As I climb into bed, I pull the newspaper clipping out. I look at it for a long time before I actually begin to read the columns. In the top right-hand corner is what I presume to be the name of the newspaper, but I’ve never heard of it. ‘The Daily Reader’. I read the title again, slowly and carefully. ‘Mouse Experiment on Overcrowding Predicts the Fate of Humanity.’ Towards the bottom of the page is an aerial photo of a small compound designed to house mice with nesting boxes up the sides of the pen, which look like apartment blocks, and a large communal space in the middle.
The article says that the so-called ‘Utopian Universe’ was designed to support up to fifty thousand mice, providing them with ample nesting material and food. I can’t help but draw parallels between the apartments that we’re allocated and the food rations that we receive. In the experiment the mouse population expanded rapidly, doubling every fifty-five days, but as the population grew, society began to break down. The distribution of space became unequal, with some dominant male mice taking over whole sections of the enclosure, living there with a select number of females. I think about the gangs who have taken over whole apartment blocks whilst others, like us, are forced into overcrowded living quarters. Are we really no better than animals?
The door of the bedroom begins to open, but the stiff door gives me enough time to push the newspaper snippet back under the duvet.
“Zia, are you still awake?” Lake whispers.
“Yeah,” I reply, trying to sound sleepy.
“I’ve just spoken to an ex-member from the Block Six gang and he said that your mother was killed when the gang overtook your apartment.”
I stare at him in disbelief. Is he trying to tell me that it was all just a coincidence and my mother wasn’t killed as a result of my actions?
Lake sits on the edge of the bed. “Apparently the gang arrived early in the morning and tried to evict everyone, but your mother put up a fight and was thrown over the balcony in a scuffle.”
My mind races back to poor helpless Jo. If this is true then where is she now and who is looking after her? But even though I want to believe that I had nothing to do with my mother’s death, I don’t. My mother loathed confrontation and the idea that she entered into a physical altercation in which she allowed someone to get close enough to grab her seems impossible.
“But nobody found her body until lunchtime?” I ask, trying to read his expression. “And even if that was true, why were there so many officials there?”
“Erm, yeah, I don’t really know,” he replies, shifting his weight from leaning on one hand to the other.
There’s never been any gang activity in my apartment block before, so if there was I can’t help thinking that the instruction came from somewhere else. Furthermore, I think the reason it happened so early is because they were hoping to find me there. Or perhaps the Block Six gang were never involved; it could’ve been undercover officials, and the ex-gang member is feeding Lake false leads because he’s under their protection. I think this information is intended to draw me out of hiding. It also means that I’m not safe, and I hope that Lake had the good sense to tell the ex-gang member that he hasn’t seen me.
“D’you trust the guy?” I ask.
“He’s just a contact. Don’t worry, they don’t know you’re here. You’re under my gang’s protection. We look after our own and we work alone,” he replies, touching my leg through the duvet.
Gang, the word almost makes me laugh aloud. A bunch of misfit kids do not constitute a gang. Most of them are drunks or drug users and all of them are damaged, but if Lake trusts them then I suppose I’ll have to as well because he’s the only person that I trust. A pang of guilt strikes a chord somewhere deep inside me. I trust him, but not enough to share what I know about the compound.
“I just thought that you should know,” Lake says, standing up to leave again.
“Thank you,” I reply, leaning back into the pillow.
Once the bedroom is empty again, I pull the newspaper article back out from under the duvet. It’s creased from where I’ve been screwing my hands into fists, so I smooth it out and continue reading. The article says that as the population of mice increased, society continued to break down in what the researcher termed the ‘Behavioural sink’. The mice became carnivorous and sexually predatory. Females stopped caring for their young and frequently abandoned them before weaning was complete. My mind spirals back to the story that Lake told me about his neighbour and I feel my hands curl into fists again. Some of the mice became volatile, starting fights for no reason. Whilst others, which the researcher called the ‘Beautiful ones’, withdrew from all forms of social interaction. Perhaps that was me and my mother.
After day six hundred no more live young were born that survived, and the colony slid into extinction. I dig my nails into the palms of my hands. If we are the human equivalent of this experiment, and so far our trajectory matches it perfectly except that we have a larger time scale because humans reproduce at a slower rate, then I already know how this is going to end. The room feels colder. We’re an experiment orchestrated by outside so they can manage their own population and work out where the tipping point is. We live like this so they don’t have to. I try to calm myself down but my heart is beating so hard that I can feel it pulsing in my fists like I want to hit something. I hear someone let out a long, anguished cry and it takes me a while to realise that it’s coming out of my open mouth.
The door flies open and Lake rushes over to me. He wraps his arms around my shoulders again and I rest my head against his chest. He rocks slowly back and forth as I sob and whispers softly into my ear. “I don’t know why this has happened to you. It’s not fair, none of it is.”
“I do,” I gasp between sobs. His eyes narrow as he tries to work out what I’m talking about. “I lied to you earlier. When I went back to the infirmary I did find the article that Grant told me about.” I thrust the paper towards him.
He takes the article from me, but doesn’t release me from his embrace. He’s silent for a long time whilst he reads the slip of paper before eventually speaking. “Zia you can’t believe this. Even if the compound was based on this experiment, we’re not animals. It won’t happen here.”
“It already has,” I say, my voice heavy with sorrow. “We have to get out of here.”
“Shh,” he hisses, putting his hand up to my mouth. “Don’t talk like that. It’s a good way to go missing.”
“Do you know people that have gone missing? I can’t find Grant. Where do they go?”
“I don’t know,” he replies in a hushed tone.
Frustration at his indifference boils inside me. “Then why didn’t you ask?”
He grips both of my shoulders in his hands. “Because they don’t come back. They never come back,” he says sternly, looking directly into my eyes.
The tears won’t even come. I release myself from his grip and lie back, staring blankly at the ceiling.
“I’ll ask Redd to do some internet research about the project and researcher.”
“NO,” I shout, sitting back up. “You can’t tell any of them, remember; you swore.”
“Okay, okay,” he nods, calming me down. “The others will go out tomorrow morning and we can stay behind to do some research. Now try to get some sleep. It will do you the world of good.” He turns to leave, flicking off the light and plunging the room into darkness.
I flop back down onto the pillow and into the warmth of the bed.
***
When I open my eyes again, the room is dark and I realise that I must have fallen asleep. I grapple around on the duvet trying to locate the newspaper clipping but I can’t find it. In a panic I leap out of bed and turn on the light.
But it’s gone.
Chapter Eleven
I scramble out of the tangle of sheets that have cocooned me, grab my coat and rush into the living room, but I’m greeted only by silence. Standing in the middle of the cold damp room, goosebumps prickle my skin.
I peer into the kitchen before inspecting the other bedroom, but it soon becomes apparent that I’m alone.
My mind feels hazy with the effects of last night’s homebrew, but I vividly remember Lake saying that he’d stay behind today so that we could carry out some internet research. I look through the dirty window to the street below, but it’s empty and they’re gone. The sun is low but bright amongst the concrete apartment blocks. It’s early. There’s a sinking feeling somewhere inside me as I rack my brains for a reason that the whole gang would have left so early.
Looking around the living room, my gaze settles on the computer that stands on a stack of wooden pallets in the corner of the room. Kneeling down beside it, I touch the mouse and I’m surprised to see the screen leap into life. I open an internet browser and stare at the keyboard, trying to remember key words from the newspaper article. Maybe I can find a full write up about the mouse experiment online. Perhaps I can work out what they want from us. The newspaper article only mentioned the experimenter’s surname so I type it in and hit return, but the search is too vague and doesn’t bring up anything relevant. I add what year I think the study was carried out, but still find nothing that relates to the experiment. Feeling panicked I add all the key words that I can think of, ‘Experiment’, ‘Overcrowding’, ‘Mice’, ‘Population’, and ‘Utopian Universe’, but when I scroll down I can’t see anything that resembles the study.
Suddenly my attention is captured by a link at the bottom of the page, ‘Experimental compound: The forgotten people’. I hold my breath as I click on the link, but when I do a message appears, ‘Error: content has been blocked’. Our viewing is censored? Given everything I’ve learned about the compound in the last few days, the revelation doesn’t surprise me, but it forces me to reconsider whether anything I learned in school was true. Was everything that we learned based on fact or fairy tales? Was it all just propaganda?
I feel incredibly lonely and isolated. Yesterday I was happy to go along with what Lake said, and I didn’t even ask if he had a plan. I shared my deepest secret and showed him the newspaper article, now both of them are gone. In desperation I open my email account and type Jo’s email address into the recipient bar. ‘My dearest Jo,’ I type, my eyes stinging with tears. ‘I’m so sorry that I’ve had to leave you. I have discovered the secret purpose of the compound and I’m scared that I’ll be ‘removed’ because of it.’ Hot tears run freely down my face and splash onto the keyboard as I hover over the ‘send’ icon. But I don’t click it; I don’t want to get Jo in trouble too. If they’re censoring our internet browsing then it’s a good bet that they also monitor our emails, so I discard the message unsent.
I hear a key entering the lock from the outside and the front door opening. The world pauses for just a moment as I wait to see who enters the living room, and I feel like I could cry with relief when I see Lake appear in the doorway. I’m not alone.
“Zia?” he asks, looking alarmed.
My relief gives way to anger and I stand up, folding my arms across my chest. “Where have you been?”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t expect you to be awake. I’ve been doing some research into your mother’s death.”
“What?” I ask, unable to prevent myself from being drawn in at the mention of my mother.
“I know you were sceptical about what my contact told me happened, so I did some investigating and it seems like your instinct was right. I went back to the apartment and the block hasn’t been taken over; in fact your apartment’s still empty. I had a quick look around the place but I couldn’t see anything significant, so I just grabbed some of your clothes,” Lake says, lifting a backpack off his shoulder and handing it to me. “Then we let ourselves in next door, to the cripple’s apartment.”
“Is she okay?” I ask softly. “How did you get in?”
Lake nods towards Redd, the flame-haired boy with an angry scar running down the length of his face. “She’s okay,” Lake says, in a gentler tone. “She was confused about what happened, but told us it sounded more like officials than a gang. They broke in early in the morning, which must have been just after you left for work. She heard shouting, demanding to know where you were and who you’d been talking to. Your mother said she didn’t know what they were talking about, but that you’d had a row the night before and gone to stay with your father.”
“My father? I don’t even know who my father is.”
My head is spinning with more questions. My mother is law abiding by nature, so why would she purposefully deceive the officials and send them on a wild-goose chase? And why didn’t the officials just come and find me at the infirmary? Then it dawns on me that they probably did, and the only reason that they didn’t find me was because I’d moved department that day.
“But that still doesn’t explain why you took the newspaper article,” I spit, my glare hard and penetrating.
Lake furrows his brow and narrows his eyes in confusion. “I didn’t take it.”
Redd shuffles backwards slightly. “I did,” he says in a small voice. Then in a louder voice he defends his actions. “I wanted to know what we’re risking our lives for.”
“Where is it now?” Lake growls dangerously at his brother.
Redd walks towards us. “Here,” he says, reaching into the back pocket of his jeans, but a second later he freezes and his eyes widen.
“WHAT?” Lake shouts.
“It must’ve fallen out,” Redd stammers.
Redd steps backwards but Lake has already swung a powerful right hook which connects with the scarred side of his face. He stumbles backwards, reeling from the punch as Lake advances on him again. I grab hold of Lake’s left arm, trying to hold him back, but he’s too strong and easily shakes me free. The image of Lake’s father towering over his son’s cowering body leaps from my memory. I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree after all. Lake grabs Redd by the collar and slams him against the wall.
“Well then you’d better go and look for it because if you don’t find it then you ain’t coming back here.”
Redd leans against the wall breathing heavily, his eyes wide with fear. The compassionate part of me wants to tell Lake to stop, but Redd had no right to take the article without my permission and my fury wins out. I watch as Lake approaches him again, slower, more calculated.
“Go,” Lake whispers in Redd’s ear and immediately Redd rushes to the door.
Lake follows him with his eyes as he leaves. His jaw is tightly set and his muscles are taut beneath his t-shirt.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know−” he starts to say, but I cut him off.
“I know.”
Lake walks over to the illuminated computer screen. “What are you looking at?”
“I was searching for the mouse experiment online but I can’t find anything. I think our viewing’s censored.”
I kneel back down at the computer and let out a gasp of surprise when I see a new email at the top of my inbox from Grant: ‘The truth will set you free’.
Lake squats down next to me and squints at the screen “What is it? You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”
I laugh before realising that he doesn’t know that he just made a joke. “I have. I just got an email from Grant, my colleague who went missing.”
I’m overjoyed to hear from him. He wasn’t removed. Maybe this is all just a big misunderstanding. My fingers twitch, desperate to open the email and find out what’s going on, but I’m also suspicious. How could Grant have avoided the officials and where is he now?
“It could be a sting operation trying to locate you,” Lake says warily.
“I know,” I reply, but I also know that I’m going to open it because I need to try and understand what’s going on. ‘The truth will set you free’, I read it again and my mind finishes the rest of the quote. ‘But first it will make you miserable.’
“If you’re going to open it, then you understand that we’ll have to move?” Lake asks, but not in a judgmental wa
y.
I answer his question with another question. “And you’d do that for me?” I feel my palms moisten, but I need reassurance that he won’t leave me again.
He nods, staring straight ahead at the computer screen. “We’ll break away from the rest of the gang, move only at night and stay indoors during the day.”
“Why would you do that for me?” I ask.
“I’m not doing it for you. I’m doing it for everyone in the compound. If I don’t protect you then the officials will find and remove you, and everything that you’ve learned will be forgotten again.”
My cheeks warm as I blush and I feel foolish for thinking that he was helping because he liked me. Someone like him could be with anyone that he wanted, so he’d never choose someone like me. But at the same time, it also feels good to know that he’s involved for the same reasons that I am; because we have to know the truth and because we have to get out.
***
It’s early evening before I return to the computer again. The screen lights up when I touch the mouse, revealing Grant’s unread email. Lake stands looking over my shoulder when, without warning, I click on the email. We both lean closer as it opens, but there are only a few of lines of text.
‘Zia don’t go back to the infirmary.
I need to speak with you in person.
Meet me by the irrigation tower at 10pm on the 12th.’
I read the email three times over in my head, hoping to reveal a deeper meaning but there is none. There’s no way to tell if it was even him that wrote it, no private joke or anything to reveal his identity. I also can’t shake the feeling that I’ve been cheated. The email’s title promised so much and delivered so little. It’s like a spam email telling me that I’ve won a prize, and now need to phone this premium rate phone line to claim it.
I see Lake counting on his fingers. “The 12th is tomorrow, isn’t it? Are you going?”
I shrug my shoulders because I really don’t know. I’d definitely meet Grant, but how do I know if it’s Grant? “Do you think it’s really him?”
“I don’t know, but I suppose there’s only one way to find out.”