The Heart Goes Last

VII | WHITE CEILING White Ceiling

Stan enters consciousness as if coming up from a well full of dark molasses. No, a well with nothing in it, because he didn’t have any dreams. The last thing he can recall is being in the car, the black Surveillance car with darkened windows, with Jocelyn sitting beside him on the back seat and her smug, treacherous dipstick of a husband, Phil, doing the driving.

He has an image of the back of Phil’s head – a head he wouldn’t mind perforating with a broken bottle – and then another of Jocelyn putting her sturdy but manicured hand out to pat his knee in the patronizing way she had, as if he was a pet dog. The black sleeve of her suit. That was his last snapshot.

Then the prick of the needle. He was gone before he knew it.

But look, she didn’t kill him! He’s still in his body, he can hear his heart beating. As for his mind, it’s clear as ice water. He doesn’t feel drugged; he feels refreshed and hyper-alert, as if he’s just chugged a couple of double espressos.

He opens his eyes. Fuck. Nothing. Maybe he’s been sent to the stratosphere after all. No, wait, it’s a ceiling. A white ceiling, with light reflecting down from it.

He turns his head to see where the light’s coming from. No, he doesn’t turn his head, because his head won’t turn that far. Something’s restraining it, and his arms, and yes, his legs too. Triple fuck. They’ve got him strapped down.

“Fuck!” he says out loud. But no, he doesn’t say that. The only sound that comes out of his mouth is a slobbering zombie sound. But urgent, like a car in a snowbank spinning its wheels. Unhuhuh. Unhuhuh.

This is horrible. He can think, but he can’t move and he can’t speak. Shit.

Charmaine hardly slept a wink all night. Maybe it was the screams; or they might have been laughs – that would be nicer; though if they were laughs, they were loud, high, and hysterical. She’d like to ask some of the other women if they heard anything too, but that’s probably not a good idea.

Or maybe her sleeplessness came from overexcitement, because really she’s super excited. She’s so excited she can only peck at her lunch, because this afternoon she gets to resume her real job. After putting in her morning session of towel-folding, she got to throw away the shameful Laundry Room nametag and replace it with her rightful one: Chief Medications Administrator. It feels blissful, as if that nametag has been lost and now it’s been found; like when you misplace your scooter keys and then they turn up and you get a rush of luckiness, as if the stars or fate or something has singled you out for a win. That’s how happy her rightful nametag makes her feel.

The other women in her section have noticed that nametag: they’re treating her with new respect. They’re looking at her directly instead of letting their eyes slide past her like she was furniture; they’re asking her sociable questions such as how did she sleep, and isn’t this an awesome lunch? They’re handing her small, chatty praises, like what a good job she’s doing with the blue teddy bears they all have to knit in the evenings, even though she’s such a crappy knitter. And they’re smiling at her, not half-smiles either, but full-on total-face smiles that are only partly fake.

It isn’t at all hard for her to smile back. Not like the past weeks, when she was exiled to Towel-Folding, when she felt so lonely and isolated and her own smile felt cracked, as if there was a broken cement sidewalk right behind her teeth, and her mouth felt shrunken and clogged, and the other women spoke to her in sentences of two words because they didn’t know what kind of disgrace she was in.

Charmaine couldn’t blame them, since she didn’t know that herself. She tried her utmost to believe it was just a trivial mistake: you always had to try your utmost to believe the positive, because what did believing the negative ever get you except depressed? Whereas with the positive you found the strength to carry on.

And she had carried on.

Though it had been hard, because she’d been so scared. What were they really planning for her? She’s sure there’s more than one of them. The only one they actually show much of is Ed, but there has to be a whole bunch of them behind the scenes, talking everything over and making important decisions.

Have they been sitting in their boardroom, discussing her? Do they know she’s been cheating on Stan? Have they got photos of her, or voice recordings, or, even worse, videos? She’d said that to Max once – “What if there’s a video?” – but he’d only laughed and said why would there be a videocam in an abandoned house, and he only wished there was so he could relive the moment. But what if he has been reliving the moment, and those other men have been reliving it too?

It makes her blush all over to think of them watching her and Max in those vacant houses. She wasn’t herself with Max, she was some other person – some slutty blonde she wouldn’t speak to if they were standing in a checkout line together. If that other Charmaine tried to strike up a conversation with her she’d turn away as if she hadn’t heard, because you’re known by the company you keep and that other Charmaine is bad company. But that Charmaine has been banished, and she herself – the real Charmaine – has been restored to good standing, and she has to keep it that way no matter what.

She gazes down the table at the rows of women in their orange boiler suits. She doesn’t know them very well because they’ve basically not been speaking to her, but their faces are familiar to her. She scans their features as they chew away at their lunches: isn’t this a warm, fuzzy, grateful feeling she’s getting, because each one of them is a unique and irreplaceable human being?

No, this is not a warm, fuzzy, grateful feeling. To be honest, she doesn’t like these women much. Grandma Win would say she wouldn’t trust any of them as far as she could throw them, which isn’t very far since most of them are overweight. They should burn more energy, take the dancercise classes, or work out in the Positron gym, because sitting on their fat butts knitting those stupid blue bears plus eating the desserts is piling the pounds onto them and they’re blowing up like blimps. And deep down she doesn’t give a crap about each of them being a unique and irreplaceable human being, because they didn’t treat her like one. They treated her like something that got stuck on their shoe.

But that’s the past, and she must not to look back in anger or hold onto grudges, because such behaviour is toxic, as the girl in the pink outfit says on the TV yoga show, so now she’s dwelling on blessings. How blessed they all are to be tucked in here when so many other people are having a bad time outside the wall, where – according to Ed – everything’s going to ratshit. Even more ratshit than it was going to when she lived out there.

The lunch is chicken salad. It’s made with chickens raised right here at Positron Prison, in healthy and considerate surroundings, over at the men’s wing; and the lettuce and arugula and radicchio and celery are grown here as well. Though not the celery, now that she thinks of it – that comes in from outside. But the parsley’s grown here. And the spring onions. And the Tiny Tim tomatoes. Despite her lack of appetite she picks away at the salad, because she doesn’t want to look ungrateful. Or, worse, unstable.

Here comes the dessert. They’ve set it out on the table at the far end of the room; the women get up in order, row by row, and stand in line for it. Plum crumble, the women murmur to one another, made with red plums from Positron’s very own orchard. Though Charmaine has never worked in that orchard herself or even talked to anybody who’s worked in it, so how would she know if it even exists? They could be bringing those plums in here in cans and nobody but whoever opens the cans would be any the wiser.

These skeptical notions about Positron are coming to her more frequently. Don’t be so stupid, Charmaine, she tells herself. Change the channel, because why would you even care about where the plums come from? And if they want to lie about plums to make us all feel better, what’s the harm?

She picks up her helping of plum crumble in its sturdy pressed-glass dish. There’s cream added, from Positron’s own cows; not that she’s ever seen those cows either. She nods and smiles at the other women as she files past them, sits back down at her place, stares at her crumble. She can’t help thinking it looks like curdled blood, but she draws a marker across that thought, blacks it out. She should try to eat just a bit: it might steady her nerves.

She’s been away from the Medications Administration job so long. Maybe she’s lost her touch. What if she makes a shambles of the Special Procedure the next time she does it? Gets cold feet? Misses the sweet spot in the vein, for the needle?

When you’re actually doing the Procedure you don’t have big-picture worries, you exist in the moment, you only want to get it right and do your duty. But over the past two months she’s been at a distance, and from a distance what she does in Medications Administration doesn’t always look the same as what she ought to do, supposing she was just a person.

Are you having qualms, Charmaine? asks the little voice in her head.

No, silly, she answers. I’m having dessert. Plum crumble.

The women at her table are making mmm sounds. Red crumbs cling to their lips.

Hood

Stan tries again. He uses all his strength, pushing up with his arms and thighs against the straps – they must be straps, though he can’t see them. No dice. What is this, Jocelyn’s warped idea of another kinky sex game?

“Charmaine,” he tries to call. His throat slurs, his tongue is like a cold beef sandwich. Why’s he calling her anyway, as if he can’t find his socks, as if he needs help with his top shirt button? What kind of a help-me-mommy wife-whine is that? Maybe part of his brain is dead. Dumbass, he tells himself: Charmaine can’t hear you, she isn’t in the room. Or not so far as he can see, which isn’t far.

Oh, Charmaine. I love you, baby. Get me out of this!

Wait a minute: now he remembers. According to Jocelyn, Charmaine is supposed to kill him.

Two o’clock. The first Procedure of the afternoon is scheduled for three. After leaving the dining area, Charmaine heads back to her cell to spend a little quiet time alone. She needs to prepare herself, both physically and mentally; and also spiritually, of course. Do some deep breathing, the way they show it on TV. Fix her makeup, which is energizing. Calmness, positive energy: that’s what she needs.

But when she opens the door to her cell, there’s someone already in it. It’s a woman, in the standard orange boiler suit but with a hood over her head. She’s sitting on the bed. Her wrists are attached together in front with plastic handcuffs.

“Excuse me?” says Charmaine. If it weren’t for the hood and the cuffs, she would have pointed out that this is her cell, and as far as she knows there hasn’t been a change of cell assignment. And then she would have said, Please leave.

“Don’t …” says the woman’s voice, muffled by the hood. Then there’s something else that Charmaine doesn’t catch. She goes over to the bed – risky, because what if this is a maniac who might snap at her or something – and lifts the hood up and back.

This is a shock. This is definitely a shock. It’s Sandi. It can’t be Sandi! Why would it be Sandi? She stares at Charmaine with watery, blinking eyes. “Charmaine, Christ,” she says. “Put the hood back on! Don’t talk to me!”

Charmaine is confused. Sandi never did bad things, apart from the hooking, but that was instead of a job, so why would she need to do it in Consilience? Her hair’s a wreck. Her cheekbones are more prominent than they were: maybe she’s had work done. Did she get busted along with the pushers?

“Sandi! What are you doing in my cell?” she says. That doesn’t sound very gracious, but it’s not as if she meant it meanly. Sandi’s leg is chained to the bedframe, her ankles are shackled, her hands are plasticuffed together in front. This is serious.

“Don’t talk loud,” Sandi whispers. “They must’ve fucked up, stuck me in the wrong place. Pretend you don’t know me! Or you might get in trouble.”

“Are you a, you know. A criminal element?” Charmaine asks – has to ask, though maybe she shouldn’t. Sandi’s a nice girl at heart, she can’t be a criminal element, and anyway the criminal elements she’s used to dealing with at Medications Administration have all been men. She can’t see Sandi murdering anyone, or doing any of the other things that get you strapped down five ways on a rolling bed. “What did you do? I mean, did you do anything?”

“I tried to get out,” Sandi whispers. “I tried to get myself smuggled out in a bag of trash, where they send it down that chute to the truck outside. I had sex with one of those trash guys, the ones in the green vests, you know the ones. He ratted on me but not until after the sex, the fucker.”

“But, honey, why would you want to get out?” Charmaine whispers. That’s mystifying to her. “It’s so much better …”

“Yeah, it was at first, it was going great, I was helping at the gym and then they picked me to make those yoga videos, I got some work done, cheekbones mostly, and they did the makeup, and all I had do do was put on that pink suit and read the script and do a few poses.”

“I thought it was you,” Charmaine says untruthfully. “You were great, it looked like you were an expert!” She’s a little jealous. What an easy job, and with star power too. Not like her job. But hers is more important.

“So then Veronica came back one day,” Sandi whispers. “We were sharing a condo, she was training at the prison hospital, and she was all excited, they’d offered her a promotion, to this special unit they have there.”

“What was it?” Charmaine says. Maybe something bland, like Pediatric.

“Okay, it was in Medications Administration,” says Sandi. “She went the next day to start the training. But when she came back she was upset. Veronica never gets upset normally.” Sandi pauses. “You mind scratching my back?”

Charmaine scratches. “A little to the left,” says Sandi. “Thanks. So she said, ‘Basically they want me to kill people. Underneath all the bullshit, that’s what it is.”

“Oh gosh,” says Charmaine. “Not really!”

“No shit,” says Sandi. “So she told them no, she couldn’t do it. And the next day she was gone. Just gone. Nobody knew where she went, or else they wouldn’t say. I asked at her work, and they looked at me in this weird way and said that information was not available. It was creepy! So I wanted out.”

“You’re not allowed out!” Charmaine whispers. “Remember what we signed! Couldn’t you just explain to them …” She knows this is futile, because rules are rules, but she wants to hold out hope.

“Forget it,” says Sandi. “I’m fucked.” Her teeth are chattering. “No free lunch for me, I should’ve known. Now you should put the hood back on and call a guard, and say why is this person in your cell, and they’ll clear me out of your way.”

“But I can’t just …” says Charmaine. “What will happen to you?” She’s going to cry. This is wrong, it has to be wrong! The chains, the handcuffs … Maybe they’ll only put Sandi in Towel-Folding or something.

“Just do it,” says Sandi. “You don’t have the choice.”

Cherry Pie

The white ceiling is even more boring than Consilience TV. Hardly anything’s going on up there, though there has been a fly, which has helped to pass the time. Scram, fly, Stan thought at it, to see if he could control it by broadcasting his mental electrical waves. But he couldn’t.

The other thing on the white ceiling is a small, round silver circle. It’s either a sprinkler or a videocam. He closes his eyes, then opens them: he should stay awake if possible. He concentrates on the chain of causes and effects and lies and impostures – some of them his – that has stranded him in this tedious or possibly terrifying cul-de-sac.

Which will terminate with Charmaine in a lab coat walking in here in about five minutes, or at least he hopes it’s that soon because he really needs a piss. The poor fluffbrain will think she’s about to send some serial killer or child murderer or old-person batterer to the next life. But when she approaches the gurney he’s strapped onto, it won’t be an unknown criminal element waiting for: it will be him.

What will she do then? Scream and run away? Throw herself onto his body? Tell Positron there’s been a terrible mistake?

Maybe she’ll flick a hidden switch to turn off the videocam, then unstrap him, and they’ll hug each other, and she’ll whisper, “I’m so sorry, can you ever forgive me for cheating, you’re the one I really love,” and so on, though there won’t be time for the drawn-out grovelling and cringing he has the right to expect. But he’ll squeeze her reassuringly, and then she’ll show him – what? A trapdoor? A secret tunnel? A set of clothes to wear as a disguise?

He’s watched way too much TV, over the years. On TV there are last-minute escapes, and tunnels, and trapdoors. This is real life, numbnuts, he tells himself. Or it’s supposed to be.

But there has to be some last-minute plot flip like that, because Charmaine would surely never stick the death drug into him, or whatever it is she does. She’d never go the whole hog. She’s too tender-hearted.

Unhuhuh, he says to the ceiling. Because now he’s not so sure about her tender-heartedness. He’s not sure of anything. And what if something has fucked up, and the Positron spooks have caught up with double-dealing Jocelyn and arrested her, or maybe even shot her?

And what if, when the door opens, it isn’t Charmaine who walks through it?

They’re probably watching him right now, through that silver circle. They’ve probably tortured Jocelyn, made her cough up her entire subversive plan. They probably think he’s in on it.

I didn’t know! It wasn’t me! I’ve done nothing! he screams in his head.

Unhuhuhuh.

Shit. He’s wet his pants. But it doesn’t seep, it doesn’t trickle. Have they got him in diapers? Crap. Not a good sign.

So he can’t be the first person who’s been here and done the pant-wetting thing. You can’t say they don’t cover the angles.

It takes Charmaine a while to regain her calm after the two guards have hauled Sandi away. By the armpits, because she couldn’t walk very well, what with the shackles.

“No need to mention this to anyone,” the first guard had said. The second one gave a kind of barky laugh. Neither of them were anyone Charmaine had ever seen before.

She takes some yogic breaths, she clears her mind of negative vibrations. Then she washes her hands, and after that she brushes her teeth: it’s like a cleansing ritual, because she likes to feel pure in heart when going into a Procedure. She checks herself in the mirror: there she is, the same sweet, roundish baby-face she’s always relied on at home and school; she hasn’t changed that much since being a teenager, though she’s a little dark under the eyes. She pulls a few strands of her blond hair forward to frame her face. But she’s thinner. She’s lost weight over the past while, slightly too much weight, and she’s looking pale. She’s been so worried, and she’s still worried, because even though her name’s been cleared and she has her job again, what will the future bring? Once she’s back at the house.

The very worst – well, almost the worst – would be if they told Stan about Max. Then what will happen when she sees Stan? He’ll be really mad at her. Even if she cries and says she’s sorry, and how can he ever forgive her, and he’s the one she really loves, he still might want a divorce. The mere possibility makes her tearful. She’d feel so unsafe without Stan, and people would gossip about her, and she’d be all alone in Consilience, forever, because you can’t get out. But she might not feel very safe with Stan, either.

As for Max, yes, she does remember hoping he might leave his wife for her so they could be together and she could be crushed in his embrace like a stepped-on blueberry muffin every minute of every day. He’d say, “There’s no one like you, bend over,” while nibbling on her ear, and she’d melt like toffee in the sun.

But on some level she’s always known that would be impossible. She’s been a distraction for him, but not a necessity of life. More like a super-strong mint: intense while it lasted but quickly finished. And, to be fair, he’s been the same thing for her, and if he was offered to her on a serving platter in exchange for Stan, she would say no thanks, because she could never depend on Max: he’s too fast with his mouth, he’s like a TV ad, pushing something dark and delicious but bad for you. Instead she would say, “I choose Stan.” She does feel quite certain that this is the choice she would make.

Though what if Stan rejects her, despite her new, virtuous intentions? What if he throws her out, tosses her clothes onto the lawn for everyone to see, and then locks the door on the inside? Maybe it will happen at night, and she’ll be outside in the night, scratching on the window like a cat, begging to be taken back. Oh, I’ve ruined everything, she’ll wail. Her eyes water up just picturing it.

But she’ll refuse to think about that, because you make your own reality out of your attitude, and if she thinks about it happening, then it will. Instead she’ll think about Stan’s arms going around her and him saying how miserable he’s been without her and how happy he is that they’re finally together once more. And she’ll stroke him, and cuddle him, and it will be like old times.

Because the days will fly past and it will be switchover in a couple of weeks, and she can finally leave Positron for her month as a civilian again. She’ll be working at her Consilience job in the bakery, and she won’t have to think about screams or women with hoods on chained to her bed, and she’ll smell like cinnamon from the cinnamon buns, such a cheerful smell, and not like the floral scent of the fabric softener from Towel-Folding in Positron, which if you have to breathe it all day is truly chemical and sickly. She won’t use that fabric softener on her own laundry any more, ever. She’ll be back in her own house, with her pretty sheets and the bright kitchen where she cooks such nice breakfasts, and she’ll be with Stan.

Because why would they even tell him about Max, supposing they know? Considering that the whole point of Consilience is for things to run smoothly, with happy citizens, or are they inmates? Both, to be honest. Because citizens were always a bit like inmates and inmates were always a bit like citizens, so Consilience and Positron have only made it official. Anyway, the point is the greatest happiness all around, and telling Stan would mean less happiness. In fact it would mean more misery. So they won’t do it.

Already she can picture, no, feel Stan’s arms around her; and then the way he nuzzles the side of her neck and says things like, Yum. Cinnamon. How’s my little bun? Or he used to say things like that, comfort-food kinds of things, though he was slacking off lately, as if he’d been preoccupied. Almost ever since she got tangled up with Max, come to think of it. But he’ll say those things again, because he’ll have missed her and worried about her. How’s my cherry pie? Not like the things Max says, which are more like, I’m going to turn you inside out, after this you won’t be able to crawl. Beg me for it.

Stan maybe isn’t the most … well, the most. The most of whatever you’d call Max. But Stan loves her, and she loves him.

She does really. That thing with Max was only a blip, it was an animal episode. She’ll have to stay away from Max in future. Though it might be hard, because Max is so passionate about her. He’ll try to get her back, no question. But she’ll have to put her fingers in her ears and grit her teeth and roll up her sleeves and resist temptation.

Though why shouldn’t a person have both? says the voice in her head.

I’m making an effort here, she answers. So shut up.

She looks at her watch: two-thirty. Half an hour to go. The waiting is the worst thing. She’s never been so trembly before a Procedure.

She smiles her I-am-a-good-person smile, the smile of an absent-minded angel with a childish lisp. That smile has seen her through many difficult places, or at least it has since she’s been grown up. It’s a Get Out of Jail Free card, it’s a rock concert wristband, it’s a universal security password, like being in a wheelchair. Who would question it?

To give herself confidence she applies blush all over her pale face, then a thin coat of mascara on the eyelashes: nothing too overdone. Positron allows makeup in jail; in fact it encourages makeup, because looking your best is good for morale. It’s her duty to look her best: she’s about to become the last thing some poor young man will see on this earth. That’s a big responsibility. She doesn’t take it lightly.

Charmaine, Charmaine, whispers the small voice in her head. You are such a fraud.

So are you, she tells it.

Headgame

Stan must have drifted off, but he comes awake with a start. That fucking fly is walking all over his face, and he can’t get at it.

“Fucking fly,” he tries to say. Fuuuuuh. Fluuuh. Nope, no speech functions so far. Drug’s got his tongue. He hopes like shit this isn’t permanent: he won’t be able to buy anything except with little notes. Hi, my name is Stan and I can’t talk. Gimme ten bottles of booze. He won’t care what kind, he’d drink horse piss. After what he’s been through he’’ll want to get falling-down blind drunk. Oblivious.

It will make a good story though. Once he gets out. Once he hooks up with Brother Conor and his band of merry men, and erases himself from the radar of everyone and everything to do with Positron, because what rule is there that says he has to be Jocelyn’s flunky and messenger boy once he’s out? Let her handle her own weird shit. He’ll have to get Charmaine out too, of course. Maybe. If possible.

Now that fly’s trying to get into his eye. Blink blink, turn the head: it’s not very scared of eyelashes, but it moves. Now it’s going into his nose. At least he has some control over his nostrils: he blows it out. His back is terminally itchy, he has a cramp in his leg, his diaper is sodden. More than anything, he wants this to be over. This stage, this phase, this powerlessness, whatever it is. Let’s get this show on the road, he’d shout, if he were capable of shouting. Which he isn’t. But he hopes he will be soon. He has a lot of shouting to catch up on.

Charmaine makes her way through the familiar corridors to the Medications Administration reception area, where three corridors come together. She’s wearing her green smock over her orange boiler suit; her latex gloves are in her pocket, as well as her facemask in case of germs. She’ll put it on before she goes into the room – that’s the rule – but then she’ll take it off again, because why should anyone’s last view of a human face be so impersonal? She wants whoever it is to be able to see her reassuring smile.

She’s a little nervous; probably they’re monitoring it, this nervousness of hers. And most likely it counts in her favour, because during the training course she took they’d put some electrodes on you and then showed you pictures of people undergoing the Special Procedure and measured how you reacted. What they were looking for was a certain amount of jitteriness, but not so much that you’d lose control. They’d weeded out the ones who stayed totally calm and cold, and also those who’d showed too much eagerness. They didn’t want people who got pleasure out of doing this – they didn’t want sadists or psychopaths. In fact, it was the sadists and psychopaths who needed to be – not euthanized, not erased, those words are too blunt. Relocated to a different sphere, because they were not suited to the life of Consilience.

Maybe that’s what will happen to Sandi, but in a nicer way. Maybe they’ll just take her someplace else, like an island, with the other people on it who are like her. People who don’t fit in, but not criminal elements. Surely that’s what they’ll do, because they do want the greatest happiness. The greatest happiness possible.

Now she’s reached Reception, and there’s the check-in box with the flatscreen on the front. The head is already there: it must be expecting her. Today it’s the woman with the dark hair and bangs. It’s the same woman who was with Ed when he’d visited the knitting circle the night before, the one with the hoop earrings and the grey stockings. Someone important. Charmaine feels a slight chill. Yogic breath, she tells herself. In through the nose, out through the mouth.

The head smiles at her. Is it only a recorded image this time, or is it a real person?

“Could I have the key, please?” Charmaine asks it, as she is supposed to.

“Log in, please,” the head says to her. It’s still smiling, though it seems to be looking at her more intently than usual. Charmaine presses her thumb to the pad, then gazes at the iris reader until it blinks.

“Thank you,” says the head. The plastic key slides out of the slot at the bottom of the box. Charmaine puts it into her lab coat pocket, waits for the slip of paper with the details of the Procedure printed on it: room number, Positron name, age, last dose of sedative, and when administered. It’s necessary to know how alert the subject may be.

Nothing happens. The head is staring at her with a meaningful half-smile. Now what? thinks Charmaine. Don’t tell me the dratted data bank has messed up my identity numbers again.

“I need the Procedure slip,” she says to the head. Even if it’s only a canned image, her request will surely register.

“Charmaine,” the head says to her. “We need to talk.”

Charmaine feels the hair stand up on the back of her neck. The head knows her real name. It’s talking to her directly. It’s as if the sofa has spoken.

“What?” she says. “What did I do wrong?”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” the head says, “yet. But you’re on probation. You must undergo a test.”

“What do you mean, probation?” says Charmaine. “I’ve always been good at this job, I’ve never had any complaints, my job assessment score has been …” She’s twisting the latex glove in her right-hand pocket; she tells herself to stop. It’s bad to show agitation, as if she’s in some way guilty. She’s up for their darn test, whatever it is: she’s willing to bet her technique and fulfillment against anybody’s. They can’t fault her, except for not wearing her face mask, but who in their right mind would care about that?

“It’s not your competence that’s in question,” says the head. “But Management has had some misgivings about your professional dedication.”

“I’ve always been extremely dedicated!” Charmaine says. Somebody must have been gossiping about her, telling lies. “You have to be dedicated to do this job! Who says I haven’t been dedicated?” It’s that bitch Aurora, from Human Resources. Or someone in her knitting group, because she wasn’t peppy enough about those darn blue bears. “I love my job, I mean, I don’t love having to do what I do, but I know it’s my duty to do it, because it has to be done by someone, and I’ve always taken the best care and been very meticulous, and …”

“Let’s call it loyalty,” says the head.

Why did the head say loyalty? Is loyalty about her and Max? “I’ve always been loyal,” she says. Her voice sounds weak.

“It’s a matter of degree,” says the head. “Please pay attention. You must carry out the Procedure as usual today. It is very important that you complete the task that has been assigned to you.”

“I always complete the task!” says Charmaine indignantly.

“Today, this time, you may encounter a situation that you find challenging. Despite this, the Procedure must be carried out. Your future here depends on it. Are you ready for that?”

“What kind of situation?” Charmaine asks.

“You have an option,” says the head. “You can resign from Medications Administration right now and go back to Towel-Folding, or some other undemanding form of work, if you feel you are not up to the test.” It smiles, showing its strong, square teeth.

Charmaine would like to ask if she could have some time to think it over. But maybe that wouldn’t be taken well: the head could see it as a flaw in her loyalty.

“You must decide now,” says the head. “Are you ready?”

“Yes,” says Charmaine. “I’m ready.”

“All right then,” says the head. “You have now chosen. There are only two kinds of people admitted to the Medications Administration wing: those who do and those who are done to. You have elected the role of those who do. If you fail, the consequences to yourself will be severe. You may find yourself playing the other role. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” says Charmaine faintly. That was a threat: if she doesn’t eliminate, she’ll be eliminated. It’s very clear. Her hands are cold.

“Very well,” says the head. “Here are the details of your Procedure for today.” The slip of paper slides out of the slot. Charmaine picks it up. The room number and the sedative information are there, but the name is missing.

“There isn’t any name,” Charmaine says. But the head has vanished.

Choice

Stan lets his mind float free. Time is passing; whatever will happen to him is about to happen. There’s not a thing he can do about it.

Are these my last minutes? he asks himself. Surely not. Despite his earlier moment of panic, he’s now oddly calm. But not resigned, not numbed. Instead he’s intensely, painfully alive. He can feel his own thunderous heartbeat, he can hear the blood surging through his veins, he can sense every muscle, every tendon. His body is massive, like rock, like granite; though possibly a little soft around the middle.

I should have worked out more, he thinks. I should have done everything more. I should have cut loose from … from what? Looking back on his life, he sees himself spread out on the earth like a giant covered in tiny threads that have held him down. Tiny threads of petty cares and small concerns, and fears he took seriously at the time. Debts, timetables, the need for money, the longing for comfort; the earworm of sex, repeating itself over and over like a neural feedback loop. He’s been the puppet of his own constricted desires.

He shouldn’t have let himself be caged in here, walled off from freedom. But what does freedom mean any more? And who had caged him and walled him off? He’d done it himself. So many small choices. The reduction of himself to a series of numbers, stored by others, controlled by others. He should have left the disintegrating cities, fled the pinched, cramped life on offer there. Broken out of the electronic net, thrown away all the passwords, gone forth to range over the land, a gaunt wolf howling at midnight.

But there isn’t any land to range over any more. There isn’t any place without fences, roadways, networks. Or is there? And who would go with him, be with him? Supposing he can’t find Conor. Supposing, unthinkable, that Conor is dead. Would Charmaine be up to such a trip? Would she even want him to smuggle her out? Would she consider it rescue? She’s never liked camping, she wouldn’t want to do without her clean flowered sheets. Still, he has a brief flash of longing: the two of them, hand in hand, walking into the sunrise, all betrayals forgotten, ready for a new life, somewhere, somehow. With maybe some strike-anywhere matches, and … what else would they need?

He tries to visualize the world outside the walls of Consilience. But he has no real picture of that world any more. All he sees is fog.

Charmaine keys herself into the dispensary, locates the cabinet, codes open its door. She finds the vial and the needle. She pockets them, snaps on her latex gloves, then walks along the corridor to the left.

These corridors are always empty when she’s on her way to a Procedure. Do they do that on purpose, so nobody will know who has terminated which person? Nobody, that is, except the head. And whoever is behind the head. And whoever may be watching her right now, from inside a light fixture or through a tiny lens the size of a rivet. She straightens her shoulders, adjusts her face into what she hopes is a positive but determined expression.

Here’s the room. She opens the door, steps quietly in. Removes her facemask.

The man is lying on his back, attached to the trolley bed at five points, as he should be. His head is turned a little away from her. Most likely he’s staring at the ceiling, whatever part of it he can see. And most likely the ceiling is staring back at him.

“Hello,” she says as she walks over to the bed. “Isn’t it a lovely day? Look at all the lovely sunshine! I always find a sunny day is really cheering, don’t you?”

The man’s head turns toward her, as far as it can turn. The eyes meet hers. It’s Stan.

“Oh my god,” says Charmaine. She almost drops the needle. She blinks, hoping the face will change into the face of someone else, a total stranger. But it doesn’t change.

“Stan,” she whispers. “What are they doing to you? Oh, honey. What did you do?” Has he committed a crime? What kind of a crime? It must have been very bad. But maybe there was no crime, or just a little one, because what sort of a crime would Stan have done? He’s sometimes grumpy and he can lose his temper, but he’s not mean as such. He’s not the criminal type.

“Did you try to find me?” she says. “Honey? You must have been crazy with worry. Did you …” Has his love for her driven him over the edge? Has he found out about Max and killed him? That would be terrible. A fatal threesome, like something she’d see on the TV news, back at Dust. The sleazier news.

“Uhuhuhuh,” says Stan. There’s a trickle of drool coming out of the corner of his mouth. Tenderly she wipes it away. He’s killed for her! He must have! His eyes are wide: he’s pleading with her, silently.

This is more horrible than anything. She wants to rush out of the room, run back to her cell and shut the door and throw herself onto the bed and pull the covers over her head, and pretend that none of this has ever happened. But her feet don’t move. All the blood is draining out of her brain. Think, Charmaine, she tells herself. But she can’t think.

“Nothing bad is going to happen to you,” she says as she usually does, but it’s as if her mouth is moving by itself, with a dead voice coming out. Though the voice is trembling.

Stan doesn’t believe her. “Uhuhuhuh,” he says. He’s straining against the bands that hold him in place.

“You’re going to have such a great time,” she says to him. “We’ll have this done in a jiffy.” There are tears running out of her eyes; she blots them away with her sleeve, because such tears won’t do and she hopes no one has seen them, not even Stan. Especially not Stan. “You’ll be home really soon,” she tells him. “And then we’ll have a lovely dinner, and watch TV.” She moves behind him, out of his line of vision. “And then we’ll go to bed together, the way we used to. Won’t that be nice?”

The tears are coming harder. She can’t help herself, she’s flashing on the two of them when they were first married, and planning – oh, so many things for their new life together. A house, and kids, and everything. They were so sweet then, so hopeful; so young, not like the way she is now. And then it hadn’t worked out, because of circumstances. And it was a strain, so many tensions, what with the car and everything, but they’d stayed together because they had each other and they loved each other. And then they’d come here, and at first it was so lovely, so clean, everything in its place, with happy music and popcorn in front of the TV, but then …

Then there was that lipstick. The kiss she’d made with it. Starved. Her fault.

Get hold of yourself, Charmaine, she tells herself. Don’t be sentimental. Remember it’s a test.

They’re watching her. They can’t be serious about this. They can’t expect her to – not kill, no, she will not use the kill word. They can’t expect her to relocate her own husband.

She strokes Stan’s head. “Shhh,” she says to him. “It’s okay.” She always strokes their heads, but this time it’s not any old head, it’s Stan’s head, with his bristly haircut. She knows every feature of his head so well, each eye, each ear, and the corner of the jaw, and the mouth with Stan’s teeth in it, and the neck, and the body that’s attached to it. It’s almost glowing, that body: it’s as clear to her as anything, each freckle and hair, as if she’s looking at it through a magnifying glass. She wants to throw her arms around that body to hold it still, keep it in this present moment, because unless she can do that it doesn’t have a future.

She can’t do the Procedure. She won’t do it. She’ll march out of here, back to Reception, and demand to talk with the woman’s head in the box. “I’m not falling for this,” she’ll say. “I’m not doing your stupid test, so just take a flying leap.”

But wait. What will happen then? Someone else will come in and relocate Stan. The bad thing will happen to him anyway, and whoever it is will not do it in a considerate and respectful way, not the way she does. And what will become of her, Charmaine, if she fails the test? It won’t just be back to Towel-Folding, it will be into the plastic cuffs and the hood and the shackles, like Sandi; then onto the gurney with the five straps. That must be why they put Sandi in her cell: as a warning. She’s cold all over now. She can hardly breathe.

“Oh, Stan,” she whispers into his left ear. “I don’t know how things got this way. I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.”

“Uhuhuhuh,” says Stan. It’s like a dog whimper. But he’s heard her, he understands. Is that a nod?

She kisses him on the forehead. Then, taking a big chance, she kisses him on the mouth, a heartfelt, lingering kiss. He doesn’t kiss her back – his mouth must be paralyzed – but at least he doesn’t try to bite her.

Then she sticks the needle into the vial. She watches her hands, in their latex gloves, moving like seaweed; her arms are heavy, as if she’s swimming in liquid glue. Everything’s in slow motion.

Standing behind Stan, she feels gently for the vein in his neck, finds it. His heart beats like percussion under her fingertips. She slides in the needle.

Then a jolt, then a spasm. Like electrocution.

Then she hits the floor.

Blackout.