The Killables

by Gemma Malley

Genres: YA Dystopian

Synopsis

Evil has been eradicated. The City has been established. And citizens may only enter after having the 'evil' part of their brain removed. They are labelled on the System according to how 'good' they are. If they show signs of the evil emerging, they are labelled a K . . . But no one knows quite what that means. Only that they disappear, never to be seen again . . .

Release date: March 29, 2012

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 385

Sample

Dirt, dust and grime in her eyes, in her nose, choking her. A hand around hers, pulling her on, reassuring her. A rock catches her unawares and she falls, her face pressed into the ground; she lifts her head and wipes her forehead – there is blood on the back of her hand. Her lip begins to quiver but before tears can come she is swept up; her arms wrap around a familiar neck and the journey continues.

The rhythm of his walking calms her; she feels safe. His body is warm; she nestles into him. She can smell him; sweat, hunger, determination, love. ‘Nearly there,’ he murmurs into her ear. ‘Nearly there, my darling.’

She closes her eyes, and when she opens them again she is somewhere else, somewhere sunny, surrounded by grass, the bright light making her squint. A face leans towards her and she smiles, reaches out. ‘We’re here,’ he murmurs. ‘We’re here, my darling . . .’

Evie opened her eyes and sat bolt upright. She’d had a nightmare again, a dream so vivid she checked around her quickly to make sure that she was alone, that she was in her bed. But of course she was. Quickly she knelt down at the side of her bed and started to whisper, ‘I cleanse my mind of bad thoughts. I cleanse my brain of evil. I look to the good, I strengthen my soul, I fight the demons that circle me day and night. I am strong. I am good. I am safe. I am protected and protector.’

She repeated the mantra five times, then, trying not to notice that her sheets were drenched in sweat, Evie made her way to the small bathroom next to her bedroom, the only bathroom in the house – why would you need more than one? – and stood under the cold shower, washing herself, washing away the smell of the man holding her. The man whose face she never saw, but she knew who it was. Every night she went to bed telling herself that she wouldn’t see him again; every night she failed in this resolution, and every morning she woke fearful, wishing she could purge herself, wishing she could be like everyone else, wishing she could be good, free from the nightmares that plagued her, that marked her out as strange, as dangerous.

The dreams never felt like nightmares. They never felt dark and scary; they felt warm, happy.

But that just made it worse.

She was depraved. That was the truth of it. The man represented the evil within her, trying to tempt her, to make her reject good things; she knew that because her mother had told her so. He was evil, and her longing for him told her that she was weak, that she was a failure, that she was corrupt and dangerous. But she could fight it, if she tried hard enough. That’s what her mother said. And the way she said it always suggested that so far Evie hadn’t tried hard enough, that the dreams were her fault, her choice.

Which was why Evie was relieved to find her mother busy in the kitchen that morning when she walked in; absorbed in cooking porridge on the stove, scrubbing down the work surfaces. Hard work, cleanliness of thought and deed, chastity, charity and order – these were the ways to virtue, this was how life should be lived. Her mother was a paragon of virtue, much lauded by the Brother. A good woman, he would say as his eyes fell on Evie, with a slight shake of the head.

Her mother nodded to Evie’s place and put a steaming bowl in front of her daughter, then returned to her work. ‘It’s nearly seven,’ she said abruptly. ‘You need to get a move on.’ She walked back to the cooker, then turned again. ‘You . . . shouted out in your sleep again last night,’ she said, her tone suddenly cold.

Evie’s heart thudded. Her mother had heard her. She knew.

Their eyes met, and Evie suddenly felt a strange but intense longing to share her fears, to tell her mother everything, to have her comfort her, reassure her, wrap her arms around Evie, to recreate the cocoon that had felt so intoxicating, so complete in her dream. But she knew it was impossible, knew that her mother would never understand, would never reassure her. She would judge her, she would blame her. And deservedly so.

‘I . . .’ she started. ‘I . . .’

‘You have to stop, Evie,’ her mother said flatly. ‘You have to fight your evil impulses. In spite of everything you have a good job, a good marriage on the horizon. Do you think you can marry if you cry out in your sleep? Do you think people will look at you in the same way if they find out? How will they look at us? What will people say?’

Evie looked at her uncomfortably. ‘I keep reading the Sentiments,’ she said, biting her lip, her hand inadvertently moving to the small scar to the right of her forehead, her fingers tracing around it to reassure herself.

Her mother looked at her for a moment, her face twisting slightly as she did so. Then she let out a long breath. ‘Reading the Sentiments is not enough. You dream because you allow yourself to dream,’ she said, her eyes narrowing. ‘Because you invite the dream in. It shows that you are weak, Evie. Imagination shows an ability to lie, to pretend the world is different than it is. So you’d better be careful. Now eat your porridge. Don’t waste good food.’

Evie started to eat, but the food felt dry and alien in her mouth. Her mother was right, though she didn’t know the half of it. She was weak. She was a deviant. She tried to chew and to swallow the oatmeal, but it was impossible – it was as though her stomach was rejecting it, as though it knew that she didn’t deserve it.

Even her stomach couldn’t follow the rules of the City properly, she thought to herself miserably. Rules that led to a good life. Rules that everyone followed without question. Don’t waste food. Don’t allow emotions into your heart because emotion is the door to evil. Work hard, follow the rules, obey your parents, do not ask questions, listen to the Brother and heed his teachings, accept your label but strive to improve it, be fearful of evil because it is pernicious, opportunistic, because it never sleeps and once it takes hold of you, you will never be free . . . To everyone else it seemed so simple, so easy. To Evie the rules felt like a straitjacket, forcing her mind and body into a shape that was unnatural to her. And the only explanation she could come up with was that evil had already taken hold of her, that it was the evil within her that rejected the rules established for her protection, for everyone’s.

Eventually she gave up, put her spoon down and pushed her bowl away. Her mother shot her a long stare, then shrugged. ‘You’d better get to work. You don’t want to be late.’

Evie left the kitchen, brushed her teeth, put on a light coat, then left the house and started her walk to work. She would work harder, she told herself as she marched forward. She would not allow destructive thoughts into her head any more. She would be a better person. She would follow the City’s rules, even if she found them restrictive. She would follow them because she found them restrictive, because she had to fight the evil within her, had to rid herself of it once and for all. Because the City was all that stood between her and self-destruction; between their fragile society and the darkness that longed to destroy it and everyone within it.

The City was where Evie lived, where everyone lived – everyone who was good, anyway. Its high walls protected them from the Evils who scavenged outside, who wanted to kill them all and fill the world with terror, just as they had before.

It had been Evils, or their ancestors, who had nearly destroyed the world some years earlier. Evils who had brought about the Horrors. Before the City, the world had been filled with Evils, humans with no capacity for love, for good. Humans were not all destined to be evil; only a few had distorted brains that made them unfeeling, selfish, bent on destruction. But others were easily influenced, and the psychopaths were convincing, twisting minds, making good people do terrible things and thinking that they were good.

The Horrors had started as a small war, but they turned into a huge one that went on for years. Millions of people died in terrible ways, all because people couldn’t agree with each other. But the one good thing about the Horrors was what had come out of them: the City. Like a phoenix, the Great Leader said in his Sentiments. Outside the City walls, evil still reigned and men still fought with each other for everything – for food, for shelter. There was no order and no civilisation. There was no peace.

But Evie didn’t have to worry about the world outside, because she was one of the lucky ones, one of the ones inside the City’s walls.

The City was the only good, safe place in all the world, and that was why it was always under siege. That’s why its citizens had to understand how fortunate they were and had to work as hard as they could to keep the City secure – to do everything they could to remain virtuous, to remain worthy of the City’s protection.

Because it only took one bad apple to ruin the basket.

The road to work was long and wide; before the Horrors it had been the financial district of the City of London, a place where evil had flourished, where all that mattered was the collection and multiplication of money. The City didn’t have money; workers received tokens for goods which provided them with everything they needed.

But whilst money and its servants had not survived, the road had, and some of the buildings. Including the hospital – although now it was the Great Leader’s headquarters. It had been to the hospital that he had fled as the final hours of the Horrors had unfolded; in the hospital that he had convinced others to follow him, to believe in him, and to seek another way of living. A good, peaceful way.

There were five departments in Government Block 3 where Evie worked: Unit 1 – technology. Unit 2 – data. Unit 3 – label changing. Unit 4 – intelligence. Unit 5 – research. Evie worked in Unit 3. It was an airless room in a grey building, a new one, built in the centre of the City just minutes from the City Square, where a statue of the Great Leader stood proudly. Most of the government buildings were new; the ground on which they were built had been cleared of the rubble and old buildings left after the Horrors. The Great Leader had seen them as a new beginning, a chance for the City to establish itself as different from the cities that had stood before, with their corruption and deviants. Not everything was new; resources were limited and where buildings still stood safely and securely, they had been incorporated into the City’s design, exorcised of their previous inhabitants and allowed to be part of this new, good place. Just as its citizens had been allowed a second chance; a new, better future.

As Evie approached the building she was already taking off her coat, ready to place it quickly and efficiently in her locker before walking up to her Unit. Loitering was not condoned in the City; busy, focused minds were good minds, the Sentiments said. Standing around, gossiping; these were the breeding grounds of evil, of temptation.

But as she got to the steps that led up to the building’s door, she hesitated, her cheeks flushing slightly. It was Lucas.

‘Evie.’ Lucas smiled formally, his blond hair made almost white by the early morning sun, his clear blue eyes so striking in colour but so emotionless that Evie sometimes wanted to hit him just to see if they were capable of tears. But that was because she was a terrible person. Only a terrible person would have such a thought about the man they were going to marry. ‘Good morning. How are you today?’

He walked towards her, hand outstretched for a formal salutation, his gold watch glinting as he did so. She held hers out too, forced herself to smile, reminded herself how lucky she was that Lucas had chosen her. Marriage matches were made by both partners, both partners’ families. But everyone knew that someone like Lucas could have had his pick. Evie still wasn’t sure why he had chosen her. ‘I’m well,’ she said. ‘And you?’

‘Very well.’ A smile. Then an awkward little raise of the eyebrows. ‘Well, better get to work.’

‘Absolutely.’ Evie nodded, trying to project herself into a future where they were married, where they slept in the same bed, where they spoke to each other with an easy familiarity instead of in stilted, awkward sentences punctuated by even more stilted, awkward silences. But she couldn’t see it, couldn’t imagine what it would be like.

He turned, and her eyes followed him as he walked back to his brother, who was waiting for him on the other side of the steps. Lucas was never far from Raffy, who looked so different from Lucas it was as though he was his negative: dark, dishevelled hair, dark thunderous eyes.

They said that where Lucas looked like their mother, Raffy looked like their father – and it was more than just looks. They said that was why Lucas rarely left Raffy’s side: because he wanted to watch over him, check up on him. Because he didn’t trust him.

Then again, no one seemed to trust Raffy much.

Silently, Evie watched as Lucas and Raffy walked towards the building; then, just before they disappeared, Raffy turned and their eyes met for less than a second before he turned again, Lucas looking at him quizzically before they were hidden from view. Lucas would be going to the first floor where the senior managers worked; Raffy to Floor 3 where the male Units were situated. Evie herself was on the fourth floor, in one of the female Units.

From the age of eight, boys and girls were all segregated to prevent impure thoughts. From then on, they were educated separately, even worked separately when they left school at fourteen. As Evie made her way to the stairs, she found herself trying to remember when Lucas had started being a presence in her life, when his visits had become visits to her and not to her parents. Not that they were ever left alone. Not for long. As far as marriage was concerned, their parents arranged meetings between them to find a match. She wasn’t sure who had been more surprised – herself or her parents – when Lucas had made the match formal by asking her parents for her hand. Even then he barely spoke to her. Even then it felt like something that was happening to someone else.

Sometimes Evie wished it was.

And then she wondered why she couldn’t be like everyone else, grateful for what she had. But even as she wondered, she knew the answer. Because her mother was right about her. Because she was the bad apple in the basket.

‘Morning!’ Christine, who sat next to Evie, smiled at her as they arrived together. ‘How are you?’

‘Really well. You?’

‘Great!’ Christine smiled again, then turned back to her computer.

Christine was the closest Evie had to a girl friend, but they didn’t talk all that much – a few words after the weekend, a smile in the morning. It wasn’t that Evie didn’t want friends. She just found it hard to make them when her head was full of secrets and longing that she could never reveal, not to anyone. And anyway, now that they were working there wasn’t much opportunity. Talking was frowned upon during work hours, and after work they were both expected home to help their mothers and meet with their matches or, in Christine’s case, potential matches that her parents had deemed suitable. So Evie found it easier not to share at all; to keep her head down, keep herself to herself. It wasn’t hard; the City didn’t encourage close friendships, after all. Friendships created loyalties that might conflict with the City’s needs. Friendships might become awkward if things ever changed. Like Labels.

Evie made her way to her desk, stopping first to pick up ten reports from the supervisor’s desk at the front of the room. Ten reports at a time; once finished, another ten would be taken until the reports had ended or the day had finished. At least that was what the managers used to say, but the reality was that usually the day ended before the reports did, and usually everyone worked a little bit late in order to finish them off.

The government building that Evie worked in was known as the System building; it supported and enabled the System, which regulated everything within the City walls and kept order.

Evie’s job was Label Changer; it was her first job and she had been doing it for three years, since leaving school. Their teacher had introduced the various trades and apprenticeships open to them. Seamstress, carpenter, grower, farmer, builder, technician, electrician . . . the list had seemed endless, some of the roles so inviting, like Growers – to immerse her hands in earth every day, to create food from small seeds, nurturing crops until they were ready to harvest.

But Evie’s mother was a seamstress; if she were to take any apprenticeship, it would be at her side, pricking herself with needles, her clumsy fingers failing to copy the small, delicate patterns that her mother so expertly produced. The choices seemed wide at school, but daughter followed mother and son followed father; that was always the way. Unless they did very well at school. Unless they were good enough to work for the City itself.

And so Evie had chosen the government, an office job, considered a coup because it required tests to be passed, interviews to be endured. More importantly it had persuaded her mother to drop the idea of Evie becoming a seamstress, convinced her that Evie wasn’t letting the family down in any way. Once she was married, their job would be complete. They thought they had done a good job, too, on the surface. Evie was a good citizen to all intents and purposes. Her grades were good; she could recite the Sentiments, every single one. She was a B, a good label; she had never been in any real trouble. Lucas, a senior manager, a respected citizen, was to be her match. She had done well. So far.

She looked at her reports. The first one: a change from B to C. Not life shattering, but an unhappy message to receive. In her mind’s eye Evie could see the letter arriving with its official stamp, the yellow ribbon accompanying it which would replace the blue ‘B’ ribbon, to be worn at all times on the lapel. She could hear the whispering of neighbours as they craned their necks to see, could feel the humiliation of the man concerned – Mr Alan Height – his fumbled apologies to his family, his shoulders hunching slightly as he left the house the following morning. Labels were how the System looked after everyone, looked after the City. People were given labels of A, B, C or D. As were the best – they were pure-thinking, truly good people who always helped their fellow citizen, who never thought about themselves, who were courageous and honourable and just. B’s were next best; they were also good, but not quite as good as A’s. They were trusted members of society; they held good jobs, ran community functions. C’s were okay. Most people were C’s. C’s were good on the whole but were open to temptation; sometimes had bad instincts; were easily led. C’s had to be careful; during the Horrors it had been C’s who carried out most of the carnage, dropped most of the bombs, co-ordinated most of the atrocities. Not because they were bad but because they’d fallen for the arguments of the evil ones. Of course they didn’t have labels back then; they thought people were just people, all the same. And if they didn’t, then they didn’t say anything in case they offended someone. But it wasn’t an offence to warn someone that they were vulnerable. It wasn’t an offence to look after them, to make them aware, to monitor them and make sure they were safe. That’s all the labels did. It was easy to see physical differences between people: who was strong, who was weak, who needed protection from the sun, who needed to eat less and exercise more. Everyone accepted that people were different physically. But inside? Inside, they were different too. You just had to know how to tell, what to look for.

Evie started to process the label change, inputting the relevant codes, checking and double-checking that everything was as it should be. It was irrelevant and nonsensical to feel for someone whose label had changed, she knew that. As Sentiment 26 explained, a label change was neither happy nor sad, just self-induced fact. But Evie couldn’t help herself; she could not forget the look on the face of her neighbour, Mrs Chiltern, when she had gone from C to D. She carried the shame with her long after her label had changed back to C; had never again spoken to Evie over the garden fence, or popped round to their house for tea. She wasn’t welcome; Evie’s parents had made that much clear, but even if she had been, Evie knew she wouldn’t have come. D meant deviant. D meant dangerous. Evie never knew what Mrs Chiltern had done to deserve such a label, but it didn’t matter. The System knew, and that was enough.

The System knew everything.

Evie had nearly finished Mr Height’s label change. Downward changes were always easier than upward changes – fewer checks and double checks, fewer codes to input again and again to ensure that changes were correct. Every day, the System would assess all the citizens of the City; every week there were hundreds of changes to ensure the equilibrium, to ensure that society was regulated, that goodness was valued, that order was maintained. Because order meant peace, goodness kept out evil, and because the City was predicated on community, on society, on the group not the individual.

But it wasn’t the several thousand strong City community who got the labels, it was its individuals, Evie often. . .