Molly Zero

by Keith Roberts

Genres: Science Fiction; Sci-fi Action & Adventure; Space Opera

Synopsis

Raised, tested, trained and indoctrinated in the Blocks, Molly Zero is being groomed for the governing Elite. Rebelling against her fate, she flees. An innocent searching for truth, Molly finds the world outside the Blocks alien and frightening. Her flight plunges her first into the heart of a small community. Next, attracted by their eccentric gaiety, she joins the travelling gypsies, roaming the country in Commercial Air Cushion Vehicles. And then Molly gets caught up in urban terrorism...

Release date: August 29, 2013

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 245

Sample

You’re shivering inside your coat. It’s a nice coat; brand new, an olive green mac. Belt cinched tight and collar turned up, very military. It makes you look good, but it can’t stop the shakes. You drive your fists deeper into the pockets and hunch your shoulders. You tell yourself there’s nothing to worry about, it’s only Decentralization, it happens to everybody. But that doesn’t help much either. You’re Molly Zero, and you’re scared to death.

The noise seems to ring under the vaulted roof; rumble of diesels, voices shouting orders each against the next. Through it all a thin high shrilling; the sound of all the hundreds and hundreds of kids. You stare at the tarmac by your feet. It’s wet and tyre-marked, little drifts of dirt gathered here and there; cigarette cartons, paper cups, sweet wrappers trodden into slush. Your mouth’s dry; but when the trolley came by, tea or hot chocolate, you shook your head. You knew you wouldn’t be able to drink.

The diesel beside you bellows suddenly, jets a cone of bright blue smoke at the roof. You jump, and habit makes you grab at the strap of your shoulder bag. It’s not smart to get the jumps like that, there’s no need. You’ve done your Acclimatization, all six trips, fifty kids at a time jammed into a coach to see what railway stations are like. So you’re not going to flip. Not now. But it doesn’t make you feel any better.

You look up, sort of under your lashes; at the big curved dull-coloured girders, the platform numbers and the white-faced clock. The diesel fumes hang in a fine blue haze; it somehow makes the place look even bigger than it is. You swallow. You wish you’d asked for the chocolate now because the smoke’s got into your throat, you can nearly taste it. But the trolley has gone. You lift your head a bit more. The end of the station is like a big surprised eye. The glaring light outside defines the wet roofs of coaches. Between the tracks is a thin powdering of snow. There are more locomotives out there. They’re strange; high cheekboned, each with its face-streak of bright yellow. Like Zulus or something, masked for war.

Your file’s moving at last. There’s a space in front of you; your heart thumps, you hurry to catch up. Doors are opening, slamming back along the train. By each stands a Militiaman, grey-uniformed. You hear the shouts. Dorm Twenty Five, Dorms Twenty Six to Twenty Eight, Dorm Thirty. You know the drill; pass in your left hand, loop of the dogtag twisted through your fingers. The file slows again.

It’s lighter near the end of the platform. A locomotive backs in. The coaches jostle and bump as the couplings engage. Then you’re on board and it’s follow the girl in front, follow the signs, the coaches are all numbered, Dorm Twelve, Dorm Thirteen, beds one through twenty four. The corridors are wet too, brown linoleum marked with ribbed black footprints. The soldiers are shouting on the platform, hurrying the lines, move it, move it.

The bunks are in tiers of three. Yours is on top, there’s a little ladder to climb up to it. It’s numbered, and there’s a name tag in a holder. You dump your bag, stand gripping the bunk edge and staring at your fingers. You’re wishing your head wouldn’t spin quite so much. It must have been the coach ride. It would have been better if you’d been able to see out properly. You thought at first it must be snow, frozen on the panes. But the windows were all of frosted glass.

There are metal lockers between the bunks. You open the nearest. You pull at your belt buckle, empty your pockets, put the coat away. The compartment’s filling now. You don’t know any of these girls though. They switched all the Dorms round, a week ago. Somebody said they always did. The names are on the bunk sides, Janet Nineteen, Mary Thirty Four, Elizabeth Six; but they don’t mean a thing.

Liz says, ‘Don’t you remember me? We termed together in Low School.’ She’s tall and blonde, much fairer than you, with greeny eyes and a little mole on the top lip. You shake your head, but she persists. ‘You played against us in the Beta Cup. You were pretty good.’ She ducks, swings on to the lower bunk and bounces. She says, ‘I hope you don’t snore.’

The luggage is coming through now, you were wondering what had happened to it. You hear your name called, take the case and put it on one of the locker shelves. It just fits. And there’s Staff Denniston, looking flustered. She says, ‘All right, is everyone all right … Hello. Molly. Are you OK?’

You bob your knee. You say, ‘Yes, Madam.’ You’re still thinking about snoring. You don’t snore, of course you don’t; but how can you be sure?

She says, ‘I thought you were looking pale.’ Her hair’s drawn back as usual but it’s not so neat, some of it’s come out of the clips. Perhaps Decentralization is bad for Staffmembers too. She peers at you, eyes flicking forward and back behind her glasses. You say, ‘I’m quite all right, Madam, really,’ then the woman with the luggage trolley starts to shout and she smiles and squeezes your arm and hurries on. You stare after her. You wanted to say, ‘Staff Denniston, do I snore?’ But the chance has gone now, you’ll probably never see her again. You don’t know why that should make you want to cry. But it does.

There are sheets and blankets on the bunk, stacked in a neat cube. You shake them out and spread them. Elizabeth Six says, ‘I shall want more than this if we’re going north,’ and you turn, frowning. Nobody knows where you’re going. You say, ‘Elizabeth, are we in London?’ and she straightens up. She says, ‘What do you think,’ and carries on pounding at the bunk. It doesn’t really help.

The compartment lights are on. You hadn’t noticed before. There are narrow windows beside the topmost bunks but the blinds are all drawn. The train’s just one big Dorm really. There’s a final flurry of banging doors and a whistle blows. You hear the noise as the locomotive revs its engines. So they really do use whistles to start trains. A little jerk, a creaking; and it all goes suddenly quiet. In the quiet you hear the rumble of the wheels. The lights dim, and brighten; and somebody somewhere does start to cry.

Your mind registers having seen a loo. You edge your way to the door. The corridor blinds are drawn as well. You walk slowly, because the swaying of the floor is so unfamiliar. There’s a woman Militia sergeant at the end of the corridor. You say ‘Toilet’ automatically but she isn’t very interested.

There’s a little window above the washbasin. It’s muffled glass but there’s a part at the top that opens. You climb on to the pedestal seat, lean across and work the catch.

It’s evening already, you’d quite lost track of time. Grey roofs sliding past, and the snow. More roofs, and a big building with rows of lit windows. The air that blows in is icy.

You get down and hold the edge of the basin. To your surprise, you’re sick.

You go back to your Dorm. The train’s moving faster now; and there’s nowhere to sit, except on the bunks. You swing up on to yours, lie back hearing the noise of the wheels. It isn’t like you’d imagined. No clickety-clack, clickety-clack; just a long, hollow hissing.

You wonder if it’s the clothes you’re wearing that are making you feel so odd. It’s queer not to be in uniform. The first time in your life. You chose the things six weeks back, sitting at the console in Block Twelve Senior Common. The display – the coloured display, you still weren’t used to them – showed a girl who modelled for you, twirling and spinning. Blouses, two; skirts, knee-length, two; dresses, button-through, three; slacks, prs. two. You did well. Some of the Dorm had less choice than you. Some didn’t get a choice at all.

The issue came two days ago. First time you’d ever handled shoes with heels. Sandals, prs. two; woollies, two; vests, three; pants, three. The pants only just came up to your navel. Very grown-up.

There’s a jangling in the corridor. Packed suppers are handed round. There’s a tea urn on the trolley. The tea is sweet and hot. You drink, almost greedily, and wish there was more. There is. Somehow Liz has managed to collar two of the paper cups. She hands one up to you, and grins.

You open the pack. Two rounds of sandwiches, one chicken, one corned beef; a bright-coloured trifle in an individual carton, a plastic spoon, an apple. You eat the corned beef and the apple but the chicken meat is dark and gristly, you don’t want it. You dump the carton and get back on the bunk. You think about the loo again. But it must be dark by now, there wouldn’t be anything to see. So you stay where you are. You’ve brought paperbacks with you, they allowed you two for the journey; you open your bag, but you don’t really want to read either. You listen to the train wheels again, the long singing over welded track. Something is creaking, a little steady monotonous sound just by your head; and a window is buzzing slightly. The wheels cross points. The singing is resumed.

You must have been dozing then, because the tannoy made you jump again. The words were almost laughably familiar. ‘Dorms in thirty minutes, lights out forty five.’ So once more it’s later than you realized.

You’re disoriented for a moment. You swing your legs off the bunk, get your case, find your sponge bag and towel. Round you the others are doing the same. Elizabeth starts making a fuss about a toothbrush she forgot. On impulse, you give her your spare. She looks surprised.

You join the queue for Ablutions. It takes nearly the whole half hour. Some of the girls know each other at least. There’s some giggling and larking about, but the Militia sergeant soon puts a stop to that. You brush your teeth, rinse; then you’re hurrying for your compartment, and a passing Staffmember snaps at you to get a move on. Leastways you think she’s a Staffmember, she’s wearing High School chevrons. It isn’t Staff Denniston. You wonder if she came on the train. You wonder if you’ll really never see her again.

The lights go out as you finish changing. You grope for the bunk ladder. The sheets feel good; clean and smooth, carbolic-smelling. There are bunk curtains, too. You draw them. You’ve never really known this much privacy before. You sigh, and stretch; and lights flick past outside, send a little fan of reflections across the carriage roof.

‘Pssst …’

That from Liz. You roll over.

‘Can you see anything?’

‘The blind’s down.’

‘I know.’ Then with exaggerated patience, ‘You have to unfasten it …’

You move your hand, in the dark. The blind corner is held by a press stud. You frown. Nobody has ordered you not to touch it. So as ever, it’s your decision. The sort of decision, petty in itself, that you’ve been making all your life. You sense there’ll be other decisions soon. Maybe big ones. Perhaps that’s what Decentralization is all about.

You pull at the stud. It comes undone. The blind isn’t bugged; no lights come on, no bells ring. You roll over, press closer to the glass. The train rocks, taking a curve; the noise of the locomotive gets momentarily louder, fades again.

The night is dark, pitch dark. No stars, no moon. Lights are moving a long way off on the horizon; closer are white, hurrying shadows that are the snowy land. Nothing shows clear. Liz says, ‘What’s there? What can you see?’

‘Nothing. It’s all dark.’

The tannoy says gently, ‘Quiet please. Get some sleep.’ The metal voice sounds strange in the blackness. Sort of close.

You drop the blind and buckle it shut. You roll on your back and close your eyes. You’re still thinking about decisions. There was a big notice on the wall in Block Eight Assembly. Your Kindergarten Block. It said, ‘WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU SHOULD DO?’ You could never understand it. You can’t now.

Block Eight. That was where you learned about Jesus. There was a painting in Main Assembly, a horrible painting. It showed him hanging there on the cross like a great piece of meat. You hated him at first, because of the blood. ‘Ugghh,’ said your Best Friend, Jane Thirty Eight. ‘Ugghh, look …’ You didn’t want to, but you had to. The nails made you want to clench your own hands. Like you’re clenching them now.

The girl’s snivelling again. It’s a silly sound, senseless and repetitive. Somebody told her to shut up, a few minutes ago, but she didn’t take any notice. Jane Thirty Eight cried like that, the night she failed her computer test and knew Father Christmas wouldn’t come and see her after all. Then they moved her, you didn’t see her again. You wonder how many years ago it was.

You frown. You’re remembering your own first Test. The first really big decision you had to make. Main Hall already decorated for Christmas, a tall tree by the dais and the bright, flimsy loops of paper chains. Behind them, up in the shadows, the great Chain that went all the way round the walls. Jesus was being born; while you sat in front of the console, the grey panel alive with little coloured lights, and worried. GREEN IS GOOD, the display said, RED IS BAD. And underneath, the choice. RED IS GOOD, GREEN IS BAD. And there were just two buttons, green and red.

How old were you? Five, six? You squatted cross-legged as you’d been taught and smelled the shiny, dusty smell of the floor and puzzled. The problem was monstrous; but there was no help to be had. Just the Hall with its plain high walls, the dais, the tree, the bright decorations; the grey, gently-humming panel, the two buttons set low down for your hand. Red is good, green is good. Which? Which?

You tried to make your mind go blank, let the colours flow into it, silently. Green, green of grass, of hay; soft green, sweet-smelling. Red, red of … what? A warm fire, crackling?

Your eyes popped open, suddenly. You’d remembered the Play Area, and Jane Thirty Eight falling; the piece of glass, her mouth a bright 0 as she screamed. Like the Jesus-blood in the picture. You pressed the green button, nearly without thinking. Red was bad.

Nothing happened really. The lights changed a bit, and some funny little wheels stopped spinning and started going back slower the other way. You got up and walked to the Monitor, made your wish as high and clear as you could to the dark glass lens. Was it awake? Was he there? Father Christmas? Could he really hear you? What do you think you should do? The answer, you supposed, was that you should do your best. But it was very hard.

Later though, on Christmas morning, there were the furry rabbit and the picture book, just as you’d wanted. Only the bed beside you in the Dorm was empty.

The diesel shouts, bee-bah, a great oily, brassy sound. No reason, now, not to turn and snuggle; but you lie decently, as you’ve been taught, hands outside the blankets. In Kindergarten Block you didn’t know why you had to lie like that. You know now of course. But by now it’s become a habit. And Habits die hard.

Funny how you can’t get Jane Thirty Eight out of your mind. Her and all the others, the ones you never saw again. Why? Because they made wrong Decisions? Chose red for green? You remember Susie Five, who had a temper tantrum and ran out of English in Lower Second Alpha. She’d been spoiled of course; Staff Holroyd made a pet of her in Kindergarten, you’d always thought – with strange, Adult wisdom – that no good would come of it. You remember the shock as the door slammed shut, you and the rest of the Group sitting staring blankly; and the greater shock as the Staffmember, Staff Whitcombe it was, turned and smiled. ‘It’s your decision,’ she said. ‘All of you. None of you need stay. Nobody makes you stay. Does anybody else want to leave?’ You sat frozen, hands on the desk top and staring down. Nobody spoke or moved; and after a time, it seemed an age, the lesson proceeded. Only you never saw Susie Five again.

Then there was June Nineteen, who would go through open Staff Doors; and Freda Seven, who couldn’t resist shutting small animals in her locker. Mice, a kitten, finally a tortoise. It was funny really; like Alice, or Hilaire Belloc. Only now you don’t feel like laughing. You’re gripping the blankets; and it’s nearly as if you want to scream.

You kick the bedclothes back, pull at the curtain. The girl who’s crying is in one of the lower bunks on the other side of the compartment. Your feet find the ladder. It’s very dark, but your eyes are used to it. You pull her up by the shoulders and she grabs hold of you and starts to yell. You knock her arms away and slap twice, hard, forward and back. You say, ‘Now go to sleep,’ and Liz says in a tired voice, ‘Well done …’ You get back into the bunk, pull the curtains and turn on your side. You put your hands beneath the blankets, because they’re cold. And that’s the last thing you remember.

    In the double roof of the compartment a panel slides back. A machine clicks, focuses itself and begins to rotate. It can’t really scan the entire range of bunks; it’s been badly sited, the bulky ring of the image intensifier tends to foul the bulkhead. But it can see enough.

Perhaps it’s satisfied.

    There’s a voice calling your name.

You roll over, irritably. You can’t fully remember what the dream was about; but it had to do with a great sunlit field across which you ran, following a person who called and called from ahead. You hadn’t seen her, but you knew her to be infinitely lovely. You needed her badly, more than you had ever needed anything. The voice comes again, disrupting; and your shoulder is shaken. The dream-person vanishes.

You open your eyes. There’s light in the compartment, blue and cold; and the train is stationary. Liz, Elizabeth Six, is kneeling on the bunk, leaning across to the window blind. Her hair brushes your face. You push yourself up. She says, ‘Look, Molly. Look …!’

Frost-shapes are forming already, where she rubbed the glass. You wipe with your palm. It’s like another dream really. You’ve never actually seen the sea before. But there it is, a vast grey plain stretching out forever. Standing in it, on straddled legs, is a machine. On its superstructure, a great dim number. Liz says tersely, ‘Oil rig.’

There are sidings close by, with lines of coaches. A man comes running, a Militiaman. He’s spotted the blur of movement in the shuttered train. You don’t see him till it’s nearly too late. He shouts furiously, waving his arm. He unslings the Albion from his shoulder and you slap the blind down, buckle it shut. Liz stares at you in the half light. ‘Did you see his tags?’

You still feel a bit giddy. ‘No …’

She says, ‘We’re in Lothia …’

    It’s been nearly like Christmas again. There was another clothing issue, an unexpected one. Cold weather things, thick skirts and anoraks, white woolly socks, laceup fell boots. The boots are great, rubber soles with thick treads to them and so soft you know they’re not going to need wearing in. You’ve got them on now, you’ve already decided it’s going to take a crowbar to get you out of them. Then breakfast came round and you realized you were hungry. Starving. The train doesn’t have Refectory cars, no room with all the Dorm coaches; but there are little tables that let down from the walls, two at each end of the compartment and two in the middle. The breakfast was good, coffee, hot buttered rolls and bowls of scalding soup. Everybody started talking; you found a seat by Liz, she said again about the hockey then that she’d heard you at the Christmas concert, you’d been terrific. You know that isn’t true, not yet, but it made you feel good all the same. You nearly started wondering why you’d been so scared last night. But nobody can go on being frightened for ever, just on and on. Afterwards while you were clearing the things back on to the trolleys the ‘Blinds up’ order came through on the tannoy so you rushed to obey, scrabbling with the press studs, gasping at what you saw. No sea now; instead there were mountains, ragged and blue and grand. You thought you’d never seen anything quite so fine. The train was rolling between them, past great towering banks of snow.

They even let you crowd into the corridor, watch from there. The others from your compartment argued for a long time about where you were. For some reason nearly everybody said Gwynnedd; but you and Liz knew better. You grinned at each other, not saying anything; and she winked. After that you were shooed back in to tidy the bunks; you folded the sheets as you’d been taught, piled the blankets into a little square stack like you’d been doing all your life. You wondered if you’d be sleeping in the bunk again. Surely not, you must be nearly there. Wherever ‘there’ is. That caused a pang for a minute but it’s gone now. You’re standing with Liz staring out of a frost-smeared corridor window. The train’s taking a curve so the whole length of it comes into sight, the coaches crawling against the snow like a line of grey caterpillars. Then Liz points and there are buildings, red brick buildings with funny steep roofs. You see platforms, more sidings; and motor coaches, grey-painted again, standing in lines. You’ve arrived.

Suddenly the feeling’s back; the hollowness, and the drying in the throat. You send up a sort of funny little prayer, to someone you’re sure can’t hear. Liz is chattering; but the tannoys are sounding again, you don’t hear what she’s saying. You fumble and drop your bag, pick it up and drop the case. Then someone takes hold of your arm and you’re off the train. Your feet slip and crunch on the platform. You look down at them. They don’t seem to belong to you.

Staff people are shouting, badgering the various groups into line. You’re jostled with the rest, you get separated from Liz. You look round but you can’t see her anywhere. The wind rises, lifting snow crystals from the platform edge. They sting your face. You put your hair back and the first of the buses draws alongside. You stumble up into it, nearly slip. The doors slide shut; the wheels spin, then grip. The bus turns out of the station yard, starts to grind up a hill. You stare at the driver’s back. The light from outside haloes his shoulders and the high peaked cap he wears. He’s a Militiaman, but there are no tags on his greatcoat.

The day closes in as you drive and the snow starts again. You watch the dark flakes against the sky but the whirling and eddying make you giddy. You stare back along the gangway. There’s another coach following. Its windscreen is white except for the fan shapes where the wipers are working. You wonder if Liz is on it.

The place you reach is just like another set of Blocks. They’re smaller than the ones you came from but there’s the same lines of windows, the same creamy-grey walls. They’re built in two groups with an exercise area between. There are hills all round, but you don’t take too much in.

There isn’t a perimeter wall but there is wire. You stop in front of it and the gates slide open. The bus rolls to a halt outside the nearest Block and you scramble for the steps again. Your dogtag’s in your hand. The metal’s so cold it feels as if it’s burning.

Main Concourse is noisier than you’re used to, voices lapping and splashing like water. There are noticeboards, a big clock, a stag’s head hanging on the concrete wall. It looks wrong somehow. There are stuffed fish in cases too, huge things with funny hooked mouths. They must be salmon.

It’s too much to take in all at once. You stand staring up, at the chain motif that runs round the whole hall like a frieze. Only a shadow this time, faintly painted, but it’s still there. Then somebody takes your arm. It’s Liz. She says, ‘Look, we’re Dorming together. Let’s find it.’ You walk after her. The floor under your feet feels wrong, as if you’re walking on too-thick pile carpet. Which is odd because it’s made of thermoplastic tiles.

The Dorm’s on the first floor. It’s a big room, high-ceilinged and with tall double-glazed windows that show the land sloping away, the outlines of more mountains so faint you can hardly be sure they’re there. It’s still snowing, but the Block is warm enough.

Liz says, ‘Gosh, look at all that space.’ You’re confused for a moment; you think she means outside, but she’s poking about in a locker. They’re more like wardrobes really, set all round the walls. There’s a rail with coat hangers, a shoe rack, whole stacks of shelves, even half-length mirrors on the insides of the doors. You take one of the hangers down, stand holding it. You’ve never seen a wooden hanger before.

Liz says, ‘You take that side, I’ll have this.’ She’s opening her case already. So you fetch yours. There’s a lot of laughing and chattering now, girls all round the room doing the same. But your mouth is still dry and there’s a sort of lump thing in your throat that you can’t swallow down. You take the rest of your books out, stack them on the locker. The top one is Bevis. You stand with it in your hand. You’d like to do all the things the boys did; sail a boat and live on an island and go to the shops in Latten, though not to buy a gun. Was there ever a Latten? Come to that, was there a Nineteenth Century? There must have been, surely, because Jefferies wrote about it. Did they have diesel trains? It doesn’t mention them.

Liz says, ‘Heavens, there’s even bedside lights!’ You turn to her, still holding the book. She’s wearing a bright Fair Isle sweater. It makes her look Scandinavian. If that’s what Scandinavians really look like. You’ve never met one.

Puzzle the second. Are there Scandinavians?

Your choice was an Aran, thick creamy-white wool with the chunky pattern, waist to neck, that Staff Denniston told you once was the Tree of Life. Liz says it looks great but you’re not really paying attention. It’s become important to know if there are Scandinavians. You want to ask her but you daren’t. She might think you were … well, funny or something. Maybe you could ask a computer. But you don’t know how to express the question, all you’d get would be a series of Qualification buzzes. You’ve never been very good with programming. Just at pressing red and gr. . .