About Sisterland (33 page)

“Aunt. And you’ve known this all my life.”

“It was my privilege to watch over you as you grew, Constance. And now, your babyfusion gives me a sense of continuity.”

Constance looked at Goodwill as if for the first time, trying to recast her as a man. Trying to glimpse her father in Goodwill’s face. Trying to catch a resemblance between herself and Goodwill. Were their noses similar? The way their hair grew back from their foreheads? “Is this why you oppose the Nine? Because of a brother you lost?”

“Maybe that’s where it stems from. Once you question Sisterland’s policies, the floodgates open. I never knew what to do about it till the Silenced began gathering. They’re a resource. They can help us mount a challenge to the system.”

“Us?”

“There are sisters who think as I do, Constance.” Goodwill frowned. “They want to recruit you to our movement. You’d be an asset: you’re a natural orator, and the Silenced are drawn to you. But I’m against it – I’ve told my sisters it’s unfair. You’re babyfused. It isn’t right to ask you to take risks. Even for a cause as important as ours. I don’t mind using Silence – it can’t hurt her. But you have too much to lose. I blame myself for encouraging you to speak at the Hope Bridge. Curiosity overcame me: I wanted to see how an audience would react to you.” Impulsively, Goodwill caught her by the hands and, for once, Constance didn’t pull away. “My dear, stay away from the bridge. Stay away from the Silenced. And stay away from me. I don’t trust myself. The day might come when I forget myself, and try to enlist you to our cause.”

A moe that could no longer be suppressed hummed between them.

“Goodwill, the Nine knows about you,” said Constance. “The Ess have a file on you. You need to tread carefully.”

Goodwill squeezed Constance’s hands. “I wondered about that. I’ve been checking the twoser for eavesdropping devices every day, but found nothing. Still, it seemed unlikely I could have escaped their surveillance.”

Just then, the door of the twoser opened. A warning look passed from Goodwill to Constance, quick and then gone.

“Constance, what a pleasant surprise!” Devotion was unhooking her skin as she spoke. “But you look tired. I hope you’re taking plenty of rest.”

“I decided to come and eat with you, if you’ll have me,” said Constance. “I want to pump you about babyfusion. Is my backache normal, should I be eating anything in particular, why do my fingers tingle at night?”

“Of course we’d love you to join us for a meal, wouldn’t we, Goodwill? As for babyfusion, I don’t remember much. I seemed to want to eat pond chowder every day when I was carrying you – can’t touch the stuff now. Can’t even bear the smell of it. I hope you’re remembering to take your protein poppers, ladybird. You need to be disciplined about them. Not having an other to remind you is a disadvantage.”

Constance winced, but this was no time to take offence at Devotion’s insensitivity. “I’m starving now, for what it’s worth.”

“In that case, we’ll eat as soon as the dine-all can take us. I want to hear all your news. By the way, Goodwill, they have floating eggs on the menu. Nourishing, but non-fattening.”

“I prefer my eggs submerged.”

“I know you do, but floating is healthier. What have you and Constance been talking about?”

“She wants your help with baby names.”

“Does she really?” Devotion was dubious. “I don’t know how much use I can be. I had trouble enough deciding on Constance. I suppose you could always use my source’s, if you were stuck.”

“I hope my daughter inherits her curls,” said Constance. She slid another glance at Goodwill. Would the baby inherit anything from her?

“That would be nice,” said Devotion. “Naturally it’s important to do this for Sisterland, but becoming a source is a nuisance. My feet swelled up two shoe sizes and never went down. And your life isn’t your own for that mandatory year of breast-feeding.”

“There were a few plusses, Devotion,” said Goodwill.

“Well, it did lead to Constance. But you always had the best of the bargain, Goodwill: Constance in your life, without the trouble of babyfusion.”

“If you say so, sweetheart.”

Constance left as soon as she decently could after the meal. Her stomach was in knots over what she’d learned. Huge sailor’s knots making a shipwreck of her digestive system. Tasting reflux from the meal, she rested against a building, willing the food to stay down.

When she felt able to walk again, thoughts of Goodwill filled Constance’s mind – leaving a residue as acidic as the nausea. She was claiming to be Constance’s aunt. A blood relative. Constance hardly knew how she should feel about having an aunt. The one-child policy meant they were as scarce as blue skies in Sisterland. But Goodwill’s story could have been concocted as bait to hook her. She could see no obvious resemblance between the two of them. Which meant she had to make a choice about believing Goodwill – or not – and stand over it, because there was no way to verify her claim.

As for the Virgin Birth Project, it alarmed Constance. The Nine wanted sisters to believe the State was a female Eden.
But if so, why was information about Outsideland
suppressed? It mustn’t trust its own people to stay put if they had alternatives. Sisters weren’t being protected, they were barricaded in. 

And what to do about the Shaper Mother’s expectations of her? Constance racked her brain for a solution. Her mouth was parched. She tapped her pockets, but the water tube was missing. She must have left it in the dine-all. All at once, her legs folded up and she found herself sprawled on the pavement.

“Can we help you, sister?” Two girls materialised, and moved her into a sitting position on the edge of pavement.

“Water?” One of them handed her a tube.

Constance felt a little better after drinking from it. Her eye fell on the silver stars which decorated the pavement. There was so much kindness in Sisterland. So much beauty, too. And yet the more she discovered about the way it really worked, the more appalled she became.

“Would you like us to wait with you, sister?”

“No, thank you. I’ll head for home in a minute. I just need to gather myself together.” 

After they left, she sat on, pondering what to do about the Shaper Mother. Could she string her
along, feeding her a few titbits? Nothing to land the Silenced in trouble, just enough to keep Constance out of MUM – at least until her baby was born. 

A peer tapped her shoulder from behind. “There are seats at the Buzz station, sister. This isn’t an appropriate spot for resting.”

“What’s wrong with it? I’m not doing any harm.”

“It’s not a designated seating area. It’s a pavement. They’re for walking on.” The peer’s eyes fell on a splash across Constance’s front. “Is that red paint on your clothes?”

“It’s tomato sauce. I had spaghetti just now at a dine-all.”

“Which one?”

Constance pointed down the road. “My source lives in that unit there. I ate with her and her other.”

“Can they confirm that?”

Constance did a double-take. “Yes, she lives in Yellow B. Her name is Devotion 2723. What’s this about, sister?”

“Incident in Sister Plaza. I’ll need to note your sig.” She gestured towards Constance’s wrist, and Constance held it up for scanning

“What happened?”

“Anti-Sisterland activity. Less said about it the better.” The peer nodded, and walked off, towards Devotion and Goodwill’s twoser.

The plaza was in front of the entrance to Sistercentral, so anti-Sisterland activity there would act as a direct challenge to the Nine.

On the Buzz, Constance asked the passenger opposite, “Did something happen in Sister Plaza, sister?”

“Not that I heard.”

As she disembarked, another passenger fell into step beside her.

“Sister Plaza is cordoned off,” whispered the stranger. “Rubbish scattered all over it.”

“Seems a bit extreme to close it. Couldn’t they just clean it up?”

“It was wall-to-wall rubbish. But that wasn’t all.” The stranger looked left and right. “Grafitti. Sprayed in red paint on Sistercentral’s perimeter walls. In letters twenty feet high. Right under the Nine’s nose, you might say.”

“The usual? ‘
We will not be Silenced
’? I keep seeing that slogan.”

“Not this time. This graffiti taunted them.” She muttered something, making a chopping motion with her hands, before walking away rapidly. Her parting words vibrated in the air. “It said, ‘
The Nine will be broken’
.”

Chapter 28

Next day, Constance reported to the Shaper Mother that she had no hopes of gaining Goodwill’s trust. Her position within Shaperhaus linked her too closely to the Sisterland regime. The mother tilted her head to one side. Constance breathed evenly, willpower at full throttle, barriers in place.

“The Nine will be dissatisfied,” said the mother. “They are sisters with high expectations. They take disappointment hard. Try another meeting. Persevere.” The Shaper Mother plucked at her earrings, twitchy. It puzzled Constance – the mother was usually so contained.

“We discussed the Silenced. Goodwill criticised them,” said Constance.

“She’s testing you.”

“She knows I work for you. Why would she open herself up to me? It’s too risky.”

“You could give her confidence in you.”

“I can’t.”

“You know you can, Constance. She held you in your arms when you were minutes old – she’s watched you grow. She loves you.”

The idea of being loved by Goodwill smacked into Constance with a presence that was almost physical. It had never occurred to her. At that, she felt the mother gain entry to her consciousness.

“Why, your moe triggers are more sensitive than ever. And you have sympathy for the Silenced! Sweet child, resist their siren call.”

With an effort of will, Constance erected a wall. “The moes are sparked by babyfusion. They’ll fade afterwards.”

“Like the Silenced, you’re taken in by a symbol. I understand it. Symbols have potency. But they cannot be relied on. Just as Silence couldn’t be relied on. She left you, Constance. Left you without a backward glance. That’s the reality.”

Constance gritted her teeth. “I know. I don’t care about Silence any more.”

“Symbols have their uses, of course. They can be shaped this way and that. You were Silence’s other, you can have a hand in the moulding.”

“I don’t want to mould anyone. I just want to be left alone to live my life.”

“Is that really enough for you? I suspect you want more, much more, than that.” The tone hardened. “Support for the Silenced continues to grow. It must be checked. We know the leadership wants to recruit you – don’t try to deny it, we have other conduits of information. I’m going to offer you one last chance to infiltrate the Silenced and report back to us. Go home, Constance, think it over. I should warn you, your usefulness to Sisterland hinges on your answer. And if you’re not useful to Sisterland, what purpose do you have?”

After work, Constance found Modesty sitting on a bench in Shaper Square. She stood out in the Sistercentral livery.

“Were you waiting for me, Modesty?’

“Maybe.”

Constance sat beside her, and together they watched the action on the giant screen. There was no volume, but it was easy to see what was happening from the images. Children in girlplace were reading aloud from
Beloved’s Pearls
, their faces rapt.

“Remember memorising her words of wisdom?” said Constance.

“Who can forget?” Modesty slid a careful look at Constance. “Who’s allowed to?” She adopted a sing-song tone. “
Numbers are an improvement on surnames. Surnames belong to an outdated idea called the family unit – but the State is our true family.
” Another veiled look. Then she said, “Of course, there are numbers and numbers. I wonder who your source bribed to get you a low, three-digit one?”

Once, Constance would have denied the possibility of corruption. Now, she knew better. “Someone in the registration division, I suppose. They’d be able to alert sisters to surrendered names.”

“Surrender. It’s required from all of us. The great and the lowly. Speaking of the great, how far do you trust the Shaper Mother?”

“Are you asking as a member of the Sistercentral staff?”

Modesty fingered one of the tortoiseshell buttons on the front of her fitted one-piece. “A uniform is only what’s on the outside.”

Constance studied her profile. She couldn’t tell what lay inside Modesty – she was hard to read.

“
I know you’re unsure of me. I’m ambitious, I don’t deny it,” said Modesty. “So I’ll set the ball rolling. I think the mother’s changed. She’s in a bit of a state. Before I left, she was finding it hard to deal with the Nine. For the first time, she let slip a few disapproving words. Some supplies those sisters rely on have dried up, or maybe it’s not safe to access them right now. Anyhow, she suggested the Nine might be losing its grip. Mistakes were being made. If you want to know what I think, there’d have been a crackdown on the Silenced long before now but for this issue about the
supplies.”