The Forge: Fire and Ice

THE MANDARIN Robin Bilton

Howell stood at the panoramic windows on the thirtieth floor and surveyed the London skyline. To the east, heavy black clouds hung above the dirty glass monoliths of the former banking and insurance district. They were now hydroponic farms which fed the city instead of feeding off it. He shifted his gaze to the coal-smoked north, to Kings Cross and Euston where the steam trains were now returning to bring heat and darkness to the capital. He looked across the brown river towards Waterloo where he had once, as a young man, started a journey which would pluck his beloved country from the brink of the abyss.

It was 2037. His connecting train had arrived on the platform bringing a slight breeze that chased the smoke away for a brief moment. There were few people boarding this service and none were in tour class. He had completed his Compulsory Service for the year, four months in the BioMedical research labs in Salisbury. He could relax on the journey home, reset his mind.

The train left right on time and slowly made up speed as it pulled out of London. He sat back, drinking in the first green of countryside through the window. As the train pushed on towards the hamlets of Hampshire, he noticed smoke rising more regularly across the landscape, stubble burning in the fields. Autumn was here. He sighed, the visible prelude to winter dragging him back to grim reality.

‘You can’t be finished already, slacker?’ came a loud, cheerful voice from behind him.

Howell jumped. ‘What? No. Yes…’ he stammered, ripped from deep thought by the intrusion. He turned around to meet the voice. The bear-like frame of his older brother, Toberius, filled the doorway to the vestibule

‘I most certainly am, Toby,’ said Howell, rising and extending a hand. Toby ignored the gesture and pulled Howell close in a warm hug. His beaming smile, his perfect white teeth a physical reminder that they were born to different Epochs, one with money and one without. ‘Talk about luck. What are the chances of you being on this train, today?’

Toby sank down in the seat opposite him and fixed him with an intent stare. ‘Now Howell, come on, there’s no such thing as coincidence. Or fate for that matter. Not that I need to explain that to a science man like you.’ He winked. ‘Naturally, I engineered this. I need to be here with you right now. There are things we need to discuss.’

Toberius had always been one with dramatic flair, but he was also the one with rank in the Ministry. It was Toby who got his little brother Howell the Tour in Testing, offering him a chance to put his education to real use. He owed Toby for that, he was making a real difference to his country.

‘This winter, Howell…’ Toby stood up and began pacing the aisle. ‘There’ll be no escaping it. It will be colder than most. There are shortfalls, it’s not like last time. There are things we cannot fix.’

Toby sat down. ‘You will know this. You have seen the issue with resources first hand in the labs. We need brave new thinking.’

Howell nodded. He understood the problems they faced all too well. The country was still recovering from the swift economic decimation of the last ten years, its assets dwindled and debt only now in control. The streams of revenue that made recovery even a possibility would have been unthinkable before ’28. But then lots of things had happened this century that no-one could have predicted.

‘The party wants to cut the Winter Allowance,’ Toby said, ‘but you know as well as I do that it would only be papering over the cracks.’ He lifted his bag on to the seat beside him and started to pull out a file. ‘We need a permanent solution to the fuel shortage.’

Toby put a red file on the table between them. ‘I have a proper fix but I need to get it past the post. I’ve read your research, the highest marked thesis in Oxford’s history if I’m not mistaken?’ Toby flashed his winning smile and winked again.

He pushed the file over to Howell.

‘I want your honest opinion. I think we can really make a change, just like they started in ’28. I need your help, little brother.’

There it was. He was calling in the favour.

Toby got up. ‘Tea!’ he announced and headed off to the buffet car.

Alone, Howell unwound the treasury tags and opened the red card folder:

Renew – Phase II

He could hear his heartbeat. Toby was a progressive, passionate about using the waste of the past to build a better future. Howell remembered his brother marching in ’28, wanting to tear down the fabric of capitalism, to make the glass towers work for the country and not the other way round.

But as Howell read on, his heart sank. This was wrong.

Toby’s plan had clear enough objectives. It proposed to renew the energy supply that remained in the country, to divert the resources away from the north, and to stop subsidies for electricity, water and food support. Let them fend for themselves, reinvent themselves or starve. It was proposing to cut the country in two. By reducing the support going north, resources would last longer in the south. Putting the country on the front foot in the spring to strip the assets of the north and make the land work again, efficiently for all.

‘You do this with me and you’ll get a ministry position,’ said Toby, sitting back down and putting a cup in front of Howell.

Howell had taken a deep breath. ‘Toby, you can’t do this. It’s wrong.’

Toby looked genuinely disarmed. ‘What? I thought you would be with me on this! Come on Howell. This could be like ’28. Remember that? We actually had a chance at a new world but no-one took it far enough. We can finish the job. These people are unproductive leeches, they take more than they give, it pushed us in ’28 and it’s pushing us now.’

Howell felt uncomfortable. He had always looked up to his brother. It felt wrong to be the one bringing reason to this conversation. ‘Toby, you are talking about normal people in good health with good immune systems. It’s not like in ’28 at all. They were the old, the useless, the burden. The NHS was bankrupt. We passed the Testing and Recycling Act because that’s all they were good for.’

‘Fuck this,’ his brother said, standing up. ‘I don’t have time for bleeding hearts.’

‘Please,’ said Howell calmly. ‘Sit back down.’

Toby slowly sank into the seat, still red-faced and breathing hard.

Howell laced his fingers together and leant towards his brother. ‘You misunderstand me Toby,’ he continued. ‘I think you are wasting an opportunity. You don’t go far enough. We can make this a new stock, make the north work for us.’

Toby’s eyes widened as realisation dawned that he had completely misjudged the conversation.

Howell went on. ‘Yes, you remove consumption and shore up the southern supply lines, but think of the BioMed testing potential. You have whole regions at your disposal. Think of the revenue! You have three large prisons, male and female. You control everything that goes in and out, test a different application method on each group of inmates. Think about the schools. There are anti-aging drugs that are designed for administration at puberty. You have hospitals with maternity wards, the highest value testing environment.’

He paused to collect himself. ‘We have a huge opportunity here.’

Howell’s testing group at Porton Down had been what remained of the elderly. The cancer drugs were not as effective on them, their DNA having given up, their own bodies feeding off themselves. It made him sick to think of the mess they had created. And there wasn’t enough expired stock now to help the fires burn for even one more winter.

Howell took a sip of his tea and continued, ‘Let’s look at the drugs that failed to make it to market due to fatalities. Toby, I bet there’s a weapon or two in there. Christ, can you imagine what the US would pay for live trials?’

Suddenly, he saw just how many possibilities there were. He banged his hand down on the table, making Toby flinch, and continued, excitedly, ‘We had a promising cryo preservation product from the Middle East that just needed a stronger test pool. They were desperate for larger trials; they have deep pockets, Toby. They have oil.’

Toby said nothing.

Howell was driving the conversation now. ‘Think of this; we flood a mine with cryo preservant. What damage can we repair? That’s the longer game here; we use the population as a continual testing bed, a flooded mine this month, tainted tobacco the next. Let’s use them for a few months before we recycle them.’

A flash of lightning danced across the skyline, snapping Howell back to the present. He regretted that Toby was not here to share his victory but you were either a progressive or a problem. Toby had let him down, had betrayed the spirit of ’28 and allowed himself to become paralysed by bureaucracy and fear. Afterwards, Howell’s ascension in Whitehall had been swift and easy.

Sitting down behind his stately dark oak desk, Howell stroked the paperweight on the blotter. Beautiful white incisors sparkled, suspended inside the glass, smiling up at him as they had always done.

the end