One Small Step, an anthology of discoveries (11 page)

A cool breeze skimmed across the river and bought Leah shivering out of her memories. She ran her hands down her arms, her skin cool and smooth, not warm and tacky with insect repellent and sweat. She lifted her arm up and sniffed: soap and something else … antiseptic? No trace of insect repellent. But she’d put it on before she’d left her hut. She remembered doing it. Didn’t she?

Leah turned from the river to look at the road behind. Twilight had given way to evening and the parking bays sat empty: no taxis or tour buses, no bicycles or hire cars. No tourists streaming toward the river, filling the quiet with excited jabber in a kaleidoscope of languages. Looking at the empty spaces along the dirt road she couldn’t remember how she’d got from Kuala Selangor to Kampung Kuantan.

If only she could find Andy.

She stood and walked toward the river, the memory of his smile after she’d said she wanted the night to last forever momentarily settling the growing unease within. While her furious blush faded he had navigated further down the river, away from all the other boats. When they eventually made it back to the pontoon, they’d both ended up in the river when she over-balanced trying to get back onto the pontoon.

In the small shack he lived in, she’d stripped out of the wet, stinking clothes and rinsed off under a shower at the rear of the shack, beneath a 20 litre tin with a shower nozzle. In sarongs they’d sat on the dodgy deck drinking cold stubbies of Tiger beer and listening to the thrum of insects. Beneath his mosquito net they’d lain naked, talking until dawn softened the light in the windows and they’d fallen into an exhausted sleep. In the morning he’d thrown her bike into the back of a rusted ute and driven her into Kuala Selangor for a late breakfast at
Auntie
Kopitiam
. The coffee was the best she’d had since leaving Kuala Lumpur and Andy had laughed at her struggling through a curry for brunch, though admitted he missed bacon too.
 

They’d walked through the nature park, climbed up to the lighthouse, and explored the old fort. Back at
Auntie Kopitiam
they’d had more coffee and Andy had laughed and joked in flawless Malay with the taxi drivers sitting smoking on the sidewalk. They’d slept the rest of the afternoon away under his mosquito net, his hand on the small of her back, and after an early seafood dinner in a shack by the river, they’d climbed Bukit Melwati and watched the sun set over the Malacca Straits.
 

In that moment, conjuring up the flare of yellow and tangerine above the Straits and the feel of Andy’s hand cupping her knee, she knew he wasn’t coming tonight. Or any other night. She looked up to the road and knew why the carpark lay empty. Why the tourists stayed away. It wasn’t the Kampung Kuantan she knew. And it wasn’t the night after she’d met Andy.

She hurried toward the river, through the undercover area, down the gangplank and onto the pontoon. Ling sat in his sampan waiting for her.

“
You come back, Miss Leah.”

“
I want to speak to Andy, Ling.”

“
No can do, Miss Leah.”

“
I need to speak to him.”

“
This is a one way interface only, Miss Leah.”

“
Goddamn you Andy … stop with the Miss Leah thing and the quaint Malay accent. Whatever he programmed you with. Stop it.”

“
Understood.”

“
Why did he program you, Ling? Why isn’t he here to meet me? To say good-bye.”

“
It is recommended Ferrymen are not representations of family or close friends. It makes it harder.”

“
I know, I know,” Lean muttered. It had been her idea. It seemed a sane, compassionate choice when Andy had talked to her about the Ferrymen he planned to program … but now she just wanted Andy.

“
How sick am I?”

“
You already know the answer to that question.”

She sat down on the pontoon, the reality of her situation sinking in.

“
How old am I?”

“
I am not programmed with that information.”

“
How long have I been unconscious for?”

“
I am not programmed with that information.”

Leah lay back and felt the motion of the pontoon. So realistic.

When Andy began programming the Omega Wave Interface Monitor he asked her where she would want her check out point to be. Where she would make the decision to walk away from her life. At the time it was all hypothetical. Like taking out insurance.

She watched the strands of cloud race across the moon and remembered how she’d trailed her hand in the water that first night. Remembered every nuance of movement as Andy navigated the boat up the river. How she wanted it to go on forever. Be with him forever.

And now…

She was nothing more than a cerebral echo in a piece of software.

“
How long have I been here?”

“
I don’t have that information.”

“
What happens if I don’t get in the boat? If I don’t go down the river?”

“
You leave your family in limbo. You put the inevitable on hold.”

“
What if there is a chance for recovery?”

“
This isn’t about recovery. The rest of your brain, for all intents and purposes, is dead. This is about saving your family the stress of ending your life. This is what you and Andy agreed to when you signed on for the OWIM Program.”

Leah remembered watching the first OWIM patient slip away when the Interface Monitor stopped the life support systems. The relief on the faces of the family who did not have to make that decision. The grief which swallowed them after. How Andy grasped her hand. How she felt they’d done something important. Something right.

She imagined Andy standing beside her bed, watching the lights flash intermittently on the montior. The wheeze of a respirator and the pip of the CTG. She wondered who was with him. If anyone was there to hold his hand. To ease his pain. To witness her passing.

“
Do you remember what Andy wished the first night you were together?”

Leah whispered, “Yes.”

“
And do you remember what you wished for?”

Leah tried to answer but failed.

When she finally stood, tears marked her cheeks for the last time. She grasped Ling’s hand, stepped effortlessly onto the boat and sat down. The bottom of the sampan was clean and empty. No life jackets. No flannelette shirt.

No Andy.

Further down the river, the
berembang
trees lit up both sides of the river like a German street in December. Waiting for her. Calling to her with each wave of flashes. A final message from her beloved. She turned to Ling, wiped the tears from her face and nodded. The boat lurched and rocked as Ling pushed away from the jetty. Leah didn’t look back.
 

∞
¥
∞
Ω
∞
¥
∞
 

T
h
e laundry chute was stained and battered from centuries of use. Autumn wasn’t the first to climb it; no doubt she wouldn’t be the last. There were safer ways to infiltrate the upper levels but this one was the quickest. Just so long as she didn’t get found out. Topside was the domain of lords and ladies, civic administrators and, occasionally, Birdman brides. Discovery would cost her a spell in the hot box, that cramped, tin shed jammed between the air filtration pumps and slurry bilge.
 

The fight in the arboretum had been what set her on her upwards journey. Just one scrag fight of many, but this time Brook had gone too far. The gathered crowd had been waiting for the names. Pushing led to shoving and things had gotten quickly sour from there.

There was never any doubt about which five would be chosen. All daughters of Downbelow — the
right kind
of daughters. Five of them born to be Birdman brides. It was only a matter of time.
 

Brook and Cinnamon-Marie. Coral, Rain and Sunday, the three who trailed behind the older girls like shadows. False exclamations of delight, as if the chosen did not have process managers for fathers and their selection was not, therefore, inevitable.

Each girl milked it for all she was worth. Autumn’s face reddened at the memory as she climbed. She should have left it well alone, only leaving things had never been her way. The names on the list had brought a flush of disappointment, even though she’d never stood a chance. Not with her foot the way it was — and everything besides.

One smirk of triumph from Brook was all it took. Words had flown and a bitter catfight followed. She hadn’t said much. Not really. Only that bridal gowns had been fitted in secret months before so there was no need for posting up the names.

“
How dare you touch my face!” Brook screeched, as if Autumn’s slap had caused her actual damage. “The wedding is tomorrow — what if you’ve left a mark? Just who do you think you are, you lousy cripple? A Birdman would never take a
clubfoot
as a bride.”
 

The others had laughed heartily as Autumn lashed out, her fists a blur of rage. Those words were true and everybody knew it.

Brook and her spiteful entourage had it made. No shifts in the reclamation plants or, skies forbid, the mines. Not for them, their sisters or their mothers. If only they accepted privilege with good grace.

The hours following the naming had been thick with jeers and jibes. The ugliest had copped the worst of it. Chief amongst them, Jarrah, never destined to be any kind of bride. Dumpy and smart-mouthed, such a losing combination. Smart in more ways than one though, Autumn noted. Jarrah knew things. How to find bread when Downbelow was steeped in shortage. Fruit when citrus blight was on the rise.

“
You’re no better than the rest of us,” Jarrah challenged, stepping forward from the crowd, head held high. “Just lucky by birth is all.”

Cinnamon-Marie made short work of her, promenading in a gown that must have cost her mother a whole year’s savings. “Better than anything you’ll ever be. We’re going Topside. We’re getting married.” Each pronouncement was delivered with relish. “A freak like you will never see the sun.”

“
I’ve already seen it — and a whole lot more besides. A bride’s life is tougher than you think. You don’t know the half of what goes on!”

“
Oh yeah — and I suppose you do?”

Everybody laughed at that and Jarrah turned her back, vanishing into the shadowy forest of Oh-2 scrubbers and repo tubes.

Was the sun worth seeing?
Yes
, thought Autumn,
most definitely
. Even if only glimpsed through shields. And if the only way to see it was to climb a laundry chute, she’d do it and hang the consequences.
 

Jarrah was the one who’d told Autumn about the chute. She claimed she’d been up and down it many times. There were supposed to be cameras but like most things Downbelow, they didn’t work.

Jarrah and Autumn had never been friends. Not really. Autumn pitied her, despite her obvious smarts: three fingers and that blotchy, mottled skin. A flat, square face with eyes too wide apart. Both parents dead after the Great Sink Disaster of ’55.

Anger drove Autumn to climbing harder, no easy feat with her leg the way it was. Not a clubfoot proper though — she was lucky; her leg bent at the knee.

Gradually the belch and grind of Downbelow subsided.

Unfamiliar sounds emerged to take their place: the hissing and steaming of atmos vents, the clanking and creaking of pipes.

Autumn had been barely twelve years old the first time a Birdman made the journey. The whole city, up and down, tracked his progress on the screens, never doubting he would land on one of the ancient runway platforms that had once seen scores of zeppelins and sky craft. But that Birdman never came to land. Perhaps his wings were too flimsy for a controlled descent, or perhaps the golden light glinting off the condenser nets confused him, blinded him to the city half buried in protective gold and amber sands.

Once, Battendown had thought itself the one surviving outpost. Radiation storms roiled across the desert surface, incinerating all not nimble enough to dodge its path or burrow downwards.

Other Birdmen followed, bearing news, seed and hope. It was said the surrounding sands were littered with the gleaming bones of aviators and their artificial wings, chrome levers and silver cogs stolen by dune bugs and sand skinks to line their nests.

Why should a visitor of greatness be restricted to Topside? Had those lords and ladies not already more than their fair share of fortune? Sunlight, even if it killed. Sweeping vistas, even if all there was to see was ruin.

The lid of the laundry chute was hinged, just like Jarrah said. Muffled voices echoed as Autumn tried to risk a cautious peek. She froze, imagining herself plummeting back down in a tangle of soiled sheets and pillowcases. Her leg throbbed painfully from cramp as she held her breath, flexed her toes and listened. Eventually the voices trailed away. Others came and went. When finally the last of the footsteps faded, she shoved her back against the heavy lid.

She’d been expecting to emerge into an overheated laundry room, bustling with red-faced women in starched uniforms. Instead, a vast corridor, dimly lit. Quiet was almost as unnerving as the emptiness. Downbelow was never quiet — nor was it ever empty. Every inch of space was used for something.

She knew what everybody knew about Topside. That it was perpetually flooded with brilliant, golden light. As depicted on the viewscreens every time civic messages were ’cast.

Autumn trod as quietly as her limp allowed, expecting at any moment to be set upon by a brace of angry guards. Her jagged footfall echoed off evenly spaced, glassy columns that, she figured, were holding up the ceiling.