The Attachment Race Read online

  The Attachment Race

  Kevin Bliss

  Contents

  The Women of Upsilon

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  The Race

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Departure

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Epilogue

  Afterword

  Part 4

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Also by Kevin Bliss

  Copyright

  © 2015 by Kevin Bliss

  For JB & JB

  Part 1

  The Women of Upsilon

  Chapter 1

  “Belinda Q?”

  The forceful voice of the tall blonde woman clad in a canary-yellow coverall filled the cavernous space before her as surely as flowing water forces out the void in an empty vessel. She didn’t need amplification, but used the microphone positioned before her nevertheless. Just over two hundred women, seated in tightly arranged rows of folding chairs, faced the commanding figure (who checked in at over six feet) named Debra Spryte. Yet they were all expected to address the middle-aged figurehead as ‘Madame Director’.

  Somewhere among the large contingent, uniformly outfitted in slate-gray clothing from head to toe, was Belinda Q. Now that her name had been called, she was expected to take the microphone and read aloud the suicide note she’d been forced to compose almost three weeks earlier (as had all the other women) on the night of arrival at this place known as Transition Compound Upsilon.

  “Belinda Q,” Spryte repeated with less patience than the first time, as if scolding a poorly behaved child who ought to know better. What Spryte couldn’t see from her vantage point was a slender woman, thirty years of age, in the back row of two hundred-plus squeezing her way past others to reach the aisle. She wiggled along, doing a dance of politeness – an attempt to not inconvenience anyone in her path. As densely packed as the chairs were it was no easy task. So closely positioned were the congregation of women that they merged into a monochromatic rectangle, as evenly colored as a fresh slab of concrete.

  This daily routine – the women of Upsilon filing into the building which had once served as a high school gymnasium to share ‘death notes’ with each other – was one of the many tightly scheduled absolute constants at the compound. At the rate of ten to twelve women reading their goodbyes to the world each day, the entire population would have a chance to take part before their three-week tenure at Upsilon came to an end.

  Gathering in the sad building which stunk of neglect (slick, faded and unmaintained wooden floors and pock-marked cement walls covered in fading navy-blue paint) sat uneasily in Belinda’s gut. She tried on more than one occasion to picture the ghosts of the gym: teenagers in physical education classes, basketball and volleyball games. But even the spirits had long since vacated the place. It was as if the structure had been born dead and untended.

  In a semi-humane policy, Madame Director Spryte did not force women to read when their names were called. But refusal was ‘duly noted’. She typically called each name three times before giving up on them and moving to the next person on the list. But Spryte didn’t need to speak Belinda’s name a third time. She caught sight of the pleasantly plain and unprepossessing woman approaching along the center aisle of seats with hands clasped loosely over her abdomen, dark-brown hair well-organized and pinned in the back.

  What kept her going and assured that she’d read her suicide note, as much as she preferred not to, was the tacit understanding that cooperation would make her life easier. Cooperation was said to make everything easier at Upsilon.

  The relentless, everyday certainty of Spryte and her staff convinced the women over whom they presided that for everything there was a motive; for every bit of resistance there was a price to be paid. Upsilon was a machine. Each piece in place existed via planning and deliberation. Pick your construct: its gears and teeth meshed perfectly, turning its works in synchronization. Its transistor-covered integrated circuits were correctly aligned and created a flow without flaw. Every line of code in its DNA was immaculate and well-crafted. A lack of cooperation threatened the efficiency of Upsilon. And since Belinda had no interest in running afoul of Madame Director, she complied in all things.

  A line of seven Watchers (don’t call them guards or keepers – that’s “too severe”) also clad in yellow one-pieces stood to one side – on Spryte’s left – and eyed Belinda as she got nearer the front. Rumor had it that certain Watchers wagered on which of the women would be unable to get through their turn to read. Even though not all of the Watchers were involved, Belinda avoided sharing personal information with any of them (just to be safe).

  Belinda wondered if any Watchers had money on her to shy away from reading. But if the stories were to be believed, it didn’t matter that much: the really big bets were saved for which women would actually ‘do the deed’ and end their lives before the twenty-one-day stay at Upsilon was complete.

  Belinda stepped up to the mic. Spryte gave way and locked eyes with her for an instant. In so many ways, Spryte seemed a harsh woman. Yet instincts told Belinda that Madame Director didn’t enjoy this ritual any more than those expected to take part.

  A small display at Belinda’s feet projected a typed, block-letter copy of her suicide note. She cleared her throat while reacquainting herself with the words she’d written but not seen since that first night.

  “I don’t take this action lightly,” she said, her voice popping and crackling from the obnoxious speakers which flanked her like sentinels. “The chance to choose my end is a bless – hic”

  A hiccup out of nowhere stopped Belinda short before the final word of her opening sentence cleared her lips. Three or four women tittered, hands over their mouths.

  “It’s simply too much to bear any longer, and there’s no point in pretending that I can keep on this way. I have no idea where my closest people are now, but if they hear about what I’ve done, I hope they’ll understand.”

  Madame Director Spryte led the women in a round of applause and Belinda returned to her seat, relieved to be done.

  “Claudia V,” Spryte said into the mic. A short-haired woman with doleful eyes got to her feet. Belinda recognized her. She’d seen her around the compound, but wasn’t sure which dorm she occupied. The tendency was to bond with one’s two roommates and perhaps a few others. If Claudia V had a group she hung with, Belinda couldn’t place them.

  Up to that point, every woman whose name had been called either strode to the microphone, gathered themselves and read aloud or stood at their seat and ‘respectfully declined’. Claudia V held her spot for a moment, swallowing hard and then shifted along to the center aisle. She made it halfway to the front, paused, reversed direction and sat down again. She simply couldn’t do it.

  Belinda caught sight of one Watcher – a haughty man named Clame – whisper to one of his colleagues with a smirk. He must have had a bet on Claudia V, Belinda decided.

  Clame was one of only two male Watchers at Upsilon, and he seemed to relish it. Yet all it took was a quick glare from Madame Director Spryte and Clame resumed his straight face in time for the next name to be called:

  “Cynthia H?”

  Chapter 2

  Officially, the program which led Belinda and the others to be at Upsilon was called Balance-Driven Relocation – the means by which
humanity would assure itself of permanent viability on Earth. Many people, however, had stopped using the euphemism, and reduced it to a more direct term: forced migration.

  You’ve been selected. Pack a single bag. No clothes needed. We leave in ten minutes.

  Anyone capable of memorizing the four-sentence script, remaining stoic in the face of weeping and begging and wearing the blue uniform with dignity could have a career as a Collector. “Go forth and collect those on your list,” were the daily instructions given to the small army of individuals tasked with hauling people in.

  Every woman stuffed into Upsilon along with Belinda had been visited by a Collector at some point in the past month or so. Each had subsequently been through initial processing, searched for contraband and finally assigned to a transition compound. Madame Director Spryte and her people – the Watchers – would take them through the routine of being matched to off-Earth settlements. Would it be Earth’s moon? (The light side was far more desirable, but also getting crowded after years of exiling people there.) Mars? Callisto was the newest: Jupiter’s moon was on its way to becoming the most rapidly growing site of settlements going.

  Belinda hadn’t been surprised to receive the Collector’s visit. When the knock came before six in the morning on the door of the apartment she shared with seven other women, there was little doubt that somebody was about to be removed. Only Collectors came around at such an early hour. Belinda opened the door herself that morning, the other seven women somewhat behind her, peeking carefully around the corner from a hall that separated two bedrooms. She figured the worst way to receive the news was to sink back in the apartment, tense up and then hear her name come out of the Collector’s mouth.

  Even though Belinda knew her chances of being selected for relocation had been steadily increasing in the months leading up to the Collector’s visit, and despite the fact she tried to face it head-on, the processing and dispersal to a transition compound was horrible. It would take time for the thing to truly sink in. But even time and honesty with oneself didn’t always make for a cure: Belinda hadn’t had a real night’s sleep since arriving at Upsilon.

  That is, not until she read her suicide note.

  Immediately after having completed the suicide note session for the day, the daily testing routine resumed:

  An eye test. “Distinguish a series of shapes and colors as best you can in a progressively darkening room.”

  A balance test. “Walk from one end of a red line painted on a concrete floor in an underground chamber to the other as accurately as possible.” (This only after they’d been fitted with eyewear that inverted their vision 180 degrees – the effect of seeming to walk on the ceiling.)

  Memorization. “Remember and repeat a list of simple instructions.” To make it more challenging, the subjects were held in a room with almost half the oxygen sucked out.

  Most of the women – Belinda included – came out of the tests that day with skull-splitting headaches.

  However, unlike every other night since arriving at Upsilon, Belinda slipped into a deep sleep the moment she climbed onto her bunk. So encompassing was the slumber that she didn’t come to the next morning until one of her two roommates – Grace G – shook her awake.

  “We’ve got to go,” Grace said.

  “What is it?” It took Belinda a moment to form the words with a fuzzy, sleepy brain that didn’t want to come to life.

  “We’ve got to go outside for a bit.” The urgency in Grace’s voice and the words, “outside for a bit” got Belinda’s attention. She understood what it was. The population of Upsilon had shrunk by at least one sometime in the night. Only a single question remained: who had it been?

  “Here,” said Grace, kneeling beside the bunk, “I have your shoes. Come on.”

  A strand of Grace’s black hair which had escaped her ‘emergency ponytail’ swung in front of her face like a pendulum in hypnotic fashion. As Belinda sat upright in her bunk, she caught sight of two sets of canary-yellow coveralls in the doorway of the dormitory room, her other roommate, Alisson L standing between them.

  The sight of yellow coveralls at Upsilon had, in a very short time, led to a Pavlovian response in most. The Watchers didn’t employ violence or strong-arm moves. They didn’t issue threats or ultimatums (not often, anyway). Sure, each Watcher also carried a weapon of deadly force (a ‘pitzer’) strapped to the left leg, a meter long and flexible until engaged. Once loosened from the side of a Watcher’s body and snapped into place, the rubber hose-like quality of the pitzer flexed into a more standard looking projectile weapon and was prepared to deliver a smart bullet with devastating effects. These were absolutely last resort type methods. Nobody was aware of a time when a Watcher actually had to put the weapon to use.

  Still, a reactionary obedience followed any glimpse of a Watcher. No, not an obedience so much as a compulsion to seem like a good and productive soul who held no grudge for being collected, confined and tested on the way to permanent exile. And why was that? What did the Watchers have to warrant such supplication?

  Mystery, for starters.

  Watchers watched. It appeared from day one to Belinda that these human surveillance units were compiling mental notes. In the midst of a process devoted to categorizing where each individual would be sent, there were no criteria shared with the Upsilonians. No way to know what attributes might help them to a tamer settlement and which skills might make them fit for some worse version of a living hell. Belinda pictured evening sessions in which the Watchers gathered in their barracks and swapped stories about the women they were tasked to keep an eye on.

  “Amelia C makes obscene gestures at Susan T. I watched it all morning. It’s like she’s trying to organize a hatred front against her.”

  “Susan T probably has it coming to her.”

  “Elizabeth R – did anyone see her earlier? I swear she nearly hit her roommate. You know, the short one.”

  Belinda further pictured the stories being delivered in some sort of log to Madame Director Spryte. Add to these the test results and they’d have a pretty good idea of where a given woman should go. And then, when her thoughts went to the point where she wondered what they said about her, she’d stop, breathe and remind herself that she had no idea what the Watchers really talked about in their two-story habitat after lights out. Could be they were frightened, too – frightened that they’d be among the next crop receiving a visit from a Collector.

  Grace must have thought Belinda was moving too slowly for the satisfaction of the Watchers bookending Alisson in the doorway. She touched Belinda’s shoulder as the cheap, shitty shoes were going on. A glare – I’m moving. Don’t push me – filled Belinda like a spark, but she spared Grace, finished getting herself ready and scooted along without a word.

  Alisson, waiting patiently, was swept up in the rush of Grace and Belinda into the corridor where streams of other Upsilonians were packed tight on the way to the west exit stairwell. Belinda found herself shoulder to shoulder with young Alisson and offered her the most reassuring smile she could manage.

  As the youngest woman currently held at Upsilon (only just eighteen), Alisson had become the de facto mascot among the others. The consummate little sister.

  But it didn’t take long for Belinda to recognize it meant more to the dozens of ‘older siblings’ than it ever could to her young roommate. Someone to look out for, someone to protect in such an unstable environment as Upsilon? It provided the illusion of control or purpose as their lives were turned upside-down. But what did it give Alisson?

  The still-teenage ‘citizen’ of Upsilon had pert features and straight blonde hair which always seemed to keep itself in perfect order. A petite build completed the perception of her as the ideal symbol of victimized innocence. Even the Watchers spoke to her in a gentler tone.

  Once out of the dorms, women milled about, searching for the faces of friends and acquaintances to make sure it wasn’t someone in their circle who would shortly be wheeled out
of one of the dorms in a pale-blue body bag. Belinda did the same, looking past Grace and Alisson for the eight or ten fellow Upsilonians she’d come to know well enough to exchange a greeting or pass the time of day. They were all there.

  The layer of pebbles covering Upsilon’s compound made a sound underfoot that Belinda originally likened to crunching snow. A pleasant memory.

  Grace had unwittingly ruined that notion and replaced it with one of her own.

  “Listen,” she’d said on their second day of confinement, as the roommates were still getting to know one another. “Doesn’t it sound like someone’s saying ‘church’?”

  Damned if it didn’t. It sounded much more like ‘church’ than crunching snow. Once the idea had been planted in Belinda’s head, there was no going back. The thought of fresh fallen snow and the gentle give of loosely stacked flakes was ripped from her thoughts and Grace’s interpretation took over, echoed in each step by every passing woman in Upsilon.

  Church, church, church.

  The last time Belinda had been in a church was for the funeral of a grandmother she’d hardly known.

  To ease her mind, each time the women took the compound, Belinda tried to slip away to the most remote part of Upsilon. As the crowd, pulled from their beds, hovered around the dorms to see who would be carted out, Belinda headed for the solitude of the west end.

  It wasn’t the first suicide since the current crop of women had arrived at Upsilon. Five others already ended things rather than be castoffs of Earth’s ‘downsizing’ efforts.

  Each of the suicides, once wheeled out the east side, was taken behind a wooden fence fifty meters or so beyond the compound’s edge. Nothing official had ever been shared with the Upsilonians about what happened on the other side of that fence, but word seeped out and spread through the general population within days of the first suicide nevertheless.