‘Is it real? Is it safe? Where the hell did you get it?’
‘I picked it up out beyond the badlands. I —’
‘What were you doing out there? I’ve asked you — I’ve pleaded with you, for Chrissakes I’ve ordered you — to stay away from the outlying sectors.’
‘What’s the problem? Cleave’s always sending people out there these days. Think of it as the outer suburbs of Rise.’
‘Cleave doesn’t give those people a thought. It wouldn’t occur to her. Curtin makes sure they’re safe.’
‘But they go. That’s the point. They go.’
‘They’re highly trained. Scientists in suits, with oxygen tanks, taking precautions before, during, and after. They submit to full-body cleans. They’re willing to put up with extra tumours. They aren’t forever walking into walls.’
‘Oh, be fair: I only did that once. Weeks ago. And I’d been watching battle-scene edits for ten hours straight. Anyway, what makes you think I found Fred myself?’
‘Because you’re the worst micromanager I’ve ever met.’
‘Surely you mean the best?’
‘Surely you jest?’
‘Well, look, I only go out there because I care about you. I worry about you. And I can’t exactly tell these experts of yours what I’m looking for and why, now can I? Besides, the purple sunsets out there are incredible. You should come out with me for a look sometime. Really.’
‘And if you go and grow a second head, or an arm spontaneously appears out of your arse, or a tumour twice your body weight erupts in your armpit, how the hell will I explain that to the media? There’s no escaping the rain out there. Seriously: I hope you are taking proper precautions. Don’t go getting complacent about survival.’
In truth, Walker knew that Hail didn’t only go to the badlands to try to scavenge food for him. He knew that Hail had always felt trapped by the confines of Rise, and especially by being stuck day after day in Walker Compound. Hail missed the great expanse of the world, now off limits, as if it weren’t there at all. In the Old Time, Hail would have chucked a backpack in the back of a brick of a car and followed his nose out beyond mountain ranges and deserts.
Walker peered at the dog. ‘Have you had that thing checked for diseases? What’s its radiation count?’
‘Fully approved by Cleave and by the good doc. Let’s just say we can be confident that Fred is a hell of a lot healthier than you.’
‘So it might last the week, then?’
‘Okay, watch this: sit, Fred. Good boy. C’mon, sit. Sit, boy. Sit, Fred. You can do it, Fred. Go on, Fred.’
The dog did its best to sit, but it couldn’t quite work out how to make its limbs behave. It seemed as if its every breath were designed to make it collapse in on itself. Hail grinned on. Walker watched reluctantly, dismayed and yet unmoved. Not for the first time that week, he asked himself if he were still human. The dog tried again, managing a crouch.
‘Jeez, how long have you had it?’ Walker asked. ‘How did you train it?’
‘We have our methods. Don’t think about it. Enjoy the show.’
With a whimper, the dog leapt into the air, performed a midair flip, and landed with a heavy thump on its side. It lay on the floor, panting, wagging its tail that was actually a leg. Hail stared intently at Walker, who ran his tongue around his teeth.
‘Anything?’ Hail said.
‘Something. Not much. But something …’
‘Do you need it to do it again? Take two, Fred. Up, Fred, up.’
‘No no no. That’ll get me through the day. Maybe. Probably. Let’s get on with things. But help the dog up first. It’s unbearable.’
‘Are you kidding?’ Hail said. ‘No way I’m touching that thing.’
***
Grainy — thirty-one years old, a child of the chaotic early years of the New Time — still wasn’t feeling well. It had been like this for weeks. At first, he hadn’t thought much of it. Yes, both of his parents had died at about his age. But they’d had that wasting disease that had finished off some of the Old Time people in the early days of Rise. Once you had it, there was no getting rid of it: regrettable but inevitable, the official line went. And fair enough, Grainy thought. The New Time doctors weren’t responsible for Old Time failings. It was just as well he thought that way, because right now he was sitting in a doctor’s waiting room, pretending not to be nervous.
Grainy had got himself body-scanned in his twenties, just to be sure he wasn’t carrying the wasting disease. The robot had given him the all clear. And that’s exactly what nagged at him. Why wouldn’t the unwellness pass? He was too young to be moving into the second stage, let alone the final stage, of life. His genes were sound. His tumour rubbed the back of his knee, but it was small and lax. There was no good reason for him to feel the way he felt.
Perhaps, he thought, it was just that the air quality had been going through a bad patch, what with the increase in rain, what with the announcement that the authorities would be upgrading the domefield, what with the persistent high winds blowing in from the western badlands. The people who Grainy shared his life with all had their problems. His ex-partner Mace often had a severely swollen left ankle. He knew because he lived a floor above her: he often went down and shared an autoscreen at dinnertime with Mace and their child, who they really needed to name, given that she was nearly nine years old. Some days, he massaged Mace’s ankle while they ate, the little girl putting a hand on each of them.
Grainy’s friends — some from his work at the Institute of Peace Studies, some acquired during his years living in the Walker Home for Children of Parents of the Old Time Who Did Not Survive — were always complaining about transient aches or pain or stiffness. Periodic discomfort — low-level, a mere irritant — was normal. It was part of the business of having survived, of living in the New Time. Every doctor was a physio. Every partner was a masseuse. Every mattress vibrated hot or cold on request.
So Grainy hadn’t been worried, initially, that he felt off. But whatever ailed him did not come and go. Nor did it obviously announce itself. And the pain wasn’t predictable. It didn’t find a weak spot, like his tumour had done. Once the nagging feeling that he should be worried took hold, he’d tried to record his medical history. The problem had started, hadn’t it, with a dull ache in his gut, then his fingertips, all ten of them, mild but undeniable, then his gut again, then his right shoulder. But after that, the order became hazy. Now the ache had spread throughout his body. He felt wrong everywhere. And his skin was beginning to rebel. He’d never had sores, not even after that time, fifteen years ago, maybe more, that the domefield and the backup domefield had both malfunctioned and Rise had been sprinkled with a couple of minutes of light rain.