New Keepers. Jayne Bauling

      “Unless Ricochet and Leoli have a better idea.”

      “How come we’ve never heard they’re still around?”

      “Like she said, not all the draws are screened.” Silver lifts his eyes to Halo’s bright head.

      “Another thing I’d like to know is why this Meyi boy is so desperate to go to the Wildlands,” I continue, and I’m thinking how weird it would be if Meyi has somehow seen or heard the same things I have.

      “I don’t know.” He stops, and I get the impression he’s really struggling to order his thoughts, or maybe just to make sense of things. “I’ve heard that in the old times, long before the Drowning, people like him were sometimes believed to have special senses or abilities.”

      “To make up for being flawed,” I suggest.

      “Or maybe our flaws are really talents,” he says.

      “What’s yours?”

      “Attention deficit disorder.”

      “If you and Meyi both regularly have to go for Repairs, and I’m Stained … Hey, wouldn’t it be crazy if it turns out we’re all flawed?” I say.

      Halo looks back at us, twisting her lovely long neck to see over her shoulder. She looks disturbed, or uneasy.

      “You and Ril –” I start to say to her.

      “Flaws are personal.”

      I get a glimpse of her mouth, such a sad curve to it suddenly, before she turns her face forward again. Her braids swing gently.

      “That’s all right, Halo, I bet lots of people feel like that,” I say to her back.

      “I don’t know why,” Silver says. “We are all what we are.”

      “Hey!” Ril pipes up behind us. “Which Breeding Control Centre are we heading for, Halo? Shouldn’t we jump on a tram?”

      “It’s just through here.”

      I can understand how people with nothing to gain or lose might enjoy attending a live draw. I even get that some men, yearning to be regular family men, might have an interest in identifying possible mothers for their offspring.

      What I don’t get is how the women and girls in each draw can bear to learn their fate in front of a live audience, not to mention the thousands more watching on screens in their homes in the Sprawll’s residential districts. The draws are even popular in the Margins, where people watch on communal screens, but the Margins girls in the draws hardly ever attend them, mostly because the Centres are all here in the Sprawll and no one from the Margins really likes coming here. And then if they lose out, Minders come immediately and take them away for sterilisation.

      The draws mostly happen in the early evenings on ordinary days. It looks like today’s is over. A Skins couple, about my age, rush through the crowds coming out of the mustard-and-brown Centre, hugging each other. The young man is laughing.

      So is the girl, but she’s also crying. It’s happy crying.

      “Someone got lucky,” I say.

      “Someone didn’t, a few thousand draws ago,” Lizwi says, and I see her nudge Halo to make her notice another couple, slowly walking past the Centre.

      They’re older, maybe in their thirties or forties, and as they see the young couple, both of them, the woman especially, get expressions you’d think only something deadly serious could put on their faces – like news of the seas rising again, and a second Drowning coming to swallow up or Salt what’s left of the land.

      “Poor things,” Halo says.

      They have a female Pet with them, about twelve, as tiny and cute as Ril. She’s dressed up in a sparkly leotard, leggings and flat satin shoes, with a jewelled collar round her neck and matching wristbands. There’s something desperate about the way she’s performing the usual Pet tricks, bouncing, somersaulting and cartwheeling. It’s as if she’s trying to distract her owners, get them to notice her and remind them that they’ve still got her.

      You can see they don’t want to be entertained right now, walking past maybe the same Centre where hope stopped for them. They’re ignoring her, and she’s not getting any of the little treats you usually see owners tossing to their Pets, pretty sweets and shiny novelty toys mostly.

      “Right, feel sorry for them.” Ril’s voice rises from behind me. “What about their Pet?”

      “She can run away, same as you did,” Orpa says. “Did you wear one of those collars?”

      “’Course. Well, are we going in or not?” It’s as if Ril is wishing she hadn’t mentioned the Pet.

      I discover I’m excited about seeing Ricochet and Leoli.

      Two BCC security officers stop us in the massive foyer, maybe because we’re going in the opposite direction to everyone else, or it could be because we’re such a strange group. Their uniforms are ugly, repeating the building’s colours.

      “Draw’s over for tonight, you kids,” the man says.

      “We’re here to see Ricochet and Leoli.” I feel aggressive, less to do with their uniforms, more their patronising manner.

      “If you’d tell them it’s a party going out to the Wildlands?” Halo comes in quickly as they stiffen, hands going to their shiny brown belts from which hang an assortment of deterrents, mostly sprays from the look of them. “Oh, please? I know they’ll agree to see us. It’s so important.”

      She’s smiling at the man, and it’s obvious he can’t resist her. He speaks in an undertone to his colleague. She is less impressed.

      “But this Wildlands story? That can’t be –” she starts to object, and he jerks his head so she knows to move away with him, out of our hearing.

      We are watching them. The man keeps looking back at Halo all the time he’s talking to the woman. She tries to interrupt him, then puffs out a theatrical sigh, clicks her tongue and marches off with her flat-soled brown shoes thudding down on the gleaming mustard floor.

      “The Wildlands, remember,” Halo calls to remind her.

      The male officer returns to us and starts flirting with Halo. She keeps smiling and saying things like he’s being silly, or he’s so funny, and that he should stop making her laugh, all in such a gentle way that you can see he loves it and starts coming onto her even stronger.

      I want to hit him.

      “I wonder what Ricochet and Leoli will be able to tell us?” Ril is excited.

      “Maybe they’ll want to come with us,” Boa says.

      “I don’t know.” Silver looks at me. “It’s your expedition, Jabz. How would you feel if they wanted to tag along? Or take over as our guides? Maybe coming here is a mistake.”

      “Maybe.” I wrench my eyes away from Halo and the security officer. “Let’s just wait and see what they say.”

      “Ja, I’m not clear why Halo thinks it’s so important to see them.”

      “I’m sure she has a good reason,” I defend Halo.

      Silver’s light greeny-grey eyes slide Halo’s way, then flicker back to me. He grins, and just for that moment, he’s like any regular guy, maybe even one from the Margins. “Go for it, brother.”

      Heat rushes to the surface of my skin. I want to give him a shove, but at the same time I like that he gives me a chance there, Stain and all.

      The foyer has emptied completely now, except for us. All this time I’ve been aware of the sound Meyi is making, a sort of rising wailing, as if he is in some sort of distress, worsening all the time. Now I see him totter towards the foyer’s side wall, towing Lizwi with him, because she’s still hanging on to his arm.