JUST A SMARTER ANIMAL

- a story by Darcy Moore

The underground stadium lay in a vast cavern, seating 40 000 people. Set on massive metal springs and covered by a mountain of steel and reinforced concrete two hundred metres below ground it was, logically, impregnable. But logic meant nothing here. Only remembered death.
        "Distractions, that's the answer," he muttered. From his position high in the stands Tony Rafferty focused on the technical aspects of the shudders- seismic waves travelling through the earth's crust, speed determined by the medium. The distance wasn't far enough to make much difference here, but the springs did.
        The vibrations and the sirens stopped abruptly, almost synchronised. Gratefully, Rafferty discarded his rusty physics and steeled himself to endure the now audible whimpering. But he was empathetic.
        Like them he had lived his life under treacherous skies, rattled by a peal of thunder or an overhead shadow. Never any other warning. You heard the explosions and ran to the designated Mother where the city took you safely into its body.
        In the business area where, at times of attack, buildings poured out their contents spermlike, the Cervix was necessarily the width of an avenue. It sloped down to a huge platform which descended to the Womb. The platform now stood bare at the open end of the stadium.
        Rafferty barely registered the suffocating rose smell before it overwhelmed him. He sank, stunned, with the pain of disembowelment, then screamed under a flood of images - of death and conflagration, charred bodies of grandparents, parents, broken stumps of buildings, craters. Wails, shrieks, curses forty thousand fold shook the stands to their metal roots.
        Then a sharp pine fragrance, detoxifying.
        Rafferty found himself standing with his shirt ripped open, deep scratches on his chest and his torso knotting and unknotting in spasms. His mouth opened and closed soundlessly. Saliva clung in strings down his cheek. He unclenched his fists and stared, fascinated by the flesh and hair clinging to his fingernails.
        A cry stirred him. Along his row people lay splayed and curled and folded, partially clad. Some were naked. A very few stood like him. He saw a broken nose, a hand clutching a mass of hair, a throat gouged to the bone. Blood seemed to ooze from infinite sources. He stopped looking.
        When the keening began he closed his eyes, pressed palms across his ears and forced his wife Jessica into his mind, moulding the cheeks to make them smooth, whitening the flesh to unsully it. He kneaded and kneaded her contours until they flowed under his palm. His children, beyond this adult corruption, came more easily. He pictured them on a tree swing in the sedate, safe, Eastern Suburbs among recently retired folk who were very protective of the young family. He felt sympathy now for his peers who had followed expectations and begun their families in the new strident and characterless Western sector.
        The torment had eased to sporadic sobs. His eyes opened on a chilling stillness, tier upon still tier. Flesh drew deeper into stone with each body that fluttered haphazardly.
        From their positions around the base of the stands protectors glided up the stairs, along the aisles and removed the dead or the broken. Working calmly and dressed in black satin body suits with a large golden insignia in the shape of two cupped hands emblazoned over the heart, they were reassuring.
        In the row to Rafferty's front a head hung lifelessly over the backrest. A woman about fifty. She reminded him of his mother. He began to weep but was checked by the pungent odour of voided bowels.
        The smell spread quickly outwards, mingling with that of the vomit. Angrily Rafferty sprang to his feet. "Shut up, shut up! Stop it, stop it!" A few faces turned dumbly but most were oblivious.

        The air cleared abruptly under a surge of musk. Two protectors gently lifted the corpse and carried it gracefully along the wide row, and down the stairs, a hypnotic ripple of heads marking their progress.
        At the foot of the aisle they filed into one of a series of open hatches facing outwards from the oval-shaped centre at regular intervals. Rafferty watched impassively now as many such rituals were played out around the stadium.

        A voice, deep and triumphant, boomed overhead, "The terrorist attack is crushed. We have destroyed their assault vehicles and their armaments. We have executed all surviving terrorists."
        Sudden cheering and exultation swept him up helplessly. He screamed too, rasping his throat to a faint hiss until it faded, likewise, into a sepulchral silence.
        The fatherly voice resumed solemnly. "We have taken heavy casualties in the eastern suburbs. The following streets suffered direct hits and their inhabitants, our fellow citizens and your loved ones, have perished."
        A massive triangular prism rose from the centre of the field and displayed, in the bright spring colours of the world above, a suburban wasteland. 'Eastern suburbs'. They were the only words he heard. The rest were a muddle of echoes beyond his comprehension.
        But he saw the Life Studies Tower, two streets from his house, sheared half way and standing like an island in a volcano's crater. He slumped forward.
              * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
        The voices echoed in the white room, "Die, die." And they died, with the ancient song of sirens on their lips shrieking into dreams of salt spray and steely, winter oceans, into nothingness. Time was white and, white-sheeted and still, they were wheeled away dignified only by their sex, by the breast mound with its muted nipple, and the flaccid hump below the pelvis.
        The voices redoubled with pleading, "Die, die." But he would not die.
        A face leant close to his, warming his cheek with its breath. "He's too stubborn. Put him out of misery."
        "No. Leave him." Another voice, deep and sure. "He could be useful. We rarely get this opportunity."
        When his dream broke. He was in a large white-walled room, among a grid of white beds; empty, but for his.
            * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

        By the time Rafferty left TEAR (Tragedy Encounter And Recovery) the city had shed its mourning clothes. As he was driven through the streets he sensed a buoyant energy.
        Instead of returning to the DDC (Diet Development Centre) where he had worked as a food chemist his entire adult life, he was directed to the IMR (Institute of Metabolic Research). "Understand, Tony," the TEAR parent had said, "few survive a psychological ordeal like yours. Your peers have mourned you and believe you to be dead. Your return would be very traumatic for them, and for you."
        At the new building he saw many young, zealous faces. He considered the irony - seven years earlier after a terrorist attack had obliterated most of the north-west sector, and his parents, and a half million others, he had eagerly expunged his grief in the massive rebuilding and remodelling of his culture. It was a heady, and fortuitous, introduction to adult life.
        Through that work day and the legion that followed, his body performed adequately but his brain lived independently, with only one focus - terrorists.
        This obsession was both a poison and an antidote: it had almost destroyed him, yet now it sustained him. In TEAR he nurtured this hatred for his family's executioners, and set himself to find everything relating to terrorists. The LEC (Life Education Console) became his lifeline.

    ********************************************************

        Rafferty was also directed to new living quarters. This was much harder than changing work places, for it emphasised his rootlessness and isolation. So, with a sense of dread he stood before a singles' centre, one of a ring enfolding the inner city. It rose torpedo-shaped and smooth, except for small opaque windows which marched in military fashion, towards the cone-shaped apex. The phallic symbolism once personified him and his generation - potent, thrusting and aggressive. Now it seemed brutal and mindless.
        He stood in the designated pavement square and pressed the electronic key issued to him; metal glided into its lubricated sheath. He stepped onto a soft, spongy surface, and removed his shoes. He gasped involuntarily as waves of kneading, plying relaxation pulsed up his legs and coursed through his crotch.
        But instead of pleasant arousal he felt violation. His mind swung discordantly, "Thrills for little boys ... electronic whores ... synthetic bitches.."
        "Welcome home Tony!"
        ".. technological jerkoff ..! What?"
        He breathed deeply, allowing his body to acclimatise to the sensufloor, and faced the speaker. A wine-red uniform - it was as if he'd been demoted, as if everything was conspiring to erase the last seven years, and their inhabitants, from his soul.
        "This isn't my home, and I don't even know you!" It came out as a bitter snarl.
        The man was unperturbed. "That's alright Tony. You're disoriented, and feeling resentful. It's to be expected." Rafferty stood watching him, still seething, not trusting his tongue.
        "I'm Harry Michaels, Custodian," the man continued. "I'll show you to the floor you'll be sharing, and your unit." Rafferty hesitated then, out of habit, followed quietly.
        They rose in the elevator. "As you may remember Tony we don't have separate accommodation. But the young men and women in your unit will respect your wishes, and won't intrude on you."
        "Good!"
        The lift stopped and the doors opened onto an wide foyer. Along one wall stood a single LEC and a dozen PECs (Personal Entertainment Consoles), all occupied. Beyond were transparent doors fronting the unit lounge.
        "Hello Harry!" The young faces spoke with affection but swivelled to Rafferty with curiosity. He ignored them.
        The custodian took his arm firmly as they approached the glass doors. It was like TEAR, another Father figure with the same clinical grip. "Take your hand off me!"
        Heads looked up from chairs and conversations and the man reddened. His eyes narrowed momentarily before he affected a rueful smile and shrugged to his wards. But he let go.
        Michaels stopped for a moment inside the sliding panel to Rafferty's private unit. "It wouldn't be wise Tony, to spend too much time on your own." He spoke with concern. "You'll find it healthier, being around other young people."
        Other young people! Rafferty shrugged. It was an academic statement. Seven years, two terrorist attacks, two millennia. Then Rafferty realised what was so peculiar about the man.
        "Mr Michaels, why are you still working. You must be at least .."
        "Sixty-six actually. And call me Harry, I prefer it." He stopped smiling. "I lost my wife in a terrorist attack. I should have gone too, but I had business in the city." He turned and left. Rafferty began to collapse empathetically inside, but propped himself up with a disturbing thought - "How did Michaels survive?"

     *****************************************

        Despite overtures from Michaels, Rafferty refused more than a functional relationship. Running into him was unavoidable - he was always there when Rafferty left for work, and returned in the evenings. Also when Rafferty worked late at night on the LEC he would look up suddenly to see the old man sliding silently past on his rounds to check air, food and energy systems. If he was on the LEC just before dawn Michaels would pass again on his way to supervise the service staff in the cleaning of quarters and replenishment of food.
        For different reasons Rafferty also had minimal contact with "the kids". They quickly came to accept his eccentricities - ignoring his brusqueness and treating him with tolerance and deference. Sometimes one or two would stand, watching him at the LEC. At first he would turn and glare at them, but their presence was so unobtrusive he grew to accept them.
        As for the LEC, it continued as the focus for his existence. It denied him nothing, for its electronic circuits were a magical pathway winding effortlessly, like veins, through the body of recorded human endeavour. Over the following weeks his work at the IMR, his eating and his sleeping became autonomic such was his compulsion to see the true character of the world that nurtured him. Each night more features of an alien landscape took form, fleshed out with words, coloured with economic and demographic statistics. This landscape was cruel, enamoured of death and watered by black springs. It was hard to reconcile with the immaculate towers and forested hills gracing his window, or the gentle, beautiful faces and bodies moving elegantly about him. But it explained life, and death, perfectly.
        On the last night he stopped shortly after midnight, and sat helplessly before the blank screen, his mind racing in circles of terror and impotence.
        "Well, have you finished?" The voice was quiet, just behind him.
        "Shit!" Instinctively he swung around in his chair, throwing out a leg.
        Harry Michaels jumped back with surprising agility. For his part Rafferty was surprised by his own violence.
        "You never know what you're capable of Tony."
        Rafferty looked at him quizzically. "I didn't hear you come up Harry. It's a bit early for you isn't it?"
         "Not really. Not long to daybreak," which was true enough. Few stars were visible in the sky. "Well, the terrorists, you know all about them?"
        "I know almost nothing about them. There's no information about their organisation, or even any individuals in it. But I do know about ..". Rafferty paused, the custodian was watching him intently. "History," he said lamely.
        "History," Harry Michaels repeated slowly, with a smile. "You look a real mess Tony. Why don't you start looking after yourself. You don't need this," he gestured towards the LEC, "anymore." He turned and walked towards the lift.
        That evening at the communal meal hour Rafferty walked into the common room, sat at the space reserved for him at the communal table and, began to make polite conversation.

     *********************************************

        It was a brilliant Winter's night - etched with cold and sharp with stars. As usual, by the time Rafferty left the GET (Group Experimental Theatre) with a young female the other couples had long returned home. As usual too, he was mildly drunk. The city was dark except for muted pavement lights, and several city blocks lay before them. He took a deep, sobering draught of the chill air and threaded his arm through his companion's. She was badly in need of support.
        "This way Anne."
        "Hell it's cold Tony. I should have worn something warmer."
        "Here." He took off his greatcoat, a treasured fashion of the last century and his winter trademark. He pushed her arms through it.
        She opened the front and pressed her body against his in gratitude. "Some of them say you're crazy, but I think you're a real gentleman," she murmured against his cheek.
        "A crazy gentleman." He smiled in the dark, and felt a twinge of the old tenderness he associated with Jessica.
        "We've got a fair way to go, and we work in .. no it's this morning." He wrapped her up again and steered her along the footpath.
        A block short of home he stopped. "Did you hear something?" She mumbled unintelligibly. He strained to read the shadows, but couldn't penetrate as far as the edges of nearby buildings.
        Next time he heard it clearly, a metallic sound, directly ahead of them. He could make out a human form. Suddenly he was staring at a face in torch light, wearing a balaclava. He stood hypnotised. On posters, screens, in books he had seen that face of death a thousand times. The light switched off abruptly, and with it the spell. He swung in a desperate effort to push Anne clear. In instant illumination he saw a lock of her hair fall forward from under the coat's collar, and watched her head slump as he heard a muffled pop. Behind her a dark halo materialised around the outline of her shadow. Then the light was gone. Unhurried steps walked away.
        He felt the abrupt weight of Anne's body and, easing her onto the pavement, knelt beside her. Rousing himself he touched her face, pushing the locks back behind her neck. He felt for a pulse on her neck, then pressed his cheek under her nose. He was afraid to touch her anywhere else, but there was no point. Crying silently for the sacrilege, he knelt cradling her head.
        The lightening sky, that and the ice that knotted and hurt every part of him, pushed him into decisions. Kissing her cheek, now as cold as the pavement, he ran to his unit. In the shower he felt secure and clung to it's sheltering heat until logic drove him out. Dressing in warm, light clothes he walked to the lift. He had no plan but was gripped by an urge to run, to get away.
        Harry Michaels was in the foyer. Was he waiting? He looked slightly unsettled. "What are you doing here Tony?" he said in a brusque, authoritative voice. Then he appeared to compose himself, "It's an unusual time to be going out Tony. And you're not dressed for work."
        "I'm restless Harry." He tried to keep the tremor out of his voice, and strode for the door before Harry could respond.
        Once outside Rafferty realised how vulnerable he was. Everyone, everything had a function it seemed, but him. He was a solitary figure on the streets at this hour, an oddity; and hands and contorted faces pressed the misted windows of early workers' vehicles. Soon the hum of their motors became a rapid staccato rhythmic. In rising panic, he quit the main thoroughfares. Walking quickly, he made for an area of unoccupied buildings targeted for destruction, in an ageing part of the business centre.

        The sun was half way across its winter arc when he neared a clothing factory. Startled by a loud crackling sound he stopped before the entrance.
        A familiar, fatherly voice boomed out, "Citizens we have suffered a cowardly attack by the Terrorists. They have plunged a dagger into the very heart of our city, and violated the sanctity of our homes." A gasp of horror rose from the mesmerised workers. The voice waited for effect, then continued, "While you slept our forces fought and defeated our enemies. All have been killed in battle, or captured and executed."
        Rafferty leant forward to see workers clustered around a large overhead screen where a dozen bodies lay in black, wearing balaclavas. Rafferty shuddered involuntarily.
        "Unfortunately a number of our innocent fellow citizens have died at their merciless and indiscriminate hands." On the screen was a picture of a woman in her bed, a red stain across her chest. Then a man slumped in a shower stall. Also a man at a console, and one naked in a pleasure cubicle with his lower abdomen unrecognisable. One after the other the pictures filled the screen with their bright colours, fuelling the workers' hysteria.
        Then he saw the form of Anne, still in his greatcoat. She'd been moved to the footpath outside their singles unit. Her hair and face were arranged to highlight her youth and beauty. Rafferty let out an involuntary cry, but the voice covered him. " .. of particular callousness the murder of an eighteen year old girl, returning from a social evening. She had almost reached the sanctuary of her peers when .." Rafferty turned and hurried on.
        Each step became harder as he fought against the fatalism, now fuelled by guilt. He wanted to walk into a building and throw himself on the mercy of his people; but his people knew nothing and could do nothing. No, he was already dead, his name and his place no longer existed; it only remained to dispose of the corpse. Then the realisation he at least was not an ignorant victim, that he would die knowing the truth began to cheer him. Besides, he did not think he wished to live anymore.

        When Rafferty reached the first vacant building he hurried up a staircase to the fifth floor, and settled in what had once been an office. It overlooked a large park, beyond which was the new city centre swarming with movement and muffled noise. He shut the door and, methodically, broke apart a wooden chair making several wedges to push under the door. Throwing himself down on the mouldering carpet he closed his eyes.

        It was almost dark when he woke.
        Rafferty lay still until the cold, the hunger, the soreness convinced him of his whereabouts. He rose on one elbow, then shuddered - a burly human figure sat beside the western window, lighted by the last of the sun.
        "Hello Tony." It was familiar.
        "Harry?"
        "No Tony, Emmanuel. Emmanuel Stokes." The voice remained neutral, with no pretence of camaraderie. But it was Harry's voice.
        Coming out of sleep into the half light Rafferty felt he was without substance. He shivered and clawed at the fibre of the old floor covering until his fingernails pained, and the flesh tore.
        "You know Tony, you really should be dead." Rafferty eased himself into a crouching position.
        "Who are you anyway?"
        A light-sensitive unit switched on, in the centre of the room. It's brilliance jolted Rafferty. Jerking to his feet he looked quickly to the window. The man had risen and was skirting the room, towards him. He stopped. It was Harry's face, but the eyes were passionless - bright and fixed. He wore clothes identical to that of a protector, except for the chest insignia - a striking silver hammer. The clothes accentuated a large, muscled body. He was acutely conscious of the fragility and preciousness of his own body.
        "Yes I'm a protector, Tony. A true protector. I protect our children," and he waved an arm behind him to indicate the city, "from accidents. You, Tony, are an accident. Or perhaps experiment is a better word."
        "But I can't hurt you!" It came out as a defensive whine. Disappointed in himself he stood up and turned a defiant face to the man.
        A short, humourless laugh. "Maybe not today, or this year. Maybe never. But we don't take chances, Tony."
        The face drew closer. The jowls were set in a determined manner, the muscles flexed on the thick neck.
        "Who is we? How did you find me? .. What, what happened last night ... all those murders? .. Who are the terrorists?" Rafferty didn't care now, but words seemed his only protection across the short space. The neck muscles relaxed a little into the familiar smile.
        "Always the inquirer Tony, I knew you'd dig your grave. There's an old custom, to grant the condemned a last request. So I'll tell you, and then I'll kill you. I like you Tony, maybe because you're such a sour little shit, and you've been getting complicated lately, but .." and he shrugged.
        Rafferty trembled, too agitated to concentrate fully on the words of the executioner. In a state of animal fright he flickered through days and moments, conjectures, looking for logic, forgiveness, escape - finding none.
        ".. first question ..", Harry droned in his undulating style.
        The door, how did he get in the door?
        " .. no more than 100 at any one time. We are chosen by our predecessors who look for particular qualities .."
        Did he make it up, his family, or is that a prerequisite, a sacrifice?
        ".. receive lists, dossiers, then we act autonomously - our training is quite thorough - to gain the trust of our subjects, and document .."
        He's been spying on me. They wanted me to die in TEAR. It's been set up, I've been set up.
        ".. coordinate our efforts when we have a sizeable spill. Like last night. Your third, fourth and fifth questions. You were mostly survivors, psychologically speaking, from the last terrorist holocaust, not quite ready to be disposed of from TEAR, in the usual way .. "
        How many others were there like me? How often do they do this.
        ".. we swap so we don't kill our own subjects. You see some of us get rather attached to them. That's why the mistake. Now if you hadn't have been such a gentleman that poor girl wouldn't be dead. But it made a great splash, so it worked out .."
        I didn't kill her. No I didn't. It was these, these ....
        "... Terrorism keeps the balance in our system. You see the human is just a smarter animal so they need a sop for their intelligence. We give them a common enemy and we get rid of so many problems. First of all they want a father figure to protect them and reassure them, so we have the whole culture, a communal father if you like. You throw in enough fear and uncertainty that they cling the harder ..."
        But who or what is controlling this, and organising this?
        "... it's simply a question of economics. You never let a beast age, or get weak or infirm or it becomes unproductive and consumes valuable resources. Culling. Nice word that. "
    Culling, culling, culling - the word reverberated in Rafferty's brain.
        " ... take out the old ones in one hit, and at the same time we get the ones who crack, the sickly ones. Like in the Mother, Tony. They come back to the Womb to die. Fitting eh? And it gives the rest of you a big turn on. A bit of primal therapy occasionally. Let it all out and you feel a lot ..."
        Of course it's a ritual, time after time. And we go through with it. Is he right, do we like it?
        "... more food and jobs to go round, areas regularly cleared for new housing, always a young and vigorous population, a guaranteed high level of demand for goods and services, no land or facilities wasted on the dead, no basis for ancestor worship. It's so logical, beautiful really. We learnt it from some logical thinkers in the past you know, Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin ..."
        Why didn't I make the connection?
        "..People went meekly to their deaths. They thought no one would really want to kill them. We've learnt much since then. We do it on a global scale and ...."
        We. we, we. He keeps saying we. What is this man? What are the other Harrys? How did we spawn such creatures? How did they get this power in the first place?
        ".. Of course you should never have been in that situation. But living among old people, well! Some young people have peculiar notions. It's best you all go together, but these things can't be helped. They even have their advantages. It was your youth that saved you you know .."
        Saved me? I should have died in ignorance.
        ".. finally question two. You were my responsibility. But I had no trouble tracking you. We know every place you passed, the route. You stood out like balls in a harem. You're just children, all of you.."
        Babies, babies, he's right.
        "....but I didn't need that. Your shoes you see. Every step .."
        Rafferty watched the neck muscles swelling again. The stomach drew in - it would be hard and flat under the satin. The thighs flexed; a machine of sinews, honed flesh. The machine moved, but Rafferty's body didn't want to be destroyed. His instincts flung it sideways, spun it and launched it at the doorway. The big man grasped at air.
        The stair well was dark, and the thin body sprang into safety but was deceived, the dark had no substance. It clutched at the rail, but the metal slipped away before the fingers could wrap, and it was falling. The momentum took it across the cavity, onto the descending staircase. The legs buckled under the impact and it pitched forward into a cement wall. Wetness seeped out of it, into it. And it was scraped up and thrown over a shoulder. It was aware of a huge chasm, a dark wilderness. Then the sound of wind.
        Pain. His eyes struggled to open, but were glued with crusted blood. Inching fingers into his mouth he smothered them with saliva and softened the crust. His eyes broke open into more pain from the natural light forcing its way through the dirty window. Then he became aware of the stiffened corpse under him.
        He pulled himself away, and examined his injuries - a sprained ankle, a sore head, a cut and bruised face. Only then did he consider his surroundings.
        They were on the ground floor. The body lay in the centre of the stairwell, head askew, neck broken. Ironically Harry had cushioned his fall and saved his life. He tried to find some reason above him - a snapped rail or a missing section. Nothing. Crawling over to Harry he examined the body - the face was twisted, the neck and jaw were cemented in a death spasm, the arms were rigidly straight - not splayed or turned randomly as they should have been.
        A heart attack? After all, Harry was overweight and well past the generous retirement age of 50. It was rare in a society where no one lived long enough to die from degenerative diseases. Culled naturally! He broke into an hysterical laugh.
        But an animal cunning, clawing up through layers of conditioned passivity, cautioned him. He stopped abruptly, removed his shoes and tore at the soles.