to grin, although I remain sitting against the dirt bank, facing the other way.
If I wasn’t trying to pretend I didn’t know he was there, I would probably laugh at the fact Opie thinks he can sneak up on me. We have known each other for most of the sixteen years since we were born a day apart and, although he has those few extra hours, he has rarely been able to get anything over on me.
But today is different because tomorrow’s Reckoning will change both of our lives, almost certainly dividing us. That is why I came out to our spot to wait, pressed up against the gentle incline of the dry lake facing away from the forest, away from our village. I knew he would show up at some point: he has a question to ask.
As I feel him approaching, I decide to let Opie have his moment, keeping my eyes steady on the wreck of plastic and glass filling the space that once brimmed with water, fish and any number of creatures we hear stories about. I never knew my grandparents, but Opie’s grandmother never seemed happier than the evenings she spent telling us stories of how things were before the war; when the gully held water, not the waste and memories of a different generation.
As he touches my shoulder and grunts a ‘raargh’ of happiness, I jolt my body in mock surprise, turning around, grabbing his legs and pushing him to the ground. I roll on top, peering down at the sandy soil which has caked his hair. He tries to grab me but I wriggle from his grasp and elbow him under the ribs in the way I know will make him giggle with ticklish enjoyment. He writhes involuntarily and kicks me upwards until we are both lying in the dust, staring at the grey skies, hooting to ourselves as if this won’t be the last time we do this. Around us is the sea of technology that no longer works.
‘You knew I was there, didn’t you?’ he says in a voice that seems to get deeper each day.
‘It wasn’t hard with those big feet of yours scaring everything that is still alive out there.’
Opie doesn’t reply but I feel his hand rubbing the back of mine and allow him to lock our fingers together as we listen to the draught of air scuttling around us.
‘You do know those parts belong to the King,’ he eventually says.
I knew he would say that; he always does. Technically he is right – the piles of unwanted, unusable electronics that fill our abandoned lake certainly aren’t mine.
‘Everything belongs to the King,’ I remind him.
‘What are you looking for anyway?’ he says, ignoring my point. I know he is hoping I will answer the question he has come to ask before he even gets to it.
‘The usual,’ I reply, pushing myself up onto my elbows, still holding his hand and acting as if I don’t know what he is up to.
Opie raises himself up too and we lean into each other, back-to-back. ‘How are you so good with this stuff?’ he asks.
I’m not sure I know why myself. I have grown up with all of this around me and, for whatever reason, I find technology easy.
When it’s clear I don’t have an answer, Opie lets my hand go and shows me his thinkwatch. ‘What do you think it was like before these?’ he asks.
It’s hard to imagine life without them and as an adult they will define who we are. Before you take the Reckoning, the face of everyone’s thinkwatch is a dull white-grey, in contrast to the silver metal circle around it. Once your place in society has been decided your thinkwatch becomes coloured and branded. If you are an Elite, the face turns black with the faint symbol of a crown to show that you belong to the top section of society. If you are a Member, the front becomes orange with a lightning bolt to symbolise industry and productivity. Inters have blue watch faces marked with a sword, while those in the lowest band of society – the Trogs – have yellow watches inscribed with a small sickle. I look at the piles of orphaned electrical items in front of us. ‘Probably not that different,’ I say. ‘They just used other things then.’
‘I can’t imagine one of those on my wrist,’ Opie replies, nodding towards an old screen, but he has missed the point. Perhaps that’s why I’m good with this type of thing and he isn’t.
I stand and walk towards where he indicated, picking up the remains of an old thinkpad. It is light as the back has been pulled off, the battery removed. The screen is scratched, although I can still see fingerprints from where someone would have typed and swished their fingers across. Opie joins me, running his hands through his hair in an effort to clear the muck from the ground.
He still hasn’t asked me what he came to.
The panel comes apart easily as I reach into where the battery would have once been and pull. It exposes a near see-through board that is wedged underneath the screen. I sit on the floor and hand it to Opie.
‘Can you pull that out?’ I ask.
He sits beside me and easily wrenches it free, even though he struggles to fit his grimy nail in between the layers. Handing it back, he asks if I’m nervous, although he knows the Reckoning is far more of a worry for him than it is for me.
‘Who isn’t?’ I reply, trying to make him feel better.
Gently balancing the screen, I reach in and pull out the tiny springs that hold it together. I feel Opie watching me, his blue eyes absorbing the movements of my fingers, before I put them in my pocket.
‘What are they for?’ he asks.
I hold out my white-grey thinkwatch for him to see. ‘The last time I opened mine up, I broke one of the springs. It’s always useful to have a backup.’
His eyebrows angle downwards in disapproval. They are thicker than I remember, one of them caked in a smattering of sand from where we were play-fighting.
‘You know you shouldn’t be messing with it,’ he scolds, although he doesn’t mean it. He pauses, before adding: ‘You’re not trying to cheat, are you?’
His tone is suddenly nervous and I know he is close to getting to the point.
I turn to face him but he can’t meet my eyes; instead he stares out over the rest of the gully, where the deepest depths of the lake would have once been. It stretches as far as I can see, rusting old vehicles, engines, and many things I don’t recognise. Miles and miles of rubbish.
‘No one in their right mind would try to fix something as big as tomorrow,’ I say as delicately as I can, deciding to give him the answer before he is forced to ask. Extra rations now and again is one thing but someone’s entire future is too big to go unnoticed.
Opie nods an acceptance as I rest my head on his shoulder, watching the clouds drift slowly overhead and trying to see shapes that don’t exist. The air smells of rain, although it remains dry for now. Soon, Opie sits, scratching at his scalp, trying to remove the dust but making it worse as he doesn’t realise how dirty his hands are. I can see his shoulders twitching as they always do when there’s something on his mind. Perhaps he is more nervous about tomorrow than I thought? Or maybe he is worried that this will be our last afternoon together? I stare straight at him, waiting for him to ask the other question he has been holding back.
‘What if you’re chosen?’ he asks.
We both know our lives are going to be different whatever happens after the Reckoning but being an Elite or a Member has risks as well as benefits. The King requires that each of the four Realms offer him four Elites – two boys and two girls – and two Members, one from each gender, every year as an Offering. Your remaining family are showered with credits, rations and gifts in exchange, but you never see them again as you spend the rest of your life in service to the King. He only takes one Inter from each area and two Trogs in total, alternating between the districts. No one wants to be a Trog though, even if it reduces your probability of becoming an Offering.
‘If I’m chosen, I’d have no choice,’ I say, although that isn’t what he is really asking. Because it is the North’s turn to send a male Inter this year, I could have my way out if I could fix it.
‘It’s a great honour,’ he adds, sounding the way his grandmother used to speak before she died. She was always a big supporter of the King, although most people who lived through the war are.
All of a sudden, I am wondering if that’s why he wants to be an Inter so badly – because it will give him a chance of becoming an Offering. Both of our families could certainly do with the riches it would bring, despite the price. The fact none of us knows what being an Offering entails is seemingly lost on everyone. It’s one of the things people never talk about. When I asked my mother, she told me not to ask questions. That is always her reply when you mention something she doesn’t know the answer to, or feels uncomfortable speaking about. Even when we are at home, she will look around as if someone else is watching, then tell me to hush.
Perhaps it is just because of the age she grew up in: war, famine, mistrust and death.
I hear the gentle pitter-patter of rain before I feel it, the slow drizzle licking the leaves of the trees behind us as I lift myself up before the dirt becomes mud. I haul Opie to his feet, although he doesn’t need my help. He continues to hold my hand as we run up the muddying bank from the gully. His grip is strong, although he allows me to lead. The rain grows stronger but I pick my way along a different route to usual, telling Opie it is because the branches are thicker and will keep us drier. If he suspects it is because I don’t want to let him go quite yet then he plays along without saying anything.
All too soon we reach the edge of the trees. I can feel the looser strands of hair sticking to my face and it is genuinely soothing as Opie reaches towards me, stroking them away from my eyes. He laughs as he tells me he has accidentally left a smear of dirt across my forehead and I playfully slap his hand away before scrubbing at my skin. We stand together, his arm around me, my head on his shoulder. Our hair sticks together but neither of us minds.
We each stare out towards Martindale, watching the thin wafts of smoke beginning to drift upwards as people light the logs in their fireplaces to try to warm their houses. I can just about see the roof of my house through the thin mist which is descending, although Opie’s is obscured, even though it is only across the road. I squint to look at the patch next to our chimney stack which Opie helped to fix last winter, using his hands to seal the gap with a skill that can’t be measured by tests.
I go to speak but he pulls me tighter and gets in first. ‘I’m going to miss you, Silver Blackthorn,’ he says, and I can’t tell if he is trying to hold back tears.
I have spent months, maybe years, thinking the day wouldn’t come but now there is no avoiding it. As the water drips from my forehead, I realise we could be sent our separate ways in a matter of hours.
I gasp as the memory flutters out of my mind but I can still feel the thinkpad holding me. That spot on the banks of the gully is something that should belong only to Opie and me. At first it feels like a violation but then I realise the Reckoning isn’t interested anyway – it only wanted to examine my feelings, not know the exact memory. No sooner can I catch my breath than I feel it pulling at me again. I want to fight back, to deny it access to my most private memories, but I cannot stop it.