Pepper looked at Sidra, then back to the scrib. ‘This,’ she said, ‘is a work of genius.’ She shut her eyes and laughed. ‘Oh, stars, we are going to have so much fun.’ She gestured at the pixel projector, bringing up a comms program.
‘Contact name, please,’ an automated voice said.
‘Captain Smacky’s Snack Fest,’ Pepper said, winking at Sidra.
A cartoonish logo of some sort of seafaring Human with an ornate hat and several prosthetic limbs appeared, followed by a lengthy menu offering foods of dubious nutritional value. Piping hot boxes of cricket crunch, made to order. Red coaster dumplings by the dozen. A wide assortment of pocket stuffers, both spicy and sugar-fried. The list went on and on.
‘Welcome to Captain Smacky’s ordering system!’ a chipper recording exclaimed. ‘Simply place an order and we’ll dispatch a drone to your location tag straight away. If you know what you’d like—’
‘I do.’ Pepper nodded seriously. ‘I’d like the left side of the menu, please.’
JANE 23, AGE 10
‘I don’t understand,’ Jane 64 said. They were talking in bed, which wasn’t allowed, but they were doing it real real quiet, and none of the girls ever got each other in trouble for doing that.
Jane 23 tried to find good words, but it was hard. ‘There was something on the other side of the wall.’
‘Another room?’
‘No, not another room.’
‘I don’t understand,’ 64 said again. ‘How was it not a room?’
‘It didn’t have walls,’ Jane 23 said. This was so hard to explain. ‘It wasn’t like anything here. There is something else outside the factory.’
Jane 64 frowned. ‘Was it big?’
‘Real big. Bigger than anything I’ve ever seen.’
‘Was it a piece of scrap?’
‘No,’ Jane 23 said, trying not to get loud. She felt almost angry. ‘It wasn’t like anything. It was like the space inside rooms, only . . . only without walls. I don’t know.’ She didn’t have any more words. ‘It was unknown and wrong.’
Jane 64 moved closer, talking so quiet that 23 couldn’t have heard her if she was any farther away. ‘Do you think the Mothers know there’s something there?’
‘Yes.’ Jane 23 knew they knew. She didn’t know how. She just knew it.
‘Then we should ask them.’
‘No.’ Back in the med ward, the Mothers had asked all the girls one by one what they saw in the sorting room when the accident happened. ‘I heard Jane 25 tell them she saw the hole.’
They both went quiet. Jane 25 had been Jane 17’s bunkmate. 17 was sleeping with 34 and 55 now.
‘What did you tell them?’ Jane 64 asked, her eyes real big.
‘I said I got knocked down and then went looking for you.’
64’s eyes went even bigger. ‘You lied?’
Jane 23 shrugged even though she was scared. ‘I just didn’t say.’ She’d been real real scared about that ever since the med ward, like maybe the Mothers would think about it again and know that she hadn’t said everything she should have.
‘Maybe we should ask the other girls,’ Jane 64 said. ‘Maybe someone else saw, too.’
Jane 23 didn’t think that was a good idea. She felt okay talking about it with 64, because she knew 64 would never get her in trouble. ‘I just want to know what it is,’ she said. ‘I didn’t get to look very long.’
Jane 64 scratched the stitches on her forehead. ‘Do you think it’ll be there when we go back to our sorting room?’
‘No, I think that’s why we’re in a different room now,’ Jane 23 said. ‘I think they’ll fix it before we go back.’ There was another thing she wanted to say, but it stuck in her mouth. It was real scary. She wanted to say it so so bad, though. She had to say. ‘I want to go look at it.’
Jane 64 stared at her, scared but real interested. ‘Me too,’ she said. ‘But I don’t want to get punished.’
Jane 23 thought about it. ‘We could do it without getting punished.’
‘They wouldn’t let us go there during the work day.’
‘We could go at night.’
Jane 64 shook her head hard. ‘We’re not allowed out of bed,’ she said, her voice high and shaky.
‘We are if we’re going to the bathroom.’
‘We aren’t going to the bathroom. They know where the bathroom is.’
‘We could say . . . we could say we were going to the bathroom, and we heard a weird sound outside the bathroom, and thought someone might need some help.’
‘Who?’
‘Someone. One of the little girls. We could say we heard one of the little girls and she sounded scared,’ Jane 23 said. Her own scared feeling started to go away, and in its place was something kind of hot and loud and good. They were talking about bad behaviour, but she wanted to do this. She wanted to do this a lot. So she did. Right then. She got up, put on her shoes, and walked away. 64 whispered something, but Jane 23 was already too far away to hear. She could hear her come quietly tap-tap-tapping after her, though.