The Smudger Read online

  I sat back up. “What?”

  Kioto cocked her head and looked up at me with surprise. She sighed a sigh with her entire body in a way that only children approaching their teenage years can.

  “Forget it,” she said. “You don’t understand.” She turned and skipped back to where her sister was still playing.

  I shook my head.

  My phone pinged and I pulled it out of my pocket.

  ‘LIBERATION! Hide the girls.’

  “Kioto! Omori!” I cried. “Liberation!”

  They didn’t need telling twice. This was the one and only instruction that they both obeyed without question, without turning it into a debate or a negotiation. It was a regularly practised drill, although Kioto had only done it for real once before, and this was Omori’s first time. Both girls ran into the house without fuss. Kioto pushed aside the sofa, using her entire body, and lifted the trapdoor beneath. She stepped down into the darkness beneath it and lifted Omori in after her. They both crouched down, their faces turned upwards as I closed the lid over them.

  “Keep still,” I whispered to them. “Keep quiet.” I pushed the sofa back into place.

  Although my heart was threatening to break out of my chest, I managed to walk quietly outside. I glanced around, and froze as I spotted the doll’s house sat, like a guilty plea, in the open. I looked towards the gates and saw the cars already pulling in, armed officers climbing out before the vehicles even came to a complete stop. I didn’t have time to hide it. I grabbed the chair and tossed it towards the house. I winced as it collided, sheering the roof right off and splitting the back wall into pieces.

  “What’s that?”

  I stared at my reflection in the buttons on the officer’s jacket and put on my best expression of wilfulness.

  “Why’ve you come in your posh stuff?” I asked.

  “What’s that?” he repeated.

  “I mean, you guys only wear this fancy shiny-buttoned stuff for ceremonies and marches. It’s not your everyday uniform, is it? Why would you get all dressed up to come out to a colony?”

  “Do you want to be arrested?”

  “For what?”

  “Obstruction.” He took hold of my chin in his gloved hand and turned my face towards the buckled chair and the broken doll’s house. “What’s that?”

  “Looks like a pile of rubbish to me. Did you want to have a rummage? It’s amazing what people throw out.”

  He marched over to it without releasing his grip on my face. I shuffled and scuffed along, trying not to trip over his boots. He turned me towards it again.

  “It looks like children’s toys,” he said.

  “Broken children’s toys,” I corrected.

  “It’s a criminal offence to hide colony children from the authorities. The Liberation Scheme is for their benefit. They’ll be raised properly, re-educated, given proper chances in life. Wouldn’t you want the best for your children?”

  “I would if I had any left. You already took mine. If you checked your little screen, you’d already know that.”

  He finally let go of me, wiping his hand on his trousers. With a grunt, he kicked at the doll’s house, splitting the middle floor in half.

  “Clear this up,” he said. “It’s a health and safety hazard.”

  3

  KIOTO

  Trader exchanges weren’t difficult to find. You simply followed the smell to the worst part of the city, and then looked for the worst of the worst part. When you thought it couldn’t get any dirtier, more disgusting, or depraved, that was where you’d find the exchange.

  The grubby sign swung back and forth above the door sporting a crude scrawling of an eye crossed with three lines. The traditional trader emblems had long ago been replaced with this debased image, making the exchanges easier to find and identify. Because that’s all citizens saw us as: three scars over one eye. Why pretend we were anything more?

  I pushed the door open and stepped inside. The small, cramped space doubled as some kind of café, with a couple of small tables pushed against one wall, surrounded by mismatched chairs. Exchanges couldn’t get by without diversifying anymore. Most citizens preferred to hire the merchants; those that had broken away from the colonies, opting for life within the cities instead of clinging to the edge of them. The few jobs left for colony traders were poorly paid, unwanted, or just illegal.

  A couple of screens flickered on the wall behind the desk, updating with available jobs as they were submitted via the trader network. Kioto joined the few traders already standing there, and cast her eyes over the vacancies.

  Each job that appeared disappeared just as quickly. This wasn’t the only exchange in the city, and the merchants had instant access to the network via their screens. They didn’t have to come to places like this to find work. They just sat on their plush sofas in their designer homes and logged straight in.

  The merchants also benefited from access to the alpha network. But to get access to that, you needed an address inside the city limits. The better jobs were only posted there.

  So here I was, at the exchange, with everyone else at the bottom of the food chain.

  “861A!” I shouted loudly, even making myself jump. The woman behind the desk swiped the job from the screen, dragging the details onto a cyber card for me. She tossed it onto the counter, and I touched my phone to the pay pad. It double-bleeped as I did so, indicating that my account was near its limit.

  The woman looked at me with sympathy. “Better hurry, looks like you really need this one, and you don’t want it getting poached.”

  I glanced at the other traders next to me.

  “It’s not them you need to worry about,” the woman behind the counter clarified. “It’s the merchants.”

  “They have their own jobs, they’re not interested in these.”

  “No, they wouldn’t be normally. But recently, they seem to be logging in and stealing them just out of spite.”

  I grabbed the cyber card from the counter and held it up to the light. The first route instruction was already flashing. All I had to do was follow.

  4

  KIOTO

  The address was modest, but a larger house than I would have expected. People with this kind of property tended to post their jobs on the alpha network to avoid any undesirables knocking at their door.

  As I walked up the short drive, however, I noticed that the grass was overgrown, and brambles tangled around the bottoms of the trees. Weeds were springing up from the gravel beneath my feet.

  The house also looked like it needed some attention. Peeling paint, missing roof tiles, dull, dirty windows. The property was clearly getting too much to handle. It was likely an unwanted inheritance kept in the family out of duty rather than desire.

  I turned the last corner of the drive, and the full house came into view. In the centre of the drive, an old fountain sputtered water that splashed over a chipped and stained basin. Behind that stood a merchant’s wagon.

  As I approached the front door, it swung open, and the merchant stepped out. He beamed at me, lifting his hand to touch his hat in a mock show of courtesy. His smug smile confirmed my fears.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “It seems,” said the merchant, “that your services are no longer required.”

  I looked past him to the client who had frozen mid-handshake.

  “What’s going on?” I repeated.

  The man shrugged, his face reddening. “He turned up first…ah...I...I didn’t know if you were coming.”

  “I’ve just spent half my journey here talking to you. Figuring out details. You knew full well that I was on my way.”

  “You should’ve been quicker, dear,” the merchant put in. “Perhaps if you had a car, or even used public transport. I hear it’s really quite luxurious these days. Not that I’d know myself, of course.”

  “Shut it,” I spat. I turned back to the client. “This isn’t how things are done.”

  “This is
business,” the merchant said.

  “Why did you even want this job in the first place?” I snapped at him.

  He shrugged, his fat neck disappearing into the wide collar of his coat for a moment. “Something to pass the time. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a rather niggly memory to offload.” He looked over at his wagon. “Now...who to choose, who to choose.”

  I stepped towards the client and lowered my voice. “This isn’t how things are done. We had a deal. I really needed this job.”

  The colour of the man’s face deepened even further. He stared at the floor, shuffled his feet. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to say.”

  “You have no honour.”

  “Perhaps you should leave,” the merchant said. “You’ve no business here. Quite literally.”

  My hands clenched involuntarily, and it took all of my concentration to stop myself from burying my fists into his fat, smug face.

  “I’m not speaking to you.”

  “I’m sorry,” the client said again. “Please leave, otherwise I...” he trailed off.

  “What? You’ll have me arrested? What about you? For breach of contract.”

  “We only had a verbal one. Just a chat on the phone. Nothing was definite.”

  “Look, chick,” the merchant said, “you missed out. It happens. But now you’re just embarrassing yourself. Go back to your colony and put it down to experience.”

  I looked back at the client. “C’mon, I really needed this.”

  “I’m sorry.” He shuffled backwards and closed the door.

  “Can I give you a lift somewhere?” the merchant asked.

  “No thank you.”

  He sighed with breath that stank of fried chicken. “Look, swallow your pride and take an offer of help. This—” he gestured towards the house “—this was just business. You know that. But this is a genuine offer. Maybe I could buy you something to eat too.”

  “I don’t need your charity.”

  “Then let me do you a favour. I know of a job that might be well suited to your talents. Let me get you the details.”

  Lifting his hands, he pulled out a box shape in the air between his fingers and thumbs. The implants under his skin created a screen in the air.

  “I don’t have a screen,” I said. I pulled my phone from my pocket and held it out to him.

  He nodded. “Of course. I forget you people still live like that. Let me get you the man’s card.”

  He strode over towards his wagon and, reluctantly, I followed. I didn’t even want a job from him, but my stomach was aching with hunger, and it had been a long walk from the exchange. Cities in Lobaya were monstrously large, and it had taken me almost two hours to get here on foot.

  I looked up at his wagon. The back was mostly boxed in, but an open slit ran around the side of it. You might think he was transporting animals if it weren’t for the voices and the hands reaching out towards me. I shuddered. I couldn’t understand how anyone could look at one human and think ‘human’, and then look at another and think ‘slave’ or ‘object’. But that was how the world was.

  He opened the door on the cab and dragged his briefcase to the edge of the seat. He flicked it open and dug through the contents. He held a cyber card out to me. After a moment’s hesitation, I took it from him. It wouldn’t harm to take the card, even though I had no intention of following up on it.

  “Go see this guy,” the merchant said. “Tell him Cota sent you. You won’t even get in otherwise. He’s...er...off network.”

  I stepped backwards, my head shaking wildly. “No, I don’t do that stuff. I’m not a ripper. Only legitimate jobs.”

  “Just think it over. When was the last time you ate? Or showered? Or slept in a proper bed?”

  “I’m not a ripper.”

  He shrugged and pushed the briefcase away. “Your choice.” He twitched. “If you’ll excuse me, I really need to get rid of this memory.”

  I looked at the hands stretching out of the wagon. One of his slaves would be loaded with that memory until he could sell it on. That’s how merchants worked. They did very little of the work themselves.

  It wasn’t comfortable to carry someone else’s memory. It was like wearing someone else’s shoes. At first, it just feels a little odd, the soles are worn down in a different pattern because of the way they walk. But, eventually, you find yourself walking more like them to match the shoes. Their walk starts to become a part of you. And it was like that with memories. Holding on to too many, or keeping them for too long would send you crazy.

  I nodded and turned away, walking down past the wagon. As I did, a hand grabbed my shoulder, and pressed its fingers into my neck.

  In that moment, a memory flicked into my brain. Just a whisper of it, just a fleeting glimpse. It can happen sometimes, especially when the person touching you is topped out with memories. But what I saw, what I felt and heard, was proof that the last eleven years of my life had been a lie.

  I turned back to Cota. “I want to buy your smudger,” I said.

  5

  KIOTO

  Cota grinned broadly and folded his hands over his chest. “Do you now?” he said.

  “How much?” I asked.

  “She’s almost topped out.”

  “I know.”

  “So she won’t come cheap.”

  I frowned. “But she’s barely usable.”

  “Not as a slave, at least.”

  “What else would I use her for?”

  He winked at me, and I actually stepped back in surprise. I couldn’t even imagine what other use she might have. She was stuffed full of bad memories that were making her crazy, giving her the shivers.

  “How much?” I pressed.

  He nodded his head from side to side for a moment, weighing up the question. “Five hundred.”

  I laughed, but he kept his face straight. “You’re serious?”

  “Five hundred.”

  “But she’s useless.”

  “Five hundred.”

  “I can’t get hold of that kind of money.”

  Cota shrugged. “Ah well.”

  I quickly thought things through. “How long can you give me?”

  “Two days.” He held up two thick fingers. “I’m only visiting, and I’ll be moving on.”

  “How can I get five hundred in two days?”

  He pointed towards the cyber card I still held in my hand.

  “Can you give me more time?”

  “Absolutely not. I’m on a schedule. Two days.” He held his fingers up again.

  I looked down at the cyber card in my hand. “I’ll get your money. But not like this. I’m not a ripper.”

  Cota shrugged again. “Then good luck to you.”

  6

  SENETSU

  I shifted Omori on my hip and waited outside Narata’s door. She’d summoned me, which was far from regular.

  “Come on, get down, you’re heavy.” I put Omori on the floor, but she still grabbed at my leg, asking to be lifted up. “You’re a big girl now, you can stand by yourself.” It came out sharper than I’d intended.

  I turned as I heard footsteps behind us.

  “You’ve been summoned as well?” I asked Saji as he approached.

  “Daddy!” chorused Omori, running to him with her arms outstretched. He scooped her up, rolled her upside down, and finally sat her up on his shoulders. She looked at me with a grin. I sighed.

  “And I thought she’d only summoned me,” he said. “I’d assumed it was something to do with the farm.”

  “Now I’m really worried.”

  “I’m sure it’s nothing.” He took hold of my hand and squeezed it. “Probably another glowing report of Kioto’s impressive progress.”

  “I wish I could be as relaxed as you.”

  He winked at me. That was just like him. No matter what trouble befell him, he always faced it with an annoyingly casual smile and, more annoyingly, he always seemed to breeze through it. I, on the other hand, spen
t every moment thinking up every possible worse case scenario, usually to discover that things weren’t nearly as bad as I thought. A natural worrier. But then, men didn’t have too much to worry about. Only women could become traders in the colonies, and they were responsible for training up the girls, they ran the council, the finances, the admin, everything. The men worked the land and fathered children. And that was pretty much it for them. So they could afford their casual smiles. I could not.

  The door to Narata’s house creaked open, and her face appeared in the gap. She smiled widely, perhaps trying to reassure me, but I saw the worry in her eyes.

  “Come in,” she said, opening the door wider.

  We stepped inside, and even Saji quietened in the atmosphere of solemnity. Omori, however, remained oblivious, and found her way to Narata’s cabinet of treasures. It was a small chest of tiny drawers, each filled with exciting things to explore: nuts, pine cones, buttons, seeds. It never failed to keep children amused while the adults had business to get done.

  Narata took hold of one of my hands, and one of Saji’s, and clasped them together.

  “I knew when I chose Saji for you that it would be for keeps,” she said. “That he would do anything for you. Protect you. And now you have two beautiful girls.”

  “What’s this about, Narata?” My heart was hammering so hard I was sure everyone must be able to hear it.

  Narata squeezed my hand. “Always the worrier.”

  “Well, I’m sure you didn’t summon us both here to reminisce our marriage.”

  Narata closed her eyes and nodded. “You’re right. I have a very grave matter to discuss. An important mission. One that can only be given to the two of you.” She opened her eyes and glanced past us to where Omori was playing. “I need you to leave Okaporo. This colony is no longer safe for you.”

  “What do you mean, ‘leave’?”

  Narata took a deep breath, and took forever to exhale it. I’d never wanted to hit a woman before now. Never.