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Chapter One:
Freedom
‘It’s thirteen o’clock,’ the dog says to the man.
Watery light falls from a small, high window disclosing rough-grained concrete walls, a rail with a few grey t-shirts hanging damply, a scuffed plastic table, and on the bare floor, the thin mattress with its solo occupant.
The man is young, slender-hipped and narrow-shouldered. His small hands and feet are sensitively sculpted, like those of angels on a tomb. His body is innocent of wear, excess or injury. There are no reservoirs of fat, shadows, scuffs or blemishes. Lying half-shrouded in a single sheet, washed by weak light, he could be freshly born.
‘It’s thirteen o’clock, Don,’ repeats the dog.
Donald reaches blindly for the glasses that lie unfolded on the bed stand beside him. At the approach of his hand they emit a pale glow, the lenses shimmering with petals of light. Raising them to his face, he positions them one-handed in a long-accustomed action. He looks through the light to see the dog standing at his feet, energetically wagging its green, purple-tipped tail.
The dog is small; about the size of a terrier, with alert, pointed ears, a snub-nose, large, wide, liquid blue eyes, a stocky body and enormous paws, which float disconcertingly a few inches above the floor. Donald twitches his head. The image of the dog shimmers and vanishes for a moment while the gyro in his iyes resets, then reappears, rooted satisfyingly in place, along with the rest of the scene.
Ahead of Donald, in place of the concrete wall, a large window overlooks a spreading jumble of pitched tiled roofs, chimneys and church spires. Columns of twisting purple smoke rise artfully, undisturbed by wind, to a kaleidoscopic sky that combines the most pleasingly psychedelic potential of both dawn and dusk.
Inside the room, the walls are decorated with pale blue and silver silk wallpaper in a fleur-de-lys pattern. The ceiling, high and vaulted, is open to a sky of roiling cotton-wool clouds, on which recline fat cherubs tending to a hareem of naked deities, sighing and stretching to admire themselves and each other. Donald stares up at them idly.
‘OK,’ he says, slowly sitting up. He rests his forearms on his knees. ‘OK,’ he says again, exhales and is on his feet. He approaches the window. In the distance there is a tiny electric flash of green. He watches it blink on and off, like a firefly. It resolves itself into the tip of the wing of a green parakeet, catching the low sun. Joined now by the rest of a small flock, the half-dozen birds wheel and dip over the roofs like leaves in the wind.
Rising, falling, they eddy closer, retreat, then approach again until suddenly they are almost on him; a hockey-stick turn at the last moment and he is left exhilarated; the impression of pale ventral feathers, bright black eyes and blood-red bills persisting like a glance at the sun.
‘Donald,’ says the dog, ‘before we go walkies I suggest that we defecate.’
‘OK Winston.’
The tiny washroom is the only place in Donald’s world that is designed to be seen. Every other surface is created for the cameras. The limited capabilities of the human eye are mostly a minor consideration – if considered at all. Donald’s iyes deactivate as the rubber-sealed door softly shucks closed. He places them automatically in the light-filled drawer that opens to receive them.
The walls are a glossy acrylic, glowing with rainbow colours. In front of him: a mirror. He regards his reflection appraisingly. Stats, charts, icons, emojis appear tracked to points on his body. Green numbers for today’s weight, fat, water and lean mass ratios. He touches the reflection of his face. A map of the pattern of black-heads on the bridge of his nose appears, with a time-lapse animation of its evolution over three, six and nine months. A face materializes beside it. It peers at him critically, then smiles warmly. ‘Great progression Donald,’ it says, ‘I see our program is really working out for you.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Thank you Donald,’ she says feelingly. ‘Now, I’m excited that you’re here, because I wanted to tell you about a follow-up program I’ve had in mind for you. It’s an incredible overnight retexturing serum with genetically matched lipids and Collagenux. What’s more, for the next fifteen minutes only, I can offer – and this is exclusively for you, Donald – a resurfacing morning mask. What do you say? Shall we consolidate that really fantastic progress you are making?’
‘Sure.’
‘That’s awesome. I’ve added those to your inventory. You are looking just great today,’ her eyes mist over, ‘I’m so proud of you, Donald.’
‘We’re all proud of you, Don,’ comes Winston’s voice from the ceiling speakers. ‘All of your key metrics are in green. You are comfortably in the top quadrant for your cohort. It’s a privilege to be part of your life.’
Donald blinks rapidly. ‘Thank you for saying that Winston. It really means a lot.’
Winston adopts a self-consciously businesslike tone, as if suppressing further emotion. ‘Now, how are things moving down there?’
‘Hmmm…’
‘Well,’ Winston continues, ‘judging by your mass right now, and the last few meals, I’d say we have a fair bit to offload. Possibly the best of the week. Shall we?’
The lights drop. The intensity and tempo of the glow of the coloured walls increases. There is the thump, thump, thump of the first few bars of a hybrid disco track. Donald’s reflection vanishes. In its place in the mirror a flashing checkerboard dancefloor appears. On it, five cartoon figures, tap their feet, poised to move. They have elastic, jointless legs, pipe-cleaner arms and ice-cream swirl bodies in brown.
The track drops: legs straight, arse up, head down, hands on the floor. Donald mirrors them. The music’s tempo increases. The volume is high enough now for the bass to be felt in the guts. Hands up, turn. Hands on hips. Jump! Donald is with them beat for beat. Sassy hips, turn, head over shoulder, nod once, twice. Bring hips around. Jump! Down into a squat, one arm back, knees forward, arch back, pelvic thrust, one, two. Donald releases a resonant fart. Knees forward, torso up. Kneel. Hands on hips. One knee up. Push to stand. Point! Swap arms. Point again! Jump! Squat! Knees! Jump! Squat!
‘Showtime! Showtime! Showtime!’ says Donald rapidly. The music resolves itself to a climax; the dancers clap and hug.
‘Yay Donald!’ they exclaim in their brown voices, ‘yay Donald!’
Donald sits without looking behind him. A small dry steel toilet slides silently out of the wall to meet him. Opposite, the mirror is filled floor-to-ceiling with a live image of his descending buttocks and already-opening sphincter. Lights in the pan brightly illuminate the emerging turd.
‘Great colour! Great integrity!’ exclaims Winston, ‘real clean!’
Stars and magic-wand sparkles fizz around the opening hole. The ring of muscle is decorated alternately with flashing candy stripes, neon arrows and op-art spirals. Donald, wrists on knees, swipes the air with two fingers to scroll through lenses. For the turd he considers a helter-skelter and snake (with animated head) before settling on a carnival dragon. Like-hearts from the four hundred people watching endorse his selection.
Dozens of thumbnail films are arranged around the pan-cam feed in the mirror, captioned: ‘friends shitting now’. Donald taps the air to add the filter ‘favourites,’ and the films are reduced to three. Donald selects an image of a woman’s arse; a puppet-faced red furry movement just nosing through.
‘Challenge?’ asks Donald. The film expands to fill a third of the mirror, accompanied by a progress bar which completes about half-way before the word ‘accepted’ appears. Urgent, gameshow music fills the washroom.
Donald’s stool falls first with a wet slap into the dry pan. A fanfare.
‘Well done, Don! Eighteen ounces, single stool, 87 percent integrity. Overall score, 320!’
A rush of air as the vacuum flush sucks out the contents of the toilet. Then a spray, jets of perfumed water cleaning first the pan, then with forensic accuracy, Donald’s pink, puckered orifice.
Another fanfare.
‘Unlucky. Saskia wins. 90 percent stool integrity. Overall score 500. Usual XP for the contest. But you’re eligible for double next time.’
Standing, Donald shakes out his legs like an athlete cooling down.
‘That was still a top-class movement,’ says Winston. ‘And, as anticipated, best of the last seven days. Better to lose to a tier-one competitor like Saskia than to not compete at all. Proud of you. Now, let’s get you threaded.’
A small closet opens, stacked with identical folded grey t-shirts, shorts, and sweat pants. There is one pair of light plastic slippers. Donald dresses carelessly and faces the mirror. In it, he is wearing a neon pink unitard with animated running character chest motif, a sweat band and metallic high-tops with fluttering ankle-wings.
‘I upgraded your kicks,’ Winston says.
‘Sick,’ says Donald, noting the cascade of like-hearts bubbling from the heels. Donald reaches for and puts on his iyes so that, looking down, his clothes retain their customisations. Regarding his forearms, he says, ‘shall we have some ink?’ Instantly, patterns appear. ‘Not tribal,’ Donald muses, ‘Japanese. An animal.’ The tattoo is replaced by an intricate design centering around a koi carp, the tail flicking over his wrist. ‘I think I’m ready.’
The door slides open and Donald steps back into his room, which now stretches grandly upwards to a new sky of overhanging foliage and gliding condors.
‘Now. Walkies.’ Winston says.
It is a journey of about a thirty yards along a corridor from the door of Donald’s unit to the bank of three elevators, then a descent of eighteen floors to the ground. The corridor is relieved every fifteen feet by a door like Donald’s. An identical passage runs away from the lifts on the other side. There are another seven floors above. Nevertheless, Donald has never seen or heard another human being as long as he has lived in the building.
If he was challenged to think about why, he might say that he guesses they just come and go at different times. And he would be right. Sometimes a matter of just a second apart; their movements are perfectly and elegantly choreographed to avoid interaction.
Nobody decided this. It happened gradually, of its own accord. When strangers encountered each other, the result was sometimes awkwardness and discomfort. That was all. People preferred comfort to discomfort. And so, over time they got what they desired.
To Donald, the corridor is just part of his home. The door opens for him, so he ceases to notice the door. The elevator is always waiting, so it is merely another intermediate space between inside and outside. The world simply unfurls in front of him. The next need is always anticipated such that it is generally met before he is conscious of it. He is entirely innocent of want. He is the still centre from which springs all the forms and colours of the world. He desires nothing, because he lacks nothing. His is the first generation of the truly free.
Inside the elevator, Donald’s untethered mind ebbs and idles. A warm pleasant feeling through the tops of his thighs and at the base of his testes is accompanied by the appearance, suspended in the air, of a favoured memory. Four bodies, identical bored faces; all full-breasted; a variety of sex organs. Whether the feeling precipitates the memory, or the memory provokes the feeling is not something Donald ever pauses to consider, or, perhaps, is even capable of considering.
In any event, the memory is accompanied, as memories always are, by several others. A loop of his mother’s face, outdoors somewhere, wind-blown, smiling at something unseen, noticing him, turning; a flickering jump to the start of the loop. A point-of-view ride through a neon-lit city. Swimming, in big water. A cat emerging from a cardboard tube.
It is only when, momentarily, Donald focusses his attention on the bodies that the scene grows in prominence. The faces respond by casting disdainful looks his way and raising the tempo of the action.
He is distracted by the cat; its paws scrabble for purchase around the edge of the tube, a sudden roll as the animal inside twists and squirms. Two of the bodies flip a third over. Unselfconsciously, Donald takes his penis out of his shorts and begins to masturbate.
The top of the cat’s head breaches the tube, one paw beside it flapping fruitlessly. The fourth body sits astride the face of the prone figure. The cat births itself in a single fluid action and bolts. Donald ejaculates.
‘Great projection,’ Winston says, ‘200 points.’
The semen thickens on the pocked and mottled steel floor of the elevator which, though it has never been seen by either Donald or any of the other 400 residents of the block, is nonetheless regularly cleaned for pathogen-control by the drones.
These now, in their distant stations, watch the man, buck-kneed, alone in the elevator, tucking his penis into his shorts, lit only by the underwater glow of the emergency signage. Their minds tick, consider and conclude that they can afford to wait a day or so before initiating the next hygiene cycle.
*
Donald’s tower is one of six, built almost a hundred years before. The windows and external spaces are sealed; casualties of successive divisions and sub-divisions. Weather-weakened mortar crumbles from the seams of the irregular blockwork so that the dark facades have the appearance of cracking skin, ready to be shed.
They stand apart like nervous partygoers on what was once conceived to be a kind of park, the formerly-landscaped field now razed flat and covered with a pancake of aged and buckling asphalt. A small service drone traverses the space. Low to the ground, hunched and heavy, its six fat wheels propel it patiently, slower than walking pace, towards its task: delivering sustenance, ensuring the hygiene, removing the used, soiled waste materials of its oblivious human clients.
From the opposite direction another, larger machine, a laundry specialist, approaches. As they reach each-other, as if synchronized, they slow and stop; the whine of their motors dying; the trundle of their wheels falling silent. For a few moments they rest several feet distant, lights blinking gently in greeting or mutual contemplation.
The towers, silent and blind, cast no shadows in the flat London light. The machines wait, perhaps exchanging data, perhaps processing some new thought in their shared, impenetrable, constantly evolving mind.
There is no movement or sound anywhere. The pole-mounted, motion-activated cameras which cover the exterior areas are idle. The corner-arrays, nosing out of the buildings every few feet like gargoyles, rest on minimum power. The four solar quadcopters docked on the roof of each tower charge silently; the wind, gentle today, slowly stirring the blades. Not a single sign of life, no bird, insect, dog, cat or rat moves to disturb the perfect, ordered peace.
Now, sixteen cameras lift their rodent heads in unison as the ground-floor door opens and Donald emerges. Twenty-five stories above, a copter de-docks with a mosquito whine and tracks him, first walking, then gently jogging away from the tower. As he reaches the grass-tufted path, each successive streetlight notes his presence. A hundred watchful eyes; two hundred; more – never relenting, never missing a frame of time, always recording, always protecting, reap their steady harvest of knowledge.
They know the roll of Donald’s shoulder, the tilt of his hip, the turn of his heel. They know what he eats, how frequently he shits, what arouses him, what upsets him, what frightens him, and what makes him call out in the night. They know the memories he returns to and the friends that he makes and the lovers he takes and the things that he buys. They know his secret fears and longings, his insecurities, his conceits; his ailments and itches, his hopes and his dreams.
Now, as Donald turns his face skyward to beam at the blue sky only he sees, the cameras note once again the size and relative position of his irises and his ears and his orbits and his nasolabial folds, comparing the face with how it looked yesterday and the day before and every day going back to his birth. And they know, from their intimacy with billions of other faces and their genetic profiles, how this face will appear tomorrow, and in a year, and five years and in ten years; how it will stretch and sag and collapse and crumble until the day (which they can predict with 95% accuracy) that it falls finally still.
Thus is Donald spared the consequences of his genetic inheritance: his species’ instinct, born of eons of scarcity, to gorge itself on the most calorically dense foods available; its drive to pass on genetic material to the sexual partner most likely to sire healthy and long-lived offspring; its suspicion of the other. All this is mitigated and managed by a wise, objective, benign system with no need to coerce, no need to compel; no need even to persuade.
He is never disappointed because whatever is unachievable is beyond his capacity to imagine. He is never disgusted because everything he sees, hears, touches or tastes is configured to delight him. He cannot be a burden on society because there are no bad choices to make. There is only freedom. Freedom from want. Freedom from fear. Freedom from the awful, churning sense of uncertainty which dominated the lives of generations past.
Through action piled on action; through the cadence and the content of his speech; the eye-tracked wanderings of his irises over screens; the pressures and lingerings of his digits on glass, his dopamine-looped compulsions, his shopping baskets, his sleeping habits, his patterns of porn, Donald and billions like him have proved time and time and time again, beyond doubt; beyond equivocation; beyond argument, what he prefers. He wants predictability. He wants order. He wants safety. Only the sick pursue chaos and risk.
Donald loves the park. He loves the way, on days like today, that the soft air moves over his skin, making him feel even better about his pores. He loves the many-coloured flowers bursting from foliage that tumbles from the balcony gardens stacked skyward on the glistening glass towers. He loves the way the silvery leaves of the poplars that border the field shimmer in the sun. He does not reflect on the fact that the trees are not always like this; that sometimes they are great and broad and noble things with exuberant spreading canopies, or are sometimes not green at all but golden or fiery red. All that matters is that the sight of them makes him feel good.
He jogs with Winston to the edge of the estate. Here, a long, straight, wide road runs down a shallow hill towards streets of smaller, more densely-packed buildings. The addition of more trees and verdant growth through his iyes gives the scene a charming, pastoral air. As he rounds the corner on to the road, four young men, all of similar age, height and build to Donald, converge.
They greet each-other enthusiastically, though none has met the other in person before. All identically dressed in reality, they express admiration at their peers’ selection of iye-wear. Donald’s shoes, with their metallic wings, are the subject of particular simulated praise and simulated envy. Flurries of like-hearts arc towards them as the men slap each other on the back, clasp hands and even hug, the better to benefit from the points-dividend conferred by non-sexual physical contact and sincerely expressed positive regard between heterosexual men.
There is a shared moment of recognition. The friends line up behind a starting tape which floats in the air in front of them. An atmosphere of seriousness descends. The men bounce on the spot. A large starting-pistol appears. It discharges and the five set off in unison at a gentle jog. Each is accompanied by a ghosted figure of himself, representing his theoretical personal-best pace over the proscribed distance. The ghosts run on ahead, the leader glowing gold, the next silver, the next bronze and the last two a cheerful electric blue. The backs of the ghost-shirts scroll messages: ‘come on Donald!’ ‘You can do it Simon!’ ‘Lucas, you’re the best!’ ‘Everybody loves a tryer!’
Lucas, the smallest and slightest of the five, with thin, reedy limbs which he’d either chosen not to, or could not afford to embellish, puts on an unexpected burst of speed catching up with and, in a confusing manouevre, actually over-taking his avatar. Winston, bounding alongside – accompanied by Lucas’s Weimaraner, Simon’s blue cat, Jonah’s half-rabbit-half-frog and Peter’s maggot – exclaims, ‘Wow! The outside bet has blown the field wide open! There’s everything to run for!’
Donald, whose avatar is second in the pack and just a little way in front, is accustomed to running the pre-configured race sequence (indeed, was that not the whole purpose of a race?), feels an unfamiliar sense of injured confusion. He invests some energy and, surprised by what he has at his disposal, surges ahead of his avatar and then ahead of the leader. He is rewarded with a pleasantly exhilarating sensation. ‘Awesome,’ he exclaims.
A moment later he feels a queasy panic at the sight of the empty road unfurling in front of him with nothing and no-one to follow. Perhaps alerted by a physical sign – a change in the tempo of his breathing; a slight dilation of his pupils – Winston lays out ahead of Donald a glowing pathway of intersecting arrows. The dog scampers in front. ‘You’re ahead of your predicted PB, Don. I should warn you that the optimum pace takes into account drop-off in response to fatigue and you will, if you are not careful, imminently experience a significant fall in energy output that will more than mitigate the gains you are making at this stage in the race, Don!’
Lucas pulls alongside Donald, his small arms and legs pistoning evenly and efficiently. He looks sideways at Donald and half-smiles. He does not accelerate, but stays with him. ‘I’ll just…’ pants Donald, ‘I’ll just… you know…’ Donald finds that by timing his breathing with his foot strikes he can create a kind of rhythm, which seems to distract him from the effort required to keep up. And yet the effort is, somehow, paradoxically, pleasant.
Left-right-in, left-right-out. Left-right-in, left-right-out. He turns again to look at Lucas. Lucas smiles again. Donald twists to steal a glance behind him. Almost on top of him: his avatar, then Lucas’s, then the three others. Their expressions are passive.
Then, suddenly, awfully, an explosion of light flashes behind his eyes and Donald is overwhelmed by what feels to him like the worst pain he has ever felt. He stops almost dead and drops forward, first folding at the waist, then at the knees until he is on all-fours. ‘Help me! Help me! Oh, help me! What is happening to me?’
He looks up to see Winston at his side, head cocked quizzically. The other four run on (by the end of the race twenty minutes later, none except Lucas will remember that there had been a fifth competitor, and he only vaguely). ‘Wh… what is happening?’
‘Are you experiencing dizziness?’ Winston asks.
‘Yes!’
‘Shortness of breath?’
‘Yes! Yes!’
‘Pain or tightness across the chest?’
‘Pain, tightness everywhere! Oh, what’s happening to me Winston?
The quadcopter assigned to their grid descends to the next sensor level where it can determine life-signs more reliably. Hearing the whine, Donald rolls onto his back to see the craft just a few feet above him. ‘Oh, oh, oh! This is bad! This is really bad!’
‘We’re just reviewing your outputs, Don,’ says the dog, ‘and everything does appear normal. Are you sure about the chest pain?’
‘Pain! Everywhere! I can’t move!’
‘OK. Help can be provided momentarily. Do you accept liability for all costs associated with the dispatch of the medical unit, from the point of origin to the point of call, regardless of location or dispatch time? Do you further waive any claim in the event of any injury, psychological trauma or loss of life as the result of any treatment or lack of treatment you may receive, or as a consequence of technical failure, software failure or any other reason while in the care of the medical unit?’
‘Yes! Yes! Yes! Oh, it hurts, it hurts!’
‘ETA four minutes, Don.’
Donald lies staring upwards, the quadcopter still whining overhead but now surrounded, to calm him, with a ring of small, fat, yellow birds, slowly flapping first one way and then the other, rolling their little bodies over like synchronized swimmers. The sky above is a perfect blue, flecked with crisp white clouds forming themselves first into the shape of a tea cup, then a flower, a feather, a face.
Knowing the unit is now on the way, Donald begins to relax. His breathing slows. He is just beginning to wonder if, perhaps, the pain is so bad after all, when he turns his head to see a transporter parked and a pair of feet walking towards him. He pulls himself up onto his elbows. The transporter differs from others only in that it has a pale, pulsing blue light under the sills and a blue ‘A’ symbol on the roof in place of the usual ride codes.
The drone accelerates skywards back to its grid position as the caregiver approaches. Short, robust, she wears a white trouser suit with no iye-wear at all. Likewise her face, skin and hair are bare. Her face seems startlingly naked. She appears old: maybe forty-five. Or younger, with poor skin-care.
She stands over him, looking through him at the iye data. ‘So, his outputs are green. I see he collapsed while exercising.’ She looks at the middle-distance, watching something. ‘Play that back again. Uh huh. And again from the Drone.’ She smiles, at last looking at Donald. ‘Are you made of money?’ she asks. Donald looks down at himself tentatively, as if expecting to find an answer. She smiles again. ‘Let’s get you in the vehicle. Sign you off.’
‘But I can’t…’
‘Yes you can. Stand up.’ Donald sits up, gingerly at first, then slowly gets to his feet. He presses his body carefully at various spots, wincing when he gets to his side. ‘Uh huh.’ She says, wryly. ‘In the pod.’ He limps the few yards to the vehicle and peers inside.
Instead of the six or ten seats usually lined up in a transporter of this size, there is a kind of low bed with straps, he supposes to hold the occupant in place – although why that might be necessary he cannot imagine; no transporter ride he has ever taken has ever been anything other than perfectly smooth. Besides the bed, there is a chair, desk and a stack of deep cabinets. It is brightly lit. Nothing looks quite smooth or real enough. He touches a surface experimentally. ‘Your iyes won’t work in here, darling. Makes psych evaluation difficult. Hallucinations.’
‘Hallucinations?’
‘Yeah, remember when they weren’t normal?’ She looks at him appraisingly. ‘I guess not.’ She sits down briskly. ‘OK, shirt off, on the couch.’ She attaches three sticky plastic discs to him and refers to a tablet. ‘Green. Green. Green. And no urine issues. Great movements I see. Very popular.’
‘Um, yes.’ He says bashfully.
‘And how are you feeling now?’
‘OK I guess.’
‘Yes, I imagine you are. The reason for that, Donald, is that you had a stitch. It can happen during exercise. A temporary lateral discomfort. No one really knows why. All this tech and we still can’t work some things out.’
‘But I…’
‘I imagine you believed you were in a lot of pain?’
‘I was. I was. It was terrible. You can’t imagine.’
‘Oh,’ she says mildly, ‘I’m sorry to say that I can.’
Donald stares at her, his eyes roaming freely over her face with its oily shine, the deep creases from the corners of her mouth to her broad nose, her wide, almond-shaped, almost black eyes; her plump neck, her full, heavy bosom, her wide behind, her tiny feet. ‘I guess you don’t run into so many people like me,’ she says.
‘Oh,’ Donald says, for some reason growing hot, ‘no, and – well… I don’t really see people without my iyes.’
‘They do try and send caregivers from your cohort. Better outcomes. But since this was an emergency,’ she smiles, ‘I was nearest, so I’m what you got.’ She laughs. Donald is startled by the sound. A deep, rolling chuckle from the belly, quite unlike the baying noise in the throat that he has learned earns him the most points. She places her hands on her knees and gets up with effort. ‘Well, we best be moving. Time is money.’ He looks at her, confused. ‘I mean, you’re paying by the minute, honey.’ He still looks blank. She sighs, ‘the longer you are here, the more you pay.’ He stands quickly and puts his hand instinctively up to his iyes. ‘Put your shirt on, sweetheart.’ He moves to grab it. ‘Oh, I don’t think you want to take those with you,’ she indicates the sensors.
He turns towards her and, crouching together awkwardly in the small space of the transporter, they fall into a kind of accidental embrace. Her large, dry hand supports the back of his narrow rib-cage, thumb nestling between the vertebrae. He turns his face and is just a few inches from hers. He examines the fine lines running from the corners of her eyes with their slightly yellowed whites, the strange depth of her irises, the warm blush of her skin. A sweet floral aroma surrounds her hair. She smiles, ‘it shouldn’t sting if I take these off right.’ Deftly with her other hand, she peels off each sensor. ‘You’re all set, honey.’ He doesn’t move, he lets his head drop so his forehead rests lightly on her shoulder. He is surprised by the warmth and the softness. Her voice is like a balm: ‘don’t feel foolish, son. You’ll know next time. It’s better to be safe.’ And there is something about the relationship between that last word and the feeling of being with her that recalls him to a long-forgotten place; the warmth and realness of her; the solid immutability of her body, her hand arresting a slow fall.
A few moments later he is outside the transporter, blinking against the light. An unfamiliar feeling animates him just under the skin so that he wonders briefly if the patches contained a narcotic. His eyes feel strange, and as his lenses re-activate and build the scene he finds to his mild surprise that his vision is blurred by tears.
