– The Hogg family were just my FANTASY! They don’t EXIST! They NEVER DID! They were people I invented! They were a bit of me that got out of hand! I was LONELY, that’s all!
Out. Gone. I shut my eyes and feel something die and be born at once.
It’s then I know that I am free.
On the dockside a small dark figure, thickset as a keg of explosives, makes its way through the massed throng, looking for a vantage point from which to watch events on the giant screen. When he finds a small space near a couple busily unfolding a step-ladder, Dr Crabbe stops and strains his neck to watch. His eyes are on Hannah Park.
It was a year ago that she arrived on his doorstep in Groke. She needed to hide. The island was in danger. She’d be taking over his surgery, she told him. He could help her, or he could get busted. An easy choice.
The fat woman has carefully climbed her step-ladder and now stands at its top like a bulky statue, a frankfurter in each hand. Her mouth hangs open. Below, her husband holds the ladder steady. Their eyes are fixed on the giant screen.
Benedict Sommers has taken the microphone again.
– You have heard the truth, he says slowly. Now would you like the Final Adjustment to go ahead – or would you like to hear more?
There’s a short silence.
– More, blurts the woman with the frankfurters. The mustard is dripping down in ochre gloops.
– More! cries Dr Crabbe.
– More! call the customers, one by one, until their voices are melded into a single shout. More, more, more!
When Hannah Park steps forward, the cries die down again. They are ready to listen.
– I worked for Libertycare as a psychologist, says Hannah Park. The Corporation took all five Hoggs and re-modelled them as scapegoats. I know this because I was involved. The idea was for the family to take the blame for the ecological crisis on Atlantica.
– Ecological crisis? breathes the fat woman. What ecological crisis?
She drops her frankfurter; it rolls over Dr Crabbe’s foot and down the sloping tarmac and then stops, blocked by the wheel of a little boy’s tricycle.
– What’s a scapegoat? asks the boy.
– Shhhh! snaps his mother, her candy-floss poised like a pink cloud. She squints at the screen.
– The leaks at the purification zones aren’t due to sabotage, Hannah Park is saying. They’re due to a failure of the system. Libertycare has known for years that the cleansing programme was breaking up the island’s crust. All the surveys showed it. But instead of calling a halt to the whole thing – she pauses. A rush of voices ripples its way out across the harbour. – They adjusted the geologists and carried on. The murmur swells. – The Corporation knew that if you were aware of the crisis, you wouldn’t vote for them again. After the Festival of Choice, the system went into damage-limitation mode. The Hoggs were launched to deflect everyone’s attention from the real problem, while the United States voted.
Now, the crowd is shifting and stirring like a great cloud-mass. They’re all straining to watch, some of them jumping to get a better view.
– But the problem’s still here, says Hannah Park.
Benedict Sommers waves a brown envelope at the cameras.
– If you want proof, we have it. The document in here was generated by the Liberty Machine itself.
The fat woman, trembling, reverses her way down the step-ladder as he reads from it aloud in a firm voice:
Libertycare’s global strategy calls for balance. And in some cases, for rationalisation to ensure that balance. Atlantica has served its purpose well. But in order to welcome new projects, it is necessary to – he pauses – bid others farewell.
The silence that follows is total.
If betrayal has a smell, that smell is wafting across the harbour now. As the customers begin to sense it, they feel suddenly, lurchingly sick. The eerie silence stretches as the truth sinks in.
– Well then, says the woman with the frankfurters.
– Better pack up, says her husband.
They become oddly practical. They fold their step-ladder. They check their belongings. Next to Dr Crabbe, a man’s voice says – Fuck! I don’t believe it! and an elderly woman faints, crumpling to the ground like a discarded piece of clothing. Behind him, a woman starts up a high, shrill moan. An obese family of five starts to nudge its way towards the ship. – Come on, urges the father. Let’s get the hell out!
The crowd is stirring in all directions, as though caught in a whirring food-mixer. They’re screaming and yelling now. It’s starting to sink in that it’s the beginning of the end.
Captain Fishook clears his throat, and murmurs something to Hannah. She hesitates, then signals at Dr Pappadakis to lower the gun.
– This is a Class One emergency, says Fishook. Over which I have the honour of presiding at this time. In accordance with nautical protocol, I am issuing an SOS. Calling all ships in the Atlantic Ocean. Please tune to channel 16. Calling all air bases…
As Captain Fishook speaks, a sudden sense of being part of history overwhelms him. He can see how this scene might become the stuff of legend. His voice deepens and swells with gravitas.
– Mass evacuation required, repeat, mass evacuation required…
In St Placid, Tilda watches. She knows it’s too late. Her eyes are round with shock. She lets the tears trickle. She doesn’t care.
Hannah! Hannah, alive! Hannah, looking at that man, that grey-faced Hogg criminal, her face wide open with love!
And Benedict! Benedict, who told her she was dead! He’s there too!
Tilda clasps her pill-box to her stomach. Her body shakes with a terrible, painful, uncontrollable joy. The pills rattle.
From everywhere and nowhere grows a great rumbling voice of anger, a voice that swells and heaves, filling the harbour and the sky above with the terrible heart-rending sound of human dismay. Picking up the faint strains of it, Wesley Pike exhales slowly. Now that the United States has voted for the system, this surely is the moment the Boss has been waiting for. It was she, after all, who dictated the schedule for the day. It was she who launched them all on this wild trajectory.
As if on cue, the Boss’s purr begins to alter subtly to a vibrant hum, and then a slow, deep whirring. Wesley Pike smiles, his heart soars. At last! As he waits impatiently for a sign from the strategy screens, he is only dimly aware of the faint clamour going on outside, the screams and shouts of panic, the urgent calls, the running footsteps.
The Temple door bursts open. A young field associate stands there panting, her uniform a disgrace.
– We’re bailing out, she says. There’s planes and ships being organised. You coming?
The Facilitator General laughs with gentle contempt.
– Are you sure? I mean the whole building’s pretty unsafe. And the ground underneath – I mean, there’s not much time, sir.
– Off you go, says Pike, flapping a hand. Join the rest of them.
– Suit yourself, says the girl. And leaves.
– I’ll wait here, says Pike gently under his breath, when the door has closed. I’ll wait with her. I’ll wait.
He knows she’ll deliver. Just the thought of it makes him feel dreamy and safe. Fallings from us, vanishings… Nothing to lose and everything to gain.