The Smudger Read online

  “You really are sick, aren’t you?” He was at the bathroom door, watching my head disappearing into the toilet bowl.

  “What do you care?”

  His hand was on my back, rubbing it. “Because I’m a human, and you’re a human, kind of, and I care about my fellow man. Or woman. Whatever.”

  I shrugged his hand off me. “I don’t need any pity from someone like you.”

  “Then maybe I can give you an anti-sickness tablet. I’ve taken one. They work really well, trust me, my—”

  “No,” I said, cutting him off. “I don’t need anything from you. I have my ginger, and my chamomile.” I groaned as I remembered that they’d been stolen. “I did. Shit.”

  “Well, the offer’s still open. There’s no point in suffering needlessly. Do you always get the throw so badly?”

  I turned around and looked up at him, my stomach churning a little less for now.

  “No. It must be something else making me nauseous. Or someone.”

  He placed his hand on his heart in a mock show of hurt. “Vicious, aren’t we? Are you always so rude to people you’ve only just met?”

  “Must we do this? I feel like crap and you suddenly want to mend generations of burnt bridges between your kind and mine?”

  “I’m not trying to mend anything between my kind and yours. Just me and you. I shouldn’t have called you a red when we first met, you just kind of surprised me. I’m sure you have a good reason for taking an illegal job, just like I do. Anyway, we’re going to be here for a while, you’re in pain, and I can help to ease that. If you swallow your pride and let me.”

  “It has nothing to do with pride. I just don’t trust taking medicine from a merchant.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Fine. Suffer. See if I care.” He went back and lay down on his bed.

  Slowly, carefully, I dragged myself to my feet. I shuffled to the door and clung onto the door frame. “See,” I said. “I’m feeling better already.”

  “Yeah, you look great.”

  “Are you going to sulk now?”

  He stuck out his bottom lip. “What do you care?”

  I held up my hands. “Whatever. I’m done. I’m going to get some sleep, so you can just talk to yourself.”

  “Luckily, I’m really good company.”

  “Well, that’s good then.” I stumbled to the bed and dropped onto it, tugging the cover over myself just as I started to shiver. I reached my arm down and pulled my bag under the cover with me, cuddling into it.

  I closed my eyes and groaned. My head was spinning, which was not helping my stomach to settle. To make it worse, the new memory was sat like a thorn in my brain. I groaned again.

  “Are you alright?” Tian whispered.

  “Yes.” I whispered back.

  “You’re clearly not.”

  “It’s just hard to sleep with a scratch in my head.”

  “Partial memories aren’t comfy at all, are they? I guess that’s why they call them scratches.”

  “Doh, yeah, really?”

  I heard him shift from his bed, and then my cover lifted up, and suddenly he was in my bed, just lying next to me casually like we did this everyday.

  I twisted round to look at him. “What do you think you’re doing?” I said, still whispering.

  “You looked like you needed some company.”

  “And how could you tell that when I had my back to you?”

  “Maybe it was your tone of voice then.”

  “That tone was sarcasm.”

  “Doh, yeah, really?” he said.

  “Get out of my bed.”

  “Fine. Fine.” He backed up and sat on the edge of his own bed. “I’m sorry it’s so awful having to spend some time with me.”

  “I’m not spending time with you. I’m trying to spend time with myself, and you keep interrupting.”

  “Do you want me to be quiet?”

  “That’s all I want.”

  “Me to be quiet.”

  “Yes.”

  The door to the room was flung open, slamming against the chest of drawers beside it.

  “Feeling better?” It was a man this time, his face barely discernible behind a wiry veil of facial hair.

  “Not really,” I grumbled.

  “Well, it’s time for you to leave. Let’s say you’ve officially outstayed your welcome.”

  “That didn’t take long,” said Tian.

  “Far too long if you ask me,” I said. I clambered from the bed and hefted my bag onto my back. I took the cyber card the man offered to me, and Tian took his.

  “Your first half of the payment is loaded onto the card, fully unlocked, so you can use that whenever. The second half of it is locked, and will be made available in Honporo. You must travel separately but,” the man looked at me, “I’m sure that won’t be a problem. You have two weeks to deliver.”

  “Two weeks? It will only take a couple of days to get to Honporo.”

  “For you, maybe. But not everyone can travel in luxury.” The man glared at me again. “We have to make allowances for that.”

  “C’mon,” Tian said, “you can give her a lift, can’t you? You can’t expect her to walk all that way.”

  The man jabbed a finger towards Tian, then at me. “Do not travel together. And watch your backs. We wouldn’t want anything happening to you.”

  I looked down at the cyber card, the first direction already flashing. Honporo. I hadn’t been back to the coast since Okaporo. Hadn’t seen, or even smelt the sea. Just the thought of it brought back the stench of death.

  14

  KIOTO

  “I bet you were surprised to hear from me again,” I said as I approached Cota.

  He shook his head. “Not really. I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist it. Once people have temptation in their hands, they can’t help but imagine giving into it. And once you start imagining it, the deal’s already done.”

  “You have a pretty low opinion of people.”

  He shrugged. “So, you still want my smudger?”

  “Is there any room for negotiation on that price?”

  “500. Take it or leave it.”

  “Fine.”

  Cota lifted his fingers and drew out a screen in the air between us. I pulled out my cyber card and waved it close to the screen.

  “That’s not how you do it,” Cota said, snatching the card from me. He touched the card to the screen and it beeped. Payment accepted. It was nice not to hear the double beep again, and even nicer knowing that it would be some time before I did.

  He closed his fingers and thumbs together and the screen fizzled and vanished. He waggled his fingers at me. “You should invest in some implants, join the rest of this century.”

  “No thank you.”

  Cota opened the back of his wagon and dragged the smudger out. Her hands were chained together.

  I sighed. “You can take those off,” I said.

  “You might want to keep them on,” Cota replied. He dropped a small key into my hand.

  “Where are her papers?”

  Cota grinned. “I lost them.”

  “You can’t sell a carrier without papers.”

  “And who are you going to complain to? Besides, look at her, she’s got the shivers so bad she’ll be dead within weeks.”

  “I can’t go round with a carrier without documents. Especially one in this state. What if we get stopped?”

  “Well, you’d better avoid the authorities then. I’m sure that’s like second nature to you.”

  “Great. Thanks. That’s really helpful.”

  He climbed up into the front of his wagon. “Enjoy your smudger while you still have her.” He swung the door closed and the engine hummed. The wagon pulled away, and we watched it leave.

  “Bye bye, bye bye,” the smudger said.

  “I’m Kioto. What’s your name?”

  “I don’t know, I don’t know.”

  “That’s ok, we’ll figure it out.”

  “Wh
at’s your name?”

  “Kioto.”

  “What’s your name?” she repeated.

  “Let’s get those chains off you. You’re free now.” I unlocked them and dropped them into my bag. The smudger looked at her hands for a while, turning them over and over.

  “I’m just going to have a quick look inside your head, if that’s alright. I’ll be gentle.”

  I reached my hand up to her forehead and she shied away. Being a carrier, enslaved, was bad enough, but when you were designated as the smudger, forced to carry all the bad, unhappy, violent memories, when it came, death was a welcome release.

  I rubbed her arm. “It’s ok, I just want to look, I’m not going to put anything in, I promise. You’re safe now.”

  She held still this time, but her eyes flicked from side to side with panic. She was full, her brain almost bursting with horrible memories she had been forced to take. There was no way I could extract any, no way that I could even look through them to find more of my sister’s. Any prodding could cause a rush; a sudden and uncontrollable emptying of her head into mine. It would be enough to kill me outright. It was a miracle that she was still alive.

  “We’ll get you sorted, alright? When we get to Honporo we’ll go to the colony and get some help. But now, we’ve got a long walk ahead of us. A very long walk.”

  15

  SENETSU

  I passed Omori from my arms into Saji’s. He shifted her weight, her head lolling against his neck.

  “Thank you,” I said. “She was getting so heavy.”

  “She’s exhausted. As are you.”

  “I know. But we have to keep moving.”

  “No,” Saji said, touching my arm. “No. Enough. No more walking all day long. No more sleeping in barns and caves and makeshift shelters. You and Omori have barely slept at all.”

  “She’s having nightmares. About Okaporo, and about Kioto. When she asks me where her sister is, or when we’ll see her again, what can I say? I don’t know. And then she thinks about all the possibilities, and by bedtime they’ve become nightmares in her head.”

  “Exactly. You both need a proper rest. If we head that way, we can make it to Akimori before nightfall.”

  “And what are we going to do in Akimori?”

  “Rest. Recharge. Just for a couple of days. Wouldn’t it be nice to wake up tomorrow morning and know that you don’t have to walk anywhere?”

  “That would be so nice.”

  “And to sleep in a real bed. Have a bath. Eat a proper meal.”

  I was already imagining sinking into the water, hot enough to turn my skin red.

  “We could stop at the colony there.”

  “No. No colony. No bunking on mats. And no safehouses either; sleeping in a dormitory, and probably only getting one bed between us, sharing with traders recovering from the throw. No. We deserve a little bit of luxury.”

  “But we’ve barely got any money. We’ve almost emptied our accounts, and we’ve already sold our rings. Any work we’ve done along the way was just traded for food.”

  “We’ve got enough left.”

  “But it will wipe us out completely. What if there’s an emergency?”

  Saji shifted Omori’s body to his other hip. She lifted her head for a moment, but quickly dropped it down and went back to sleep.

  “I don’t know about you, but I’d call this an emergency.”

  I smiled. “When you put it that way.”

  “Good. Decision made.”

  We purposefully avoided the colony at Akimori, and entered the city through the suburbs. We were stared at, pointed at, and a few insults were thrown our way, but it was nothing we hadn’t experienced before.

  I gripped Omori’s hand tightly as she trundled along beside me. I couldn’t protect her from it, all I could do was reassure her. So we set our focus on the pavement ahead and walked with our heads held high. And our four year old daughter copied. Our four year old daughter learnt how much she was hated, and how to pretend it wasn’t happening.

  We walked right into the centre of the city, where auto cars hummed past us, their passengers relaxed in the climate-controlled, leather interiors.

  The streets here were packed with people, and we were barely even noticed. No one stopped to stare, no one pointed. We were invisible.

  We passed several hotels and guest houses that prominently displayed signs stating NO TRADERS. We knocked on the doors of some that didn’t, only to be met with the rebuffal in person, or a claim of “no vacancies”.

  We didn’t even make it to the front door of one.

  “No, no, no, no, no!” The woman came running out waving her hands, her feet still in her slippers. “Not you. Not your kind.” Her eyes had fallen on Omori then, and for a moment, I thought she might reconsider, but then her eyes snapped back to my face, or, more specifically, my right eye. “No, get out of here, you’re not welcome.”

  She muttered something as we turned around, but I was too tired to listen for what it was.

  “This is useless,” I said to Saji. “So much for that hot bath.”

  “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have even suggested it. Maybe we should head for the colony after all.”

  Omori was walking slower and slower, her head beginning to droop.

  “I think that’s a good idea,” I said. I bent and lifted her up onto my hip.

  “Mummy,” she whispered into my neck. “When are we going home?”

  “We’re not, darling.”

  “Is Kioto at our old home or our new home?”

  “I don’t know where Kioto is,” I replied tightly.

  “Why don’t people want us to sleep in their houses?”

  For a moment I considered lying to her, telling her that they simply had no room for us. But it was the rest of the world that was the problem, not us. There was nothing wrong with us, and I never wanted Omori to think that there was. Not even for a moment.

  “Because they don’t like people who are different to them.”

  “Are we different?”

  “They think we are.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we don’t live in their big houses, and we don’t do the same jobs as them, and because we believe in different things.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like the High.”

  She sat up in my arms. “They don’t believe in the High?”

  “No, darling.”

  “But you know what that means,” she whispered.

  “People choose to believe different things, and that’s fine, that’s their choice, isn’t it? Now, we know that the world is a wonderful place because everyone in it is different. Remember Matsu from back home? Remember her beautiful red hair? Well, imagine if there were no red haired people in the world. Wouldn’t that be sad?”

  “There’s no Matsu?”

  The question hit me like a spear through my chest. There probably was no Matsu anymore.

  “I mean, imagine if she had black hair instead. If everyone had black hair. It would be sad to never see red hair again, or blonde, or white, or all the other colours.”

  “It would be sad.”

  “And that’s why it’s good that the world is full of different people.”

  “But they don’t like different?”

  “Some people are afraid of different.”

  “That’s silly.”

  “You’re right, it’s very silly. Which is why we don’t get angry when people treat us badly. Because it’s just them being silly, and there’s no point getting angry over that, is there?”

  Omori shook her head. “Sometimes silly is fun.”

  I tickled her ribs and she squirmed. “Sometimes silly is fun.”

  “Look,” said Saji, tugging on my arm.

  I looked at the house where he was pointing. I blinked and looked again. The sign in the window stated TRADERS WELCOME.

  “Maybe not everyone in this city is afraid of different,” I said.

  Saji pushed open the
gate, and we walked up the short path.

  16

  SENETSU

  I leaned back in the bath and closed my eyes. The bubbly water steamed, and my insides gently cooked. Omori was tucked up in a bed of her own, and we had a locked door between us and the rest of the world. It’s surprising how much you miss that when you don’t have it.

  For the first time since leaving Okaporo, Omori was sleeping soundly. She wasn’t crying and fighting, she wasn’t screaming out Kioto’s name as she slept. For once, she hadn’t sobbed herself into an exhausted sleep. She felt safe and secure, and it showed.

  Saji was watching the television, the sound turned too low for me to hear what was on. We’d had a small one in Okaporo, but it rarely got plugged in. It showed little more than back to back adverts these days, for things that, even if we could afford them, no one would ever sell to a trader anyway. It was a constant reminder that we were outsiders. And so, we’d simply unplugged it.

  I dropped my face under the surface of the water and listened to it swirl around me. I could stay here forever, happily pretending that the outside world didn’t exist, but we’d only had enough money for two nights. Saji had been right, though; it was enough time to simply recharge and catch up on our sleep. Then we would set out for Kumonayo, which was at least another three days’ hike. We’d have to make the most of this while we could.

  “Senetsu!” Saji called. “Okaporo’s on the TV!”

  I jumped out of the bath and stumbled through to the bedroom, tripping on the towel as I tried to wrap it around myself. I sat on the edge of the bed and stared.

  The images showed our burnt out homes, the scorched ground beneath them. They were saying that they’d found dozens of bodies, but they had been too burnt to identify.

  I’d done my own crying; spent days in tears, cried myself to sleep every night. Tears rolled down my cheeks again, but they weren’t for the home I’d lost, or the people I’d known this time, it was seeing what Kioto would have seen when she thought she was coming home.

  “Are they only just reporting this now?” I asked. It had happened almost two weeks ago.