Read Online Futuretrack 5 by Robert Westall - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Robert Westall
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boasted he’d designed it, to hide the perimeter Wire. Other times he said Laura designed it, to cure claustrophobia in the staff while they were working. It had three silver-birch trees on top, and a few rabbits were allowed to breed. Laura had worked out the ideal allocation of 2.6 silver birches and 10.7 rabbits, but Idris had graciously rounded the numbers upward. Superfluous rabbits were humanely put to sleep. We called it Idris Hill. The best thing was, it gave you a chance to sneer down at the Centre. To see it as the futile scurrying antheap it was. To rise above it. Young Techs sat there a lot.
But not at four in the morning. I sat in perfect solitude, my back against a birch tree and feet in a rabbit burrow. I scuffed my toes about, making marks in the soil. The rabbit droppings had a comforting smell.
“Oh, Idris, mate!” I was nearly out of my mind. There seemed to be three Idrises now.
The cooling body in the mortuary that they’d tear apart in the morning, to find out how he’d tricked them.
But my mind sheered away from that. My mind insisted that if I just went back to Laura’s room in a couple of hours I’d find him still there, waking up cross, coughing over his first fag of the day, scratching his smelly armpit and shouting insults to Headtech down the phone. That was the ordinary day I wanted to run back to…
But there now seemed to be a third Idris, up here on the hill with me. The same ballooning thoughts that had first come to me in the sick bay. Not pleading now, but pressing down on me, terribly, terribly angry.
“Steady, old mate,” I whispered. “You’ll be okay now. You’re free. You’re super-Idris now. You must know everything. They can’t hurt you anymore. Go and find your real Laura.”
But the press of his anger grew.
“What do you want, Idris? What do you want?”
Only a name came into my mind: Scott-Astbury.
That’s stupid, I thought. That’s like when you’re very tired, and a queer word like “mollycoddle” sort of gets stuck in your mind and you can’t get it out, and it keeps repeating till you get a good night’s sleep. It’s just my mind, I thought. My poor tired mind playing tricks.
The ballooning anger grew unbearable.
“All right, mate,” I said. “Scott-Astbury, if you insist.”
Suddenly, there was just the dawn wind and me, on the hilltop.
I looked down on the Centre; it reminded me of an egg factory we’d studied, where light burned night and day to encourage egg production. The on-shift Techs even looked like white hens, each cramped in its own cage. A broiler house for brains…
Well, they’d never broil mine. They’d never get me back in the Centre. Idris had been the greatest, and in the end he just wanted to die. … I got up, took off my white coat, threw it on the ground, and walked away. But when I looked back, it glimmered in the gloom, stuck up on the hill like a flag, a danger signal. In half an hour, everyone would see it. I went back and stuffed it down a rabbit hole, clipboard and all. Hard luck, rabbit; dig another burrow. You’ve got plenty of time. You’re not going anywhere. I am.
But how? I was too weary to think. My feet took me down to the hostel, already feeling naked without my white coat. I fell on my bed and went out like a light.
Up out of sleep, not wanting to come. The digital clock on the wall said 20.04. I’d slept the clock round; only most clocks in the Centre didn’t go round.
Sellers, my roommate, getting changed. Not a bad guy, for a Tech. Kept himself to himself, but never sneaked on you to the Top Brass.
Sellers had reached the ugly, trouserless stage; long white legs shone in the lamplight. Fair hairs on them, invisible except where the lamplight glinted. His back was turned. His jeans and jean jacket lay tossed on the bed. Unnem credits spilled out of the pockets, all over the neat green bed cover.
Sellers had been on the razzle. Most young Techs went on the razzle occasionally. Getting
But not at four in the morning. I sat in perfect solitude, my back against a birch tree and feet in a rabbit burrow. I scuffed my toes about, making marks in the soil. The rabbit droppings had a comforting smell.
“Oh, Idris, mate!” I was nearly out of my mind. There seemed to be three Idrises now.
The cooling body in the mortuary that they’d tear apart in the morning, to find out how he’d tricked them.
But my mind sheered away from that. My mind insisted that if I just went back to Laura’s room in a couple of hours I’d find him still there, waking up cross, coughing over his first fag of the day, scratching his smelly armpit and shouting insults to Headtech down the phone. That was the ordinary day I wanted to run back to…
But there now seemed to be a third Idris, up here on the hill with me. The same ballooning thoughts that had first come to me in the sick bay. Not pleading now, but pressing down on me, terribly, terribly angry.
“Steady, old mate,” I whispered. “You’ll be okay now. You’re free. You’re super-Idris now. You must know everything. They can’t hurt you anymore. Go and find your real Laura.”
But the press of his anger grew.
“What do you want, Idris? What do you want?”
Only a name came into my mind: Scott-Astbury.
That’s stupid, I thought. That’s like when you’re very tired, and a queer word like “mollycoddle” sort of gets stuck in your mind and you can’t get it out, and it keeps repeating till you get a good night’s sleep. It’s just my mind, I thought. My poor tired mind playing tricks.
The ballooning anger grew unbearable.
“All right, mate,” I said. “Scott-Astbury, if you insist.”
Suddenly, there was just the dawn wind and me, on the hilltop.
I looked down on the Centre; it reminded me of an egg factory we’d studied, where light burned night and day to encourage egg production. The on-shift Techs even looked like white hens, each cramped in its own cage. A broiler house for brains…
Well, they’d never broil mine. They’d never get me back in the Centre. Idris had been the greatest, and in the end he just wanted to die. … I got up, took off my white coat, threw it on the ground, and walked away. But when I looked back, it glimmered in the gloom, stuck up on the hill like a flag, a danger signal. In half an hour, everyone would see it. I went back and stuffed it down a rabbit hole, clipboard and all. Hard luck, rabbit; dig another burrow. You’ve got plenty of time. You’re not going anywhere. I am.
But how? I was too weary to think. My feet took me down to the hostel, already feeling naked without my white coat. I fell on my bed and went out like a light.
Up out of sleep, not wanting to come. The digital clock on the wall said 20.04. I’d slept the clock round; only most clocks in the Centre didn’t go round.
Sellers, my roommate, getting changed. Not a bad guy, for a Tech. Kept himself to himself, but never sneaked on you to the Top Brass.
Sellers had reached the ugly, trouserless stage; long white legs shone in the lamplight. Fair hairs on them, invisible except where the lamplight glinted. His back was turned. His jeans and jean jacket lay tossed on the bed. Unnem credits spilled out of the pockets, all over the neat green bed cover.
Sellers had been on the razzle. Most young Techs went on the razzle occasionally. Getting
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