Becoming (5 page)

5

Gaia and Freya went to the main dome and collected their equipment for the mission. This time Gaia took a dagger and an axe, Freya a dagger and spear. Both were masters in their use, both had been trained to kill, a match for anyone, or anything. Neither spoke at any point. Gaia had no idea what Freya thought of her. She did not care, but she sensed that Freya had picked up some of the hatred towards her, so kept a respectful distance. Though they were very different, they both knew the other was a formidable foe. Despite the simmering hatred there was mutual respect.

They made their way to the main gate to join the teams. There were three teams of  twenty, each with their own leader. They were a balance of boys and girls, mostly made of elder members, those that were close to becoming. There were a smattering of the fearless and more able younger cohorts, there because they had shown promise and were seen worthy of the experience. The teams stood apart, but near. They were gathered around their leader listening to the strategy and orders for the mission. Each team had a discrete role, frontline, rearguard, and support. The mission was clear, to scour one of the zones on the island, to find concentrations of rats, and where possible kill them. Gaia and Freya were to join Kali’s team.

They joined their team, all huddled around Kali, focusing on her calm, precise words. It was then Gaia noticed Aran, on the edge of the group, obscured by a couple of taller boys. He looked up as they approached, caught her eye and looked back at Kali. Gaia could see he was surprised and was trying to mask his discomfort. Gaia moved into the main body of the group, near the back, and away from Aran. Freya moved to the front, almost standing under Kali’s nose. Gaia tried to listen, but most of the words drifted in and out in waves. She would catch the odd word, register it, the ones that seemed to have more relevance. ‘Rearguard’ was the one word that kept puncturing her dazed stupour.

Once the briefing was over they moved through the main gate. It was a large wooden structure, taller than the walls that held it. The walls were to be heightened and strengthened given the growing threat from the rats. This was deemed a key task for the community. One of the teams was working on a section of wall. Once through the gates the teams set off down the main road and through the derelict village. The road had long been neglected. It was functional and passable now, but few vehicles used it. Only the trucks that came and went, ferrying each wave of cohort on and off the boats that landed at the small jetty at the edge of the village. The shops and houses of the village had been left to rot and crumble, their quaint charm long since faded. Most were made of whitewashed stone with crooked roofs of slate tiles. Gardens were overgrown with weeds and wild flowers, wooden fences, rotten, gates hanging off or gone. There was an old pub, the Red Lion, the broken sign still hanging at the front. No longer expectant, no longer welcoming, the windows were broken and boarded up. There was an array of disused shops: a butchers; a general convenience store; a bakers; and a post office. All now lost and unwanted, all waiting for a purpose that would never come again, monuments to the days that came before.

They passed a red post box, and a narrow cast iron box with a rectangular chessboard of small glass windows. Gaia had read it was a phone box where people would go to speak to each other using machines. Gaia had entered it once. It was empty and stank, a damp, musty odour with a hint of stale urine. Wires spewed from one of the walls where the telephone once was before it was ripped out. A noticeboard was on the wall above with various numbers and graffiti etched on it. There was a drawing of a penis and scrotum,  along with some ample breasts, and many strange shapes, symbols, and numbers Gaia did not recognise. A different language for different times.

The houses in the village all had a uniformity in their look which once gave them their charm. Gaia had always thought the village would have been a beautiful place to live. The isolation of the island had both complications and appeal. The accessibility would have made it a very insular, self-contained community. Even now that she knew there was a road to the island, the causeway, it would still have limited access dictated by the tides. It would mainly have been populated by those that were born there, and had grown atuned to this unique way of life. Or maybe those that came here to escape, to get away from the mainland and live life in a different way. How ironic she thought. Their refuge was her prison.

Gaia could never decide whether, given the choice, she would live somewhere like this. The point was she had never been given that choice. Everywhere had been chosen by others. Her whole life had been spent living with and for others. A prison made and controlled by others. Despite its rugged beauty and charm and the appeal of silence and solitude the island was the latest in a long line of prisons. She could not disassociate the island from the chains that bound her, therefore it could never win her heart. It was a place of beauty to behold, but beauty lay in the beholder’s eye. The eyes through which Gaia saw it had been clouded by the darkness of the community, their power and control.

Given the choice where would Gaia live? She had often dreamed. Perhaps an island of her own, or somewhere on the mainland? A large house with acres of landscaped gardens of flowers and veg, and a family of her own. All Gaia wanted was somewhere she could be herself, determine her own life, drive her own destiny. Anywhere but here. Did such places exist? Were there people out there leading such lives free of the community? Gaia doubted it. All she had been taught, all the whispers, every indication was that way of life had disappeared. It was gone, destroyed forever. It was as Kali said. Together they were stronger.

Gaia’s knowledge of the world was limited, drip fed, controlled. She knew that large parts of the world were no longer accessible. They were poisoned, destroyed, populated by deformed creatures. Other humans had survived, rebuilt again, started over as best they could, as the community had done. Living on an island, albeit a large one as the mainland was, had saved the community. They were told it was something in their genetic code that made them special, had helped them survive, made them immune to the poison. The blue eyes were the indicator. That was why all in the community were bred, and the whole reproductive process was controlled. It ensured the gene pool remained pure. All impurities or mutations were identified and destroyed.

The narrow gene pool caused problems. There were some conditions and diseases that were caught within the pool and were difficult to contain or filter out. The main one was the fading of memory. This was common amongst the elders. For some their memories would disappear and they would lose their ability to function. The condition varied in its speed and severity, but a great many of the elders suffered it. Most developed it early in the final phase. They knew of it and prepared for it, but few spoke of it. The community had a special place for them. They were taken away and cared for, but never seen again.

The community had been built by the survivors. They had begun again, started time all over again. They had moved back to a simple life, an existence based on community, on working together, on the common good. They believed they were the chosen ones, trusted to start again. Who had chosen them, no-one knew. Maybe it was just life itself, their existence and survival. They were determined to learn from the mistakes of the past and not repeat them. The fragile morality of the old beliefs and religions had failed to provide the moral guidance that was needed. Instead they had bickered and fought over their gods. The truth was they all seemed to worship the same god, but in different ways.

The panacea of science had promised redemption, a world free from disease, where food was genetically engineered and plentiful. A world where man need not fear nature. A world where man could tame and conquer it. A world of electricity, of powered vehicles that cruised the roads, and soared across the skies, of weapons that could kill men, women, children in far off countries with the push of buttons and the turn of dials. Pandora had been unleashed and could not be controlled. Frankenstein’s monster was growing, but few saw it, and none took heed. The arrogance and folly of humanity marched on.

The scientists were supported by governments and companies, the former driven by domination, security and power, the latter by profit and greed. The law was meant to replace the moral vacuum left by the holy men, to provide the checks and balances. While the religions fought with all that failed to tread their path, the scientists raced against each other. The quest to be the first at anything spurred them on. They were driven by man’s innate desire to push the boundaries, to break new ground. Man’s great dynamism, and contradiction. Money was plentiful and the scientists fed on it. Like parasites sucking on blood they grew ever bigger, ever stronger, ever hungrier. Then the poisons came. It was an attempt to modify the food, to genetically improve it. A company involved in secret research got greedy, sloppy. Something went wrong, and the food chain became polluted, infected, poisoned. It spread everywhere. Humans died, animals too. Some of the latter survived, but they changed. In order to survive they changed, such was the order of things. Mutant strains emerged, creatures that were so different from their former species to be almost another species all together. Except they were no longer mutants. They were the survivors, they became the norm. This was the law of nature, as it had always been. Humanity lost sight of that, and almost perished.

Now the community remained. The community and the outsiders. The shadow that hung over the community was of paranoia and fear. Everything within was driven by the fear that this could, but must not happen again. All that was encouraged and allowed, all that was frowned upon and forbidden, all that was created, all that was destroyed, all that was taught, all that was learned. Everything. The impulse, the drivers all centred around the new way, and a dogged determination to not go back to the old ways. With paranoia comes control. The need to exercise and maintain it at all costs. The community had developed an internal logic based around collective need. Every phase of development was seen as a precise stage to prepare community members for their contribution. Every decision, every task were centrally determined, planned and controlled. This was the new law.

The old ways were gone, the old beliefs and religions had been discarded and burned. Science had been trimmed to its essential core, a pick and mix of the elements that would assist function and development, but only the basics. Communal life, simplicity, that was the new way forward, the only way forward given the limitations the community faced. Survival was their foundation stone and core. From that they would build a new success, a new form of happiness, one gained through commitment to the community itself. The individual was nothing, the community was everything.

As they moved further along the road, nearing the edge of the derelict village the skies opened up and unleashed a deluge of rain. It was sharp, piercing rain, liquid needles stabbing at every inch of their bodies. The team put on their flimsy waterproofs which were no match for the torrent of miniature blades. Within seconds their clothes were soaked through. Each of them clung to their cold, shivering bodies, heavy and sodden against their skin. Their boots turned a dark brown as they absorbed the water. They leaked, and began to squelch with the invading rain. Droplets of water ran down Gaia’s face, dripping from her nose and into her mouth. She could taste the rainwater on her lips, feel its icy grip.

Gaia looked ahead, at nothing in particular, any focal point would do. She concentrated on her feet, putting each one forward, one after the other, feeling the squelch of the boot and sodden sock. She focused on the rhythm of her marching, beating out a strong steady beat. The harsh rattle of the driving rain added a further layer to the tune, the rustle of the others as they marched alongside the final dimension to the medley of sounds. This was nature’s ensemble, the music of living, the music that is in everything. Gaia always listened, always tried to find the music, the rhythm, the tune. Sometimes it was only fragments of sound, other times a wall of symphony. She found it most of all on the beach, in the sea. It was always with her, and she always heard it and felt it most when connected to nature and away from people. The music of people was less appealing to Gaia. It was there but it lacked something. The balance of nature, its interconnectedness, its beauty, that fed into its music. The harmony of the eco-system, each plant, tree, animal, all an essential piece of a connected whole. That balance fed into the music. With people it was different, with people it was artificial, contrived. Humanity would tinker, would change, would upset the balance, and that made for chaotic music, discordant, without melody or harmony. The music of nature was what Gaia listened for and found.

The team reached a crossroads, and took a right turn heading off to the far side of the island. The side away from the mainland, and away from where Aran claimed the causeway was. The tide was low so if there were a causeway it would not be concealed. Missions were led to that part of the island, but the leaders would know when it was safe depending on the tides. Today the timing was against them so the mission was led away. There was no explanation, no questioning of this. Why would anyone? Only the leaders, and Aran knew of the causeway. Gaia had never known. It was controlled, like everything else. Even those elements of her existence she thought were tiny and random were controlled. This was the way of the community. Everything was controlled.

Despite the treacherous weather the team moved along the road at a brisk pace. The mission was headed by another group about one hundred metres in front. This team of twenty was led by Tarkan, a male leader of considerable ability and respect. He kept himself to himself, just got on with his role, no complaints and no untoward behaviour. As leaders went he was OK. He did not abuse the trust he had been given. There were no good guys here, but for Gaia Tarkan was as close as a leader could be to one.