Shivering under the thin blankets, Sheila rolled over on to her side. Her stomach was swollen and sensitive to the touch and she wriggled awkwardly to get comfortable, then slowly allowed her eyes to close and tried to coax her body into sleep.
She was woken what felt like minutes later by the sound of voices close by. Sheila froze. Voices close by were never a good thing in her experience of this place.
‘Right. So we think this one’s nearly ready?’
‘Levels look right.’
‘Lovely. And how many are we looking at?’
‘At least twelve, maybe more.’
The other voice whistled. ‘Great. OK, then, let’s wheel her in.’
Sheila felt her bed moving and she opened her eyes, fearfully. Behind her was a heavy-set man, pushing her bed; at the foot, pulling her, was a nurse she recognised.
‘Where . . . where am I going?’ she asked, trying to keep her voice level.
The nurse looked at her irritably. ‘Does it matter?’
‘Am I going back to Grange Hall?’
The nurse grimaced. ‘No, Surplus. You’re about to repay your debt to society, young woman.’
‘Does that mean I’m going to be a housekeeper now?’ Sheila asked hopefully. ‘Does that mean I’m going to a house?’
The nurse laughed. ‘A house? Give me a break. Now shut up or I’ll have to inject you, and the doctor prefers you lot awake, understand?’
‘Awake?’ Sheila asked, before she could stop herself. ‘For what? What’s the doctor going to do to me?’
‘What’s the doctor going to do to me?’ the nurse repeated, her voice mocking. Then she looked past Sheila to the orderly pushing her bed. ‘All right, stop a second will you?’
The bed stopped and the nurse pulled out a needle. ‘Just a little one,’ she said. ‘She’ll be awake in time for the op.’
Sheila felt a hand clamping hold of her arm and the sharp pain of a needle being inserted into it.
‘That’s better,’ the nurse said to no one in particular as she disposed of the needle. ‘You’d have thought with all the experiments they do on Surpluses they’d have mutated a gene by now to stop them talking. Organ regrowth is all very well, but what about us? We’re the ones that have to deal with them day in, day out.’
Sheila’s head started to spin and,
seconds later, she felt herself falling into a deep sleep.
The room Peter found himself in reminded him of the old depots and derelict warehouses he’d spent time in when he was younger, being dropped off, picked up, left sometimes for days at a time while the Underground tried to work out what to do with him, tried to find someone who’d be prepared to take him in. Boys were difficult, Pip would mutter to him; girls were easier to hide, easier to entertain. Boys needed space to run around, but running around simply wasn’t an option for illicit children, not with prying eyes everywhere, not with the Catchers ready to pounce at any minute. It had got harder as he had got older, too – there were always homes for young children, always people who would offer to hide babies, but a growing boy was a challenge. Any boy more than five years old was difficult to place.
Peter frowned and pushed the memory from his mind. Then, pausing only briefly to take in the shabby state of the room, the boxes piled up, the unswept concrete floor, he scanned the room. In the far corner, only just visible behind a pile of what looked like rubbish and rubble, he saw a door. Checking that there was no one to see him, he scurried towards it and opened it just a fraction. The first thing he heard on opening the door was the voice of his grandfather, and he quickly jumped back.
‘So you see,’ his grandfather was saying, ‘Longevity is a wonder drug, but it has its limitations. What we’re developing here is the next stage. Longevity 5.4. Or, for marketing purposes, Longevity+.’ They were walking towards a staircase; Peter strained to listen.
Hillary shrugged. ‘If you say so. Now, can we get on with this? The Authorities have other pressing concerns, Richard. Concerns that rather supersede Longevity.’
Peter’s grandfather smiled thinly. ‘Supersede Longevity? Hillary, nothing supersedes Longevity. Nothing ever will. If Longevity production were to cease, the human race would die out in a matter of years. Civilisation as we know it would crumble. The human race is now entirely dependent on Longevity for its very survival.’
There was silence for a few seconds.
‘Very well, Richard, you’ve made your point.’
‘Good. And now, if you’ll just follow me into Unit X, I will show you the future.’
Peter waited for them to reach the
top of the stairs, then silently slipped through the door he was
hiding behind and followed them.
Sheila squinted against the bright light that was shining into her eyes. Her arm was aching where the nurse had stuck a needle into her, and her head was feeling woozy, as though she was still in a dream, and it gave her confidence, encouraged her to open her mouth.
‘Where am I?’ she asked no one in particular, trying to focus her blurred vision and failing miserably. She could see that she was in a large room; she could hear low voices, but couldn’t see who was speaking. ‘What’s happening?’
The blurry outline of a woman wandered over to her side. When she was close, Sheila could see her face. It looked kind, so different from the people who’d been manhandling her for the past week or so.
‘Surplus Sheila?’ she asked. Sheila nodded. ‘Welcome to Unit X,’ the woman continued. ‘Your procedure will be starting soon. It’s relatively painless, and you need to stay as still as possible. Can you do that for me?’
Sheila nodded. ‘The procedure,’ she said. ‘What’s it for?’
The woman smiled. ‘It’s for making history,’ she said. ‘You’re going to be helping us with a scientific breakthrough, Sheila. You’re about to become a Valuable Asset.’
‘Really?’ Sheila felt herself bristle with something approaching pride. She was going to make history. She was important. Then she winced. ‘It hurts,’ she said. ‘It really hurts. And I feel sick.’
‘You’ll be fine,’ the woman said. ‘I’ll be back very soon. Just lie there quietly, will you? And don’t worry, everything will be OK.’
She disappeared out of view, and Sheila put her hands on her stomach, wishing the pain would subside but knowing there would be no point in making a fuss. She felt her face getting hot under the lights, and tried to roll on to her side but her legs were clamped in a strange position. Her arms, too, were restrained, she discovered when she tried to move them.
Anxiously, she called after the
woman, but there was no response.
Peter took the steps two at a time; at the top was a short corridor, at the end of which was another door. Unit X, he found himself thinking, his heart thudding in his chest. This was it. Pressing his ear against the door, he listened.
‘The problem with Longevity is not what it can do; it’s what it can’t do, wouldn’t you say?’ he heard his grandfather say. ‘Our age shouldn’t be visible, shouldn’t have any impact whatsoever on our bodies, but it does, doesn’t it? Our wrinkles, our spare tyres, our lack of energy – they conspire against us. Nature is still laughing at us, holding us back. We have inherited the earth, and yet we cannot control how we feel, how we look.’
‘There’s always surgery.’
They were close to the door – too close for Peter to risk opening it.
‘Yes, but surgery is only a sticking-plaster. One operation is never enough, Hillary; we are permanent fixtures in this world. Our internal organs are Renewing themselves constantly with the help of Longevity, but our skin, our muscles, have yet to catch up.’
‘And you can help them? Really? How?’
‘Stem cells.’
Peter heard Hillary sigh. ‘Stem cells? Richard, what’s new about that?’ There was a screaming noise that made Peter jump with alarm. ‘And what’s all that noise? Do you have animals up here?’
‘Animals? No. That’s just . . . part of the process. The important thing to remember here is that we’re not dealing with animal stem cells, or stem cells taken from adults, Hillary. Adult stem cells are so limited. Once they’ve developed beyond a certain point, they can only repair, replace or be grown into specific organs.’
‘So? What’s the alternative?’
‘It’s in this room, Hillary. Just beyond those double doors.’
‘Then show me what’s behind them, Richard. I want to see.’
Peter gritted his teeth with frustration. He needed to get in, needed to see for himself.
‘And you will. We have within our grasp the Holy Grail of anti-ageing, if you’ll just wash your hands over there and put on this gown . . .’
‘But I don’t understand. I don’t . . .’
‘You will! We’re already at the testing stage. Unofficially, that is. But so far, there’s been nothing but an increase in demand from our . . . the participants in our trials.’ He grinned. ‘I promise you, Hillary, this is going to be absolutely huge. For us, for the nation . . . Follow me, and prepare to be amazed.’
Sheila moaned softly, and tried in vain to free her arms. She didn’t feel important any more; she felt unhappy, afraid, uncomfortable. She could hear screams every so often, and it scared her.
A man appeared in a white coat, walking briskly towards her. Next to him was the nice woman who was organising things on a trolley. Sheila’s vision was improving gradually; she could make out other beds, people in white coats talking in hushed voices.
‘OK, number please?’
‘Let’s see now . . . She’s VA 367.’ The woman didn’t smile at Sheila this time; she just walked over, and pressed a lever which raised Sheila’s legs up into the air, wrenching her down the bed so that she grazed her wrists on the manacles.
‘And the number for the retrieval?’
‘Oh, twelve.’
‘Twelve?’ The man sounded impressed. ‘Not bad. That’s the record so far, isn’t it?’
The woman nodded. ‘We had an unsuccessful eleven last week.’
‘Right, well, let’s make sure this is successful then, shall we?’
He adjusted the light so that it was shining between Sheila’s legs and pulled up her gown. She was hot and embarrassed, but was unable to move.
‘It hurts,’ she managed to say to the woman, who had in her hands several small glass tubes. The woman smiled.
‘No, it doesn’t,’ she said brightly. ‘This really isn’t that difficult. Just lie still and let the technician get on with the procedure. It will be over soon.’
Sheila nodded obediently. And then, as she felt something cold and hard jabbing inside her, a bloodcurdling scream filled the room. Sheila only realised a few seconds later that she was making the noise herself. The pain was excruciating, like a knife tearing through her. But it was more than pain. Somewhere, deep inside, her body was crying for something and Sheila didn’t know why or what, but it felt like her cries came from the deepest part of her soul.
She tried to protest, but the pain shooting through her abdomen made it impossible. Instead, she felt her eyes well up with tears and she prayed that whatever was happening would be over soon, because she knew she couldn’t endure it for much longer. She didn’t want to be a Valuable Asset any more. She just wanted to be Surplus Sheila.