Modified for Success
It had already been a long day and it wasn’t even lunchtime yet! This lot were being particularly difficult. They just wouldn’t settle. Julia was used to the modified by now. They were an angry, violent and impatient lot, but usually she could handle them. This group were a real pain. It was a high-level meeting, something important about the economy, and they were being particularly antsy. There had already been two fights and, unusually, one of them had disappeared for a bit of a sulk. It had taken her a full fifteen minutes to find him lurking in one of the lesser used meeting rooms; shouting intermittently at the furniture. Julia had finally got them all seated around the table, or so she thought, when she heard a scream coming from the cloakroom.
It’s in her contract that she doesn’t have to investigate, but she found her legs taking her there before she’d even registered what she was doing. She had a pretty good idea of what would be on the other side of the door. This wasn’t the first time. But it still didn’t make it any easier to push it open and remove all doubt. There, in the tiny cloakroom, was a small businessman lying sprawled on the floor.
It was obvious to everyone as soon as he walked in that he wasn’t modified. He was a smart, official, and clearly terrified little man. Julia couldn’t remember when she’d last seen an unmodified businessman in one of her meeting rooms. She hadn’t thought there were any left by now. This one was now almost completely covered by a particularly thuggish-looking modified. There was a horrible slurping noise coming from him and she knew he’d begun to feed. Feeding in the meeting rooms was strictly prohibited, but there wasn’t much anyone could really do about it once they got started.
Julia remembered the extensive training they’d had for just such a situation. One afternoon. And she thought about how much more it really would have been useful to know before she’d started. That was why they were paid so well for unmodified. Many of them didn’t last long; you had to learn quickly in this job or not at all. She calmly pushed the panic button, that would almost certainly cause a grand total of nothing to happen, and cleared her throat, which certainly would.
“You know you’re not allowed to do that in here.”
She was quite impressed with how calm and confident her voice sounded. Her heart, on the other hand, was pounding so hard in her ears that she was surprised that the whole world couldn’t hear it. She prayed her knees wouldn’t give way. What little training she’d had told her that he should now get up and she could show him back to the table. Her own experience, and that of the other facilitators in the complex, told her that he was just as likely to refocus his attentions on her as do anything she said. The modified slowly turned his head towards her and stared. He stared for a long time. She held her ground. She was unsurprised at the absence of hurried footsteps coming up the corridor to save her. In fact there were no sounds of anyone outside at all. Perhaps they were keeping everyone away in case this one acted like the one last month. He got to his feet, looming a good two feet over her. He smiled; a teeth only smile. Julia smiled back; her best “everything is fine” type of smile.
“This way please”.
He started to follow her back to the meeting room table. Julia realised she’d been holding her breath and breathed out, catching the relieved expression which tried to run across her face just in time. The other businessmen barely looked up before returning to their heated discussions. She pressed a second button, next to the door, and her previously absent colleagues appeared in force with what looked like shots of vodka. The businessmen guzzled them appreciatively. The shots contained enough horse tranquiliser to knock her out for a week; they just smiled a little more and relaxed perhaps a fraction. They couldn’t risk the smell of blood on the returning businessman causing a rampage. The drinks would continue for about an hour, just to make sure.
Julia left them to it and walked back to the cupboard as fast as she dare. As she turned the corner, out of sight, she broke into a run. She hadn’t dared look at the state of the small man earlier. She prayed she was in time. As she burst, breathlessly, back into the cloakroom, the terrified man scurried away from her to hide under the coats, quivering. A very good sign. It took her a few minutes to coax him out and get a better look at him. His neck was bleeding profusely and he was already a sickly shade of grey. Julia wadded up her apron, knowing, even as she did so, that it was a week’s wages lost, and held it tight against his neck. She hoped the ambulance would be quicker than last time. It only comes from a couple of blocks away, but it could be hours before it arrives, depending on how many modified are out there today. If he dies now, he’ll become one of them, just another modified businessman, and there are far too many of those already. If he lives, he’ll definitely be scarred, maybe one or two side effects, but he’ll never be as bad as them. Julia tries to imagine the blood being stopped by her apron and pumping around his body as her arm shakes from the effort of stemming the flow.
She still finds them funny, despite seeing them pretty regularly, either at work or on the street. The ambulance men look more like medieval jousters than men of medicine. Their ambulances are more armoured than a tank, with a snow plough on the front to force their way through crowds or debris. She doesn’t exactly love her job, but she wouldn’t take theirs for the world. They’re well paid, but she doubts any of them get paid for long. There’s nothing that can stop the modified when they smell blood and form a pack, armour or no armour.
Julia adjusts them both, trying a less painful position to stem the blood that seems increasingly keen to leak from the little man’s body. She thinks about the last year. It seems much longer than a year. She feels as if she’s been doing this all her life. She hasn’t. It’s been just under eight months. This time last year she’d just graduated with a 2:1 and immediately landed a job looking at “the psychological side effects of modification”. She couldn’t believe her luck, who goes straight into a job like that with only a 2:1! She’d only been working for a couple of months when she’d realised why. The side effects were clear. There had already been two previous studies, but considerable donations had been made by an anonymous source to do a third. She knew what would happen, but she did it anyway. She officially and then, when she was immediately fired for incompetence, unofficially published her findings. Modification was dangerous beyond belief. The short-term effects were increased drive, efficiency and determination that seemed almost immediately to lead to increased success, money and power. Longer-term effects included distraction, volatility and extreme violence; and that was when the treatment went right. Even she hadn’t foreseen the blood-lust. She still saw some of her ex-colleagues on TV. Occasionally they were rolled out to proclaim it safe, say that everything was fine and that the problems were all being “ironed out”. Everyone knew the whole world was going to hell. She wondered why anyone bothered pretending anymore.
The man lying in her lap was gradually losing consciousness as they waited. The blood had dyed her white apron a deep scarlet. It was beginning to be a real possibility that he wouldn’t make it. Julia sighed. He’d seemed like such a nice man when he’d first come in. He’d given her a nervous little grin as he’d taken his seat at the table. He’d made a point of calling her by her name. None of the modified noticed she existed until they wanted something, but it was probably best that way. Now it looked as if he was going to die because he’d left something in his coat pocket. He still had it clutched in his left hand; a pen. It had the name Nigel engraved on it. She idly wondered how Nigel had lasted this long. Perhaps it was inevitable that it was going to end this way. There wasn’t anything she could do for him now but try to keep as much blood inside him as she could and squeeze his hand.
It was tough to get a job as an unmodified. They took all the top jobs and made all the rules. The unmodified were left struggling to survive. Julia’s job was a very good one for an unmodified. It was much better than most of the people she knew. Most jobs involved tricky manual tasks that the modified had neither the skill nor patience to perform. They were long hours for little money. Still, it was better than no job at all and came with the added bonus that they were protected, while at work at least. She was paid well for the danger of working with them every day and keeping them happy; but it also meant that she saw the side effects up close and personal. Sometimes too close and personal. One day she’d been leaving the changing rooms when a modified, waiting to go into one of the meeting rooms, lunged at her. She was almost too far away, but he caught her by the ankle and immediately started to feed. Through an enormous force of will she managed to stay calm. If she’d panicked, the others would have become too excited and joined in. That would have been the end for her and perhaps a number of the other facilitators. The modified were ushered into their rooms, and, as soon as the corridor was cleared, she tazed him in the neck until he passed out. It took a while. She’d lost a fair chunk of her leg in the process and it had never been the same. The ambulance had taken a couple of hours to arrive and she’d nearly lost it. The large scar still hurt her when the weather was cold, like today.
This time it took them only half an hour to make it the three streets to the conference centre. She was grateful. The small man looked like a limp doll in her lap. Despite the blood loss they told her he had a good chance of recovery. She wondered if that was true. She hoped it was. She decided not to phone the hospital that night in case it wasn’t. Her boss sent her home and, although they didn’t charge her for the apron, they weren’t going to pay her for the rest of the day either.
As usual, Julia went home on the armoured bus. It was by far the safest way, even though she didn’t live far from the centre. It dropped her at the corner of her street and she hurried to the back courtyard of her building. It was nearly Christmas and there was snow on the ground, but she didn’t wear a coat. Better freeze to death than draw attention as an unmodified. She pressed the twelve-digit combination on the gate, opened it just wide enough to squeeze through, and shut it quickly, but quietly, behind her. With luck no-one had seen. George peered out from the kitchen in alarm and addressed her through the kitchen window.
“Why’re you home so early?”
She didn’t need this. At this rate she really was going to freeze to death. Her teeth chattered so loudly she wouldn’t be surprised if the modified in the street could hear her.
“Incident at work” she replied as casually as she could through her chattering teeth.
The worst thing she could do now was to look angry. She’d done that a couple of months ago. Not really angry, just mildly annoyed. He’d shut the door and left her out all night. She’d had to hide behind the shed so that the modified wouldn’t spot her. He’d been sorry afterwards, of course, but she wouldn’t put it past him to do it again. He took things very seriously. He looked at her suspiciously, but tossed her the opera glasses anyway. She still wasn’t sure why all this was necessary. No modified had ever got past the combination on the gate. Still, it was probably better to be safe than sorry, as long as he got on with it, quickly, that was. She fiddled with them for a few seconds, trying to line up the lenses with increasingly numb fingers. After an unnecessarily long pause, he stepped back from the window so she could read the word printed on the wall through the glasses.
“Teabags” she read back to him and couldn’t help a small smile.
George failed to function without tea and he relied on the memory of the others to keep him stocked up. With what they went through every day, it wasn’t surprising that they didn’t always remember. She’d managed to get him a small supply from work, but she wouldn’t tell him just yet. She’d defrost a little first and let him think she’d forgotten.
She went gratefully inside and straight to the range to bring feeling into her numb fingers and toes. She tried not to smile as she saw George’s hopeful look at her bag. There was a small, plastic doll, a little too close to the range. She bent down and moved it a safe distance away and caught George’s eye.
“She’s fine” he said before she’d even decided what to say, “she hasn’t cried once today”.
That was good news! It had only happened once before and that was on her birthday. Maybe she was going to get better after all.
Natalie had been bitten six months ago. She’d been heavily pregnant at the time and hadn’t been able to run away fast enough. She’d only been steps from the courtyard and George had rushed out and beaten it off. He’d helped her into a nearby bolt-hole, in the basement of an abandoned building. They’d all thought he was mad, burying a small stash of their limited supplies in that basement. It turned out that his paranoia saved them. The modified had wandered, dazed, into the courtyard. For a terrifying three days it poked around, looking, Julia was convinced, for signs of unmodified life. Usually the modified gave up after a few minutes, sometimes hours, but for some reason they’d managed to attract one with staying power. Finally it gave up and wandered off and they risked sneaking outside to lock the gate. Shortly afterwards George and Natalie came back. She was pale and withdrawn. At first Julia was worried that it was the bite. Maybe she’d lost more blood than they’d realised. Then she’d realised what the problem was. Natalie looked oddly deflated.
The only thing that seemed to stop Natalie from crying was a new doll. Dolls were in short supply since modified children didn’t seem to care much for them, and they were the only ones whose parents had any money. Still, the odd one cropped up here and there. Everyone in the house would go to great lengths to secure Natalie a new doll. When Natalie was happy it was infectious. Everyone in the house seemed to catch it and the world looked like a better place, for a short while at least. George liked to keep an eye on her. He made sure she ate and gave her clean clothes. It could have been because he used to have a crush on her, but it was more likely that he felt she was his responsibility.
As usual, it was dark inside the house. They only ever opened the shutters at night, and then all the lights had to be off. That wasn’t too much of a problem, though, with all the black-outs they’d been having recently. They all liked to ignore it, tell themselves that it would get better, but they all knew it had been getting worse for some time now. If they were going to leave, they were going to have to do it soon, before it was too late. They saw new streets levelled by the modified every day. The only reason they were still there was because of George. He took great care to make it look as if their building had been abandoned, like so many around them. The real problem was going to be that they had nowhere to go. The modified were everywhere.
Jade came home two hours later. She’d been on the night-shift at the factory and they’d made her work late again. She looked dead on her feet and even George took pity and let her into the kitchen before giving her the glasses. She could barely move her fingers, and it wasn’t just from the cold. Jade was part of a huge team of workers dedicated to producing the intricate clothing demanded by the wealthy modified. The fashions changed rapidly, but the result was the same. Longer and longer hours spent stitching intricate patterns and beadwork on endless garments that they would never get to wear. Jade read “teabags” and looked over at George apologetically.
“Don’t worry about it” he said, smiling reassuringly at her. “I can see you’re knackered. Go and have a nap before dinner and I’ll come and get you when it’s ready.”
She trudged gratefully upstairs to her room.
Dave and John were late. George had dinner nearly ready, vegetable stew and home-made bread, but they still hadn’t appeared. It was two hours after they were due home from the hospital that they appeared. Everyone had been nervously watching the courtyard for signs of their appearance. They looked shocking. Their faces were red, they were covered in mud, but they were both grinning from ear to ear.
“Got one!” they said together. They both held up a baby doll triumphantly. It was in a little woollen outfit, grubby and with holes in places, but everyone knew Natalie would love it.
“Where’d you get that?!” George asked in surprise.
“Modified kid” said Dave.
“Had it at the hospital” said John.
They both seemed to think that explained everything, and no-one found out any more as they all turned at a gasp of delight behind them. Natalie had obviously heard the noise and come to see what all the fuss was about. She rushed towards the boys and threw herself around the doll.
“Oh thank you! She’s beautiful!” was all they got out of her before she rushed up the stairs with the new doll clutched tight in her arms.
“That’s the last we’ll see of her tonight” John said, smiling broadly.
“Too bad” Dave laughed “I kinda’ liked her.”
It felt like a party that night. George even produced a magnificent sponge cake. Apparently he’d been saving the sugar for weeks and felt that tonight they deserved a treat. Julia had given him the teabags and now there was a steaming pot in front of them to share with the cake.
No-one mentioned the extra place at dinner. Toby hadn’t come back for weeks. They’d all been used to him disappearing for a day or two. “Fact-finding” he called it, but no-one really knew what he did. He’d just turn up, back at the house, starving, full of wild stories about whole unmodified communities, trying to encourage them to go with him. They’d all humoured him, but no-one really believed in what he had to say. If there were other communities they’d have heard about them on the radio, or from other unmodified. He was always so vague about where they were and how many people had made it to them. Still, sometimes it was fun to get caught up in his excitement. This last time he’d been gone for much longer than he’d ever been gone before. They’d told Natalie he’d found one of these communities and he would come back for them, when the time was right. They all hoped he’d come back, but now it was becoming part of their reality that he wasn’t. Still, they always set him a place at the table, just in case.
Tonight, no-one even looked as George cleared the table and removed the clean plate and cutlery. It was too good a night. Right now everything seemed hopeful. Perhaps tomorrow would bring them better things. They played cards late into the night by candlelight, since the power was out again, and then one by one went drowsily to bed.
Julia woke with a hand clamped over her mouth. She froze. Had a modified got into the house? Were the others already dead?
“Shhh, it’s me” said Dave.
She struggled angrily to sit up, wrenching his hand from her mouth.
“What the…”
“Shhhh, they’re coming. Grab your bag and follow me.”
She groped around for her bag. Like everyone else, she always kept it under her bed, ready, at George’s insistence. She slid into her trousers and followed him quietly out onto the landing. She could just make out George and Natalie standing there, hastily dressed, Natalie clutching the new doll tightly to her chest, George holding their bags and clutching her, just as tightly. They were all there. She followed their eyes to the top of the stairs where a shadow stood. She couldn’t make out who it was. At that moment a huge explosion sounded behind them and lit up the corridor. It was Toby! He was alive! He was holding his finger to his lips and gesturing for them to follow.
They all crept downstairs and into the courtyard. There was a jet black, armoured van, parked with its back doors facing the house. These doors swung open and two men pulled everyone inside and made them lie on the floor. Silently, the men covered them with blankets and Julia heard the doors shut behind them as the van moved off. Even Natalie seemed to know how important this was and lay completely still, clutching her doll. The vehicle picked its way along the streets. Every so often there’d be a loud bang, it would reverse at speed and they’d head in a different direction. A few times they heard screams. Dave put his arm around Julia’s waist and pulled her slightly towards him. She didn’t know if it was for him or for her, but either way she was grateful.
They’d been moving in the same direction for a while, when the vehicle stopped. Julia thought it was far too soon for them to be out of the city.
“ID,” a rough voice said, obviously a modified. “What’re you doing out so late?”
Everyone in the van held their breath.
“Unmodified bodies for experimentation. They don’t like us out during the day. Scare the kiddies.” There was the sound of laughter from both voices.
Despite herself Julia felt herself hating him. She’d heard rumours about black vans taking the dead, and sometimes not so dead, away; about what happened to those bodies. Apparently at least part of it was true. She didn’t want to know that. Toby had made her know that and now she’d never unknow it. Is this what he’d been doing on his trips away?
“On you go, and oh, avoid the high street, getting a bit tasty up there” he laughed.
Julia knew some of the unmodified families that lived on the high street. They all worked in the factories and had been promised they’d be safe if they registered where they lived. George had convinced everyone in their house not to do it, just in case. It looked like he’d been right. That was something else she’d rather not have known about.
“Thanks officer” Toby cheerfully shouted over another explosion, and the van started to move again.
She knew she should be grateful. Toby had come back. He and his friends had saved them. But she was tired. Not just from being torn from her bed in the middle of the night, but from everything. She was rapidly approaching a “what is the point” moment in her life. She’d been toying with the idea for a while. It would have been easy at work. She’d pick a child, one that had come in with its parents attending a meeting, and she’d let it kill her. She shouldn’t be too disfigured, if she kept enough control. Then she’d just wake up, modified, and be able to get on with her life again. She knew she’d have the marks of a “turned” rather than a “made” and would never have one of the top jobs, but still, she could make a decent living and wouldn’t have to deal with constant fear.
The van stopped. The blankets were removed. Through the back doors, they could see that they were in a dark tunnel.
“So much for Utopia!” Julia said much louder than she’d intended. She felt everyone’s eyes on her.
“Sorry” she said quietly, looking down at her socked feet.
They all scrabbled to get their boots on in the confines of the back of the van and one by one exited it carefully. They stood, in a ramshackle line, and waited patiently for Toby to stop talking to the other two men. After a while he walked over to them.
“I know you’ve got a lot of questions, but there isn’t time.”
Julia wanted to protest, but felt that she should keep silent for once. She didn’t want to sound ungrateful. Toby handed her a map.
“The modified don’t come down here, so you should be safe.” Julia really didn’t like the emphasis on “should”. “The map tells you where to go. It’s about a week by foot, and a few more days once the sewers run out.” Oh god, they were going to be walking in a sewer for nearly a week! “There are tunnels, but be careful, some parts are safer than others.” Oh great, it gets better and better. “Good luck and I’ll see you on the other side.”
“Where’re you going?” Julia blurted out before she could stop herself.
Toby turned back towards them and, to her surprise, he was grinning.
“We’ve not just come back for you, you know.” And with that he got back into the van and it started to move off. One of the men hopped out of the van to lock the gates with a final-sounding clang before jumping back inside and shutting the doors behind him.
“Anyone pack a torch?” Julia asked.
For two days they walked in near-pitch blackness. A couple of times they had to stop where the tunnel was blocked and try a different way. The sewers were surprisingly clean and didn’t smell nearly as bad as Julia had expected.
As the week wore on, they all began to question their priorities with regards to packing. George had made them all pack plenty of water, and they had a few of packets of biscuits each, but some of the more personal things were proving less useful. Dave had packed his favourite vinyl. The number of records that he felt he couldn’t live without were decreasing with the miles. Now, after five days he had three left and Julia could feel another sacrifice coming on. She’d been smug at first. She’d only packed a few small books. She hadn’t thought she could live without books. She was rapidly thinking that she wouldn’t be able to live with them. Also, if someone had told her she’d spend days in a damp, cold, sewer she’d have packed more socks. No-one tells you about the importance of clean socks. Her boots had been fine. Comfy, waterproof, but no-one had mentioned the bliss you get from taking your socks off after trudging all day and the hell of having to put them back on to start walking again. She was lost in thoughts of her beautiful sock drawer back at the house when there was a noise above them. A manhole cover was being removed and a modified was clearly saying:
“And don’t come back up until you’ve found the problem.” An unmodified was coming down the ladder, slowly. He was clearly going to see them, whether they ran or not. They had no choice.
“Psst,” Said Julia. The man looked around and completely failed to see any of them.
“Psst,” Said Julia again as loud as she dare. The man leaned close to a pipe near the ladder as if listening to it.
“For God’s sake! Psst.” Said Julia in exasperation. The man saw her, but the conversation stopped up above the manhole cover and a voice shouted down.
“Did you say something?”
“Sorry,” said the man “the rats are fucking huge down here”.
“Shut up your whingeing and get on with it!” the modified shouted down and went back to his conversation.
The man reached the bottom of the ladder and walked over to them.
“What the hell are you doing down here?”
“We’re escaping!” Said Julia in surprise.
“You’re mad! There’s a new law about to be passed. Everything’s going to be alright. Minimum wage, holidays. Stupid to be down here wading through sewers!”
“I was there when they were discussing it. It’ll all be fine; as long as you don’t mind, increased hours, compulsory registration, rationing…” the man looked unconvinced “fine, just don’t tell anyone we’re here.”
“Fine.” He said, slightly annoyed, and started walking off down the tunnel. Then a thought seemed to strike him and he stopped. “What’ve you done?” he asked suspiciously and slightly louder than Julia was comfortable with.
“Nothing!” She hissed back.
“Mighty suspicious you lot down here when they’re just starting to talk about unmodified rights. Maybe there’s a reward?”
Julia’s heart sank. She was sure that running away wouldn’t go down well, whatever their excuse. Jade held out something that sparkled in the darkness. It was her mother’s diamond necklace. She couldn’t. She just couldn’t!
“No, Jade, we’ll give him something else!”
The man, however, seemed to think the necklace was exactly what he needed. He smiled broadly. “That will do nicely.” He snatched it from her outstretched hand and grinned.
They started off down the tunnel again. Julia caught up to Jade. She opened her mouth to speak, but Jade cut her off.
“I did have to you know.”
Julia gave her a squeeze. Behind them the modified called into the tunnel.
“What’s the hold up?”
“Oh”, said the man, grinning broadly “there’s a load of runaways down here. They just tried to bribe me with a necklace”. He laughed as the modified climbed down into the tunnel.
“You’d better not be pissing about down here.” The modified growled at the man.
“See” said the man, waving Jade’s mum’s necklace at the modified.
“Yeah”, said the modified, and shot him. Julia and the others stopped in shock.
“That’ll look great on my missus. Guys, come down here. We’ve got runaways!” He shouted up in delight.
That was enough to get the feeling back into their limbs. They ran. They ran and they ran. Julia took them down one tunnel and then another. Finally the sounds behind them faded. Perhaps the freshly shot unmodified was too much for the modified to ignore, or maybe they’d just got bored of the chase. When they were sure they were no longer being followed, they slowed and Julia tried to work out where they’d ended up.
“Yeah,” She said to the others, “unmodified rights, that’ll last about as long as my biscuits!” She didn’t mention that she now had no idea where they were.
They continued to walk for what felt like a small eternity, but they kept going. Their feet were sore, the food had almost gone, even George’s emergency supply, and they were beginning to lose any hope of finding their way out. No-one spoke, they just trudged on in the darkness. No-one said anything to Julia, but she was sure they all blamed her. Dave had tried to reassure her that it was all in her imagination, everyone was tired, but he’d said it so many times that it had started to irritate her. She felt like he wasn’t taking her seriously, that he was treating her like a stupid child, and so now he walked a little distance away from her. Every so often she saw one of them eyeing the manhole covers. She didn’t blame them. She’d thought about it herself. Just a short trip up and it would all be over when they were caught by the modified. Surely that was better than slowly starving to death down here.
They’d all stopped to sleep, but Julia couldn’t. She wasn’t going to give up. She had to stop feeling sorry for herself and do something about it. She’d got them into this mess and she was determined to get them out of it. From that moment on, every time they took a rest, she would wander off down some of the side tunnels and scout out the way ahead. She’d only come back when her eyes were too sore to see in the gloom. Each time she’d grab a few minutes sleep before the others got up and started to move again.
“You can’t keep doing that,” Dave had said, when everyone else had settled down to get some sleep, in what she was sure he felt was a supportive voice.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said rather snappily to him. She winced and rubbed the scar on her leg.
“Here, let me look at it” Dave said and, despite herself, she found herself rolling up her trouser leg. He rubbed her leg for quite a while and made a surprising amount of difference to the tightness she felt there.
“Thanks, but I can’t give up now. We won’t last much longer if I don’t get us out of here.” She smiled at him. Even she could feel it was a weak smile.
Dave looked like he was going to protest, and before she knew what she was doing, she leant forwards and kissed him. When they broke apart he looked stunned, but happy. She smiled at him and walked off into the gloom.
Julia was now thinking that he might have had a point. She wasn’t completely certain, but she was pretty sure that she was lost. She was trying not to think about it, because if she did she would panic, and that would make everything a whole lot worse. She went the way she thought she had come, there was a big patch of moss growing here that she thought she recognised, but perhaps not. She must have got turned around somewhere. She had been so careful. Damn it! Then she noticed what looked like weak light coming from a tunnel to her right. As she moved towards it, it got brighter. She reached the end and saw the most beautiful thing she had ever seen in her life. The sun was rising over fields of corn, and there was a sign. The sign read:
Wait here until Tuesday 9PM .
Julia screamed with delight! She could hear Dave’s voice calling out to her, but couldn’t make out what he was saying.
“Over here!” She shouted at the top of her voice.
She could hear footsteps running towards her.
“We’re here!” She shouted, “We’re here!”
Dave came panting around the corner, closely followed by the others.
“What’s wrong?” A pink-faced Dave panted at her “Are you ok?”
“We’re here!” She repeated pointing to the sign. “But I don’t have my watch!” Julia let out a sob.
Everyone looked at George.
“Don’t look at me! I can’t think of everything!”
Dave laughed and squeezed her tightly. “We’ll just take turns at looking out after dark. It’ll be fine.”
They all laughed, perhaps everything was going to be fine after all.
They’d been on the lookout for two nights and everyone was tired and hungry. They’d had nothing at all to eat that day and Julia’s stomach grumbled unhelpfully. It was her turn to keep watch for a few hours as the others lay on the ground behind her, trying not to use any energy. She sat at the mouth of the tunnel and looked out onto the completely deserted road. It had lost its spectacular beauty now and she was beginning to hate it. No-one ever seemed to use the bloody thing! A power plant smoked silently to itself in the distance.
She wasn’t sure when she first saw it, but there was definitely something coming towards them. After a while she could make out a big blue truck driving along the road. She called Dave over and they both stared at it.
“Could be nine” he said “you’ve been on watch a while now”.
They watched it get closer and closer and then start to slow. It stopped directly beneath them, turned its engine off and someone got out. The others came over and stared down at the distant figure at the bottom of the hill.
“One of us?” asked George from the back of the group.
“Who knows?” said Jade, “It’s far too dark to make him out.”
The man waved up at them.
“It is!” said Natalie, and she immediately set off down the hillside. The others hesitated, but then followed a little way behind; George rushing to catch up with her.
“Stop!” Shouted George grabbing Natalie completely off her feet. He started hauling her back up the hill by the waist as she screamed to be let go.
Julia didn’t know what his problem was at first, but she stopped running. Standing, she could make the man out more clearly. He was a modified! Natalie screamed and Julia saw the doll tumble off down the hill and towards the modified. George struggled for a second, but managed to get control of Natalie to stop her running after it. As so many times before, Julia didn’t think, she just ran towards it. It was Natalie’s doll. She had to get Natalie’s doll. It rolled to a halt, feet from the modified. She scooped it up and then looked up into the face of one of the biggest modified she’d ever seen. She froze. All that time she’d spent, seriously thinking about letting them take her; and now she’d decided that she wasn’t going to give in, wasn’t going to let them do it, and it looked like they were going to get her after all; and this one was big enough to tear her to pieces. There was no chance that she’d get away, even if it didn’t feel like her feet were glued to the floor.
“Hullo,” He said cheerily, “you must be Julia. Toby’s told me all about you.”
It took a while for her brain to process what she’d heard. Instead she screamed, but stayed rooted to the spot. Some of the others had grabbed branches and rocks and were coming down the hill towards them.
“No, no, no. Calm down. I’m not going to hurt you. See, backing away slowly.” As he did this he held his hands up placatingly in front of him. “I’m a friend of Toby’s, he sent me. It’s not my fault I look like this. Please…”
As Julia stared up into the huge bulk of the man’s face she saw that she’d genuinely hurt his feelings.
“I’m fine, he’s one of us” She said, turning to the others.
They looked suspicious but cautiously lowered their weapons.
Grant talked over his shoulder to Julia and the others who were wedged into the back of his cab. They always looked so roomy from the outside, but they were not built for six to sit in comfortably.
“There was a change of plan. When you missed the pick up, Toby thought it was safer for me to keep driving past than anyone else.” Julia and the others remained silent, all gawping at the giant of a man in the front of the cab. “Seriously, do I sound like one of them? I was bitten when they were still trying to keep the modified in check. I got treatment. Sure, I’m a bit bigger than I used to be, but I’m still soft and squidgy on the inside.”
Jade snorted and even Natalie gave a giggle. Everyone looked at her. She shrugged.
“We’re really grateful, it’s just a bit of a shock” Julia reassured him.
“You’re welcome.” Grant said cheerily and then gave them the best news of the day. “There’s food in the back by the way.”
There was a frantic scrabbling as they all tried to get to the back of the cab at the same time. John coughed and looked at them disapprovingly as he righted himself and they all fell back a bit. He looked around behind him and found a cupboard marked, helpfully, food.
They were all asleep by the time the truck stopped. They woke as the engine stopped, stretching as best they could and waited. Were they there or was it another checkpoint? They waited some more. Grant had been gone for ages and Julia couldn’t wait. She took the tiniest peek out of the window. Then she took another. She couldn’t believe her eyes. The truck had stopped in Edinburgh! She’d been here on holiday, years and years ago, but it was definitely Edinburgh. Nothing had changed. Well not much. It was evening and people were coming back from work. Real people! There were a few more soldiers on the street than she remembered, but they, too, were human soldiers. She looked around; the others started to poke their heads out too, so she got out to have a better look around.
“Who’d have thought it” Julia exclaimed to the world at large “Utopia is in Scotland! No wonder it took us so bloody long to get here!”
She saw Grant coming back with some other people she didn’t recognise. She made up her mind. Grant opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off.
“I want to go back” she announced.
Grant’s face fell.
“But why, what’s wrong?”
“Oh, no, no, nothing at all. This is all so wonderful. I just want to make sure we get everyone up here. There may be more like us left there, feeling like I did, feeling hopeless and scared. I can’t just start again up here without trying to help.”
With that Grant smiled and the other people grinned at her.
“That’s the spirit!” he replied “but at least have a cup of tea first!”
There was a whoop from inside the truck. Julia didn’t have to look around to know who it was.
So, that was my story. I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you for reading.
I'm planning to post my next story soon, so keep watching this space.
