The Living E-Book

Anna Starobinets

• Herausgeber: Hesperus Press Ltd.
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Beschreibung

As part of The Living you cannot die. As part of The Living you have no free will. Yet one man is born who is different to the rest; one who could bring society crashing down. A stunning and sinister vision of a dystopian future by a critically acclaimed young Russian author.

Leseprobe

The Living

Anna Starobinets

Translated by James Rann

Welcome to Renaissance, the global historical databank.

Caution! This box contains only private correspondence and documents.

This box has been leased for 120 years, with optional extension on request.

Access to this box is only available to the leaseholder.

Access to this box is not available to leaseholders under the age of eight.

Please enter your incode.

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Please enjoy your reading experience.

There is no death.

Contents

Title Page

Part 1

Hanna

The Man with No Face

Zero

The Man with No Face

Zero

The Man with No Face

Cleo

The Scientist

Zero

Report

Zero

Report

Zero

The Scientist

Zero

The Scientist

Zero

Part 2

Report

Zero

The Man with No Face

Cleo

Report

Cleo

Ef

Zero

Cleo.doc

The Man with No Face

Zero

Cleo

The Man with No Face

The Miracle

Cleo

Luxury

Cerberus

Part 3

Eight

The Wolf

Namesakes

The Wise One

The Puppet

The Malfunction

Second

The Heir

The Showman

The Healer

Isoptera

The Troll

The System

The Revelation of the Wise One in the Available Garden

Part 4

The Wise Prophet

Cleo

The Wise Prophet

The Butcher’s Son

The Troll

0

Glossary

Biographical note

Copyright

Part 1

Hanna

Document No. 1 (leaseholder’s private entry)

September 439 Anno ViventisFirst day of the waning moon

…The doctor who did my analysis was not too worried at first. He just said that the connection can malfunction, so he’d have to do everything again, sorry that I’m making you wait. He froze, not blinking, looking past me, through me. His pupils were narrowing and widening spasmodically, in a sort of jerky rhythm. Then, once the rhythm was established, he shut his eyes for some reason. As if he couldn’t hold three layers… but that never happens with medics… So, he must have gone deeper; but why? The office smelled strongly of sweat, and I held my breath. I noticed that his eyelids, his forehead and his nostrils had a wet sheen. I thought: something’s wrong with him, this doctor, it’s him that’s malfunctioning, the connection’s working fine… When he opened his eyes again his face looked as if he had just seen the incode of the Butcher’s Son, or maybe not just the incode, but the Son himself, with his weary workman’s smile and his foul-smelling axe, covered in blood, just like in The Eternal Murderer.

‘I need to perform the procedure again,’ he said, and I noticed that his hands were shaking.

‘For a third time?’

He did not say anything in reply, just detached one sensor from my stomach and attached another identical one.

For about a minute we sat in silence: me in that huge cold chair and him opposite me. I thought, if there, inside me, there is someone from the Blacklist, some maniac like the Butcher’s Son or Rotten Rick, then I won’t get to see him, I won’t see him even once, and they’ll keep him in a House of Correction, in solitary, and they’ll feed him three times a day and not say a word to him, they won’t say a word to him until the day he dies, and he’ll never know what for. I thought about how hypocritical it was to call them Houses of Correction. No one has ever tried to correct anything there. They just keep them there. Stuffed and silent…

Then the sensor squeaked, and the doctor read off the result again; everything seemed to suggest that it was exactly the same as before.

I asked, ‘Is there something wrong?’

He said nothing.

‘Is there something wrong with my baby?’

He got up and paced around the office. ‘His father…’ The doctor’s voice rattled like a beer can skittering along the road. ‘Do you know him?’

‘No. It’s a festival baby.’

‘Get dressed,’ he looked past me, ‘and wait out there in the corridor. I’ve called the SPO.’

‘Is he abnormal?’

‘What, sorry?’

‘The baby. My Darling. Is my Darling on the Blacklist?’

‘Ah… no…’ He finally looked at me, but the way he looked was somehow strange, as if from afar, as if through binoculars, as if I were hovering somewhere on the horizon, as if I were in socio and not there in front of him. ‘No. Your Darling is not on the Blacklist.’

‘Then why the SPO? What have I done? What is the nature of my violation?’

‘I’m not authorized to say,’ he said absent-mindedly and at that moment stopped noticing me. He was clearly occupied by some other conversation in a deep layer.

The SPO officer did not hurry. He appeared after about forty minutes, and I spent all of those forty minutes in the corridor, watching the females going through various office doors, all stressed, irritated, accustomed to the terror of the discovery that awaited them, trying to prepare themselves for the worst, but all the same stubbornly clinging on to the best. Hope. Hope glowed on them like radioactivity. Waves of toxic hope flooded the corridor. Please let it be sorted. Please not now. Please let me be empty.

They are different when they come out of the offices. The empties move with the smooth and swift gait of dancers, as if they have become slimmer, as if they have been made lighter by the emptiness swirling round inside them. The others step heavily, as if they have put on weight instantaneously. Their gaze is turned inward; oh, that well-known humble gaze, that evaluates, that tries to examine and understand the useless little thing growing inside them. Humility, responsibility, duty – that’s what their psychotherapists will say to them tomorrow. Humility to Nature. Responsibility to your Darling. And Duty to the Living. Yes, it’s hard. These three elements of harmony will cause you some difficulties. But you will find consolation in the other three. Pleasure, stability and immortality. And now let’s all stand in a circle, take each other by the hand – anyone who wants to can put on contact gloves – and repeat together: ‘The Harmony of the Living is formed of six components: humility, duty, responsibility, pleasure, stability and immortality.’ And all together now: ‘The Harmony of the Living depends on me personally.’

My psychotherapist reckons that tactile contact and group repetition is absolutely perfect training. Painful, but helpful. He says that dancing in a circle and singing in a choir is a sort of model. In the circle you understand way more clearly than in socio that you are part of the Living… In the circle you feel more protected. In the circle you’re not even afraid of the Five Seconds of Darkness.

‘…No death!’ the planetman slumped heavily into the empty chair next to me and placed a square black briefcase by the legs; the mirrored mask stuck to his face was a little bit murky and covered in blotches. ‘It’s hot today…’

‘What is the nature of my violation?’

‘There was none.’

‘Then why do you want to interrogate me?’

‘It’s my job.’ The planetman looked at me intently and, as far as one could tell by the expression on his mask, squeamishly. ‘Please, put this on.’

He held out another mirrored mask, which was also less than spotless.

‘Is using a “chatterbox” compulsory?’

‘The conversation device is compulsory.’ He shook the proffered mask impatiently. ‘Put it on. It’s completely sterile on the inside. Like that, thank you, Hanna… It’s just a conversation. Nothing like an interrogation…’

The mask was cold. Cold and sticky, like the touch of some deep-sea creature.

‘Now I am going to connect your mask to the conversation device… Mm-hm… and mine too… There we go. It’s just so our conversation will be recorded, that’s all.’

Beneath the mask his voice suddenly changed horribly, turning into a sort of monotonous buzzing.

‘On completion of our conversation you will receive a copy of the transcript. The conversation device cannot cause any harm either to you or your…er…er… foetus. It is made of ecologically sound…’

‘What is the nature of my violation?’ I also buzzed like a defective electric doorbell.

‘There was none.’

‘I don’t understand what’s going on.’

‘Me neither,’ he smiled with his mirror mouth. ‘I don’t understand either. That’s why you are required to tell us everything relating to your…er…er… foetus in as much detail as possible.’

‘It’s a festival baby.’

‘I said in detail…’

Would you like to suspend session with document No. 1?

Yes no

Document session suspended

Move to new document or terminate session with this box?

Moving to document No. 3 …

Document No. 3 (Transcript of conversation between leaseholder and SPO officer, dated 10.09.439 A.V.)

SPO officer: You are required to tell us everything relating to your foetus in as much detail as possible.

Interlocutor 3678: It’s a festival baby.

SPO officer: I said in detail.

Interlocutor 3678: Today, on the first day of the waning moon, I appeared at Medical Centre No. 1015 in relation to the law on monthly population control. The doctors established that I was pregnant…

SPO officer: Had you previously attended the Centre regularly?

Interlocutor3678: Yes, of course. I come here every month.

SPO officer: Have the doctors at the Centre ever established that you were pregnant before?

Interlocutor 3678: No. This is the first time it’s happened.

SPO officer: Have you not had sexual contact before?

Interlocutor 3678: I have.

SPO officer: Did you have fertility problems?

Interlocutor 3678: No.

SPO officer: Then why is this your first pregnancy?

Interlocutor 3678: I took precautions.

SPO officer: That is forbidden.

Interlocutor 3678: I have permission.

Interlocutor 3678 rummages through her handbag. The sensor shows rise in body temperature of 0.3˚, increase in pulse rate to 130 beats per second, pupil dilation to 6.3mm – 2.8mm over the norm for given lighting conditions.

Interlocutor 3678: Here you go.

Interlocutor 3678 shows a document to the SPO officer: a permit for the use of contraceptives, issued on the basis of medical opinion confirming the Interlocutor’s marginally subnormal mental development.

SPO officer: Tell me about the festival in more detail.

Interlocutor 3678: The child was conceived at the regional Festival for Assisting Nature during the last new moon, as part of the population control programme, in accordance with the law about planned…

SPO officer: Could you identify the father?

Interlocutor 3678: Are you making fun of me?

SPO officer: I am doing my job.

Interlocutor 3678: How could I identify the father? I keep telling you: the baby was conceived at the festival, how could I know which of…

SPO officer: How many partners did you have at the festival?

Interlocutor 3678: Five… Seven… I don’t know.

SPO officer: According to our data, the Reproduction Zone at the last Festival for Assisting Nature was visited by 1,352 men. We will bring them to you for identification. Will you be able to recognise your partners amongst them?

Interlocutor 3678: I don’t know. I’m not sure… I am not obliged to do that. The law on the confidentiality of sexual relations isn’t going anywhere.

SPO officer: Naturally, you are not obliged. It is only a request. A request from the Service for Planetary Order.

Interlocutor 3678: I’ll grant your request, if you’ll explain to me what is going on.

SPO officer: OK, I will try and explain it to you. At the Festival for Assisting Nature, in which you took part, the existence of 610 people was temporarily terminated in the Pause Zone. Simultaneously, in the Reproduction Zone, 611 people were conceived. Of these, 610 are the direct incarnation of those who had been in the Pause Zone – all the incodes match perfectly. And only one, your festival baby…

Interlocutor 3678: Is that the reason you’ve frightened me so much? Fofs!1 That’s just hilarious! It has been proven that for festival children only in ninety-five per cent of cases do the pausers undergo stable reproduction, and in the remaining five per cent the incodes can come from whoever. So what? You stuck this thing on me just to tell me that my Darling’s incode doesn’t match one of the pausers’? Well, so what? I really don’t care whose incode the kid has, smin,2 the main thing is that it isn’t some criminal’s… He’s not a criminal, is he?

SPO officer: I don’t know.

Interlocutor 3678: Well I do know. The doctor said that my Darling is not on the Blacklist.

SPO officer: That is correct. The incode of your foetus does not appear among the incodes on the Blacklist.

Interlocutor 3678: Then what’s the problem?

SPO officer: The problem is that the incode of your foetus… the incode of your Darling does not appear anywhere at all.

Interlocutor 3678: I don’t understand. What do you mean by that?

SPO officer: Exactly what I said. His incode does not have a counterpart code in any of the codes stored in the global database: not a single one in three billion. In essence, your future child does not have an incode at all. Instead of an incode both of the devices used for your intrauterine scan read ‘Void’.

Interlocutor 3678: Void?

SPO officer: Void. Zero. He has no in-history. Your Darling has had no previous lives.

Interlocutor 3678: So then… but… how then… whose place has he taken? I mean, has one of the livings temporarily ceasing to exist not been reproduced? They’ve disappeared? Is that what’s happened?

SPO officer: Far from it. No one has disappeared. Someone new has been added.

Interlocutor 3678: That’s impossible! You’re an SPO officer – you should be ashamed of yourself! Are you in one of those sects or something? What is this heresy? For it is written: ‘The Number of the Living is unchanging, the Living is three billion livings, and neither by one shall this number be diminished, nor by one shall it be increased, for eternal rebirth…’

SPO officer: Don’t get worked up, I’ve read the Book of Life too and learned the key passages off by heart. But a fact is a fact. The population of the Living has changed and is now three billion and one. And that ‘one’ is your Darling with his ‘void’ incode. I am afraid you have no idea how serious this is. So far no one does.

Interlocutor 3678: He… my Darling could be a risk to the harmony of the Living?

SPO officer: We can’t rule it out.

Interlocutor 3678: Will they put him in a House of Correction? Why are you shaking your head? He’ll be… They won’t let him be born? Will I have to have an abortion?

SPO officer: It’s not up to me to decide these things. Over the next seven days ‘the Zero problem’ will be examined at the very highest level. For the duration of this period you will remain in hospital under observation. You do not have the right to leave the confines of the ward until such time as a decision has been made by the Council of Eight. Tomorrow you will be sent the first 300 men who took part in the festival, for identification. Is that all clear?

Interlocutor 3678: Yes.

SPO officer: I have one last question. If you have permission to use contraceptives, why did you not take precautions at the festival?

Interlocutor 3678: Because I wanted to conceive.

SPO officer: What do you mean by that?

Interlocutor: Exactly what I said. I wanted a child.

SPO officer: Explain that.

Interlocutor 3678: My medical certificate allows me to take precautions, but it does not absolve me of my duty to the Living. I carried out my duty. Do you have a problem with any of that?

SPO officer: Nothing of the kind. Your position deserves every respect… Thank you for the conversation.

(end of transcript)

Move to new document or terminate session with this box?

cerberus: fancy a beer?

Caution! You must move to another document now or terminate your session with this box.

‘Oh, come on, enough is enough, Ef, terminate. Let’s go and have a beer. This bloody bank is as stuffy as the Living’s backside. And this bloody mask will melt right here on my face if I’m not chugging on a cold one soon.’

Move to new document or terminate session with this box?

‘Alright. You’ve talked me into it.’ Ef jabs sluggishly at ‘terminate’ with a bandaged hand. ‘Let’s go and have a beer.’

The Man with No Face

There is no one on the street. It has not yet got dark, but the golden glow of the little lights built into the paving slabs already illuminate the evening mist and the delicate pink surface and fine white veins of the marble.

cleo: no death ef all of a sudden you’re here

Ef’s boots leave black tracks of grime on the marble; an electronic wonder-cleaner, who stands frozen by the pavement wearing a bikini and rubber gloves, turns herself on with a quiet click, gets down on all fours and sets to work wiping off the marks. She crawls after them quickly, thrusting her rear in the air and making quiet, monotonous groaning noises. Clearly ones like her are meant to arouse a desire in passers-by to procreate and multiply.

Cerberus turns around and spits on the pink marble with relish. The cleaner dutifully drags herself towards his spittle with a cloth.

‘Get lost!’ Cerberus laughs and gives her a slight kick to the face with his sharp-toed boot. The cleaner freezes and, not unclenching her plastic lips, makes a sultry ‘mmmmhhh’: that is how she has been programmed to react when touched.

cerberus: they’ve got decent beer in this place round the corner

cerberus: hear what i’m saying?

cerberus: ef!

‘They’ve got decent beer at that place on the corner with Harmony Avenue,’ Cerberus says out loud. ‘What, you offline or something?’

ef: no sorry just got distracted. ok. let’s go to Harmony

They turn left. Harmony Avenue is empty; the concretal sculpture – an enormous bronze-coloured palm – looks lonely, as if waiting for a handshake that it will never receive… Only half-mad Matthew, a tall, scrawny old man, is there, wandering around at the base of the concretion, shaking his little bell and crying determinedly: ‘He died for us! He died for our sins! Died for us!’

cleo: everything alright?

‘Do we have a violation here?’ Cerberus snaps at him. ‘Are we using certain words?’

‘Oh, he is the beginning and the end,’ Matthew howls. ‘And his name is… Zero! He died for us! He was burned in the sacred fire…!’

cleo: i get worried when you’re grey for ages

‘He died, died for us!’

‘Silence!’ barks Ef. ‘You’re lucky I want a beer. If not I’d have had you straight off to Correction!’

‘You, you blood-soaked hounds of hell! Acolytes of the devil! Men with mirror faces! Men without faces! Men without voices! Tremble, for he cometh! And his kingdom cometh! And his will will be done! Thus is thine twine swine! For you shall be cast down! And you shall be cast out! For he died for us! For he is the Saviour! And his name is…Zero…!’

cleo: maybe something’s up with your connection? i’m going to get tech support

…The beer has a hint of iron about it. It’s either the beer itself or the mask that’s stuck to his nose and lips that gives the drink this metallic taste. Ef runs the tip of his tongue around the inside of his cheek. No, it’s not the mask. His cheek, smashed from the inside against his teeth, is bleeding, that’s what it is.

Cerberus returns with a second mug of beer, falls heavily into the chair opposite, sucks up a third of his beer in one go and goes back to staring at him with the soft blank ovals of his mirror eyes. These eyes reflect Ef’s mirror eyes, which reflect those eyes which reflect… Ef starts to feel queasy, as if he were seasick; he lowers his head and looks into his glass. The foamy surface of the beer does not reflect anything.

cerberus: did he say anything, that zero, before he…

Cerberus looks at the empty tables around them and moves closer just in case.

… before he… you know… destroyed himself?

ef: listen i just want to be like everyone else

cerberus: what do you want ef?!

ef: me?:–) i want to sleep. but that zero, before he died he said ‘listen I want to be like everyone else

cerberus: don’t talk like that!!

‘Don’t talk like that, Ef!’ Cerberus has clearly got nervous. He is so nervous that even the measured buzzing that the chatterbox makes from his voice sounds a tone higher. ‘Don’t talk about death. There is no death.’ Cerberus nods pointedly at the chatterbox under the table and points at his temple as if to say, ‘You idiot, everything’s being recorded.’

‘There was death for him,’ Ef says wearily. ‘For Zero. You know very well he was born without an incode. And yesterday he died. He blew up a wonder-sunshine and died. There will be no more “voids”, Cerberus. He won’t be continued – it’s been confirmed by all the population control centres. It wasn’t a pause. It was death.’

cerberus: the one thing i don’t get is how he could crush a wonder-sunshine in his HAND?? it’s not humanly possible… maybe he wasn’t a human at all?

ef: all biological signs suggest he was a human i think he just dug into it a bit before and twisted something… or it was just broken that also happens sometimes…

cerberus: well anyway it’s all for the best basically. for the Living.

Cerberus stretches his mirrored lips, still wet from the beer, into a smile and buzzes evenly: ‘The number of the Living is unchanging. The Living is three billion livings, neither by one shall it be diminished, nor by one shall it be increased…’

and no more voids. aren’t you happy?

‘Yes,’ Ef says. ‘Very happy. It’s just I’m awfully tired. And my hands hurt.’ He struggles to waggle his bandaged fingers.

‘It burned you pretty bad?’

‘All the skin’s come off.’

cerberus: fofs… and your face?

ef: not my face you know i was wearing my mask it’s fireproof

cerberus: show me

ef: show you what?

‘Er, your face. And you keep touching your cheek. Maybe you’re burned all over. Take off your mask, I’ll have a look.’

Ef jumps out of his seat. Then sits back down.

‘Officer Cerberus. You have just suggested that I break Service for Planetary Order regulations. Your words have been recorded by the conversation device, and I will take full responsibility for…’

SPO_service: third level access: processing signal: do you wish to make an official charge?

ef: not yet

‘OK, OK, what did you jump up like a flea for? It was just a little test. A joke!’ Cerberus buzzes apologetically.

‘So was it a test or a joke?’

cerberus: gopz!3 a friendly joke of course!

Ef examines his reflection in Cerberus’s mirrored features and feels another wave of nausea. He knocks back some beer. Closes his eyes. It gets worse.

Darkness does not come, instead of darkness there is structure. It’s as if he was nestling his face in a squidgy termite mound… Hundreds of tiny rounded boxes, a mobile, porous mass. Most of the boxes are dripping with light – busy or available – and pulsing gently. The rest, murky-grey and immobile, seem abandoned. Cerberus’s box also gives the impression of being uninhabited…

cerberus: stop that you’ve known me a hundred years!

ef: ok let’s just leave it

cleo: ef!!

One of the available boxes swells up and bursts open, as if transformed into a greedy mouth.

cleo: ef i know you’re there

He opens his eyes. Cerberus’s mirrored mask reflects his own mirrored mask which reflects Cerberus’s mirrored mask… His jaw drops and his tongue lolls out. He jumps up.

‘You what?’

‘I am going to be sick.’

autodoctor: relax. deep breath. and ou-u-u-u-t. in – and ou-u-u-t. you are overtired. you need to sleep. alcohol is not recommended. take plenty of fluids and get some fresh air.

‘So, has it passed?’ Cerberus asks with heartfelt interest. ‘Another beer maybe?’

‘I am overtired,’ says Ef. ‘I need to sleep. Alcohol is not recommended. Fresh air is recommended… No death!’ He goes towards the exit.

‘No death,’ Cerberus replies and belches carefully, covering his mirrored lips with his hand. The chatterbox turns his belch into a brief despondent howl.

re: chain letterfrom: dissenter

You’ve got a stupid job, before the pause you had a stupid job, and after the pause you’ll have a stupid job. But you want to be a screenwriter or a designer. Follow Zero: he has come to change your life.

!caution!this may be spammark this message as spam? yes no

Ef marks it as spam, though there’s no point: ‘the letter of joy’ has already been sent to a dozen friends from his address. It’s impossible to stop the process. He already knows that.

At that moment a new message comes:

re: importantfrom: a dissident well-wisher

Don’t believe the lies. The Leo-Lot ray works in both directions, backwards and forwards…

Ef reads the letter to the end and notices that there is another layer between his face and the mask – a cold film of sweat. He marks the letter as spam, then deletes it, but memorizes every word. His heart beats in his fingertips, in his ears, under his Adam’s apple, as if it has burst into a hundred miniature hearts and his blood has scattered them through his body.

perhaps you are frightened?

– the autodoctor chirps up.

Perhaps. But that’s none of your business.

When Ef turns on to Harmony it starts to rain – suddenly, without any warning splashes, as if an automatic disinfection shower had been turned on to full power.

The pale pink marble is soaked and turns the colour of raw liver. In the light of the pavement’s built-in lamps the raindrops look like clouds of golden insects swarming together at the scent of blood.

cleo: tech support checked the link you’re just in invisible

The raindrops tickle the naked plastic bodies of the electronic cleaners, and the cleaners groan dutifully. The raindrops drum softly against Ef’s mirror mask, bringing no relief. Bringing no freshness. If only he could take it off. If only he could take it off and feel the cool moisture…

‘Tremble, for he cometh… Tremble, for he cometh… Tremble, for he cometh…’ Lanky Matthew shuffles from one bare foot to another right on top of a lamp, in a golden column of light. Streams of gold pour down his face, his long grey matted hair and neck.

‘Men without voices!’ The old man comes to life when he sees Ef. ‘Men with mirror faces!’

Ef slows down.

‘No death, Matthew. You’re all wet. Go home.’

He would like the words to sound soft, but the chatterbox chews them up and spits them out as an order.

Matthew opens wide his misty blue eyes and bursts out in squeaky laughter, revealing his teeth, which are long and rotten like a horse’s. Then he whimpers and squats down. He trails a bony finger across the wet shiny marble:

‘Do you see what colour the ground really is? Do you see what colour it really is?’

‘Go home,’ Ef says again. The he turns off his chatterbox and adds, ‘I see.’

cleo: why are you like this?

‘There are voices inside you,’ Matthew whispers, and his gaze clears up for a moment. ‘Other people’s voices, right?’

‘Yes. Of course.’

‘They are demons!’ Matthew clasps his knees in his arms and sways from side to side. ‘They are demons. Disconnect. Demons. Disconnect. Demons. Disconnect…’

disconnect from socio

are you sure you want to disconnect from socio?

yes no

confirm:

ef: yes

caution: when in disconnected mode you cannot see your list of socio contacts, or use socio to chat and find and share new information. Continue with disconnection?

yesno

caution: when in disconnected mode you will not be an active part of socio. Continue with disconnection?

yes no

Yes

you are no longer in socio

Don’t worry, you can reconnect to socio at any time.

Connect: interrupting connection with socio for longer than 30 minutes is not recommended. If you do not re-establish connection independently, mandatory remote connection will take place after 40 minutes.

Zero

…I just want to be like everyone else. I don’t have ideas above my station. I want to be like everyone else. I can’t now, so it’ll have to be later. After the Pause. Hey, you! Hey, you there, in the future! I hope you will actually exist. I hope that you will be me. I hope that I will exist. If you are my continuation, if I am you, then sorry for this stupid incode that you’ve got from me… Personally, it ruined my life, but I really hope you find a way to deal with it somehow. That I’ll deal with it somehow there in the future. In eight years’ time… Because you’re eight, aren’t you?

It’s probably cowardice. It’s running away. It’s not fair. But if you will exist, if you do exist, forgive me for what I’m about to do. Sorry if I’ve ruined your (or should I say ‘my’?) mood. Sorry if I’ve created any problems for you (ha-ha, for me!!). I want you to understand. I’m planning on killing myself – yes, yes, sorry about that, sorry once again, I shouldn’t say that, I should put it differently. I’m planning on ‘temporarily ceasing to exist’, ‘taking a pause’, but I’m no fool, I know: they all get pauses, but all I have is a ‘stop’. So if you do exist, if you will exist, then glap4, we’ve won, you and me, because it means that we’re like everyone else. I’m like everyone else. I am a part of the Living.

And if you’re not there, if you just don’t exist, if I am no more, if I am going to disappear, I’ll die forever, like people used to, before the birth of the Living… Well, then I’m a mistake of nature. A genetic malfunction. A sickness. A tumour on the body of the Living. So it’ll be better without me. More correct. Simpler. Basically, however this ends – it’ll be better than it is right now….

I always wanted to be like everyone else. But they have made me a god. They have made me a devil. They have made me a fruit fly for them to do experiments on. They have made me very dangerous. They did not even know what they were doing.

They have forced me into a corner. They have left me completely alone.

Today he will come again. Ef, the man in the mask. To look for defects, to ask nasty little questions, to start digging about inside me like I’m a heap of common property.

And then I’m going to set myself on fire. Then they’ll all see how a wonder-sunshine burns!

I’m sure you want to understand. If you are me, you’ll definitely want to understand… I always really wanted to.

I’ll tell you everything I know. Because you need to know.

Because I need to know. I will need to know everything.

My mother was called Hanna. I won’t say that she’s gone because we’re not allowed to talk like that. Because, of course, she is still around. She has continued to live on… All I’ll say is – I miss her. I miss her like she’s gone – ever since she went into the Pause Zone at the Festival for Assisting Nature.

Hanna was her temporary name. Her eternal name is Mia 31, but I don’t like it, it sounds like a type of washing machine. She didn’t like it either and always introduced herself as Hanna. What name she likes to introduce herself by nowadays, I don’t know. And I don’t want to know.

She had incredibly pale skin. Pale and so clear it was almost transparent, which is rare for globaloids.

Her eyes were velvety, like the wings of a tortoiseshell butterfly.

At night she would always sing me a lullaby – you know, that old one about animals, it’s still part of the range of programs in A Living Childhood. It gets installed at, I think, about age three. You’ll probably remember it:

Sleeping are the calves and lambs,

Sleeping are the newts, the rams,

Cows and lizards, hares and sheep,

Dreadful dreams disturb their sleep.

Dreams of waters dark and slow,

Dreams of bitter, future woe.

Dreams of drifting, crewless boats,

Dreams of floating, faceless ghosts…

I was already nearly nine, but I always asked for that song. I refused to go to sleep without it. Hanna said that I shouldn’t, that big boys like me don’t need songs, big boys like me shouldn’t really live with their mothers anymore, they should live in a boarding house, and there aren’t any lullabies there.

‘But I live with you,’ I said.

‘You do,’ Hanna agreed.

‘So sing then.’

And she sang. She had a beautiful voice:

Wolves are howling to the sky,

Cats are weeping where they lie,

Snoring horses, groaning sheep,

Dreadful dreams disturb their sleep.

Dreams of waters dark and slow,

Dreams of bitter, future woe.

On the shore so cold and high,

Beasties sleep and time runs by…

‘You’re not going to send me to a boarding house are you?’ I asked.

‘I’m not,’ Hanna said.

‘And we’re going to be together forever?’

‘That doesn’t happen, Darling,’ Hanna said.

She didn’t call me by my name – later I realised why: it frightened her, it forced her to look into the abyss, into that nothingness, into the white emptiness surrounded by the black circle… She didn’t call me Zero. She just called me Darling.

‘Why?’ I snivelled. ‘Why can’t we be together forever? We’re immortal, aren’t we? Let’s just agree: when one of us di…’

‘Darling!’

‘I meant to say, when one of us temporarily ceases to exist, then the other one will just look for them, and everything’ll be like it was before.’

‘It doesn’t work like that, Darling,’ Hanna shook her head.

It doesn’t work like that. She turned out to be right. I didn’t believe she was right until Ef agreed to take me to see her. Turns out I had no need for the fat little girl that she had changed into. And she had absolutely no need for me either.

No one needs anyone, pal. You don’t mind me calling you ‘pal’? I hope you don’t think it’s over-familiar? At the end of the day I’m talking to myself. Or maybe I’m not talking to anyone at all…

‘Tell me you love me,’ I asked Hanna.

‘There’s no point, Darling.’ She suddenly went tense all over.

‘Why?’

‘I’ve already told you. The Living is full of love and every part of him loves every other part equally.’

‘So does that mean you love me?’

And she said:

‘Yes.’

And then she added so quietly I could barely hear her:

‘I love you as much as I love any other part of the Living.’

‘You love me as much… as much as you love crazy Matthew who goes down the street shouting?’

She didn’t say anything. I got angry.

‘Tell me you love me more than anyone!’

She didn’t say anything.

‘So sing then.’

And she sang:

On the shore so cold and high,

Beasties sleep and time runs by…

Time runs by and night descends,

We can’t help our little friends.

On the day when I saw her for the last time, on the day when Hanna went to her last Festival, she said that I should go to bed on my own. She said that she’d be back too late. And so she’d sing me the song earlier.

For the cats and for the deer,

For them all the end is near.

Only you can slumber there,

Smile, and know no care,

For, my Living, little guy,

You will never, ever die.

‘No death!’ she said as she left.

‘No death!’ I replied.

‘I love you,’ she said. ‘I love you more than anyone.’

She was thirty-four.

For a whole year more she had the right to visit the Reproduction Zone at the Festival for Assisting Nature. The reproductive period officially ends at thirty-five.

It would have been another eleven years before she would start receiving messages from the local Centre for Population Control with the gentle suggestion that she visit the Pause Zone. Messages like that start coming at forty-five.

It would have been another sixteen years before she would start receiving messages from the local Centre for Population Control with the strict recommendation that she visit the Pause Zone. Messages like that start coming at fifty.

She could have lived for another twenty-six years until a Compulsory Pause. This measure applies to those who are over sixty and do not want to comply with the suggestions voluntarily.

For a whole year more she had the right to visit the Reproduction Zone at the Festival for Assisting Nature.

But she went to the Pause Zone.

She did it because of me. Because they hadn’t taken me into the boarding house and had left me with her. Because she had sung me songs. Because she loved me more than anyone.

The Man with No Face

Nothing extravagant, that’s what he had thought. An SPO officer’s living quarters should be strictly functional.

‘Strictly functional,’ that’s what he had said to the decorator, ‘Stylish minimalism.’ He did it all up in socio tones: walls à la inviz and safety furniture in the colours ‘available’ and ‘busy’. There wasn’t a lot of furniture, Ef had insisted on that, just what was absolutely necessary. The only extravagance was in the bathroom – an expansive terrarium for his Pet. But his bedroom was pretty much empty – just a soft aquasleep floor-covering with maximum surface tension. Ef had preferred maximum for a long time now, because, maybe other people don’t like it, but personally he was not a fan of waking up with the feeling that he was stuck up to the waist in his own floor. Not to mention the fact that sleeping on something flat is better for the spine…

…He sits on the floor, pulls off his mirror mask, realises that he still needs to get up, go and wash in cold water, change the bandages on his hands which had got soaked in the downpour and feed his Pet – but a dream still shackles his arms and legs. It’s not even a dream, but the sort of germ of a dream. He’s dreaming of a river. Or something that was a river once, or is going to become one…

39:50independent connection is not operational

39:51

39:52

…Animals appear at the river, or maybe they’re plants – something alive, but not yet fully formed, he tries to give them all shape…

39:53

39:54

39:55 independent connection is not operational

He thinks: his dream should be like a garden where he can grow miraculous herbs…

39:56

He thinks: his dream should be like mud and sand which he can make into a castle…

39:57

He thinks: someone is watching him. But at that moment he lets the thought go and it floats off downstream…

39:58

39:59

He thinks: he doesn’t have much time and the river is flowing fast…

He thinks about the weed in the river…

40:00 …compulsoryconnectionto socio is underway… we’re back!

It was like the river, his thoughts, and the weeds, were all clumped together and chucked away. As if a tablecloth had been yanked away, and beneath it there is a mushy termite mound. Hundreds of little oval cells, a porous writhing mass. Ef is inside it. Inside one of the cells.

It clings tightly to him, like a cocoon; Ef twists and turns, instinctively trying to tear through it.

ef: help:

The walls of the box respond to his movements, obedient and moist. They don’t break – they stretch. They give way, freeing up space for him. Now he is inside a ball.

ef: settings:ef: details:

disconnection from socio led to the automatic deletion of personal settings at the current moment standard socio settings are in operation: null interface restore saved cell settings ef?

yes no

Ef gets up and goes over the soft floor to the bathroom. Seeing him, the mantis stands on its hind legs and scrapes the wall of the terrarium with his front legs… Ef taps his fingers on the glass – the mantis folds his hands together solemnly, as if praying, begging for food. One leg is bent, broken…

Wash. Wash and drink, drink, drink cold water… He rinses his face and takes a few greedy gulps, but it doesn’t get any better. The water seems warm, horribly warm, imperceptible. Ef lifts his head and looks at himself in the mirror: murky drops run down his mirrored mask, which is reflected in the mirror, reflected in the mask, reflected in the mirror… What the hell? Did I not take my mask off?

He reaches for the soft edge under his chin: the mask doesn’t give. Like it’s stuck to this skin. He pulls at it again.

invalid request

He pulls with all his might.

it looks like you are trying to do something slightly incorrect do you want to upload a new userpic for ef?

yes no

The front door turns out to be locked from the outside. He shoves it with his shoulder.

invalid request

it looks like you are trying to do something slightly incorrect

ef: i’m trying to leave the house!!!

…processing request… invalid request

you are currently in sleep mode do you want to wake up?yes no

autodoctor: waking up is not recommended at this time of day. for full recuperation of energy you should sleep for another 4.5 hours

do you want to wake up?yes no

warning: socio continues to operate in sleep mode. you can see your list of contacts in socio, chat in socio, receive information in socio and share it with other socio users. do you want to wake up?yes no

autodoctor: information about unusual interruptions in your sleep will be sent to the SPO medical department

do you want to wake up? yes no

caution: you are now in sleep mode… you have 3 new socio messages…

ef: open

1 while you were away from socio, you missed the daily trailer

attention: trailer loading…

…Every day after sunset we watch our favourite series: ‘The Eternal Killer’ and ‘Festival Passions’! in the next episode of ‘The Eternal Killer’: the Butcher’s Son has broken free again! He’s looking for a new victim! Seventeen-year-old Kate has no idea that she’s got an early, painful pause ahead of her! But then, who does… Super-sleuth planetman Pete is already on the trail of the Butcher’s Son. He’ll stop at nothing to catch this correctee! in the next episode of ‘Festival Passions’:socio-designerDon has not appeared in the Reproduction Zone at the appointed time. Disappointed Anne plans to give herself to three strangers. Who knows, maybe one of them will treat her to a world of unforgettable sensations…

which show would you like to watch today?The Eternal Killer Festival Passions Both shows

2 while you were away from socio information was collected for you regarding your search request ‘cleo’ what would you like to do with this information? open in viewing mode save in memory

3 While you were away from socio, user cleo invited you to meet on socio

what would you like to do with this invitation?accept invitation decline invitation do you want to meet cleo right now?yes no

Zero

From the age of five I visited the local natural development group: Hanna took me to a shining round building, which looked like a ball of natural cheese, with oval holes for windows. Of course, no one did any developing there, that was just a name. But I liked it. I liked the cheese house. I liked the poor kids, who since birth had had neuron chains that didn’t join up right, making it impossible to install SDP, the Standard Development Program, or anything else for that matter. They had ugly faces with big foreheads and tiny chins, they had drooling mouths, they had eyes weeping with sores, but their gaze fascinated me – it was direct and intense, tenacious, not like other people’s.

They looked at me in amazement. I was absolutely healthy. I could have had SDP installed without any problems, if it weren’t for one ‘but’.

I was dangerous. So they wouldn’t hook me up to socio. At all. The decision was made at the highest level.

I was dangerous. I was surplus to requirements. I was unknown. I might violate something somehow… Of course they didn’t mention any of this to Hanna. They just announced that an additional cell would be required for me to be hooked up to socio. ‘Unfortunately, the creation of an additional cell could lead to a malfunction in socio.’ I remember her face when she got the message. Or I think I remember, I was very little – in any case, I’m sure that that’s what her face looked like at that moment. Frozen, grey. Like it always was when one of the departments contacted her about me.

I liked talking to the other children from the development group – they didn’t know who I was. And if they had known, they would not have understood. I liked lying. I lied and said that I had known my incode for ages, that I knew everything about myself, that I had managed to listen in to the adults talking. And I liked listening to them lie too… We told each other cock-and-bull stories about our lives before the Pause, in which we were all heroes and were all awarded the Order of the Living; we chose the most prestigious ranks and professions for ourselves: we were all secretaries of the Council of Eight, architects, entomologists, or farmers or fruit growers.

And so I was a farmer. When they gave out the little boxes of natural food (I don’t know how it is now, but at that time children under nine were given a hundred grams of natural animal food produced by a Farmer of Merit in that region, it was part of the Programme for Assisting Nature), I said that the little chunks of meat which were inside, they’re actually from my farm, before the pause I had a farm, and I kept pigs there, yep yep, real pigs, I saw them up close, and they weren’t scared of me at all…

We all adored these little boxes of happiness with their multi-coloured stamps: ‘Region EA 8_milk’, ‘Region EA8_egg_hen’, ‘Region EA 8_ meat_pig’…

‘You’re lyin’!’ said a little boy with envy. He had a crooked face and piercing eyes. ‘You’re lyin’, aw uh a-imals are scaye’ o’ duh Wiving!’

‘Gopz,’ I said. ‘They’re not scared of me. They can sense a Farmer of Merit.’