Blemished, The (2 page)

“H
ow long is it until you have the Operation?” Angela asked.

My knife faltered. I sliced a chunk of onion dangerously close to my fingers. We were in the kitchen preparing
the meals for the GEMs. In Area 14, or indeed any Area outside London, school for Blemished means learning how to be their maids, cooks, cleaners, personal assistants, nannies – slaves.

“Just over six months,” I answered. I smiled grimly and added, “Things will be better after the Operation. Are you looking forward to it?”

For just a second I saw a glimmer in Angela’s eye, something that gave me hope. But it was soon gone and replaced by a glassy stare, watery from the onion vapours. “Of course. It is a great gift from the Ministry. But I have another fifteen months. I’m only fourteen.”

Despite her age Angela had an air of maturity, the kind of maturity that only comes from life experience – difficulty, pain. All are things the Blemished know about.

I looked around the kitchen at my classmates, about a dozen in total, all girls – male Blemished are sent on work experience – all concentrating on their tasks. We varied in height, age, build and skin colour, but we all wore the Symbol of the Blemished, the same uniform of black tunic and black headscarf, and we all wore the same grim expression. 

After Sebastian shook my hand in the hallway my nerves had been a jangle. I thought about how stupid I was for letting myself lose control like that.
After all the lectures from my dad about blending in and not drawing attention to myself, the first thing I did at school is show my hair to a GEM and even
shake his hand
.

I’d expected a
big reaction from the teacher, detention or a humiliating dressing down, but she had not spoken a word to us. She only watched from the front of the kitchen, occasionally walking around the students, her high-heels clicking on the wooden floorboards, watching us. She always watched us.

“One hour until serving,” Mrs Murgatroyd said. The sound of her voice sent a jolt down my spine. There was nothing harsh about her words, but her cold tone gave me the creeps. With relief I saw her stride the width of the room and leave.

“She really is scary,” I said in a low voice to Angela.

“Hey new girl?”

I turned around to the speaker, a tough looking girl with frowning brown eyes. She held a large chopping knife in one hand and a carrot in the other. I thought to myself that without the carrot she would cut an intimidating figure.

“What are you thinking going round touching GEMs like that? Don’t you know the rule at St
. Jude’s?”

I shook my head.

“One crime – all punished.”

“That’s not fair,” I stammered.

She exhaled air in a
pffft
noise. “Wake up, girl. Being Blemished isn’t fair. You should know that already. Where are you from anyway?”

“Area 10,” I answered. The rest of the class stopped working and turned to watch our exchange.

“Bunch of pussies down there. No wonder you’re going around touching GEMs. Bet you’ve never even had anyone in Twitching Sundays,” she said with an almost triumphant sneer.

“Billie,” Angela warned, “go easy on her. She’s new.”

Billie ignored Angela’s plea and continued. “Area 14 has the highest number of executions. Higher than London and definitely higher than
Area 10
.”

I cringed at the mention of Twitching Sundays, it always brought
back bad memories for me. Despite many Blemished living in poverty and instead of paying for extra food and clothing, the Ministry had chosen to foot the bill for the electricity to our ridiculously large TV screens set up in every house. There was one channel – their channel – and most of the time it churned out inane beauty contests, GEM soap operas and reality competitions to find the next “star”. But every fourth Sunday of the month the Ministry played live footage from the execution ground into our homes. 

Once, as a child, I watched Twitching Sundays with my friends. It was a dare. I remembered it all with startling clarity – a Blemished woman convicted of conceiving illegal children, her hands bound by cuffs. They put a black cloth over her face and a noose around her neck. With a sick feeling in my stomach I remembered the way her feet had danced as she died. I’d never watched it since; instead I hid in my room or played outside trying not to think about the way she’d twitched.

“Is that really something to brag about?” I said bitterly.

Billie stepped forward, brandishing the knife. “You’ve got a smart mouth on you.” She glared at me with her dark eyes, fierce, almost protective. Despite her threats there was something likable about her. There was something which reminded me of photographs of my mum, the same fierceness in her eye.

“Billie, really. Would you just calm down?” Angela stepped between us, a reluctant mediator. “It’s her first day here for God’s sake. She’s not even had chance to get
settled
yet.”

“I don’t see what that has to do about it. She almost got us all in trouble once today. Murder-Troll’s gonna be watching you like a
Hawk
from now on so don’t do anything stupid,” she said pointing the knife at me again.

I held my hands up as if in surrender. “Look, I don’t want any trouble. I just want to keep my head down and get on with things. That stuff with the GEM – it won’t happen again. You have my word.”

Billie’s features softened and she nodded in approval. “That’s good then. I have people to think about.” Her eyes drifted to a short girl with a large frame leaning over the counter at a funny angle. She stood with her back arched as though she found the weight of her body uncomfortable. Her tunic was baggy, at least a few sizes too big even for her plump body. I couldn’t pin-point what it was, but I felt there was something off about this girl.

“That’s my sister,” Billie said. “You’d do well to keep out of her way.” Her words came out in a hurried manner, almost urgent. She was nervous. Billie’s sister looked up with a sheepish smile.

“All right,” I said to Billie. “Just let me get on with my work.” I turned back to the counter and my dissected onion, feeling the weight of Billie’s stare.

*

It didn’t take long for the sound of chopping, stirring and bubbling water to fill the room and I took the opportunity to ask Angela some more questions. Under the noise of a busy kitchen we could whisper without Billie hearing us.

“The girl hunched over the counter is Billie’s sister, Emily.” Angela’s eyes widened. “She used to be a skinny thing. She used to be really chatty too
, but now you can barely get a syllable from her. Plus Billie is crazy protective. They usually just sit in a corner and talk amongst themselves. In fact, that outburst from her – that was weird.”

“So, she’s not always like that?”

“No way. Like I said, they keep themselves to themselves. They rarely mix with the rest of us. Or at least that’s what they’ve been like for the last few months.”

I dared to turn a fraction and watch the two of them over my shoulder. I saw Emily in profile with Billie on her left. Emily seemed in pain, her smile tight and forced, and the blood drained from Billie’s face. The two of them whispered something and then Emily shook her head.

“There’s something not right about those two,” I said partly to Angela but mostly to myself.

She nodded in return. “That’s what we’ve all been saying.” She looked around nervously. “Not to their face, though. Billie’s bark is probably worse than her bite but no one wants to test that theory.”

We each took an end of the heavy chopping board and lifted it over to a huge frying pan. Tilting the board we transferred the sliced onions into the pan. There was a satisfying sizzling noise as the onions hit the hot metal. I breathed in the bitter-sweet scent of them and felt my mouth water.

“Can we eat any of this?” I asked.

Angela made an “are you joking” face. “No way. We serve the GEMs first. If there are any leftovers we can. But only after they’ve eaten.”

I sighed. “I figured. It just smells so good.”

She nodded. “Hey. Do you want to come to mine after school? I can introduce you to my mum and Daniel.”

“I’ll have to check with my dad. Is Daniel your brother?”

“No, well, kind of. It’s a long story. I’ll walk with you to your house after school and explain on the way. Mum doesn’t mind if I’m a bit late. So, you live with your dad then?”

I nodded.

“Just your dad?”

I nodded again. Angela knew not to ask any more questions. The Blemished always do.

W
e walked briskly. There was a chill to the air, an early spring nip, and I pulled my headscarf tighter. Next to me Angela did the same. School had finally finished and I was glad to put some distance between me and it. There is a simple pleasure in turning your back on a school building – a tiny rebellion.

In front of us stretched out the primitive road to town, busy with the GEM parents picking up their kids in fancy cars. The Blemished walked – dragging their long tunics through the gravel. Only the cars provided colour. Without them I would be lost in a scene of monochrome; a Blemished girl in black surrounded by more girls in black on drab streets, grey houses, gravel and dirt.

Above us the clouds knitted together, darkening, threatening rain, and it reminded me of the time my dad explained the Fracture to me. We’d been back in Area 10, after Mum had left for the Resistance and Dad decided that it was time I understood because he was sure the schools weren’t going to explain it to us. It was a rainy day and I’d watched as the water tapped onto the windows. He’d pulled me onto his lap – he was sat in the great big armchair he always sat in – and he said he was going to tell me a story.

“Is it a happy story?” I asked.

“No, Minnie, I’m afraid not.”

And then he told me that when he was younger, right after he’d got his first job at Leeds University and just before he’d met my mum, that a laboratory in London cloned the first human child. They called them “designer babies” and the laboratory, named the Genetic Enhancement Ministry, wanted to sell the babies to parents. They wanted to create “perfect” children for those who could pay for it and the women didn’t even need to be pregnant because they’d created artificial wombs.

At first there was public outcry. Many religious groups protested against them, turning more and more violent with every day that passed. The Government were silent on the matter. Knowing the financial implications of the new technology, they were reluctant to speak out against The GEM, or Ministry as we call them now, instead speaking volumes with their silence.

The protests became more extreme. They called themselves The Resistance and got organised – planting bombs in the city centre, attacking research facilities. But as the protests grew so did the Ministry. They gathered an army and fought back, something that no one expected and that was what took everyone by surprise.

Dad said it was in the midst of all this that he fell in love with my mum. It was right in the middle of the Fracture. That’s what people called it – the moment Britain cracked.

The Ministry drove the Government out. Dad told me about the King and his family and how they had to flee to Australia because it wasn’t safe anymore. He said that the owner of the Ministry invaded 10 Downing Street and took power, taking control of the military. No one knew what to do. The general public had been so lazy and comfortable in their democracy that they froze at the first sign of trouble. They hit the snooze button one too many times and before they knew it the Ministry had taken over Britain.

Things were tumultuous to say the least. Pro and Anti GEM groups clashed but whilst the fighting was going on people bought their designer children. Dad said that I was just a baby when they built the border around London – when they drove everyone out who couldn’t afford or didn’t want a Child of the GEM. Scores of people were sent to the small towns ravaged by the fighting, and in turn the parents of designer babies were given refuge in London.

“Area 10 is further south isn’t it?” Angela brought me back from my thoughts. She didn’t like silence and I was glad of it. “You’ll find it’s a lot colder up here. Well, most of the time anyway. It’s not so bad in summer, kind of warm actually. It rains a lot too. You know – that drizzly rain that wets you though.”

“That’s good to know,” I replied, holding back a little smile. I already liked Angela a lot. “You were going to explain this thing with your brother?”

“Oh yeah, Daniel.” S
he smiled. It was the second time Angela had smiled when mentioning Daniel. “Firstly, he’s not my brother. I mean, you’ll see that straight away – he’s blond haired, blue eyed and white.” She laughed. “His dad was no good. Ended up on Twitching Sundays.”

I shivered. “That’s awful. What did he do?”

“He stole from a GEM family,” she said matter-of-factly – as though this wasn’t the first time she’d had to explain the story.

My jaw dropped. Even I knew how incredibly stupid that was. The Ministry clamped down on any crime committed by a Blemished on a GEM. They made examples of anyone stupid enough to do it. My dad always said
it was a smoke-screen to quell the chance of uprising.

“Apparently they’d been treating him badly, cutting his wages for no good reason.”

I understood. The wages paid to the Blemished, no matter what the occupation, could barely cover food and clothes. If the GEMs were ripping off Daniel’s father he would struggle to feed his family. “So he took revenge?”

“There’s more.” Angela hesitated. “He drank…
a lot
.” She raised her eyebrows to express her point. “He got tanked up one night and broke into the Dylan’s – that was the name of the family – and stole money from them. He was so drunk they caught him easily. I think they found him passed out on their lawn.”

“That’s terrible,” I said. I imagined watching my dad die on Twitching Sundays and nausea grew in the pit of my stomach.

“Yeah, well that’s not all.” Angela took a deep breath. “Daniel’s mum didn’t take well to the Operation.”

I nodded sombrely. This was something I understood too. My mum left before she was forced into the Operation but I knew from people in Area 10 that sometimes it changed women.

Shortly after the Fracture, when the people in the towns were still trying to settle into their new homes by picking through the remnants of those before, the Ministry sent Gene Testers out. They came to us and took our blood and created the Blemished database. From that they decided who carried pre-dispositions to illness. Then they told us we couldn’t breed. The GEM had decided that there was only one rule when you created a designer baby – it had to have at least 50% of the parent’s genes – but if you were Blemished, you weren’t allowed to pass those damaged genes on at all. 

The Operation was d
eveloped about a decade ago and – working through the fifteen Areas outside London – they neutered all women over the age of sixteen. Sometimes, when my dad drank whiskey and slumped in the rocking chair at our old house, he told me that the Operation doesn’t just mess with your reproductive system – it messes with your brain too. He used to tell me how the other mums in Area 10 turned into a hollow shell and how the light in their eyes faded away. He used to say over and over again that he was glad Mum left us. He was glad.

Pregnancy is the highest offence. Taking away the threat of pregnancy is supposed to give us the chance of a normal life and perhaps even a marriage.

In all comes down to one simple fact – the Children of the GEM are perfect. We are the ugly and imperfect. We are the Blemished.

“What happened to her?” I asked.

“She just disappeared one day,” Angela’s voice had lost its cheery tone. “She left Daniel, ten years old, begging for food and searching through bins. My mum saw him like that and couldn’t leave him. So we took him in into our home and he’s lived with us ever since.”

“Really?” I struggled to keep the shock from my voice.

“Uh-huh. She couldn’t see a child suffer like that.”

“So after the Operation, she wasn’t…?” I trailed off, unsure how to end the sentence.

Angela’s spine straightened. She glanced around us to check there was no one in earshot. “No. My mum is fine. She’s always been fine. Well, she’s been a bit… forgetful recently. But she’s fine.” She paused. “I don’t want the Operation.”

“Me neither,” I replied. The words felt heavy. Released weight. I was lighter.

“It feels so good to say it out loud, doesn’t it?” Angela said.

“You’ve never admitted it before?” I asked. I hadn’t either. There had never been anyone in Area 10 who questioned the
Ministry; they accepted their future as barren cooks or cleaners in quiet indifference. Or at least they’d never shown otherwise.

“Only to Daniel.” She dropped her voice even lower. “He knows about the Resistance.”

I saw her in my mind again, Mum, the woman who left me for the Resistance, who put her politics before her daughter.

The events of the day hit me full on and I felt the blood drain from my face. Panic tingled in my hands and feet and a light-headed dizziness overwhelmed me. I had to stop on the verge of the road, my headscarf suddenly restrictive and tight around my neck.

“Are you all right?” Angela asked. “You look about to faint.” She placed a tentative hand under my elbow to steady me and it felt comforting.

“I’m fine,” I lied. “I don’t think I ate enough.”

But I wasn’t fine. The mere mention of the Resistance sent my heart fluttering with panic and it wore down my control. We were stood on the tatty ghetto pavement next to a run-down house whose gate, a rusted old metal thing on squeaky hinges, began to rattle. I took a deep breath and tried to concentrate but my thoughts had become fragments that refused to piece together. The rattling grew louder until the clasp released and the gate swung open and slammed shut. A rush of calm worked its way through my muscles and I relaxed.

“That was weird.” Angela looked at me and then the gate and back again. “There’s barely a breeze.”

“Must have been an undercurrent.” I smoothed down my tunic and tried to stop the shaking in my fingers. “Come on. My house is right up here. It’s a bit of a mess because we just moved in.”

“Hold on a minute,” Angela said, her hand squeezed my elbow. “Did you just make the gate move?”

I laughed, it sounded fake and nervy. “Of course not. That’s not even possible! My hands were miles away, you saw them.”

Angela frowned. “Yeah,
I did see them. But I know there’s no wind around too. And I know that I can’t move things with
my
mind.”

“
No one
can move things with their mind, don’t be ridiculous.” A trickle of sweat snaked down between my shoulder blades. “It’s just not possible.”

“How do we know?” She moved closer to me and I took a step back. A few houses down I heard a man and a woman having a row. The man sounded drunk. “How do we really know what is possible?”

I narrowed my eyes. “What do you mean? Do you know… Have you experienced something––?”

“Maybe,” she said, “maybe not. But I really think you should meet Daniel. He’s… special.”

My mouth flapped open in surprise, unable to form a reply. My mind filled with thoughts of my dad. This was exactly why we’d left Area 10 in the first place and now, on my first day in a new school, I’d revealed myself again. How did she guess? Why was she looking at me with that strange expression as though she knew something I didn’t? Why couldn’t I get through one day without attracting attention?

“I can’t do this,” I said. I pulled my arm from her grip and turned around.

“You should come and meet Daniel, Mina,” she called after me. “You can trust us.”

I started running before she attracted any more attention.