In World City (10 page)

Dion listens to the air-change hissing its fake breeze and feels the enclosing weight of the hotel around him. The semi-darkness is soothing, though: he doesn't have to look at the place he occupies, just feel it containing him without threat.

Like those way-stations of old, the caravanserai he occupies offers security from the Waste – its predators and robbers, and those ghostly voices that lure you off the track, further and further, until you are completely lost – only no longer among rolling sand dunes but in an infinity of decaying streets. He has chosen his pitch where the Waste comes right up to the doorstep. But if he hears the voices why should he resist?

Once, while still a boy, he had rushed headlong into the Waste. Then, later and thanks to Miranda Whitlam, he had been thrust unwillingly back into the Waste. Both times, he had worked his way out and into World City. Had it been worth it? Why does it all seem so futile? Perhaps he should be taking some chances again.

Images come to him unbidden – a breeze at evening blowing palm fronds, a moon rising over a mountain, a rough track leading into deep green forest, empty streets in autumn, glacial shop displays. To him, now, these are simply images of a world outside: any world; nothing personal.

He thinks of the woman whose representative he is about to meet and how she has always had minions to work through, whichever side of the glass she has been on. But he is alone. Nothing changes.

He remembers sitting next to her in a cafe in Cologne, snow falling in the square beyond the windows and, at the opposite side of the table, a young man who knows that by the grace of Miranda Whitlam, he has been changed in a way that people have dreamed of for as long as they have been able to dream.

Miranda Whitlam still thought of those glittering lines she had seen her father reaching out to move, but now with desperation rather than hope. She cast around for some new way of thinking about them, some new way of using them, but it was impossible to recover the sense of control and security they had promised. An unbridgeable gap had opened up between the reality of the technique and the lifesaver she had once made of it. She used work to numb the anxiety that threatened to overwhelm her. She pushed herself even beyond the precocious grasp of business practice expected of her, immersing herself in the work of her company and struggling to find exactly where she could make her most worthwhile contribution.

Accordingly, at the age of fourteen, she was able to approach the school biotech consultant and say, with all the assurance that came from a complete grasp of the essentials, “I hear that biotech is moving beyond agricultural and medical into energy production. My company has major oil and power generation interests and we need to extend into energy-centred biotech. What's your recommendation?”

The biotech consultant studied his fingertips for some moments. It was his business to know the profiles of every one of the school's so-called clients, so he was aware that Miranda Whitlam was already identified as someone of unusual ability. It was his first encounter with her, however, and he replied casually enough, “What do you know about DNA?”

“Not much. What do I need to know?”

Even the biotech consultant, familiar with the ways of the children of the very rich, found himself slightly unnerved by Miranda's tone of dismissive authority. He contemplated his fingertips again. Either something had been excised from this girl or it had never been there in the first place. He tried to pin it down and could only think of the expected reactions to his question – ‘Well, I know a bit – it's the foundation of life isn't it?' – ‘Isn't it what the biotech industry works with mostly?' – The kind of reaction even grown-up executives might have given him. But instead of open-ended interest he had simply been instructed to inform. What excited this girl? What really interested her?

The biotech consultant decided to put her under pressure. He said forcefully, “You need to know everything there is to know if you're to make anything out of your proposed move. Firstly, you'll need to aim for a full grounding in biotechnology. Once you have that, you'll have some chance of assessing what you need to know next and then the level of risk this new venture of yours carries. For a start, I'd say two weeks on cell biology, a month on molecular biology, a month on molecular genetics and evolution, then three months on basic biotech. I can put together a programme of individual sessions and screen-learning for you that should cover it, but you'll have to have your existing commitments completely rescheduled. That's a major investment on the part of your company and a serious new venture you're proposing.”

The biotech consultant was interested to see that Miranda Whitlam looked pleased rather than daunted. Okay, so she liked pressure. That much he could provide.

*

Three months later, after the most highly-pressured term she had yet experienced, Miranda was satisfied she had a working grasp of the double helix, complementary base pairing and the genetic code. Also familiar were the mechanics by which the code was transcribed and translated into the fabric of cell and body, and she was now beginning to grasp how these entities and processes could be chopped and changed to form the building blocks of manufacturing process.

Seeing no evidence that pressure was turning into stress, the biotech consultant said, “What you've learned is what any school could have taught you, albeit over five years. What matters now is that you keep up the biotech, but start stepping back so you can begin to see your proposed venture as a whole. You need to operate the knowledge instead of having it hang over you like some higher authority. You're the authority in all this. So, what you need is your own way of thinking about it – about DNA and molecular genetics and biotech – some way that'll enable you to talk about it like you came to me talking about your company's interests in energy production.”

Miranda frowned. “I thought it was a technology I was learning. That's like a tool. I've just been learning how the tools work. Isn't that enough?”

“Not any more, it isn't. You see, if you aim to use DNA-based technology to open up a whole new area of energy production, it won't only be technical problems you come up against. If it works, there'll be ethical, social and environmental concerns and you're going to have to factor those into your risk analysis. Out of the personal position you adopt, you're going to have to develop a public front for your company, and that's why I'm pressing you to come up with something a bit deeper than mere tool use. Come up with that in public and you'll find your staff being equated with Australopithecus. You need a philosophy, Miranda.”

“So you're saying that I need to make this proposal sound ethically, socially and environmentally acceptable?”

The biotech consultant considered her carefully. He had just demanded of this girl that she become the source of an organising vision and she hadn't flinched. Yet this was what prime-movers and top CEOs were paid millions a year to do. Perhaps she had not fully understood. He said, “There's more to it than that. As far as ethics, society and the environment go, you'll have a whole public relations department that can field the arguments. Your job is to develop a company position that can somehow stand above any squabble over these conventional concerns. Ask yourself, what's my company's role in society in wanting to undertake this work?”

“To make more energy available at less cost.”

“Worthy enough – but your chosen means of doing this involves working with what many believe to be the fabric of their being. They see DNA as some kind of holy, inviolate inner sanctum. They won't like you messing with that in order to provide cheaper fuel.”

“Why not? What's so special about DNA? It's just stuff we're made of, like atoms and molecules and earth and electricity. I don't see why they should pick on DNA as special.”

There was a disturbing pragmatism in her reply. The biotech consultant wondered what limits, if any, this girl was actually capable of putting on herself. “I take your point, Miranda,” he said after some moments, “and largely share your frustration. I think that our problem has to do with something that stands in the way of every new development in technology there's ever been. Call it, idealist thinking. The way idealist thinking works in relation to DNA is that people identify DNA with the source of all forms. What more precious form is there than our own selves? So what could be more precious than the source of that form?”

“The source of all forms – what does that mean?”

This time the consultant's check in answering was unintentional – he had been pulled up short in his flow by something entirely unexpected. There had been a spark there, a genuine spark of interest and enthusiasm. He had been probing for that ever since they had first met. So, what did she find so exciting about the source of all forms? Was she a philosopher? Was she thinking of something else? Normally, such talk was guaranteed to induce instant catatonia.

“That's about as clearly as I can put it,” the biotech consultant said. “There's a way of thinking that possesses people – some people. They see themselves as the manifestation of a deeper reality and it's what's happening in this deeper reality that really matters, not what you and I can experience here and now. The source of all forms I'm talking about is one of those deeper realities.”

“So do these idealists think that by making changes in this deeper reality, they can make changes in the appearances that you and I experience here and now?”

The biotech consultant did a double take. She hadn't even paused to think. There was something in her that had been primed for this. What the hell was going on with this girl?

He replied, “Yes, that's exactly what they think, although the changes they try and make aren't necessarily carried out by direct manipulation – as in the way we make changes to DNA. For the idealist, prayer and ritual are far more important. In fact, the idealist sees mechanical manipulation as somehow counterfeit. I don't know anyone who's tried praying to DNA, but I do know of people who try and influence it by meditation and visualisation – though, personally,” he added lightly, watching for her reaction, “I'd have more faith in viral vectors and site-directed mutagenesis.”

But Miranda was not listening to the technology. The biotech consultant had spoken of idealist thinking and people's perception of DNA. To him this was maybe just some philosophical issue, trivial compared with the power of viral vectors and the other tools and weapons of molecular biotech, only to be attended to as some irrational inconvenience getting in the way of progress. But to Miranda Whitlam, DNA and the source of all forms came together as entirely novel information. Suddenly, the molecule of life ceased to be a cipher in a set of technical procedures, or even a small but extremely extended arrangement of space-filling balls. In place of these mechanical emblems, Miranda found her imagination possessed by a world-embracing network of glittering filigree threads that coursed throughout life, glowing with information. This image and the thought of a source of all forms fused in her mind with a tremendous explosion of mental energy. The ideas projected through her, shifting, dissolving and reorienting whole constellations of concept, shaking out her thoughts into a vast new construct.

By making changes in those glittering, abstract patterns of DNA nucleotides, she could make changes in the living forms that populated the world.

Miranda imagined her hand reaching in to adjust the starburst clusters of DNA base pairs, rearranging the filigree of connections that bound those stellar forms to the manifest world. She would reach in, make a change and the world would change accordingly.

The ‘state place' Dion's father sent him to was a long bus ride away. Early each winter morning the bus headed east, away from the main highway, the smooth lawns of the industrial units and the neon-decked cubes, further than Dion had been before. At the start of his journey there was only a scattering of other passengers, who got off after just a few stops. But as the bus headed further east more people boarded until many were standing.

Dion observed his fellow passengers carefully. They looked very different from those he had seen working in the neon-lit cubes. They were dressed plainly and carried used-looking briefcases or sandwich boxes. He noticed, too, that as the bus approached the school, the quality of the surroundings changed. The buildings looked older, the cars had dents in and the streets had holes in. It was all rougher, more makeshift and much more familiar to him than the polished, alien emptiness of the district where his father had chosen to live. The sunlight was weaker than it had been on his island and the air much colder, and there were no pigs wandering along the street, but he began to feel that here was a place where he might just live.

In the school, the quality of the pupils was different too. He was sized-up on his first day and set upon on his second. He bloodied enough noses and ground enough cheeks into the asphalt of the school yard to win guarded respect, and the privilege of being asked who he was. He gained some status, too, from not having been born in Europe. The gang boys were mainly sons of North African and West Asian families, boys who were on the outside anyway. Their fathers were working for a fixed term before going home, so there was no incentive for the sons of those fathers to conform. Dion said to them, “We're not going home. My father wants to stay here for the rest of his life. I'm going to leave. I'm going to try and get back to where I was born.” This serious intent gave him an edge. He was open to anything.

At first, it was just planned escape. Dion and his friends would get to school, get registered then sit out the classes until they had to change rooms. During the transfer it was possible to make directly for the one section of fence that was out of sight of any window. It had been cut so it could be lifted to allow through, with only a little scratching from the cut ends of the wire, an average-sized fourteen-year-old.

Once past the wire, they would stow the few items that passed for a uniform in a nearby road-salt box, then try and put a safe distance between themselves and the school. This generally meant half an hour's walk into an area where they were less likely to be linked with the tides of girls and boys who came and went each day from around the school.

“Look like we've been told to go somewhere,” Dion urged them, “Look like we're doing a project or something.”

But, more often than not, they would hear someone shout, ‘Hey, where are you going?' and seized by panic and excitement they would run like hell, their assumed cool blown to the wind. And each time, as they pelted down proliferating side streets, Dion would experience the charge of feeling with a great wave of relief. It was like taking that first lungful of air after seeing how long he could hold his head under in the bath, and he would outrun his companions just for the sheer joy of it.

Once away from the school, they spent most of their time looking in shop windows. Here, there were none of the icy, unreachable displays that were scattered about where Dion's father had his apartment. Instead, the windows were increasingly crammed with marked-down bargains, the prices and quality of which decreased with the social gradient. Hazy winter sunlight would fall across the dusty shopfronts, making it difficult to see the prices. If the viewing was particularly difficult, Dion and his friends would go inside, risking a mouthful of abuse from the shopkeeper who only wanted people inside he had some prospect of selling to.

“Would you like that?” one of his gang asked Dion, pointing to some particularly over-styled piece of electronics. Dion felt a peculiar pull inside himself at the sight of the object. Yes, he would like it. He would like it very much. He would like to be the person who possessed that thing. But there was a discomfort there too. He tried examining the discomfort but could only conclude that if he was to have that thing, he would have to get it in a way that was utterly unacceptable to his father.

At first, he tried to ease the discomfort by knocking a bit more style into his gang. He wanted them to look like those groups of city kids you could see on the television, moving like a single animal through the city streets. ‘Hey, Jas,' he'd say to one of his more regular followers, ‘Haven't you got a decent top you could switch into? You look like shit in that T-shirt.' Or, ‘Kemi, quit looking like you just lost your lunch. We need to be together in this.'

But he still wanted that thing, the thing he had seen in that shop window, the kind of thing that still had him itching inside. Hanging out with a straggle of kids just wasn't enough. He wanted them to look good, but more than that he wanted them to be effective. So, after Jas had found himself a padded black jacket five sizes too big, and Kemi had taken to be their leading edge rather than tagging along behind looking for cigarette butts, Dion applied some serious training.

“I told you, look like we're going somewhere. We need style but we don't need trouble. People just got to think we're part of the street, you know, not even question what we're doing here. Come on, follow my step. Try it.”

And they fell in around him, as he stilled his thoughts, stepped regularly and let a sense a lightness gather about himself, a transparency, as if he might be blown away in the cold wind that sliced between the buildings. He let his sense of himself as someone with things to do and places to go begin to soften and blur. Thoughts stilled, to be replaced by an awareness that was increasingly drawn in on his surroundings.

“Boo!” shouted Dion, clapping his hands together, knocking his gang out of the light trance he had put them in, the sudden shock of it making them laugh to cover their unease.

“Fuck you, Dion, what you do that for? I was just getting into it.”

“Listen,” Dion said, “That's what we get deep into when we're going to lift something. I don't want to get chased. That's for kids. If we go into a shop, we got to act like professionals. We got to get serious about this, like it's the last thing we're ever going to do. I'll tell you what we got to do. We got to get control of people's attention, you know? – The people we're going to take things from – the people who might take us to the police – back to school – all them. We need to be invisible when we're doing what matters, and we need them paying attention to just one of us when the others are busy with the action. Listen, I'll tell you how we can work it, but don't forget, you got to be feeling right inside. Feel right inside and everything'll follow.”

The first time round, they screwed up completely, came away with nothing and almost got caught. Dion was enraged. “I'm not fucking kidding, you know? I am not kidding. This fucking matters to me. I give you good stuff, the best there is, and what do you do with it? You fucking piss it away like this is some game that we can all go home after. We're not fucking freelancers – we're a team and that's the only way it's going to work.”

He said he didn't want them around him. They were a liability. They were going to get him into serious trouble, if they messed around like that again. But he'd give them one more chance and if they blew that, he'd dump them and just do it himself.

One dropped out – said it was getting too scary – but the others shaped up enough for them to get away undetected with a nondescript little music station that had been sitting, unwired, in a side room of a used-goods shop.

It was a good enough start.

*

Stealing old electronics was not some game Dion could go home after because he knew that one day he wouldn't be going home. In his parents' apartment, he spent most of his time shut in his room, thumbing through old magazines, looking at the adverts for music stations, calculators, computers, televisions. Sometimes he reached under his bed and up to where his poster of the tropical island was wedged into the mesh that held up the mattress. He opened the picture out and stared at it for an hour at a time, dreaming of getting a boat and going there with his friends to live a life of freedom and adventure.

In spending so much time either out of the house or in the corner of the house set aside for him, surrounded by a few treasured possessions, the appearances of Dion's life increasingly resembled those of his grandmother. Unconsciously, his parents reacted accordingly, becoming increasingly grudging in their treatment of him, making of him an outsider. His mother was expecting another baby and Dion put her offhandedness with him down to that. His explanation didn't change the feeling though, and he began to spend even more time away from his parents' apartment.

Dion soon had the entire territory between the apartment and his school mapped out. The impressions from his first journey were resolved into a series of clearly defined localities distinguished by the quality of the buildings, the kinds of cars parked on the streets, and the attitudes of the people to the gang of truants he led.

More precisely, the districts were distinguished by what could be stolen, whether it was fruit from an open display, electrical goods from a cheap general store, or sound systems from cars whose alarms no longer worked. Much of the mapping Dion did required long hours of careful observation. His friends would grow impatient but a return of his flashing anger soon silenced them. Anyway, their ‘strikes', as Dion called his planned acts of larceny, were almost always successful.

In search of new territories – to make time for their faces to be forgotten in the old – Dion led his gang further east. At first, they remained on foot, but they soon progressed to stealing rides on the public transport. The downhill social gradient his mapping had revealed continued as they headed further out. There was also an uphill danger gradient, as evidenced by the increasingly visible police presence. The area they ventured into had a sour smell that seemed to come from a mix of infrequently emptied rubbish bins, stale cooking, and broad swathes of derelict land used as unofficial tips. There were only the poorest of shops and no industry. The area appeared to be given over to tall, shabby apartment blocks in which were packed an extraordinary number of people. The public buses and overground transits all terminated thereabouts. After several forays, it became clear there was little of value in the district, but Dion still insisted on investigating every corner. He watched the patterns of movement in the transport system: how most vehicles headed back west in the morning full with people; how there was little traffic during the day; and how it all came back in the evening, crammed again with passengers. But Dion only fully realised he and his friends were exploring a borderland when they came one afternoon to a vast complication of motorway flyovers fronted by a band of complete dereliction. It was as if a demolition team had only half-finished the job and some much greater project had simply marched across the broken walls and rubble left behind. The scene conveyed a kind of finality, as if this was the end of the world, and Dion led his band directly into it.

They picked their way between ruined walls and paused in the cathedral stillness beneath the flyovers, the rumble of traffic infinitely distant, like divine breath. Dion said, “Come on, let's see what's on the other side,” and headed out beyond the shadows of the roadways into an area that none of them had ever set eyes on before. It was not dissimilar from the world they had just left behind. The tall, shabby apartment blocks resumed their inexorable march, only they were more derelict still. Dion's friends wanted to go back and he reluctantly agreed.

Before they turned away, he noticed, painted in rough, angry letters on the end of one of the derelict blocks beyond the flyovers, the words, ‘Welcome to the Waste'.