Utopia

Part 5

5.

   The Lab is alive when I walk in, buzzing with knowledge-hungry scientists. Silently I pray that my father is away on Council business, I don’t think I could face his immense pride that I got accepted by the Lab. He already knows though, of course he does. If it weren’t for him I wouldn’t be here at all, I’d have been Drafted.

   How many Council children have they taken? None, and none ever will – they’ll make sure of it. Utopia is fair, everyone is equal – but that isn’t always the case I suppose. Power corrupts, even those with the best intentions and as long as we have leaders no one will ever be truly equal.

   “Oh good, Lyra. I was wondering when you’d get in,” Birne greets with an enthusiasm only he could muster. “Here,” he thrusts a pipette into my hand and steers me towards a line of test tubes. “And before I forget,” Birne fetches a Lab coat hanging on a hook near the door and comes over to help me put it on. “The Seamstress finished it today.”

   It is identical to the one folded over the chair in my room, except for the elaborate lettering of L.Rosewood embroidered onto the breast pocket. I turn to face Birne who had already gone back to his work. “You knew?”

   “Of course dear, who do you think approved the placement?” he says whilst concentrating intensely on a beaker filled with cloudy opalescent liquid. Thick, wire-rimmed glasses slip down on his beaklike nose. The skin over his cheeks is plump and pink and it seems like this is the only colour in the room.

   He looks up from whatever he was doing, “Well don’t just stand there and gawp my dear, best start your first official day putting in some work.”

   All I can do is nod and turn towards my designated work station. The marble work surface feels like ice under my fingers and I rest my palm over it to cool the sting from the Tapper. Every now and then I peek over my shoulder, intrigued by what Birne is working so vigorously on but mostly I try to focus on what I am meant to be doing – I’ll be doing it for the rest of my life.

   After a while he takes a syringe filled with the pearly serum he’s been working on through to the animal enclosure in the next room. Since he’s out of sight I return rinsing out some of my test tubes with sterilising ethanol. 

   “-need to be sure it can be controlled,” Someone says from the next room – it sounds like Birne.

   “Do they know what they’re asking us to do?” Another voice.

   “If it means dealing with Outside, I don’t think they care,” Birne says.

   Quickly, I go back to what I was doing as he comes back into the room. My heart has picked up, they’re working on a serum for Outside. Could it be a cure for the Sickness? I hear something shuffle in the corner of the room.

   Leaving the test tubes in their racks, I go over find the source of the noise – Birne doesn’t even notice, immersed in the serum completely. Something whimpers and sniffles, hidden behind one of the storage cupboards.

   It’s a girl. Her eyes are bright red and puffy where she’s been crying, snot runs from her nose over the bridge of her lips. Even with her legs curled up to shield most of her from me, I can see that she’s about my age. When she brushes back tangled strands of raven-dark hair from her face I can see exactly why she’s been crying.

   Just like mine, her palm is shiny and pink from the newly administered Pin – only her black TAP is the mirror opposite to my white one. I don’t need see her tears to know that she isn’t ready to be Drafted. The girl is the size of a toothpick, she wouldn’t last two minutes in the simulation let alone Outside.