The Birth of Love (23 page)

Prisoner 730006, you are insulting the Protectors with this nonsense. Will you answer the question plainly?

I am sorry but I can be no plainer.

Why are you singing?

Because my heart is full of life. Even in here, my heart is full of life and my head is full of memories of what I have seen.

Prisoner 730006, we repeat so you understand. You are accused of the capital crime of conspiring against the Genetix and thus against the survival of humanity. You are aware of this?

Yes.

And yet you are singing?

Yes.

Do you want to be protected?

It is not important what happens to me.

Are you a member of a primitive death cult which despises the species and wants to destroy it?

I would never consider myself in this way, though I perceive this is the charge you will use to condemn me.

Once more we must caution you, Prisoner 730006. The Protectors hope to understand your actions more thoroughly. However we cannot afford to be sentimental in our dealings with cases such as yours, lest we imperil the majority. This is a question of billions of lives.

Billions and billions of lives. You are right. There are so many living on the planet. And yet is it not strange that lives commingle, that patterns form, that humans love each other even now, even here. I find this so wonderful. It fills my heart with this absurd and incongruous joy, I cannot suppress it.

You insult the Protectors and all who work to save the species with your words.

Perhaps humanity will cease. Perhaps all the species of animals and plants currently existing on the planet will cease. Yet I believe that life continues. The life of the planet. The life of the universe we still know so little about, for all your assertions. Generation and growth. Whatever you do, something will resist, something will not go to plan, and thereby the cycle begins again …

Prisoner 730006, you must be aware that your words constitute a capital crime. We cannot let you continue, for your own protection. Can you answer directly, who is Birgitta?

She is the mother …

Correction, egg donor.

… of a son …

Correction, progeny of the species.

The power is everywhere. That is what the guides said. And they sang:

Prisoner 730006, why were you on Lofoten 4a, Arctic Circle sector 111424?

Because of Birgitta. Because I could not have been elsewhere. Because even in this world you have tried to strip of mystery, something occurred that was inexplicable and I was drawn to follow it. Because I longed for a true home, a place I could feel – well, like a human, a true, flawed, ravaged, urgent, desiring human. I think that is why but there may be other reasons I cannot comprehend.

Prisoner 730006 will be taken back to her cell. She needs the attention of the Corporeal Scientists.

They can drug me all they like but they cannot change what I have seen.

Transcripts of interviews with members of the anti-species conspiracy of Lofoten 4a, Arctic Circle sector 111424

Part 4, 4.45–6.00 p.m. 15 August 2153
Second interview with Prisoner 730004, after first phase of rehabilitation treatment

Prisoner 730004, we hope you are feeling better after your treatment.

My mind is deadened and I cannot think clearly. I trust this is the intended effect.

We are working to ascertain your real names and identity numbers and soon we will also know the true identity of Birgitta. With these facts we can better protect you and protect the species from the consequences of your selfish species-endangering activities.

I cannot entirely understand what you are saying. My head is swimming in chemical filth. You have poisoned me. Before – there was a before, I know, before this place. Something before – fresh air. The sea. The great ocean. I remember that. There was something – the island …

Correction, Lofoten 4a, Arctic Circle sector 111424.

Yes, that is what you call it, isn’t it? As if by categorising everything, giving it a number, you can erase the destruction of the planet. It is too late. The Arctic is destroyed,
however you number it.

You are wrong, Prisoner 730004. You are ill and tired. You have been starved for some time. During the time you existed in your primitive death cult, you were starving.

I was not starving. I had an abundance of things to eat. My body was enriched by my existence on the island …

Correction, Lofoten 4a, Arctic Circle sector 111424.

I am sick now, it is true. They have dosed me so I cannot think. If I could only think – what was it?

Prisoner 730004, do you want to live?

On the island …

Correction, Lofoten 4a, Arctic Circle sector 111424.

… Yes, if you call it that. On this island you name and number …

Lofoten 4a, Arctic Circle sector 111424.

Will you never let me finish?

We are interested in anything you say.

On this island …

Lofoten 4a, Arctic Circle sector 111424.

It is impossible to speak! It is impossible to think. My brain is doused. This is what I escaped from! I escaped this deadening of the brain. I did escape, didn’t I? Or did I dream? I dreamed of so many things. Was everything a dream? Was Birgitta merely a dream? I think this was her name.

She was not a dream but a real woman who was bound up
with your delusions. Birgitta is not her real name but we will shortly trace her and then she will be captured.

My memories are fading in this fog. Where will I be sent now?

You are not entitled to ask questions, Prisoner 730004.

Entitled? What does that mean?

You are not entitled to ask questions. Now we ask you, who was on Lofoten 4a, Arctic Circle sector 111424?

I told you, I would not – I cannot.

You are sick. We accept your words earlier were a product of your sickness. Now we are healing you. It will be better for you if you co-operate.

But you told me you knew. You already know. Did you tell me that? My head is …

We will soon know. We are offering you the opportunity to be helpful. The Protectors are inclined to favour those who acknowledge their mistakes and seek to rectify them.

The Protectors. The Protectors are inclined. The Sexual Release Centre, I remember it said, ‘The Protectors offer you sexual release.’ The Protectors themselves, I used to think. I went there sometimes, when I was young. Of course I did. Everyone goes there. And everywhere, ‘The Protectors offer you food and drink’ at the dining centre, and ‘The Protectors offer you a good night’s sleep’ above your bed and ‘The Protectors offer you an allocated role’ above your desk and ‘The Protectors offer you a crucial role in the battle for species survival’ when you were harvested and closed.

Once again on behalf of the Protectors we must explain that such digressions are not required. Now tell us clearly, who is Birgitta?

In Darwin C she worked in the Sexual Release Centre. She was fucked twenty times a day. Twenty-five-minute sessions, five minutes to wash herself between each person, ten-hour days. A rest day every week. One hundred and twenty fucks a week. No one must see her more than ten times consecutively, lest an attachment develop. She had been working there all her adult life. Her routine was very precise.

Why are you using these base terms, Prisoner 730004?

I was not aware they were offensive to anyone. This is what she did.

We are aware of the procedure at the Sexual Release Centres and how some individuals are allocated roles in this aspect of the struggle for the survival of the human species. We do not require your explanation, unscientific and deliberately emotive as it is.

When we took her away and gradually as she opened up and told us about her work, it became apparent that she was subjected to what – in the old days – might have been called horrible degradation and assaults. That anything was permitted, so long as the client felt sexually relieved by the end. That she was often torn and beaten. That she was not permitted to set any limits at all, because everything was justified as necessary for the survival of the species. For the heightening of morale through sexual release. An important role to be allocated, I believe.

These are lies. The workers at the Sexual Release Centre
find their work fulfilling. This has been extensively proven and calibrated. They are aware that the sexual instinct is a basic human urge, and that if it is not required for procreative purposes then it must be fulfilled somehow, and the Protectors in their generosity understand this. The suppliers of sexual release are performing a useful function in our battle against species extinction, as they know. This enriches their work.

I am sure you are right. Perhaps Birgitta secretly enjoyed being ritually raped and abused …

Correction, deployed in the battle against species extinction.

… Perhaps she felt that way she supplied more sexual release than in other ways. Perhaps she felt that way she could best serve the Protectors. Anyway that’s all I know about Birgitta before we escaped together. That she was raped many times a day.

Correction, supplied sexual release.

We do not know which of the rapists …

Correction, seekers after sexual release.

… impregnated her.

Prisoner 730004, it is unfortunate that your delusions have proved so resistant to treatment.

You will not find the drugs to rid me of this conviction.

What is Birgitta’s real name?

I do not know.

You are aware however that Birgitta is not her real name?

Yes.

But you do not know her real name?

No, I do not.

Why was she given the name Birgitta?

She took it from an ancestor of hers. Her great-great-great-grandmother …

Correction, egg donor.

… was a woman called Brigid. So she became Birgitta, to us. Brigid was the earliest ancestor she knew of. Those who lived before are no longer known to us. The name of her great-great-great-grandfather, Brigid’s husband, has been lost.

Correction, sperm donor. Where was this DNA relative Brigid from?

I believe she lived in the former city of London, but that is all I know.

So how did this egg donor’s DNA relatives end up in Lofoten 4a, Arctic Circle sector 111424?

Birgitta’s great-great-grandfather, who was I believe called Calumn, went to the Arctic sector when the climate evacuation protocol was announced in London. He was one of the last to leave the city, before the borders were closed. He was an old man by that stage, and Birgitta’s mother remembered him weeping quietly as they left the house, which they knew would soon be destroyed. He had lived in the house when he was young, and had moved back in there after the
death of his parents. Birgitta’s mother told us many stories of how it was to leave London – she was only a small child when they left, but she said the experience was scored across her memory …

We are not interested in these stories. Correct instances of ‘parents’, ‘great-great-grandfather’, ‘mother’, ‘child’ for the record. Once more on behalf of the Protectors we ask you to confine yourself to the facts, Prisoner 730004.

Who are the Protectors?

You are not entitled to ask questions.

I am confused and ill but now I wonder – who are the Protectors?

As we said, the nature of your position makes it entirely inappropriate for you to ask such a question.

But if I had another position?

Your meaning is unclear.

What sort of position would I need … my head … I wish I could clear my head … What position would I need before I could ask such a question?

As before, we must emphasise that the nature of your position makes it entirely inappropriate for you to ask such a question.

But I cannot understand. Why are we all here, you too? When we have passions and old desires and once we had lovers …

Correction, partners in sexual release.

… and families …

Correction, DNA relatives.

… parents …

Corrrection, sperm and egg donors.

… we loved, children …

Correction, progeny of the species.

… we loved – we were protected by our parents …

Correction, sperm and egg donors.

… and we protected our children …

Correction, progeny of the species.

… we would have died to protect our children …

Correction, progeny of the species.

… and now we are dependent for protection on – I cannot think it through, it is too clouded … These drugs make me spill out words, and some of them I do not want to say, some of them are drawn from me by your drugs, but others – these others – what is it you are so afraid of, that we must speak your language? That everything must be processed in these phrases. ‘Sperm and egg donors’. What are you afraid of? What menace do the old words hold for you? Why will you not let me use them?

Prisoner 730004, we have explained to you that you are ill and delusional and we are trying, on behalf of the Protectors, to help you, but we cannot permit you to ask questions.

I am merely wondering, though my head hurts and I think they have killed me, have they not poisoned me fatally, it feels as if something is slowly stopping my heart, but I am wondering just why we have to look for protection to these Protectors we do not know and cannot see, who do not hold us or kiss us or tell us they love us they simply offer us protection and a place in the battle and sexual release and food and drink and this is our life this is meant to be a life. Who are they?

On behalf of the Protectors, we assure you that such questions are not appropriate and will not be answered.

Cannot be answered. You do not know. I begin to think you do not know who these Protectors are you work for. You have never seen them? I think – yes, I think it must be true that even you have never seen them. Have they seen each other? Are they bodies and humans or something else? My head, I think you must have killed me. Am I dying and is this where I must die?