Pockets
by Charlie Ilett
Horrific Scribes Extremity Rating:
When the black car cruised down Annoe Kan-Wayway’s driveway and stopped beneath the marble pillars of his front porch, he realised he had been expecting it for some time.
He was in the middle of a meeting. One of his lackeys, posted at the window, had already noticed the missing dealership decals and the unusual light clusters buried in the BMW’s grille.
The political dissidents and convicts with outstanding charges vanished into the branching tunnels beneath Annoe’s basement. His more acceptable friends stayed where they were, wrenching glassy smiles onto their faces and tucking their fervour behind a veneer of respectability.
Annoe stepped outside and trudged down the drive.
A flock of suited men had climbed from the car and now stood in the midday sun, the nylon of their respectability harnesses glinting. At the front was Mayuhai Ca-Macuahiin, whose cool smile promised competence, courtesy, and the acceptance of governmental hospitality under pain of death.
“Mister Kan-Wayway,” Mayuhai said. “We have a few questions for you. Will you please come with us?”
“I see no reason why I should.”
Annoe’s eyes moved across Mayuhai’s posse, the hard L-shaped outlines beneath their jackets, the shaven, manicured fingers he knew could draw, cock and fire a pistol in less than a second.
“There is no charge,” he said.
His voice was dry. His stomach felt weightless with fear.
“Not a good look if you don’t come,” Mayuhai admitted. “We’ll only return with a warrant. And who knows?” His clipped smile flashed glacially. “Maybe we’ll find something.”
This was how Annoe found himself in a small room on the bottom floor of the Capicaya Municipal Building, facing a mirror he knew was one-way. He wondered why they still bothered with the pretence.
The room was carpeted floor to ceiling in ecru brown. The fuzzy ceiling hung slightly too low, forcing him to sit, while a low thrum of pressure pumped sweltering air through the walls. Spiky, angular prints leered at irregular intervals in poorly contrasting Technicolor. His chair was white MDF, smooth and featureless. Its lack of texture, set against the formal explosions on the walls, sent a jag of quiet fear through his subconscious.
On an MDF stool in front of him sat an open bottle of water.
He did not drink.
The door opened. Mayuhai strode in, picked up the bottle, and sat on the stool. He offered it to Annoe, who shook his head.
Mayuhai took a sip and exhaled with pleasure. The dryness at the back of Annoe’s throat began to saw.
“So, Mister Kan-Wayway,” Mayuhai said. “It seems you have some interest in Pocket politics.”
“Yes.”
“You’ve been very vocal. How many televised debates is that now?”
“Twenty-four.”
“You’re popular with the under twenty-fives.”
Annoe nodded. “I’m proud of it.”
“Your proposal seems to have picked up some traction online.”
Annoe disliked the way he said online. The word came glazed with distaste. He had found the internet instrumental in encouraging positive change. The day these Gover-Mans realised that, he thought, was the day they started winning.
He shuddered.
“Talk me through it,” Mayuhai said.
“My proposal?”
“Yes. I’m intrigued.”
Annoe scowled. “You know it already.”
“I don’t spend much time online, what with the wife and kids. Fishing. That’s more our speed.”
Fishing what? Annoe thought bitterly. What’s left?
He cleared his reed-dry throat.
“I propose”—he spoke slowly, carefully; one stumble into the slightest conversational bramble and these Gover-Mans would use it against him—”that we send construction teams into the Pockets. They would erect Cryogenic Condensation Towers capable of pulling in humid air and flash-freezing it. The moisture would be extracted as ice-water, then the air released back into the environment dry.”
Mayuhai leaned back on his stool. “Hm.”
“The regions would become—”
“Sorry.” Mayuhai held up a hand. “I’m thinking.”
“The Pockets would be habitable again within—”
“I’m thinking, Mister Kan-Wayway.”
Mayuhai made quite a show of it.
The door opened, admitting a much-needed gasp of cool air. Two men wheeled in a hulk of machinery on a metal trolley. Its wheels whispered over the carpet. Lights blinked. The men began plugging in wires and adjusting dials.
Annoe wondered whether it was some kind of recording device, something that monitored his heart rate and body language for signs of deception. He stiffened and tried to quiet his mind.
After half a minute, Mayuhai said, “The Pockets are hostile to human life.”
“Currently.”
“How would the construction teams survive?”
Annoe sighed. “I’ve been over this many times. Teams would be stationed at the border, where they could live and sleep in a habitable region. Their time inside the Pocket would be minimised. Twenty-minute shifts, perhaps. It is doable.”
“Not without great risk.”
“No. But I believe the risks—”
“I’m thinking,” Mayuhai said.
Annoe shifted his weight. He was half a mind to punch Mayuhai in the jaw. But he had to play by the rules. What use was he in a prison cell?
He glanced at the blinking machine, thought shit, then tried to silence the thought.
“Power.” Mayuhai clicked his fingers. “How would you power these—what did you call them?”
“Cryogenic Condensation Towers.” Suddenly the name sounded silly, something from a Flash Gordon cartoon. “That is the greatest challenge. The towers would require immense power. My scientific teams are investigating some form of fusion system—”
“Mister Kan-Wayway, theory is all well and good, but entering the Pockets is illegal.” Mayuhai’s smile was a chilly fracture in his face. “I’d hate to see you shot.”
“Not if you have a grant from the Scientific Research Foundation,” Annoe said, bristling.
The flicker across Mayuhai’s face told him he had probably said too much. It was worth it, just to see it.
“And you have such a grant?” Mayuhai asked.
For the first time, he sounded worried.
“Maybe,” Annoe said. Then: “One day.”
The real answer was yes. Annoe had men inside the Scientific Research Foundation who had spent years greasing its bureaucratic wheels, letting the grant slide through disguised as a benevolent nuisance.
“Mister Kan-Wayway, some say your political aims are not so… idealistic.”
Annoe’s mouth fell open. It was as if Mayuhai had read his mind. His eyes flicked towards the blinking machine, and he promptly closed it again.
The technicians were untangling a pair of chunky black headphones from the wires.
“Some say that, with the Pockets cleared, you would have the perfect battleground for a revolution. Some say you’ve already stirred up dissent.”
“I’ve stirred up political interest,” Annoe said. “And, as much as this may pain you, that is not a crime.”
Mayuhai folded his hands over his lap.
“Indeed, Mister Kan-Wayway.”
One of the technicians handed him the headphones.
“Whatever that is,” Annoe said, hoping it was part of some fear tactic, “you don’t have clearance to use proprietary technology in an official investigation.”
“Yes, we do. In fact, its use is compulsory. All applicants for a Scientific Research Grant must submit to mandatory subconscious examination. Something you have neglected to do.”
“I didn’t submit myself.”
“You did. You came with us.” Mayuhai’s voice remained pleasant. “If you resist now, it will confirm that you have something to hide. You will be incarcerated with your co-conspirators for breach of the grant terms, pending investigation.”
Annoe gripped the smooth arms of the chair.
He had heard about Subconscious Scrubbing. He had trained himself against it. There were methods. The most popular was to picture an orange revolving against a smooth black wall. For reasons that continued to confound scientists, that image confused the machine. Something about the colour contrast, people said.
He began picturing.
Tangerine skin flashed balefully in his head.
Another technician wheeled in a monitor and connected it to the machine.
Annoe smiled. “Go ahead. You’ll find nothing.”
“Regrettably,” Mayuhai said, “you’re probably right.”
By the time the headphones were thunked over Annoe’s ears and fastened beneath his chin with a polyester clasp, the nerves had stopped festering in his belly.
The orange was his companion. His warding stone.
A technician pressed a switch. Annoe felt almost-imperceptible fingers reach through his ears, skitter through his brainwaves and grasp.
The orange revolved staunchly in Annoe’s mind.
The monitor dissolved into static. Mayuhai watched without blinking.
The orange revolved. Revolved.
Each turn made Annoe more confident.
An image flickered through the static.
The orange continued its revolutions.
Revolution. Bad choice of word.
He pushed the thought away.
The image sharpened. Two peach-toned shapes, one larger, one smaller.
The corner of Mayuhai’s mouth tightened.
The orange. The orange.
Then the image flashed into life on the monitor.
Annoe seized the headphones, but the strap held them beneath his chin. He clawed at the plastic buckle. His fingers shook.
“Oh, Mister Kan-Wayway,” Mayuhai said. “What a colourful imagination you have.”
“I’ve never—” Annoe stammered. “I’ve never. No. I’ve never thought—I’ve never—”
On the monitor, a man was doing unspeakable things to a child.
Annoe turned away. Tears filled his eyes. His stomach lurched.
“I’ve never—” He panted, retched. “I’ve never…”
Mayuhai nodded. One of the technicians switched off the machine.
Silence settled over the unbearably hot room.
“Well,” Mayuhai said.
“No.” Annoe’s voice cracked. “No, that wasn’t—”
“Mister Kan-Wayway, you are under arrest for possessing indecent thoughts of children.”
Annoe wept.
He had never had a thought like that in his life. He really, really hadn’t.
Unless he had.
He was a good man, and even the suspicion of shame was enough to blight him. Perhaps the thought had been buried in some black subconscious hollow. Perhaps he had never known himself at all.
The stench of his guilt was overpowering.
By the time they lifted him from the featureless chair, he no longer protested.
On the other side of the mirror was another room, colder than the first. Dull green tiles covered the walls. Long fluorescent tubes cast everything in clinical light.
Rich Pryerson removed the headphones, and his delightful subconscious stopped beaming into the machine. Through the glass, the political fellow was dragged towards the door while the dummy apparatus blinked.
Seeing the men’s horrified reactions to his thoughts always made shame curdle inside of Rich. Still, he liked these excursions to the municipal building.
He liked feeling useful.
Mayuhai entered.
“You’re relieved of duty,” he said.
“I could’ve made the image clearer,” Rich said. “Sorry about that.”
Mayuhai’s eyes travelled over him with disgust.
“That was clear enough.”
Rich was driven home on a dank industrial bus that smelled of chemicals. At the edge of a Pocket, armed guards led him through the towering stone border.
“Fiddler,” one spat.
Rich ignored him.
The Pocket was cooler than usual. The Cryogenic Condensation Towers continued their good work beneath a bright, cloudless sky. Rich’s house stood at the end of the longest cul-de-sac. Behind him, neat rows of homes and barbered lawns stretched towards the horizon.
An illegal power station belched smoke, its chimney blooming like a dull grey cauliflower. The radiation would kill them all within twelve years.
Still. Twelve years of freedom.
His neighbour Sand Greyson, home invader and spree killer, hailed him.
“What did you show ’em?” Sand asked, grinning.
“The ushe,” Rich said.
Serial rapist Gordon Green was putting out his recycling.
“Was it a good one?” Gordon asked.
Rich shrugged. “Could’ve been better.”
“I’m on tomorrow,” Gordon said proudly. “Sending one of Wayway’s cronies to the clink. I’ll make it a proper vivid one.”
Gordon always did. His fantasies were untameable.
“You’ll be back for the party?” Rich asked.
“Wouldn’t miss it. Goodnight, pal.”
“Night.”
Tomorrow, at the Pocket neighbourhood party, fiddlers, rapists, killers, abductors and traffickers would chat over glasses of cloudy lemonade. Variety mattered. If every dissident went down for the same secret thought, even decent people might start asking questions.
In the other Pockets, people whispered about prison camps, crashed spaceships and portals. Rich put little stock in whispers. His Pocket had running water, roomy homes and a church bell on Sundays.
People looked out for one another.
He stood at the end of his lawn, put his hands in his pockets, and smiled.
Life was surely grand.