Skeletal Read online

  ‘Can I tell you something … Skyla?’

  I keep my eyes down and heel-toe slowly. I’m not going to fall.

  ‘I dunno, can you?’

  This is the first time he’s used my name without the Ms. It sounds odd coming from a Morb. My stomach growls. I reach into my knapsack and pull out the shiny, green apple. Bunce nervously hitches his backpack higher over his shoulders.

  ‘It’s difficult to say.’

  ‘Did we not just agree to keep each other’s secrets?’ I say, biting into the apple. My lips close around the pierced, green skin and I suck hard, careful not to let the juice run down my painted face.

  ‘Yes but …’

  ‘Spit it out, Bunce.’ I say, taking another bite.

  His cheeks pink.

  ‘I don’t want to never see my penis again.’

  I almost choke on the apple, spraying half-chewed, green pieces across the floor. I repress a snort of laughter.

  ‘Why?’ I swallow. ‘Where’s it going?’

  ‘It’s not going anywhere!’ Bunce scowls.

  I sweep the apple-spit to the side of the tube with the tip of my shoes in an attempt to hide it.

  ‘Then what’s the problem?’ I ask.

  The tube snakes around to the right and the sun’s rays bounce into my eyes again, making it difficult to see where I’m going. I lower my eyelids like a sun shield.

  ‘The problem is when I change, you know, get to the end of puberty …’ Bunce scratches his head, he can’t find the right words. ‘… I imagine adult Morbihan might not be able to find their genitals under all their extra body mass.’

  I press my finger to my lips, pretending to be deep in thought when really, I’m surprising a giggle.

  ‘I see what you mean.’

  ‘I mean, that’s why you’re here. Morbihan can’t reproduce, even if they wanted to. You can’t make babies if you can’t find your equipment, right?’

  He’s whispering again. I guess this is a subject he can’t talk about with other Morbs.

  ‘I’m not sure it’s as simple as all that.’

  He turns his head away to hide his almost permanent crimson face.

  ‘I don’t want to become one of them,’ he sighs.

  I take another bite of the juicy apple and push the chunk into my cheek.

  ‘No choice, Bunce, that’s your future.’

  ‘Yes, it is,’ his voice lowers, spite-laced, ‘and being a host is yours.’

  The words cut. I swallow hard and the sharp edges of apple scratch my throat on the way down. Bunce has walked me to and from class for over a week and I’ve never heard him talk like this before. A sudden pain punctures my abdomen. I double over.

  ‘You okay?’ Bunce asks, fretful.

  ‘I’m fine.’

  I’m not fine, I haven’t been fine since the doctor shoved that rod up me. Bleeding on and off, sudden pains. Fuck knows what they’ll do to me next, this place is going to kill me, I have to get out. Perhaps Bunce can help? Hand pressed against the tube, I take my mind off the pain by watching the clouds move across the sun, the brightness shrinks away and shadows drop over the perfectly pruned dick-hedges and benches that are never used. I throw the apple core into the bin next to me and glance up at the numbers projected above our heads on the hologrammatic clock. It’s ten minutes to seven. I have an hour before I have to be in class. This is my chance.

  7

  The Cure

  Next to my classroom is a library. Hosts and Morbs are both permitted, it’s one of the only spaces we are allowed to share but it’s mostly used by hosts wanting to swot up on Morbihan way of life. I browsed the shelves a few nights ago and found the touchpads were full of inaccurate historical accounts and fictional tales of Morbihan bravery. Nothing worth my time. It’s a quiet room though, where hosts and young Morbs don’t look out of place together.

  ‘I hope I haven’t offended you.’ Bunce says, and I remember he’s beside me.

  I have just told him ‘fuck your sister and fuck you’ and he’s worried about offending me? The pain subsides enough that I can straighten up, and just in time, as a humming travels towards us and we press our backs up against the curves of the tube to let a hover-chair pass by. The floating blubbery being tips his cowboy hat.

  ‘Bunce.’

  ‘Mr Seeker,’ Bunce replies.

  I wait until the hover-chair has disappeared round the bend in the tube then grab Bunce by the strap of his backpack.

  ‘What time does school start?’

  ‘It’s not school! I’m twenty, not twelve!’

  Bunce crosses his arms and pouts like a two-year-old.

  ‘What time’s your first class?’ I tap my foot, impatient.

  ‘My physics class is at eight, why?’

  I pull Bunce by the arm strap of his backpack and he stumbles after me. I shoulder my way into the library, dragging Bunce in with me. The door is old, it doesn’t disappear into the wall automatically, it swings back and almost hits Bunce in the face. He holds out a chubby hand and stops it. Inside is carpeted and the sound of my heels softens against the stretch of navy threads. The library doesn’t have an old smell of wood and centuries gone by, like City Hall does, it smells of newness and cleaning agents. Bunce whispers to me, not wanting to disturb the five hosts and two young Morbs quietly reading in a corner.

  ‘What are we doing in here, Ms … I mean, Skyla?’

  I lead him over to two chairs in the furthermost corner, plucking two touchpads from the closest shelves as we pass. Above us, the library alcoves have been decorated with elaborate carvings that look like wood but aren’t, they’re metal, sprayed brown, and on the other side of the room a grand fireplace dominates, flickering fire alight in the grate. Except there’s no heat, no burning smell, no aroma of old ash yet the crackling sound is there. It’s a good imitation, as are the fake bookshelves. I prod the spine of a leather-bound book at eye-level and the image distorts, more holography, like the vision screen projection in the Vable’s lounge.

  ‘We can talk in here without being overheard.’ I say, carefully lowering myself into a chair. As I bend in the middle, there’s a pinch to my abdomen, I twist and turn in my seat, trying to find a comfortable way to hold my body, a position that won’t cause me so much discomfort. I sit straight-backed, turn on the slimline device and it lights up my face. Bunce copies me. I lean over the arm of my chair and pretend I want to show him something on the touchpad.

  ‘I saw a programme on the vision screen the day we met,’ I say, in a low voice.

  ‘You were watching the VS?’ Bunce asks with a tone like I’m the biggest liar he’s ever met.

  ‘Yeah, your sister put it on for me. Not for long, for a few minutes before you arrived.’

  I point to the touchpad and Bunce nods in interest at the blank screen. He’s on board with the charade.

  ‘I’m surprised she let you do that,’ he says. He doesn’t believe me.

  ‘Shhh.’ I press my painted nail to my lips; my mind racing to access the memory I need. ‘Let me think …’

  Bunce immediately falls silent and my thoughts ring loud inside my head: Bunce doesn’t want to be hover-chair bound, I don’t want to be a host. We have a common interest. What if he’s my ticket out of here? Help myself by helping him? Cure the Morbs of their weight gain and there’ll be no need for me to be here, I can go home.

  ‘… serum,’ I say, trying to recall the conversation Hatti and Delia were having.

  ‘Serum?’ Bunce repeats.

  ‘That’s right, a scientist created a serum, a type of cure but it was dangerous or something. What if we find that scientist and ask him about it?’

  ‘A cure for the weight gain?’

  Bunce frowns and I wonder how he can be so thick.

  ‘No,’ I scowl, ‘a cure for your insufferable ignorance … yes, of course for the weight gain!’

  Two hosts, one dressed in a lime green poodle skirt and boned bodice, the other in a ruby red silk
dress, both with matching bows tied at their crown, glance up at my raised voice. Bunce and I stop talking for a moment, then Bunce mouths to me.

  ‘Are you sure? I haven’t heard anything about that.’

  ‘I’m sure,’ I whisper back, ‘maybe they’re working on new cures all the time.’

  I lean closer to Bunce and we huddle.

  ‘Do you know what would happen if the weight gain was cured?’ Bunce shakes his head. Unlike me, he obviously hasn’t given much thought to the notion of a world without hover-chair bound, organ-enabled Morbs. ‘No more hosts. No disappearing penises. Freedom, Bunce! Freedom!’

  Bunce’s mouth hangs open as a light switches on in his head.

  ‘I wouldn’t be bound to a hover-chair for the rest of my life?’

  ‘Nope.’ I grin.

  ‘Maybe I could even go outside!’

  I accidentally tap the cover of a book on my screen and the projection of a teal rose blooms out of it.

  Bunce’s eyes light up, rose mirrored inside the blue. He can see it – see himself setting foot in the real world for the very first time.

  ‘Yep,’ I nod, and tap the screen, the rose shrinks away.

  ‘I can’t imagine it,’ he says solemnly, his eyes dull, light fading.

  How quickly Bunce has gone from hopeful to defeated.

  ‘Do you know where the labs are?’ I ask.

  Bunce stares into space.

  ‘Bunce, the labs?’

  ‘I do, but we’re not permitted …’

  ‘Forget the rules for a moment. Can we get into the labs?’

  ‘I suppose, they’re not guarded.’ His voice sounds far away, like he’s talking to someone in another dimension. ‘We could pretend to interview scientists for a project or something … but we mustn’t, our lives wouldn’t be worth living if we’re found out.’

  ‘They’re not worth living now!’ I tell him. The young Morbs look up this time, holograms dancing from their screens, suspicion in their eyes at a host and a Morb talking in close quarters. Bunce doesn’t notice them staring.

  ‘We can’t walk in there and demand information. We need a plan,’ Bunce says in a hushed voice.

  ‘Then let’s make one.’

  Our eyes lock.

  ‘Seriously?’ he says, wide-eyed.

  The cringeworthy twitters of my classmates lining up outside starts to build, the hosts in the library with us gather their bags and slink towards the door. I watch them shimmer past, and know I have never been more serious about anything in my life. I have to get out of here, now.

  ‘Shake on it?’ I say.

  I hold out my hand in the Morbihan custom. Bunce nervously grasps it and his warmth melts the cold from my frozen fingers. We’re so different, Bunce and I, and it’s not only the colour of our skin and eyes and the shape of our bodies that’s different, it’s the colour of our consciousness, mine burns orange like the sun, his sways green like the leaves of a tree. Will I burn him down or will he keep me alight? A twinkle of sunshine reflects in the calm aqua of his eyes. I have an ally. An ignorant, insulated, immature ally but an ally none the less. My skin tingles with a new-found hope.

  8

  Lab B

  Day Ten.

  Mistress Vable permitted Bunce to take me on a ‘tour’ of the complex when he told her how interested in Morbihan life I was after seeing the gardens. He’s getting good at this ‘truth-stretching.’ This pleased my fat-headed mistress. She thinks of it as one-upmanship. Her host will have the most knowledge of the Morbihan way of life, thanks to her little brother’s forward thinking and eagerness to help his big sis. Bunce told her he’d be happy to show me more of the complex and then, before bringing me back, he would stop off at the labs to do research for his ‘science project.’ The lie was bought – clips, comb, and curler. I’m finding that even though fully grown adult Morbs value truth, younger Morbs don’t hold those same values as dearly. I wait outside my classroom and replay my last encounter with Bunce.

  The gardens are under a glass dome. The dome is packed with hundreds of species of plants and flowers. After that blue rose popped up on the touchpad in the library, Bunce took it as a sign the gardens would be a safer place for us to talk. One plant that caught my eye, (and I can’t stop thinking about the gruesome thing) was the Giant Sundew – a great octopus of vines, with several pitchers. It’s roped off, behind a warning sign which reads: ‘DANGER: Keep your distance!’ Bunce says it’s carnivorous and that he’s seen botanists feed it rats. I wish I could feed it half the population of Gale City.

  It was humid in the gardens, and this was the reason we could hatch our plan there; no one else was around. Adult Morbs would overheat, which meant they could only visit the gardens at certain times of the day, when air conditioning is permitted. The heat wasn’t uncomfortable for me, I’m used to it; in the city it can reach unbearable temperatures in the summer, but Bunce isn’t used to it and was sweating like a Runner with a score of glory, trying to escape capture. I liked the gardens; to me they felt like a little slice of heaven planted in the middle of Hell.

  Strolling amongst the plants, Bunce told me that a Morbihan scientist is still working on a cure and that his experiments are top secret. Bunce got this information straight from the source, or as good as; the scientist’s granddaughter. I haven’t felt this excited since my grandfather gave me a necklace for my tenth birthday. That necklace was a secret he kept from Central and a secret I’ve hidden under the floorboards of my cube for years. The serum is a secret I must steal.

  The sound of sneakers squeaking their rubber soles down the corridor grows closer. He hasn’t backed out. Good. I’ve only known Bunce a little over a week, so I don’t really know him at all. A week isn’t long enough to get to know anyone. I’m not sure if he’s as serious as I am about changing the future. I wonder if he’s bored and looking for a bit of excitement. If it’s the latter, he’ll be in for a shock. Skels do what they mean to do. When we put our mind to something, it gets done. One way or another.

  ‘We set?’ I ask, dropping into a steady stride beside him.

  ‘Yes.’ Bunce nods.

  I look him over. If we hadn’t dressed ourselves anyone would think the dressers had chosen our clothes to complement each other. I wear a marigold yellow baby-doll dress with gold trim, and he wears a garish, gold sequin smattered shirt, ruffed at the neck and arms. We turn a corner and enter a dim tube; the see-through chamber is darkened by the charcoal clouds outside.

  ‘And you know which lab it is?’ I ask. His clothes are distracting. Who pairs a gold top with yellow, plaid trousers and spring-green sneakers? What was he thinking when he put that on?

  ‘It’s Lab B …’ Bunce says, nerves shaking his voice. Has he got tiny gold clips in his hair? He spots me staring. I quickly turn to face the direction we’re heading. ‘Kally said Lab B is where her grandfather works and it’s primarily used for creating vaccines and medicines. She also said …’

  Bunce glances around nervously. I draw closer to him.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Someone’s coming…’

  He takes my hand and drags me. I stumble along on my gold stilettos, Bunce strides on, looking over his shoulder every few seconds, ignoring the jolts to his hand every time I slip and stagger. A whooshing noise, like wind in a tunnel, draws closer and Bunce throws out his arm, flattening me to the curved wall. Three young Morbs speed past us like lightning, rush of air freeing wisps of hair from my updo. Bunce glares at them as they disappear down the corridor, in an echo of laughing and whooping.

  ‘Air-Soles aren’t permitted in CORRIDORS OR TUBES!’ he yells.

  I smirk.

  ‘Assholes aren’t permitted … and you have a go at me for swearing!’

  Bunce chuckles.

  ‘Air-Soles,’ he lowers his voice, ‘not assholes!’

  ‘What are Air-Soles?’

  ‘Did you not notice how fast they were moving?’ Bunce says, pointing in the direction the Morb
s had rushed.

  ‘Yeah, but everything is so weird here, I never know what’s going on.’

  ‘They were using Air-Soles, a connective plastic that you stick to the sole of your shoe, they carry you at speed across any surface, with the exception of water and sand.’

  ‘How come you can’t use them on sand …?’

  ‘Maybe they do work on sand …’ Bunce is lost in thought, ‘No way to know. I mean, none of us have been outside to test them. Maybe they only work inside the complex …’

  I wave my hand up and down in front of Bunce’s face.

  ‘Bunce … hello.’

  ‘Huh?’ He snaps out of the trance, ‘Oh, sorry. You were saying.’

  ‘I was going to ask how they work.’

  ‘I don’t know the exact science,’ he scratches the back of his head, a nervous habit, ‘they work like hover-chairs except you can travel much faster and they’re controlled by movement rather than a control pad. You push your legs out in a skating motion to propel them and then use your arms in a swinging motion to increase and decrease speed, there are these sensor bracelets that come with the pack,’ Bunce imitates the movement, slow running on the spot. ‘Top speed is about thirty miles per hour. People do tricks on them and race each other. There are strict zones for their use.’ His eyes linger where the group had passed by. ‘Reckless, they could really hurt someone.’

  ‘Do you have some?’ I ask, hopeful.

  Bunce shoots me a quizzical look.

  ‘Why? Want to try it?’

  I shrug but in truth, I’m desperate to try it. Bunce takes my hand again and tugs me forwards. I’m taken aback by the contact. When we first met, he was weirded out when I invaded his space and if he’d held my hand like this back then, I might have pulled away; holding hands with a Morb should feel unnatural, but strangely, it doesn’t.