Spares

‘There is a price,’ Ratchet said, and then the bad news came. ‘You come off your drug.’

‘Fuck off,’ I said, and strode unsteadily out of the room.

Half an hour later Ratchet came and found me. I was slumped at the end of the long corridor, as far away as possible from any life forms either carbon-or silicon-based. My teeth were chattering uncontrollably, my long muscles twitching in true Rapt withdrawal style, and I was losing it. Cold so bitter it felt like liquid fire was spreading up my back, and I was starting to hallucinate. I looked blearily up at the droid when he appeared, and then turned away again. He wasn't interesting to me. Certainly not as interesting as the inch-high men who were trying to climb onto my leg. Some of them looked like people I had known in the war, people I knew were dead. I was convinced they were trying to warn me of something, but that their speech was so high-pitched I couldn't hear it. I was trying to turn myself into a dog so I'd have a better chance.

You know how it is with these things.

The droid didn't leave, and after a moment his extensible tray slid towards me, bearing a syringe. I stared at him, my eyes hot and bright.

‘The dose you take would kill four normal people,’ he said. ‘Immediately, within seconds of injection. You need this today, or you're going to die. But tomorrow you have less.’

‘Ratchet,’ I mumbled, ‘you don't understand.’

‘I do. I know why you are here. But you will kill yourself in weeks like this, and I want you to remain alive.’

‘Why?’

‘To teach them.’

In the end I don't know which of us won – whether I'd convinced Ratchet with my initial inarticulate outburst, or he blackmailed me into colluding in some bizarre impossible idea that had seeped into my mind while it teetered on the edge of slipping forever beneath deep water. Maybe Ratchet was Jesus all along, and I was just his fucked-up John the Baptist.

Either way, I kicked Rapt over the next eight months, and life within the Farm began to change.

Four

The phone rang in Howie's office, and he reached across to pick it up. The first part had taken an hour to tell, and Suej had fallen asleep, lying crumpled in the chair. As Howie listened to whoever was on the line I stood up, took off my coat, and laid it over her. She stirred distantly, a long way away, and then settled down again. Her eyelids were flickering, and I wondered what she was dreaming about. I hoped it was something good.

Howie put the phone down. ‘That was Dath,’ he said. ‘No one below thirty knows shit.’

‘What about Paulie? Nothing from him?’

‘He's out in the Portal.’ Howie shrugged. ‘He'll call if he gets anything.’

He sat, and waited, and I told him the rest.

The first thing I did was introduce some new wiring into the Farm complex, setting up a subsidiary alarm system. Then, with Ratchet's help, I disabled the automatic relays which would trip if the tunnel doors were left open for longer than five minutes. As the relays would flash lights on panels in both Roanoke General and the SafetyNet headquarters, they had to be cut out before step one of the plan could be put in place. We couldn't just destroy them, because that would set off a different alarm.

When we were convinced that it was safe, we opened the doors. From then on they were left that way all the time, unless the alarm went off. I let the spares pretty much come and go as they pleased in the facility, distressing though that sometimes was. It was never a relaxing experience to look under the table and find a naked man with no eyes or a girl with no legs lying underneath.

I didn't make any other changes for a few days, waiting to see if freedom of movement caused any of them distress. It didn't appear to. The spares Ratchet and I were especially targeting soon seemed to prefer being outside the tunnels, though they usually went back there to sleep. The others reacted in a variety of ways: from occasional accidental excursions into the main facility, to never leaving at all.

Then I started the classes. I could never have done what I did, or even a fraction of it, without Ratchet. I got through a year of college, but I studied history. I didn't tangle with child psychology, language acquisition, or any kind of teaching practice. I was starting with kids in their teens, none of whom had received any human interaction in their lives. It ought to have been impossible to overcome that, and I think that had I been on my own it would have been pitifully little, far too late.

But Ratchet was more than the cleaning drone I'd largely ignored until the night of the overdose. For a start, he did something to the medic droid. It was a company machine, designed and built to do what SafetyNet wanted. Yet at no point in the following five years did it ever show any sign of turning us in, or complain about having to chase the spares all over the compound in order to monitor and feed them.

Second, and most importantly, it was Ratchet who did the teaching. Sure, I was the one who sat with the spares and hauled them upright, held their heads still so they could see the letters I waved in front of them and hear the words I repeated, over and over, in their ears. And yes, it was me who stood behind them, arms looped up under theirs forcing them to learn how to use their limbs properly. Their muscles were ludicrously underdeveloped, despite all the magic in the medic droid's food preparations. The day in, day out hauling around of the spares was probably the only thing which kept my own body from wilting into oblivion.

I did these things, and talked to them non-stop, and held them when they were unhappy, though such contact comes far from easily to me. But it was Ratchet who did the real work. He insisted I be the front man, on the grounds that the spares needed human nurturing, and I worked hard years of watchfulness and manufactured warmth. I tried to guess at the things they would need, and as they finally started to hold rudimentary conversations I did what I could to ensure that their intelligence gained some hold, and some independence. But without Ratchet's apparent understanding of the ways in which a dormant human brain could be hotwired into life, none of it would have passed step one. He planned the lessons, and I carried them out.

After a while, the project — because in some ways I suppose that's what it was — took on its own momentum. I became less dependent on Ratchet's advice. I let the spares watch television and listen to music. I tried to explain the stuff that Ratchet couldn't — like how the outside world really worked. But throughout, Ratchet was there every step of the way.

I often wondered how Ratchet came by his knowledge, and never came to any real conclusion. Except one, which may or may not be relevant. I wondered if Ratchet was broken.

I didn't begin to suspect this for a long time — the droid was so capable in so many ways that the idea would have seemed preposterous. But I began to notice things. Sudden changes of activity, occasional brief periods when he seemed to stall or slip into a quiet neutral. He had some weird theories too, about unifying the conscious and the unconscious, which I never understood. And then there was the coffee.

Every day I was on the Farm, Ratchet made enough coffee to waterlog about twice as many people as the place could hold. Each time I went into the kitchen I was baffled, amused and increasingly concerned to see the huge pots on the stove, each of which would quickly be replaced when it became stale. Unless the machine had spent time in some large hotel as Droid in Charge of Beverages, I couldn't imagine why he might do such a thing.

I asked him about it once, and he said simply it was ‘necessary’.

Years passed, and gradually the changes in the spares consolidated. The ones we spent most time with now understood, at a basic level, what was said to them. They also began to talk, though for a long period there was a kind of crossover where some of them, notably Suej, spoke in an odd amalgam of English and what I thought of as ‘tunnel talk’. This was an incomprehensible system of grunts and murmurings, and I'm not even sure it was a proto-language of any kind. More probably it was simply a form of verbal comforting. As time went on they settled into using English most of the time, and of course most of them ended up sounding oddly like me, because mine were the only verbal rhythms they'd heard face to face. I let them watch television too, so they could learn about the world outside. Possibly TV isn't much of a role model, but then have you seen real life these days?

Almost none of the other spares picked up anything at all, even though some were hauled into the classes regularly and the younger group were encouraged to pass things on to them. A few, like Mr Two, gained a shadowy grasp of a handful of forms and words, in the way a cat may learn to open a door. Most learnt nothing, and just rolled and crawled round the Farm for a little while each day, before returning to the tunnels to sleep and wait for the knife.

Because it kept happening, of course. The ambulances kept arriving. Sometimes it seemed that the people out there in the real world delighted in living recklessly because they knew they had insurance. At intervals the men would come, and go again, leaving someone maimed. Nanune lost her left leg, a hand and a long strip of muscle from her arm. Ragald's left kidney went, along with some bone marrow, one arm and a portion of one lung. In addition to the graft which had been taken before I got to the Farm, Suej lost a strip of stomach lining, a patch of skin from her face and then, six months before the end, her ovaries. By that time, Suej had learnt enough to know what she was losing. David lost two of his fingers and a couple other bits and pieces. The group got off comparatively lightly.

And you know, it didn't have to be this way. If the scientists could clone whole bodies, then they could have just grown limbs or parts when the need arose. But that would have been more expensive and less convenient, and they are the new Gods in this wonderful century of ours. If parts had been made to order, the real people would have had to wait longer before they could hold a wine glass properly again. This way spare parts were always ready and waiting.

It didn't take me long to realize the trap I'd backed myself into. When the orderly grabbed Nanune out of the tunnel the first time, I only just managed to hold myself back from violence at the last moment, converting my lunge into a pretence of helping the orderly which was, in any event, ignored. As the years went on, it got worse, because there was nothing I could do. Literally nothing. If I caused trouble of any kind, however small, I'd be out. SafetyNet owned me. They housed me, fed me, paid me. Even my ownCard was theirs. If I lost the job, I was in trouble, but that was the least of my worries.

If I stopped being the caretaker at Roanoke Farm, then someone else would take my place. Someone who wouldn't help them, who would shut them back into the tunnels and make the taste of freedom I'd given them the bitterest mistake of my life. A man who would shut the tunnels and keep them that way, except maybe to yank Jenny or Suej or one of several others out in the middle of the afternoon, rape them, then throw them back on the pile. With rotten empty men left alone, you never can tell what they'll do. Morality is all about being watched; when you're alone it has a way of wavering or disappearing altogether. Ratchet knew stories about a caretaker who finally slid inside himself one long, cold night and started playing Russian Roulette with the spares. He pulled the trigger for both of them, obviously, and as fate would have it the first time the hammer connected with a full chamber the gun was pointing at his own head. They say a fragment of the bullet is still embedded in the tunnel wall, and that when the body was found one of the spares was licking the remains of the inside of his skull.

I've also heard about complaints being made when spare hands turned out to have no fingernails left, only ragged and bleeding tips, when internal organs were found to be so bruised they were barely usable, when spares' skins showed evidence of cuts and burns which did not tally with any official activity.

Maybe they should have hired proper teams of professionals to look after the spares. Perhaps SafetyNet's customers thought they did. But they didn't. That would cut into the profit. People sometimes seem to think that letting financial concerns make the decisions produces some kind of independent, objective wisdom. It doesn't, of course. It leaves the door open for a kind of sweaty, frantic horror that is as close to pure evil as makes no difference.

I might have been okay if I'd just done the job I'd been hired to do, that of sitting and letting the droids get on with the tending of livestock. But I didn't, and once I'd started, there was no possibility of just walking away. I've turned my back on a lot of situations in my life, too many. Each time you do so a sliver of your mind is left behind, cut off from the rest. This part is forever watching the past, glaring at it to keep it down, and the only way you know it's gone is because the present begins to bleach and fade. A smell grows up around you, a soft curdled odour which is so omnipresent that you don't notice it. Other people may, however, and it will prevent you from ever really knowing what is going on again, from ever understanding the present.

When David lost his fingers I sat him down and explained why the men had done that to him. As I talked, conscious of the smell of Jack Daniels on my breath, I looked into his eyes and saw myself reflected back, distorted by tears. For the first time in six months I wanted some Rapt, something to smooth away the knowledge the pain in his eyes awoke in me. I was the nearest thing he would ever have to a parent, and I was explaining why it was okay for people to come along every now and then and cut pieces off his body. I was honest, and calm, and tried to make him realize I was on his side, but the more I talked the more I reminded myself of my own father.

For the next three years, two feelings shifted against each other inside me, like sleepy cats trying to get comfortable in a small basket. The first was a caged realization that I had created a situation which I had to see through, for the sake of both the spares and myself.

The second was a hatred, for the Farms, whoever owned them, and everything they stood for. I knew something had to be done, but neither Ratchet nor I could think of what it might be. In the end the decision was taken out of our hands.

On December 10th of the fifth year of my time at the Farm, I spent the morning sitting in the main room. Several of the spares were there with me, talking, watching television, some even trying to read. Others, in various states of repair, were dotted all over the complex, wandering with purpose or wherever their rolls and crawling had taken them. I went for a walk round the perimeter at lunchtime, my breath clouding in front of my face. Winter had settled into the hillside like cold into bone, and trees stood frozen in place against a pale sky like sticks of charcoal laid on brushed aluminium. It was good to come out, every now and then, to remind myself there was still an outside world. I was also checking the weather, hoping for a fog or snow. On a couple of previous occasions, when I was sure no one could see from the road, I'd let a few of the spares out into the yard.

The afternoon passed comfortably in the warmth of the Farm. I helped Suej with her reading and showed David some more exercises he could do to build up strength in his arms. I did my own daily ration of push-ups and sit-ups too, trying to keep myself in some kind of shape. I still wanted Rapt every day of my life, but it had been a year since I'd had any at all. Exercise and work, along with Ratchet, were keeping me clean. I took a shower, helped myself to a cup of coffee from the ever-present vats in the kitchen, and settled down with a book in the main room.

Just another winter's evening at the Farm, and I felt relaxed. I almost felt worthwhile.

At nine o'clock the alarm went off, and my heart folded coldly. Why today, I wondered furiously — as if the day made any difference — why can't they just leave us alone?

The main spares quickly helped herd the others into the tunnels, and when everything was secured I turned the alarm off and waited in the main room for the doctors to arrive.

Just let it be one of the others, I was pleading, conscious of how unfair that was, of how similar it was to the thinking which had generated the Farms in the first place. Protect those who I care about. And fuck everyone else.

The doctors arrived. They wanted Jenny.

I led the orderly into the second tunnel, swallowing compulsively. I knew Jenny wasn't there, but I took as long as I could finding out. After about five minutes of pantomime the orderly shoved me against the wall and pushed his gun into my stomach.

‘Find it,’ he said, and partly he was just being an asshole in the time-honoured fashion of grunts. But beneath the off-the-rack anger there was something else, and I began to suspect that Jenny's twin must be someone pretty important.

We went into Tunnel 1. I moved round David and Suej, who were a few yards apart, facing into the walls. The orderly kicked Suej hard in the thigh, and then leant over to squeeze her breasts. For a moment I saw his neck before me, perfectly in position for a blow that would have killed him immediately. I didn't take advantage of it. I couldn't, then, though I wish I had. Suej goggled vaguely at him for a moment, rolled over, and then craned her head back towards him with a look of such vacancy that he recoiled in distaste. I found myself nearly smiling: Suej understood how to behave. Better so than David, who looked a little self-conscious and was keeping his front carefully turned towards the wall. I let the main spares wear various bits and pieces of my clothes, and they'd got used to it. Being clothed may not be a natural state, but for them it was a badge of belonging to a world outside the blue.

In the end I didn't have much choice. I pointed Jenny out, and the orderly looked her up and down before dragging her out of the tunnel. From the way his hands crawled over her body I thought it was lucky the doctors were in a greater hurry than usual.

One of them met us as we turned into the corridor to the operating room and impatiently motioned us forward. I tried to send some message to Jenny as the door closed between us, and then I strode back down the corridor again, hands clenching.

I passed Ratchet on the way. The droid generally waited outside the OR in case there were any special instructions after the operation. Usually we exchanged some word at that point, some verbalization of futility. That day we didn't. Neither of us appeared to be in the mood.

I went back to the main room, poured a whiskey and waited for what could only be bad news. In those last few moments at the Farm my mind was filled with alternatives, parts that could be taken without scarring Jenny too badly. A finger joint, maybe. A ligament somewhere unimportant.

But not her eyes, I was thinking – they're too beautiful. Please don't take her eyes.

Then suddenly I heard shouts and the sound of an impact. Seconds later, the medic droid shot into the main room and zipped out of the front door without even looking at me. I shot a bewildered glance after it and then instinctively ran towards the OR. As I reached the turn I saw Ratchet speeding down the corridor towards me, dragging Jenny, who looked bewildered and terrified. The door to the operating theatre was locked, and I could hear the sound of the doctors banging their fists against it. Jenny tripped and fell towards me, and I caught her in my arms.

‘What the fuck?’ I asked.

‘She spoke,’ Ratchet said.

Jenny cowered away from me. I tried to soften my face and to smile. I don't imagine it looked too convincing.

‘It's not her fault,’ Ratchet added quickly. Jenny's twin had been involved in a fire, and had internal injuries together with third-degree burns over eighty-five per cent of her body. Jenny would not have survived the operation. They were going to use her up in one go; were, in short, intending to skin and gut her. The surgeons had hurriedly discussed technique as Jenny was strapped to the table, not for a moment realizing that she could understand if not the detail, then certainly the gist of what they were saying. The operations on the spares were never made under anaesthetic, and as the head surgeon had bent over her to inject the muscle paralyser, Jenny had allowed two words to escape from her mouth.

‘Please,’ she said. ‘Don't.’

Only little words – but she shouldn't have been able to speak at all. Ratchet, eavesdropping outside, had immediately smashed through the doors, slammed the surgeon out of the way, grabbed Jenny and ran.

He knew as well as I did that it had finally all come down.

‘Jack,’ the droid said suddenly, and I turned to see the orderly sprinting along the tunnel corridor towards us, holding a pump-action riot gun at port arms. I pulled Jenny and Ratchet back into the other corridor. ‘What are we going to do?’

‘This,’ I said, waited a second, then stepped out in front of the orderly. As he whipped the gun round into position I snapped my hand into his chin, palm open, and his head rocked back on his neck. I punched him in the throat, put my hands on his shoulders and whipped my knee up while yanking his face down towards it. He grunted as his nose spread across his face and tumbled forwards, already unconscious. Before he hit the floor I caught the back of his head with a swinging kick that broke his neck.

I turned the body over and pulled the gun out of twitching hands. Then I grabbed the revolver from his holster and shoved it into my belt.

‘Keep them in there,’ I said to Ratchet, stabbing my finger towards the OR. Both the droid and the spare were staring at me. I avoided their eyes and grasped Jenny's hand. Nice Uncle Jack betrays his real skills, I thought, with a sinking feeling.

She fought against me for a moment but then gave in and was dragged behind me as I ran to the tunnels where I shook David and Suej to their feet, hustled them out and pushed them through into the control room. I stepped into the room where I slept, grabbed an assortment of clothes and threw them at the spares, shouting at them to get dressed. As they clambered into a ragged assortment of my cast-offs I heard the first shots coming from the OR. At least one of the surgeons had his own weapon and was trying to shoot his way through the door. SafetyNet doctors aren't your usual kindly men in white coats. Their backgrounds are kind of checkered, and at least some of them are ex-Bright Eyes. The spares turned their heads back and forth at the sound, faces white and eyes wide with complete incomprehension, and I motioned at them to hurry.

I snatched my travelling bag from the cupboard where it had lain unused for over five years, and swept more of my clothes into it, selecting the thickest sweaters I had. I'd been out that afternoon, of course, and knew how cold it was going to be. I scrunched a couple of lightweight folderCoats into the top of the bag, propped the shotgun against the wall for a moment while I dragged a jacket on, and then stepped out into the control room. The medic droid popped urgently back through the main door, paused for a moment, and then disappeared into the corridors. I made to follow but Ratchet appeared in the doorway.

‘They're getting through and I can't kill them,’ he stated simply. I knew the medic droid couldn't either. To that extent, at least, they were both still company men. ‘Go now.’

‘Ratchet,’ I said, and I'm not sure what I was going to say. I knew he couldn't come with us, that he would be like a big red beacon amongst the group, trackable by radio from the sky. Perhaps I was going to ask advice, or thank him. I never got as far as doing either.