The Fractured: Maggie (Fractured #2) (Blemished Series) Read online

  The Fractured: Maggie

  Sarah Dalton

  ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

  KINDLE EDITION

  ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

  Copyright © 2013 Sarah Dalton

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this work, in whole or in part, in any form.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, organizations and products depicted herein are either a product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously.

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Also by the Author:

  Blemished Extract:

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Margaret stalked the corridors and let her high-heels click against on the hard linoleum. As she passed a classroom window she felt the urge to peek inside. Elena Darcey looked back at her, with ice blue eyes frozen like a deer in the headlights. What was it about her? Why did she seem so... suspicious? Margaret narrowed her eyes and moved on. If the girl had a secret she’d find out sooner or later, just like she did with Mina Hart.

  Her step faltered. That girl. Her fingers tensed just thinking about it. She’d had her. She’d had her with a gun to her temple and yet she’d still let her go. If she ever found out who’d hit her over the head and helped Mina escape, she would ensure they ended up executed on Twitching Sundays, along with Mina Hart and her chums. Margaret sneered and swung the school doors open, taking a deep breath of fresh spring air. She didn’t fear the Ministry. She was Margaret Murgatroyd and she had been through worse than a committee of middle-aged, pot-bellied, grey haired and pale faced men with their tight fitting suits. She would go into the hearing with her head held high. She sighed. Perhaps if she kept telling herself that – it would be true.

  She squeezed the key fob and the door of her sleek black sports car opened with a pleasant clunk. She settled into the leather and snapped down the sun visor to find the small mirror hidden behind. Margaret frowned at her reflection and applied lip gloss. When did she get so old? She’d need another appointment with Dr Black soon, smooth out those frown lines. She re-fixed the bandage around her head and pressed the ignition button. She couldn’t wait to get away from St Jude’s Comprehensive, a hellish place if ever she’d known one.

  *

  After two hours, Margaret pulled into the car park of a disused University building on the outskirts of Area 14. She took a moment to smooth her dress and check her make-up before leaving the car, taking a deep breath as she did so. The drive had been smooth and uninterrupted, unlike her wild and erratic thoughts. One moment she was in cuffs being bundled into a car, the next she was sitting across from her superiors listening to them apologise, and at one point she imagined a firing squad. She shook the thoughts away and exited the car.

  Margaret kicked an old coffee container and stared down a feral dog hanging around the car park, sniffing the ground for scraps. The dog backed away with its tail between its legs. With a triumphant smile, she straightened her back and headed for the entrance to the building, which had an old-fashioned glass door, and large metal door handles. She took a deep breath and opened the stiff door, her arm muscle straining against the rusting hinges. Margaret slipped her body through a narrow gap before letting the door swing closed behind her.

  At least they’d tidied up inside. The floor gleamed, and leaves had been swept against the walls, piled up like snowdrifts. Her heels echoed through the empty corridors.

  She didn’t want to lose her job as a Border Security Agent in Area 14. She didn’t want to be a real teacher, pandering to those kids. Margaret felt ill at the thought, and ducked into a bathroom on the right, her legs like jelly. She took a small flask from inside her handbag, and gulped down a few glugs of the potent liquid inside. The fiery taste forced her to double over and cough, before straightening up and wiping her mouth with a tissue. She pulled out her lip gloss and reapplied. Then, she popped a mint into her mouth, re-fixed the bandage over a red mane of hair, and was ready. Margaret knew that the wound healed days ago but figured the sympathy vote might swing things in her favour. After another cough she was ready.

  It was, of course, the farthest room at the end of a long corridor. The committee liked to prolong the agony of waiting. As she entered the room four heads looked up at her from an oval table. They sat with straight backs, their notepads and pens placed in front of them. Margaret spotted the chair meant for her. She approached it but paused before sitting, examining her examiners.

  She knew the names of them all. They were mid-level Ministry workers, higher than her in rank but not as influential; two women, younger and blonder; two greying men, older and fatter. Her direct supervisor, Peter Barker, sat in the middle of the others. He watched her with his green eyes inside drooping eye-lids.

  “Thank you for coming on such short notice, Margaret. Please take a seat,” Peter said. He had the sort of voice that never rose or fell, yet commanded attention.

  Margaret sat down and crossed her legs.

  “I think you know why you’re here.”

  Her head burned under the bandage. The whiskey worked through her system, making her sweat. Her stomach churned a little. A blonde woman with slim-line glasses stared at her and wrote something on a pad. What could she be writing? Margaret hadn’t even had chance to speak yet. Was she just writing down her appearance, like she was some sort of science experiment: subject appears agitated with some sweating and fidgeting.

  “Yes, Peter, I can imagine. I’m sure the Ministry would like an explanation for what happened with the Blemished girl – Mina Hart – and I am here to state my case, as it were.” Margaret forced a smile.

  Peter cleared his throat and made a pencil mark on his pad. The others scribbled down notes. She noticed the other blonde woman make an adjustment on her Plan-It, a small rectangular device connected to contact lenses and ear buds that the GEM and middle-class community use as a communication device. Members of Security used special contact lenses with a tiny transparent chip to record whatever they wished, including tribunals. The written notes were for little more than making judgements, and distracting the interviewee from the fact they were being recorded.

  “An unfortunate set of circumstances, Margaret. The loss of the girl was… regrettable.” He flipped his pencil between his fingers. “I believe she has made it across the Scottish border and is now under Compound protection. Unfortunately, there was a high bounty on her head.”

  Margaret’s lip twitched. “Well, I spared no expense when it came to trying to kill her––”

  “No,” Peter interrupted. “No, you shouldn’t have done that. The orders were never to kill her.” He dropped his pencil onto the table. The silent people scribbled onto their pads.

  A single light from the centre of the room flickered, catching her eye. She squinted and looked away. “But I assumed––”

  “You assumed wrong. We were under strict instructions to keep the girl alive. You nearly killed her at the farm, and then in the ghettos.”

  Margaret sighed. She’d had many opportunities to kill Mina. Some she had attempted to take advantage of; some she had let slip through her fingers like an incompetent fool. She supposed she should be grateful now. The death of the Blemished girl might have been the death of her.

  “I’ve failed,” she said with a resigned smile. “I failed at following ord
ers and I failed to capture the girl. Perhaps it is time for me to let go of my Ministry duties and become a full-time teacher.” She said the word through gritted teeth.

  Peter leaned back in his chair and looked at her with his droopy green eyes. “Is that what you want?”

  “No, Peter, of course it isn’t,” Margaret snapped. “There’s nothing worse than having to teach those inferior things. If it was up to me I would refuse to be around any of the Blemished. You know how I feel on this matter.”

  Peter leaned forward and held up one hand. The two blondes and the grey haired man put down their pencils and looked at him. “Leave us for a moment, would you?” he said to the note-takers.

  Chairs scraped against floor boards and the three Ministry workers filed out of the room. Peter watched until the door closed behind them. He waited a few moments before turning back to Margaret.

  “I don’t care what happened with the girl. That’s in the past now. We have bigger problems to deal with.”

  “The Resistance?”

  He sighed. “Yes, the Resistance. As you know, the situation with London is… unsettling. Car-bombing and kidnap is almost a daily experience. They don’t even hide anymore, Margaret. They are out in the open, protesting, and throwing petrol bombs at the Enforcers.”

  “What has the GEM planned for this?”

  Peter smiled slowly. “I knew it. I knew you went deep into the Ministry. You know about the Solution, don’t you?”

  A sense of calm spread through Margaret’s body. “There was… talk. My husband mentioned––”

  “They want you back,” Peter said. “They want you back in London.”

  Margaret’s back straightened. “Who? The GEM?” Her mouth opened and shut. It wasn’t possible. She hadn’t been in London since she was twenty-one years old. The tips of her fingers felt numb and her throat dried up.

  “Yes,” Peter continued. “They want you and they said that you were the only person who could do it. It’s all based on your work, Margaret. And they need you to go back and take control.”

  Margaret longed for a glass of water, or better yet – her whiskey. She wanted to run out of that door and never come back, but there was no running from the Ministry. No, they would find her. The GEM had the power. She ran the back of her hand across her sweaty forehead, itching to rip the bandage from her head.

  “Who asked for me?” she whispered.

  Peter leaned forward. “What did you say? I didn’t hear.”

  “Who asked for me?” she said again, lifting her chin and raising her voice a fraction.

  Peter paused. “You know who it was.”

  Margaret closed her eyes, took a breath and opened them again. “I want you to tell me. I want you to say his name.”

  “Ethan Moore.”

  Margaret gripped the table for support. Just the mention of his name made tears prick at her eye-balls, tears that she wanted to fend away with her flask of whiskey. She didn’t care about Peter anymore; she straightened up and reached into her bag for the flask. Peter watched her as she took a sip, but he didn’t say anything.

  “Will you do it?” He asked after she replaced the flask in her handbag.

  Margaret turned and stared out of the window. It was sunny. The overgrown grass swayed in the breeze. She idly thought about how there wouldn’t be much grass in London; or many birds, or trees and fields.

  “Yes,” she said. “I’ll do it. I’ll go to London.”

  Chapter Two

  Margaret watched the flames lick the corners of the paper. When they caught the blurry image in the centre, she dropped it into the fire hearth and looked away. Margaret blinked tears from her eyes before taking a long sip of her whiskey and soda, wishing she hadn’t bothered with the soda. When she turned back to the burning paper, a corner bent to reveal the letters on the back: “Baby Joseph 5 months old”. The border around the blurry photograph contained words in white, now almost obliterated by the fire: MARGARET MURGATROYD 20 WEEKS LEEDS HOSPITAL.

  For fifteen years she had kept the scan picture hidden. For fifteen years no other eyes gazed upon the picture until the Blemished escapees broke into her home and found it. The only other person who knew was her late husband. Towards the end it had been the one thing they shared, the one experience they had in common, keeping them together. She mourned him in the end. Dying so young was no way to go, even after a decade of stale marriage. She remembered the day the Enforcer knocked on the door and told her about the car accident. It reminded her of what happened so many years ago. Maggie rubbed her eyes with her free hand, rubbing that memory away.

  She thought about the Blemished escapees, and gulped down whiskey. She hadn’t seen Ethan for fifteen years. How could she face him? Margaret watched the flames, hoping they would burn away her past. But it was no good. It always came back to haunt her. She closed her eyes and let the memories come.

  *

  “Let’s see yer pass, love.”

  “I’m so sorry… I know it’s here somewhere.” Margaret dug into her bag, removing her purse and phone. This was typical. On her first day at the Ministry she had to lose her pass. Her mother had packed everything at 9pm last night, making sure it was all in reach for when she had to scan her pass at the door, and… oh, yes! Of course! She’d slipped it into the zipped pocket at the back so as not to lose it on the tube. She pulled out the small rectangle of plastic, showing her image – red curls, pale skin and freckles – and waved it in front of the security guard. “Here it is!”

  He took it and nodded. “Off yer go then Miss Powell, have a great first day.” The rotund guard winked at her and Margaret blushed; she always did when men were interested in her.

  At twenty-one years old you could say Margaret, or Maggie as most people called her, was inexperienced. She’d had one romance at University, with a postgraduate psychology student called Colin. She’d been in her second year, geeky and mild mannered with crooked teeth and thick-lensed glasses. He’d been against the GEM when the protests started, and when everyone started calling what was going on “The Fracture”. That was what really put the nail in the coffin. For a few months she’d hidden the fact that her father was one of the top scientists at the GEM, but as their power increased it became impossible to hide. Colin was disgusted when he found out.

  Maggie had hated her father for being part of an organisation so hideous it strived to ban regular conception. But most of all she hated him for being the reason Colin left her. The Fracture happened, no one could stop it, and the Ministry took over from the government, causing the Royal Family and Prime Minister to escape to Australia. Their well-placed infiltrators usurped control of the army, taking power as they went. She thought her father and the Ministry despicable and corrupt. She hid in her room, and refused to eat the food her mother left by her bed. But then, as she hid away, the world changed, leaving her behind.

  One day her father walked into her bedroom and sat down on the edge of her bed. Maggie was in her pyjamas, reading A Brave New World for the fifth time and wondering if everything was going to hell. Her father pulled the book from her hands.

  “Our world won’t be like that,” he said.

  James Powell was still a handsome man. He’d been a young dad, and when Maggie thought of her childhood, she remembered him running. Chasing her in the park, running around the garden with a water bomb, playing Frisbee or football or anything that meant he’d be moving around. She’d been his little princess, spoiled rotten, but also encouraged to work hard at her studies.

  “It’s unnatural, Daddy.” She pulled her knees up to her chin and wrapped her arms around them. She could smell the grease in her hair and the dirt under her fingernails. She wasn’t sure how long it had been since she came out of her room.

  “So are toasters and microwaves,” he replied, placing the book on her bedside table. “Do you think we live in a natural world now? Nature is savage. It’s all about instincts and survival. Pure nature is nothing but animals and weather. We
’ve evolved to more than that. Intelligence is our evolution and science is the way to control it.”

  Maggie rolled her eyes. She hated the way he over exaggerated an analogy to prove his point. They’d had many a lively debate since she’d been old enough to start reading science journals.

  “We’re curing cancer, Mags. We’re making the world more beautiful. This is the beginning––”

  “––beginning of the end,” Maggie snapped. “It’s participant evolution in a crass and horrible way. It’s wrong. We’re going against nature.”

  “Yes,” he said, raising a finger to stop her talking, “it is participant evolution but it isn’t going against nature, it’s just controlling our own futures. We have the power in technology to make the world a better place. Transhumanists have argued for years that we should control human enhancements––”

  “That doesn’t make it right.”

  Her dad sighed and took hold of her hands. “You’re a scientist too, Mags. Think deep in your heart. Don’t you want to know what it is we’re capable of? Don’t you want to see how we can change the world?”

  “The Ministry are despots, Daddy. They’ve taken over. That isn’t right.” Her eyes pleaded with him.

  “I know it seems that way. But it’s for the best, I truly believe that. This isn’t about power – it’s about making the world a better place. We can save millions of lives, give people a chance to live the lifestyle they deserve to live. We are empowering women. They don’t have to give birth anymore. This is the future, Mags, and I want you to be part of it.” He squeezed her hands. Maggie tried not to look him in the eye, because she knew she would melt. “I need you on my team. I have a job for you, and I want you to take it. You know you’re my number one, Maggie May, and always will be.”

  She didn’t agree straight away. After a week she agreed to visit the Genetic Enhancement Ministry and allowed her father to show her the top of the range DNA sequencer machines, and the extensive and highly organised DNA database. It took another two weeks for Maggie to agree to see the Incubators, great yellow pods that pulsed with the life growing inside them. The first time she saw them she ran out of the room shaking her head, her fingers trembling with rage. How could they create such a monstrosity? But her father coaxed her back three days later and she watched the pods for several minutes, the foetus almost visible through the transparent skin of the womb. When she touched it, it was warm like living skin, and thrummed with the pulse of the unborn baby.