The Summons

Part 1

She had made it! Alice Little had been afraid that she would miss the 148, but it was ok after all: she would not be late for her appointment now. In the meantime, she leant back against the jaded, hard upholstery of the tram, as she studied the view form the window, and the view was already disconcerting.

It might have been the dark greys and browns of the buildings set against the cloudy mistiness of a wintry afternoon, the occasional sight of a barricaded shop and the general seediness of the place, but somehow, she already had a sense of foreboding. Did it all have to be so Victorian? – she asked herself as the tram wound its weary way though this dilapidated part of the city. No wonder she had never been inclined to come this way before. But at least now she would not be late, she reminded herself again, clutching her briefcase of documents. She had cut it fine for the date they had given her, but she had made it. Made it, without sacrificing any of her morning work. Pity she had had to cancel all her afternoon sessions, though. The letter she had received, asking her to call in at the Citizen’s Office, however, had read more like a summons than a request. Furthermore when she had telephoned, the receptionist had been strangely inflexible, insistent that this was the only time they had available for her, as this was the only day in which they dealt with business applications such as hers. Then there was that other strange thing – the fact that she had been asked to bring in all her personal documents and ID again, along with a copy of her original application. What could possibly be wrong? – she had asked herself.

Apparently though, it was just protocol. ‘We just want to check out one or two minor details again,’ she had been told. ‘Nothing at all to worry about.’

Her accountant and the staff at the main Labour Exchange had been similarly reassuring. Of course, they believed everything she had written down on her application, of course she was within her rights to ask for a lease, of course she had the same rights as any local citizen, and of course, her ID was all still valid. Don’t worry. And as for the fact that they wished to check her ID again, when their was still no need to renew her ID for some months yet – well, that was absolutely nothing to worry about either. It simply made sense, now that all the facilities existed within the same building. Again, it was all just procedure, all just protocol. She had the same rights as local citizens, of course she did, she was practically one of them now, wasn’t she, but otherwise there was no connection between the two departments…..

Ah. The muffled voice of the announcer told her that this, at last, was the stop she needed. Just two minutes’ now and she would be there. She checked her watch again. 2-oh-seven, her watch said. You’ll make it all right for 2.15, as the lady had told her. She got off and swung her bag over her shoulder, as she hurried along as fast as her new shoes would allow her, in her new suit and coat, turning just once, on her left, checking the numbers on each block – 48a, 48b, 48c. Yes, there it was – 48e. That was the one all right.

It might have been her imagination, but even then, it seemed to her that the atmosphere of the whole building seemed somehow to be malevolent in some way, that the lines of the architecture contained some kind of a nameless menace. The windows from here seemed almost opaque, eyes that permitted no viewing, but which watched her from somewhere deep within. But then they were all offices, she reminded herself again. What else do you expect? Of course, she was just paranoid about the whole thing.

Of course, there could be nothing wrong with the place, and in any case, you could always ‘miss’ the appointment, forget it, get your dates mixed up, she reminded herself.

Alice, however, had always found it very difficult to carry out such subterfuges, although her less conscientious colleagues almost always did – and got away with it. Somehow, however, although she already felt that she would like nothing more than just flee the place, in the way that a child afraid of school or of the dentist’s might bunk off, she felt a strange compulsion to see this through. Somehow, here was some kind of a test of courage that she had to negotiate. She would fail herself in some crucial way if she did not keep that appointment. Plus, there was something else. She had given her mobile telephone number to that receptionist. Somehow, the idea that that soft but insistent voice would call her if she did not go in, leave messages on her answerphone to which she would feel compelled to listen, was strangely repugnant. There would be no getting away, no matter what she did, somehow her inner space would be compromised with demands from all those people she had let down, insistent authorities, no matter what she did…

But what was that??? Looking up again, Alice noticed something else about the top floors of the building, something very wrong. At the top of the building, the walls were blackened, the windows blind, empty. There had been a fire, she realised. Just look at that – gutted, and several rooms too. Along some of the windows, running beyond the sills, thick paint and sealant had blistered into grotesque, malignant outgrowths. Looking at these, Alice shuddered, under the sudden presentiment of hushed-up tragedy within these walls. She hoped that it the feeling came from nothing more than a little overwroughtness, brought on by too much overwork. Well, she would certainly ask about that, she reminded herself, stiffening in her resolve to get this thing over with. She strode towards the intercom at the main entrance and in a shaking voice, gave her name and her reason for wishing to enter the building.

She was met in the foyer by a stern looking security guard who stared hard at her as she approached. He asked to see her ID, and she handed it over. Oddly, instead of returning it to her, he pocketed it. When she asked him what he wanted with it, he merely grunted and told her that it would be returned as she left the building. When she asked where she was to find the lady with whom she had her appointment, she was directed to the second floor. ‘You are expected,’ he told her.

Unexpectedly, the second floor held a strange sight for Alice. A very large waiting room met her eyes, strewn with a medley of seats and benches. Even more remarkable, however, was the room seemed to be incredibly crowded. In fact, it was full of people. What could they be all waiting for?

Alice sat down in dismay: she had not expected to have to queue. In the midst of people such as these…..

Not that she had any prejudices against other people of course, but she had not expected to meet such an ill-dressed cross-section of individuals: they appeared of be of all races, all from different backgrounds, and many of them most shabbily dressed. Some were old, others were overweight, others were young, with children, all of whom, of course, were making a great deal of noise. Some of them sat alone and sullenly, desultorily looking through used magazines, whilst others chatted loudly to each other in deafening voices, apparently oblivious to their neighbours. It was nothing she could put here finger on either, but something about their humanity repelled her, almost as if they were second-class in someway impossible to define.

Not so much the clerks – or what she could see of them. Most of them were young, groomed-looking, in crisp white shirts and either tasteful skirts or well-ironed trousers, all of them possessing an indefinable air of authority. Did she really have to wait here? Amongst this rabble, she wondered. She fumbled for her ID, to show to the waiting officials, at the far end of the cubicles – but of course, she had given it in to the porter. It was surprising how vulnerable she was already starting to feel without it: getting it had been difficult to say the least.

She was not sure if she had to join the waiting queues, which appeared to her eye to be anything but well-organised. She was starting to feel resigned about it all, and prepared to ask the people blocking her way in front of her, when her attention was caught by someone trying to talk to her from behind her. If, in fact, it was she the person in question was trying to reach.

She turned. An overweight sallow man with soulful eyes was now trying to take her wrist in his. His touch was clammy.

‘If you need help,’ he was starting to say, showing her a shabby-looking card.

Help?, wondered Alice fleetingly. What could this be all about?

‘What have they got you for?’ the man asked, sotto-voce. ‘Someone told on you, they got you on one of their special clauses?’

Alice started to get angry. She was a bona-fide business thank you very much. She paid her taxes, her papers were all in order, and she had absolutely nothing to hide, moreover, she was here in this office on business. What could possibly be his game?

The overweight man, however, was insistent, as he brought his mouth closer to his ear; his breath, Alice noted with distaste, smelt. She did not quite make out the first part of what he had to say, but she could certainly make out what he appeared to be looking for from her. Nasty, sordid little barracks-room lawyer.

‘Could be expelled….A pretty girl like you. Whatever trouble you are in you know, just contact me,’ he wheezed. ‘My rates are reasonable.’

‘But I am not in any kind of trouble!’ hissed Alice, as she tried to distance herself from the cloying presence of the little man, who by this time was beginning to unnerve her.

‘Ms Little,’ rang a soft but authoritative voice, across the din, and Alice recognised the insistent voice that had spoken towards her on her mobile phone.

Alice turned. A well-groomed lady in a suit in early middle age was smiling and beckoning towards her, a thick stack of papers in her arms. Thank God for that, Alice breathed to herself – she had not wanted to draw attention to herself by shouting at the man.

‘If you would just come this way.’

If the lady had noticed anything untoward in what had just happened, she did not show it, she was all efficiency. Alice was led through the noisy waiting room to a door leading into a back corridor, then into a small office. In the corner, a secretary, a young mousy-looking woman was hunched over a computer. The lady who had called her held out her hand.

‘Susan Nice.’

A self-deprecating smile fleeted across the lady’s face as she said this, no doubt realising that ‘nice’ might have sounded like an unusual sort of a surname. ‘At least it is a fair enough derivation of my name.’

Alice was invited to sit down, and offered a cup of coffee, and Susan went through the sheaf of papers, some of which Alice recognised through previous interviews at the usual office she had attended; she could recognise her own signature on one or two of them.

Susan looked up and smiled at Alice, the light from outside catching her gold-rimmed spectacles, highlighting the wornness and wrinkles marring her plump face.

‘Did that crowd make you nervous?’ she asked her. ‘There really is no need to. It is not a procedure you will need to go through.’

‘How so?’ asked Alice carefully.

A muffled snort emitted form where the secretary was sitting, and a comment was made quickly in a way that Alice did not quite catch. The tone of her voice, however, had seemed to convey a peculiarly sneering kind of contempt, to Alice’s ears. The secretary caught her eye, and coughed discretely, and Alice realised she had made something out about the ‘ones without papers.’

‘They all failed in their applications’ explained Susan somewhat apologetically. ‘We cannot offer them asylum or accommodation without thoroughly processing them first, and it is quite probable that a lot of them don’t want to work. Or they are here on false pretences, or have something else to hide. Luckily,’ she continued,’ that is not the case with you.’

‘You appear to have full citizenship, and therefore we are delighted to be able to do business with you.’

A slightly clinical look then seemed to appear fleetingly behind the expensive spectacles, as Susan appeared to inspect her more closely. The searching look started to make Alice feel uncomfortable. ‘You have lived and worked here for quite some time, haven’t you, she commented at last, as Alice nodded.

‘You seem to have adapted here very well,’ came the secretary’s voice.

'You are not from one of those, erm..'

There was no need for the secretary to finish the sentence, Alice understood her tact totally. Even the expression 'sensitive area' was just that little bit too sensitive for those who had lost so much in the course of the notorious 'suitcase' period. Alice had come from a rural area, quite a secluded distance away from where the trouble had been, though of course whilst the neighbourhoods in form had remained intact…

Charles, for instance, had lost not just his family, his roots: the whole area where he had been with all its attendant memories had quit simply, more or less ceased to exist, though some brave efforts were currently being made to create memorial parks and museums there. There really was, as the conventional wisdom put it, no going back. For the most part, individuals like Charles made out that what had happened back home was no big deal, but everyone knew that this was just an ironic, particularly fatuous take on bravado. But what else could you do? It hadn't been the end of the world, after all, none of all that heavy biblical 'the living will envy the dead' - it had all been way too messy for that, but then the suitcases had often been very small and amateurish. There were more displaced people, more recession, and more cancer in what had been the affluent West. But what the hell.

‘Yes, really, added Susan enthusiastically, cutting into her thoughts. ‘You seem to have done very well for yourself.’

Was that truly a compliment? – Alice wondered. She may have been imagining it, but it always seemed that she could detect a ‘but’ in platitudes such as these. Human nature being what it was, Alice was well aware that there was some stigma attached to being from an area that had been 'suitcased.' Poverty and cancer were not the only likely long-term consequences of having been caught up in something as major as that. And the way the had both scrutinised her just then…..

But it was time to get down to business. Susan adjusted her glasses, and searched through her papers. ‘Yes,’ she informed Alice after a few minutes’ hesitation. ‘You certainly seem to have everything required. He finger ran down a few more figures.

‘These figures here look healthy enough,’ she commented, pausing, as she sifted through various other papers. ‘And this looks finer, too.’ Her finger paused over just one more paper.

‘You don’t appear to have a new stamp here’ she remarked.

Alice knew the answer to that, she had been asked the same question for years.

‘Oh no, she told Susan not without some pride:’ ‘I got into a ‘b’ category. I do not need a new stamp.’

A reserved smile touched Susan’s face then, and she appeared to be satisfied. ‘Very well,’ she told Alice. ‘I think it is time we looked at the accommodation. We’ll just run through…’

Susan, however, was interrupted. An anguished howl rent the air. It seemed to come from the waiting room outside. Alice heard a soft bleep, as Susan removed a pager from her handbag.

‘Just one moment,’ she muttered, scurrying away without appearing to hurry. She left Alice alone with the secretary.

Wide-eyed, Alice turned to the secretary, to ask her what the howl could possibly be all about. The desperation behind it, almost keening, she thought, and she said so. The secretary, however, was indifferent.

‘Someone’s been served an SZ40 I would imagine,’ she told her. Her nose wrinkled in disdain, as she added: ‘There’s no point in anyone ever getting hysterical about it though.’

When Alice asked the secretary what an SZ40 was, however, the secretary became even more disdainful.

‘Nobody is ever served one if they are diligent enough to meet all out requirements within our specified deadlines’ she explained further. ‘But our clients have certain criteria and responsibilities to fulfil. And if there really is no alternative, then…’

‘Then what?’ whispered Alice.

‘Then I’m afraid,’ said the secretary, ‘that their temporary status and citizenship is revoked, and they are given a black stamp.’

Alice, however, was appalled. ‘But surely…..’ she tried to break in,

‘These people should know their responsibilities,’ the secretary reminded her again frostily, ‘And ignorance is no excuse. ‘And in any case, no-one is ever really sent away.’

Sent away, or not sent away???? Now, that was a mystery that no-one had ever quite managed to resolve: no-one really seemed to know what it actually meant, if your citizenship and rights of stay were revoked, but everyone had their theories, most of them lurid. You were, purportedly, locked up for years before being banished, or simply unable to work, or thrown into the hands of human traffickers. Yet there were just as many other stories, that the whole process was simply an elaborate farce, designed to intimidate, and if you simply played the game, nothing could ever really happen to you. Not really. All the same, no one was ever really in a hurry to get themselves branded with a black stamp.

Susan Nice’s broad and unhurried form returned, the benign smile and confident demeanour still in place, though Alice also noticed that she seemed just that little bit flushed and her hair and jacket had become a little dishevelled. She was escorting towards the desk a scrawny, wan-looking woman in an untidy long dress coat over an unseasonably thin and drab cotton dress, with nothing on her bare legs but patched plimsolls. When she sat down as directed, she almost knocked the chair over, and Susan Nice barked something at her that Alice did not catch. The woman appeared to shrink further within her ragged garments, as she was given a pen with which to sign, as the contents of a two-page document was read out to her. Alice had no wish to intrude on what surely should have been a private official communication, but she was struck by the sight of the sigil that appeared on top of the document. It was the same one she had noticed on the heading she had earlier noticed against several such papers she had seen, plastered on the walls of the waiting rooms outside. Many of those waiting outside had been craning to look at them, avidly reading the names and personal details that were listed in each case, under the sigil.

To Alice’s eyes, the black sigil had a sinister look about it, much like graphic rendition of Saturn, and the girl’s wide eyes appeared to be transfixed by it. Her hand was visibly shaking as she held the pen. She tried to interrupt in a whining, quavering voice several times during the proceedings, but Susan had appeared not to notice, but the secretary interrupted her once.

‘Just listen and sign it, girl,’ she had snapped.

Alice noticed that both Susan and the secretary behaved and spoke towards the woman as though she were a child, although the streaks of grey in her hair and her wrinkled forehead said otherwise.

The crunch came when Susan told her of the appeal date; ‘within three days,’ she was told, and the woman clutched the edges of her chair so hard that her hands went white, and she began to keen again, the sound of it grating on Alice’s overwrought ears.

‘Three days!’ she whined. ‘THREE DAYS. But it is Thursday, tomorrow is a holiday, and then there is a weekend!’

Susan shrugged in that impatient way Alice had often come to recognise in these regions whenever a problem came up that could not easily be resolved. ‘I don’t care’ was what she knew it to mean, and she herself had always taken care to make sure that she was never in a position to receive this particular kind of indifference herself. After all, if you knew the way things worked, if you paid just that little bit more, took that extra bit of effort, it worked, that was the wisdom among the privileged community of colleagues that she knew. Only if you were particularly naïve and foolish was anything untoward ever likely to happen to you.

‘There is nothing I can do about it,’ she told the woman, and it was at this point that the woman truly went berserk.

She threw the chair against the wall, and began to scream uncontrollably, whilst tearing at the paper, and throwing it like so much confetti, into the air. Alice backed up against the wall, as she did not care to be in the way at this moment. She was aware of a strong feeling of revulsion, of total contempt towards this woman. She feared her own reaction if the woman became aware of her presence and started crying and snivelling all over her and her smart new suit. Why, she would probably give her a good slap! Had she no self-respect or dignity at all?

‘I told you what would happen if you misbehaved,’ Susan coldly told the woman, as she punched grimly into her pager.

Soon, three uniformed men appeared in the doorway, with guns and truncheons. Susan nodded towards the woman, and their leader, a moustached, tough-looking young man in his thirties, addressed the woman first:

‘Are you coming quietly love, or must we used constraints?’

It was a rhetorical question. The men pinned the woman’s arms behind her back until two ambulance men also appeared on the scene with what appeared to be a netted stretcher, and the woman was pinned, then held, to it, in such a way that she would surely have been able to cry out, even if she had wanted to.

The woman struggled a little as she was administered a hypodermic into her arm before she went limp, then she was removed, tied and bound, under the netting of the stretcher, as other individuals either crowded round with glassy eyes to watch, or read their papers with studied disinterest. A new copy of the paper she had been served was given to the chief ambulance man. A small wallet-size document was also handed over, which Alice assumed to be a passport. Something darkly holographic caught her eye, as it was turned briefly and shown to the ambulance men, and she thought she briefly caught a glimpse of the sinister Saturn-shape sigil there, but it could have been a trick of the eyes.

The woman was discretely wheeled towards a pair of doors Alice had not noticed before; a key was produced, and the wan woman conveyed into a small lift. In the meantime, voices conferred in stealthy whispers, both inside and outside the office. The secretary was whispering animatedly to Susan Nice, and Alice thought she could follow some of the conversation.

Some of it was disturbing. The woman, it seemed, had been quite high up, like herself, moreover had earlier enjoyed quite a high position of responsibility. That is, until her records had been more thoroughly checked, after the implementation of the new rules. The new combing methods of all known histories through the net made it all so much easier.

‘It is quite definite,’ she heard the secretary say. ‘Miriam researched the suspicions and the leak from work. And you can’t blame decent local people from wanting to….’

‘…..It was thought here when she made her first claim that she seemed unusually nervous, we made a note of it at the time….’

‘……something to hide.’

‘covered up something that didn’t look quite right from her childhood. Even she didn’t know…..’

‘But alas, ignorance is no defence. She should have declared her past, just in case, even though she didn’t know…….’

‘And it didn’t take much to get to the bottom of it all,’ Susan continued. ‘Our best people just worked on the case a little, and….’

They then noticed that Alice may have been listening, and bland, professional smiles soon painted Susan’s and the secretary’s faces.

‘I’m sorry about that,’ Susan told her. Our job can be very difficult at times. ‘But now,’ and here her smile broadened, ‘It is time to get on with those details.’

At that point, the secretary leant over and whispered something else to Maria. Susan glanced a little sharply at Alice, then consulted her pager. What she saw, however, appeared to appease her, and she beckoned Alice to follow her.

Unfortunately they had to pass through the waiting room again. This time, it seemed to Alice that many of its inhabitants were staring at her, and she thought that the people there went quiet as she and Susan passed through them.

‘I’m afraid,’ Susan told her, ‘that I have to take you through one of our little processing procedures. It seems,’ she continued,’ that someone forgot to apply it on your last application.’

‘Don’t be concerned,’ she added when she saw the worried look on Alice’s face. It is just a formality, something we just need to be able to say we have seen,’

She did not, however, have much time to think about it. Susan ushered here towards yet another, ancient-looking lift, and they entered in silence, although it was soon broken by Susan. For some reason, she seemed curious about Alice’s choice of clothing, and her jewellery in particular. But once again, Alice had her answers ready for such an occasion.

‘It is just a style,’ she told her.

‘So it’s not part of some religion?’ persisted Susan, ‘No sect, no political significance?’

‘There is no significance,’ Alice told her again. ‘It’s just a bit of fun.’

Alice could see, however, that this was a concept that Susan Nice, probably, was simply unable to understand the idea that anyone might wish to dress in a style just for aesthetic purposes, for fun. She had thought that she had become far more discrete about it, in any case; most people no longer commented about it. She hoped that Susan would not pursue it unduly.

Eventually they reached the floor required, and Alice noticed that it was the one just below where the fire appeared to be, as could be seen from the street. For the time being, however, she said nothing.

Susan led her along what seemed to be an almost uninhabited corridor; it was beginning to get dark now, and the place seemed both neglected and gloomy. Eventually Susan produced some keys, and swung open a door of brown and chipped paint. They entered.

‘If you would just wait here,’ she was told.

They found themselves in an unfurnished room, empty apart from the presence of one or two slatternly-looking characters who were sullenly waiting along a long, wooden bench. There were wooden tiles on the floor, and the whole area seemed somewhat cramped and isolated; the white-washed walls were uncomfortably institutional. A large mirror took up the space of one of the main walls, clearly placed in order to make the room seem larger than it was. The rooms also faced north, and this added to the overall sense of gloom.

Once again, Alice found herself wondering why she was here. She was in a different class to those lowlife sitting opposite, surely to god, yet somehow, she feared…..maybe the atmosphere of fear here, could somehow infect her psyche, maybe even bring her down to their level…..and that reminded her…..

She turned to Susan Nice. ‘I don’t suppose,’ she asked her, ‘you know what happened on the floor above here? That fire?’

A secretive look crossed Susan’s face, yet she evidently she could see that any disassembling would not work with Alice.

‘Well, Ms Little,’ she began, ‘As you really want to know, there was an unfortunate incident last year. One of our clients, who was held here briefly, did not prove to be fit enough to take her place in…..’

But she was not able to continue the dialogue. Suddenly her pager bleeped and insistently so, and she left the room, so that Alice was alone on the premises.

‘I really have to go for a short while!’ she called back. I will be back soon.’

Alice breathed a sigh of relief, the atmosphere, the sense of wheels turning within wheels here, was beginning to get on top of her. Holding cells for claimants to be expelled? In the same building as everything else? Did she really want to be caught up in all this? Really?? Do me a favour, she thought to herself. When our dear Ms Nice returns, I am going to make my excuses and get the hell out of here. I most certainly do not belong in this hideous house of horrors.

Alice turned towards the mirror, and stared at herself long and hard. She grimaced at her reflection, though her polished, immaculate reflection did not betray the tension was feeling. Except for that annoying little tic of her upper eyelid. That always bothered her when she was either tired or tense, she thought to herself: try to disassemble it. She grimaced at herself, pulled a few more faces at herself, then sang a silly song she remembered still from her childhood, about a girl called Sally-Ann. But then something – maybe a thickening in the atmosphere, maybe something that just caught the corner of her eye, caught her attention, and she turned. And started. One of the large, slatternly women was staring at her. Intensely, eyes glassy with a hidden, malicious amusement. It made Alice wonder if there was something, somehow amiss with her appearance, something, somehow fundamentally wrong with the way she came across. It was clear that the woman had something to say to her. When she did, it was with a droning kind of an insistence.

‘You are nervous!’ she called out in a hoarse, uncouth sort of a voice, then she cackled. ‘You are unlucky in your work!’

A fortune-teller. Alice, of course, had no time for parasites such as these, although even at this point, the words of the woman rattled her: she had not had a particularly successful career, not the money, nor the promotions or recognition she might have wished for.

The expression of the woman then changed, as she saw Alice’s righteous anger, and she came right up to Alice, grabbing her hand.

‘Come away,’ she whispered. ‘Come away from here. ‘There is something I need to tell you.’

Alice doubted that this old woman had anything useful to tell her at all, but nevertheless she was curious. Once away from the view through the doorway, the woman became voluble.

‘They might be watching you,’ she explained. ‘Through that mirror. Monitoring your reactions.’

Alice pulled away impatiently, but the woman held tight onto her wrist. What sort of nonsense was this? – she wondered. What was wrong with these people? Why try to frighten her in this silly, primitive way?

‘I want to help you!’ hissed the old woman. ‘They have their eye on you, my second sight tells me. Maybe it is the jewellery you are wearing, or someone has been telling tales on you, but I can tell. ‘

‘And,’ and now her plump face was right opposite hers, so that when she spoke, the spit went into her own face.

‘Your claim is going badly,’ she whispered. ‘if and when you get out of here, don’t come back, don’t let them give you a black stamp.’

But I am not a claimant, Alice thought furiously to herself. Why did every second ignoramus here have to jump to this conclusion?? However, Alice realised, the only thing to do with this kind of nut was to humour her. Surely she was trying this on because she wanted something from her, maybe she thought she was rich. They often did here….

She thanked her, though she was aware that her voice sounded stiff and not grateful at all. ‘Here,’ she realised, ‘have some of these.’ She tried to push some crumpled cigarettes into the woman'’ hand, but at this, the woman looked outraged. Her hand went out towards her face, entreating, but Alice had no intention of giving her any money.

‘Look!’ she pointed out, showing her empty pockets. ‘I don’t have any money with me!’

By this point, however, the lift had started to creak its way towards the floor where they were talking, and at this, the woman started to scuttle towards the stairs. She left no doubt, however, to the significance of her parting words.

‘Unlucky!’ she called out. ‘The black mark is already there against you!’

Alice rushed back towards the room where she was supposed to be, and Susan Nice soon appeared. This time, she did not seem to be flustered in the least, and the bland smile was very much in evidence.

‘I’m afraid,’ she said, ‘that we need to go elsewhere for your screening.. It’s just a formality.’

Alice’s heart sank, and her apprehension must have showed, as Susan Nice was reassuring. ‘It’s just a little thing,’ she told her. ‘It won’t take a minute.’

She led her from the lift along a corridor flanked by doors where the atmosphere definitely seemed very busy – there was certainly plenty happening here, Alice realised, this place was most definitely occupied and used. Susan Nice led her to a pair of large glass wire-netted doors on the right, and after swiping her ID, led them right through them.

They found themselves in a large office, with many people at work over several computers and photocopiers. They seemed very absorbed in what they were doing, though one young man was quick to come to Susan’s attention as soon as he saw her. Susan Nice, Alice realised, was probably quite a high-up figure within this organisation, though her affable manner initially tended to belie this.

‘This is the young lady,’ she told the boy. ‘Were the details of her ID read and sent up?’

The boy nodded. ‘We’re just going through it now,’ he told her. ‘There’s just the one little thing,’ he added, and he eyed Alice somewhat speculatively as he said this. Then, addressing her directly, he asked her: ‘You are ‘B’ category, aren’t you,’ he told her,’ as Alice nodded.

He then leant forward and whispered something urgently to Susan, and Susan turned to her somewhat apologetically. ‘I’m afraid,’ she told her, ‘We are going to have to take your ID for a while, and issue you with a grey card instead.’

A wave of butterflies hit Alice’s diaphragm. She had not expected this. She had thought that her status was not in question in any way at all, and in fact had come here on a totally different purpose. What could this be all about? But play for time, she urged herself, don’t get upset. It really could not be very much, as Susan Nice had just said.

All the same, she recognised, a grey card was not actually good news. It meant that the citizenship of the person in question was now only temporary. Sometimes, it was also known to be issued to those citizens who had question marks over their past or their origins: either way, it was questionable. It may be something as trivial as not being able to produce a document from the tax office on time, or of pending investigations still to be made into the recipient’s fitness for citizenship in some other way.

‘May I ask why?’ she asked, trying to sound as neutral as possible.

‘It’s nothing to worry about!’ the boy told her cheerfully enough. ‘We may have just got your records mixed up with someone else’s. Even if it is not, you don’t have to do much.’

‘Honestly,’ Susan continued, smiling,’ ‘In your case, it cannot possibly be anything whatsoever. We’ll just get this sorted and then we’ll be able to sort out your initial request for you.’

‘But surely this might affect my right to lease,’ protested Alice.

‘Of course it won’t!’ laughed Susan reassuringly. ‘As Euro-fed, and ‘B’ category to boot. This won’t much affect your status much outside either.’

‘As long as you don’t serve me an SZ40 too!’ joked Alice at last, beginning to realise that she was probably just overreacting. Most of her friends tended to tell her that she could be more than a bit paranoid at times.

‘An SZ40!’ laughed the boy and Susan together heartily. ‘You see,’ she joked at the boy, ‘this one has not lost her sense of humour!’

The next few minutes were a little humiliating, though Susan Nice and the boy were both as accommodating and friendly in the process as they could be. She was asked to provide her personal data all over again, formally asked her reasons for being in this particular region again, then photographed and thumb-printed. She was then issued with another card, to take to the Institute of State Hygiene. Apparently, she would have to be swabbed and swiped all over again.

Not more queuing again, and in that awful place again, Susan thought. That throat swab, the skin test…..like so much cattle, being processed. All, allegedly, to be certain of each claimant’s identity, though many post-Global watchdog bodies suspected there were other, more sinister motives for screening all claimants in particular way.

‘Why,’ she exclaimed, aware that she was beginning to sound nervous, ‘do you have to check my genetic data all over again? Everything was perfectly ok, they said I would not ever..’

Once again, Susan Nice was apologetic. ‘The grey card,’ she explained,’ ‘means that your claim may have to be restarted. This is just in case…..’

Alice demurred. The folk wisdom was that it really was better to humour these people, no matter how quaint their methods seemed during the monitoring process. As she left the building, she was amazed that the stony-Faced guard had actually allowed her to go.

PART 2

Alice was naturally more than a little shaken about having her ID confiscated, and being issued with a grey card instead, although on the surface her life did not change much. She still worked, commuted, drew out her money and paid taxes, and the humdrum ordinariness of it all seemed to belie the sense that her existence here was now forfeit.

She received less solidarity and support from her colleagues and acquaintances than she could have wished for. On the one hand, there was a great deal of breezy brushings-off of her fears about being served an SZ40 and the like – in fact, most people did not seem to have the faintest idea of what this was and if they did know, did not believe that this could possibly be a threat to her.

‘Relax,’ she was told. ‘It will all sort itself out if you are clever and soon you’ll be drinking a glass of wine without a care in the world!’

Easy for them to say. Alice knew that most of the entrepreneurs working here did so illegally, yet the government appeared to turn a blind eye to it. It seemed to be the individuals who tried to work legally who got all the flak: she had heard her share of horror stories. She wished it had been possible for her to have been able to avoid the whole process, but once she had inadvertently got caught in it, she had been like a fly caught in treacle.

At some of her work places and certainly when she made her usual bank transactions, she had a strong sense that her right to residency was now forfeit. At the banks, her grey card was examined, tested through the sensors as though a bad smell emitted from it, and in the last week, at every opportunity she was told: ‘It’s running out!’

It was running out, and her passport was likewise scrutinised in great detail. The same thing happened when she went to visit certain companies – her card would be double-checked by suspicious guards, and asked more questions about the purpose of her visits, even though she had been visiting them on business for years.

Her card on the first two days was not accepted by many censors at all, and on one memorable occasion, a new bank clerk at her branch had threatened to call the police, until the manager with whom she usually dealt with had arrived. As she was such an old and valued face there, she had been allowed ‘just this once’ to get her card validated, and then Alice new that the rumours about the thing were correct: it really did record samples from her DNA: The S&S was inevitable. Yet again. In the meantime, Alice realised, it might be better, just not to visit any places at all where her card might be scanned using the new technology, and this caused some measure of inconvenience for the next few weeks.

The swabbing of her mouth and the skin scrape in front of the cameras (there again, it had to be proved that it was she) had been unnecessarily painful and she had had to wait for several hours for that, but at least she was not turned away till the next day. And did they really have to shave away so much hair from her arm in order to place the Holo-ID?

Chest x-rays and blood samples had to take place at another part of the town, but that said, it only took two days in all, to validate her card. That had necessitated yet another visit to that place, in order to present the findings of her test, perilously close to the expiration of her grey card. On that occasion, she had not been served by the friendly-looking boy, nor by Susan Nice, but by a serious-looking young woman who had only smiled when the button on Alice’s coat had snagged, and she had dropped the contents of her bag all over the floor. When she had protested to the guards that the reason why she had returned so late was because collating the test results took time, they told her that ‘that was no excuse’ and she had had to put up with hostile questioning for some minutes before they finally let her go to validate her card.

At least, however, she had managed to update her grey card for another month.

Afterwards, she had watched the affluent-looking tourists, who still came to the area to enjoy the sights of the city, who never had to experience what she went through for the privilege of being able to keep her residency and her business here. Nor, for that matter, among the laid-back ‘tourists’ who worked alongside her.

‘I just don’t understand why you are bothering with residency at all,’ she was told on more than one occasion, and she tried, yet again, to explain (most people neither had the patience nor the legal turn of mind to understand the issues at hand.)

One of her colleagues, Charles, however, made a suggestion that actually sounded quite helpful.

‘Let me get this straight,’ he had clarified. ‘You brought your new palm-top here, and although there are no Customs, because it had been made into a free zone, there is still a sort of ‘Customs-in-theory.’ And until the bankruptcy process is still cleared up, this body still has powers, And they wanted you to pay the full duty because your relocation firm erroneously declared it as a class-2 asset, and decided that it classed you as a resident and not a visitor.’

‘Because it is slightly bigger than a pocket,’ agreed Alice. ‘I did not want it to get nicked.’

‘And because no-one knows what is happening any more,’ added Charles.

They both sighed. No one knew who was in charge any more. The old regime was over, the new one had come and gone, now it was supposedly the Mc-Mac conglomeration against Disneyland, but as to who was really pulling the strings. As the old wisdom went, Mickey Mouse may have been in charge now, but much depended on who he or she had been working for before that. And as to whether or not Mickey Mouse was playing for real or for fun – well, that was notoriously unpredictable, though there were, of course, Experts on the whole arcane matter.

Whatever the case, there was certainly no doubt that the failure of the unification of Europe with all the attendant hopes of a promised land of prosperity, growth and equality for Everyone had left a lasting, festering wound of crushed hopes and bitterness in everyone who had hoped most to benefit from it. It was this - as Charles had once dryly commented - did mean that in many places, this meant a reversion to many of the old, and less desirable, ways of doing things. The fact that the once-prosperous West had reverted into even further dissolution and ruin thanks to suitcase terrorism and other such unpleasantnesses, did not seem to lesson the bitterness of those who at least still had their commercial centres and cities totally intact.

Charles’s suggestion was that she now pay the duty. Apparently, he Knew Someone who worked on BM – that is on Border Monitoring, who might be amenable to a reduction in price on the duty.

Alice knew what that meant. She had been indebted to Charles before, and realised that a great deal of extra homework on her laptop would soon be coming her way – that on top of her already overworked schedule. But, she realised, it would be well worth it if she really could free herself from some of the maze of difficulties in which she seemed to be helplessly enmeshed.

Two or three meetings therefore had to be set up in restaurants in various malls. They were in themselves quite pleasant diversions, as Alice was not much used to dining out, this being beyond her means. This, however, was all ‘on the house,’ as Charles’s contact was always able to claim these meetings as a tax expense.

‘If only we entrepreneurs could do this on the house!’ Charles had chuckled heartily on one occasion, and much banter had broken out between the two men. Alice had somehow felt excluded on these occasions, yet the meetings had been set up for her benefit.

The atmosphere in the malls was, as always, unvaryingly balmy, and shoppers/tourists mooched by the trellis tables, strolling, chatting and eating ice-creams as though they did not have a care in the world, though Alice knew that this simulated atmosphere of easy-going prosperity was a sham. The many boarded-up shop windows and the ever-vigilant guards, who always broke up gangs of potentially troublesome youths, were far more eloquent of the real situation in these parts. So was the presence of the monitor spy cameras, though it was well known that they did little or nothing to prevent any real reported vandalism.

The contact was a dark-skinned man with a sober mien and a soft, barely audible voice and he treated Alice deferentially when he handed her the documents to sign and asked her for various details. His manner was less reserved with Charles, and both then tended to behave towards her with undertones of sly contempt.

Alice did not care. She was getting what she wanted from the two men, and that was what mattered, although it had cost more than she had expected, and the unpaid work Charles was sending her was demanding of her time. Both promised her heartily that in the future, the BM would no longer be treating her as a resident now that she had paid the duty, that they would now leave her alone. They would not require any more cards form her now, neither grey, green or yellow, or any other colour. And when alone with her, Charles had further reassurances to make.

‘Don’t worry about that woman in the office,’ he told her, referring to Susan Nice. ‘It’s not us lot they are after. They won’t bother you again either.’

‘Do you really think there’s no problem?’ Alice had asked, hoping that he would say there were no ulterior motives in calling her in, and in giving her that grey card.

At this point, however, Charles’s face went a little pensive; a reserved expression flickered across his eyes, masking just a little edge of cunning. Or was she making it up?

‘They have been known to make up excuses like that,’ he admitted at last, and Alice’s heart sank. ‘Cat-and-mouse games. But,’ he added, looking at her hard, ‘Not usually with us lot.’

He patted her thigh. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ he told her. ‘Be happy.’

Alice decided not to return to the building after getting this advice. Maybe he and Charles were right, she told herself. The authorities here were not going to worry about someone like her.

To begin with, it seemed that she was right. She gave up using her grey card in many situations – to withdraw money, to gain access to buildings. She used her passport instead. Occasionally it was inspected a little more closely, but usually the page showing her birth data sufficed – this too, after all, had used a Swipe from her own DNA and genetic make-up, and she was still the same person, after all. Slowly, the time inched over the deadline where she was due to get another stamp in her grey card – and nothing happened. She began to relax.

All that inconvenience and angst, she found herself thinking, on more than one occasion. All that inconvenience and angst, just in order to be a bona-fide Resident, when you could simply be…..a tourist. All that inconvenience and angst, being made to feel like a criminal – and all of it more trouble than it was worth. What on earth had been the point of it all???

Charles had been right. Now, she promised herself, she would go out, have a little fun…and start living.

So when her mobile rang in the dead of night at the weekend, totally unexpectedly, her mind was totally unprepared, still befuddled, and not really able to respond to the situation as well as she could have done.

Firstly she had thought that it must have been one of her clients, and she had struggled to be obliging and helpful, when it would have been better for her to have been firmly evasive. She did not recognise the caller’s voice at first, as that insistent, insidious voice was there once again, asking if it was her, and when it would be possible for her to drop in again, just, you understand to check that one tiny, elusive detail.

Susan Nice again. Alice sat up in bed, shivering now, fully-awake. Now, how could she have tracked her down?? - she had changed her number.

No matter. What was really sickening was that once again, Alice had found herself put into a corner yet again, as she found herself dutifully agreeing, dutifully saying ‘yes she was free then’ as the was roped into yet another meeting with the wretched woman. That very same week. She even found herself, still impossibly sleepy, reaching for her week planner, checking, making a mental note to switch the odd client around, to give herself that free afternoon. Her priority at the moment was to get the wretched woman off her back, so that she might have the opportunity to slide into oblivion for a few hours more until she had to get up, at what her body clock never failed to reminder her, was still 5 in the morning by her own time zone.

This time, she was made to queue much longer before someone was available to see her. The guard at the door had been hard-eyed, unfriendly, when she presented herself, and both he and another security guard remonstrated with her for allowing her grey card to expire.

‘You knew the rules,’ they insisted. ‘You are in big trouble.’

Of what kind of big trouble she was in, they did not specify to her, however.

She had to wait for several hours in the queue itself before actually getting a number and then some hours after that before her name was called. It was extremely hot within the building, but this time she was not allowed to leave the building under any pretext. Neither the coffee machine nor the toilet worked, which added to her discomfort. She was also starting to get very hungry, and this made her feel somewhat light-headed and giddy.

When Susan Nice appeared, however, it was with the same benign smile, though Alice’s heart sank when she was lead to the same secretary’s room and the secretary asked to leave. The door was then shut firmly behind them, so that they were left alone. Just the technique, Alice thought, used whenever an employee was given bad news.

This time, Susan Nice fussily checked the inside of her voluminous bag whilst signalling Alice to sit in front of one of the computers. Alice could hear the rustling of cellophane, before a mini DVD was produced.

‘This DVD,’ Susan told her, ‘Has until now, not been tampered with. ‘Do you agree that this is the case?’

Susan nodded, her unease mounting by the minute.

‘This interview will be recorded,’ Susan Nice told her. ‘Take a look at the computer screen.’

Alice did. At first, the monitor showed the grainy image of shoppers in what could have been any of the malls, but then it started to focus on a scene within a mall bank. With a small jolt of shocked recognition, Alice saw herself at the kiosk, talking to one of the agents. The screen focussed on the money being pocketed by her screen self.

‘Susan smiled again, in that plumply benign way of hers, but her voice was venomously and calmly cold as she asked Alice,

‘Well, what do you have to say for yourself?’

Ah….

All at once, Alice understood what she was supposed to have done. Once you had any kind of Residence paper, whether or not Grey, or Blue, or Yellow, it was, strictly speaking, not legal to actually use your passport in making any kind of a financial transaction here. To the best of her knowledge, though, the rule had never actually been enforced on any of her point, surely it was only those who were….and in any case, how the devil had they tracked this down? And why were they using it against her???

As if reading her thoughts, Susan Nice confirmed her thoughts.

‘We were just doing a few routine checks on the banks here,’ she told her, and now the tone of her voice became a little apologetic, ‘A bit of a clampdown, you must understand, against any possible abuses.’

‘You just happened to come up.’

‘And,’ Susan Nice continued, her voice steelier, ‘There’s the little matter of your grey card running out.’

At this point, the secretary was recalled to the office but this time, there was no friendly greeting. Her expression, instead, held one of cold distaste. She was asked to witness the following procedure.

Alice was then asked to dictate a prepared statement into the DVD to the effect that she had wilfully allowed her temporary card to expire by so many days, and had been caught illegally accessing money from a State bank, then she was officially cautioned.

‘I’m afraid it will mean you will have to undergo another skin test and swab,’ Susan Nice told her, smiling as always, ‘And in this case, you will have to acquire a B72 as well, so that I can validate your grey card again.’

Alice’s landlady noticed that she was uncharacteristically rude and irritable with her, when she asked for one of the papers needed to get her new B72.

‘Those visits to the office always seem to upset you’ she commented. ‘You will show me your new grey card when you get it, won’t you?’

The landlady, reflected Alice grimly, was worried about her own skin too. Fines could be quite stiff for those caught with illegal tenants, even though most tenants in her position were.

The next day, however, proved to be even worse. Another day off work, with all the lengthy excuses and inconveniences this entailed, and yet another long wait, this time with two embittered-looking older women in a shabby-looking office in an obscure corner of the district where she lived. They had a good many questions to ask about her passport, and disappeared, then reappeared with several seemingly-unrelated questions. Then, when Alice admitted that she had allowed her grey card to expire, they had starting a whole battery of searching questions, had even begun to shout at her, promising her that she was now in a great deal of trouble. Furthermore, they had refused to issue her with the treasured B72.

‘But you do not have a grey card,’ they yelled at her. ‘There is no address. How can we know who you say you are? What have you been doing since you have been here?

‘But,’ protested Alice, shouting back in her frustration: ‘I need a B72 so I can get my grey card. Now you are saying that without a grey card I can’t get a B72. Where is that supposed to leave me?’

Such sophisticated forms of protest clearly did not rub well with these two officials. Their unadorned faces were rendered all the more solidly ugly and implacable by the drab surroundings and their eyes hardened still further. Alice had forgotten that it never did to actually show impatience, get angry in these situations. It had been hammered into her so many times when first coming here: humour them, humour them, humour them. Respect their ways here, they are not here to provide a service, and they do not owe you a living. Ultimately, more hard words for what was an impossible situation. And where would that put her now with Susan Nice and her cronies?

Alice realised that her perceptions about the place were beginning to change. No longer was she the privileged entrepreneur, just going through the hoops to humour everyone. She was beginning to feel more and more obscurely marked, sullied, guilty of some kind of an existential crime as yet unspecified. Could it be something about her, she wondered? Like that poor woman she had seen, when she had first been in that damned house of horrors? She remembered how Susan Nice and her secretary had hinted amongst each other that she had been victimised purely because of some kind of obscure personal weakness. Like sharks after blood, they had been…..

Tension spread further into her, as yet another thought seized her. Susan Nice had just happened to come across her making that illegal transaction in the bank. But just suppose…suppose she had been snapped making that deal with Charles’s associate in the mall too? Or knew of some of the tricks she had got up to in preparing her tax returns, the kind of dodges everyone did, in order to get by…..what then????

PART 3

'Alice,' the voice came again, and Alice realised that she had been off again, in a world of her own - precisely when she should have been paying full attention on her clients. Her clients were all staring at her, with varying levels of puzzlement. That on top of being late and mislaying the tests, Alice realised with dismay. Hitherto, many of her groups had been forgiving - they were as tired as she was when it was time to meet, but there was a limit to their trust. It had been hammered into her often enough at the beginning of her career here.

The worry had starting to affect her performance at work. The boss had started to notice that not only was she starting to become distracted, was no longer as sharp as she once had been, but was beginning to get irritable over small, irritating matters with the administrative staff. Had actually shouted at the secretary when her salary had been transferred late.

Up to now, the comments had been humorous, and there had been some sympathy with her plight: everyone knew of someone who at some point, had at one time fallen foul of the System over one small point or another. Usually, however, most people were eventually able to resolve it, so that there was a happy ending. Alice had been confident that that was what was assumed in her case, until one day the boss called her into his office. She noticed that the door was closed firmly behind them, as she was invited to sit down.

He began without preamble. ‘There have I’m afraid,’ he began, ‘been several comments made about your reactions recently. ‘It has been decided to put you on the part-time staff.’

Alice could not believe her ears. Surely, it was known how that would look on her claim for a permanent card again???? She tried to tell her boss that she was fine, that it really was merely a glitch, but she was aware that her objections sounded feeble, pathetic even. She shut up, not wanting to be further humiliated, though inside she felt like screaming.

Her boss clearly had no time for any objections, and she remembered how hard he was on other staff who had appeared in his eyes to show too much weakness. ‘You are lucky,’ he told her, ‘that I am not letting you go altogether. Now go and deal with your other work professionally, and we shall review your situation later on….’

Alice, however, knew what that meant. The staff here had lost faith in her, and reinstatement of any kind was now highly unlikely. Somehow she seemed to be falling further into a downward spiral from which it was becoming more and more difficult to extricate herself. Again, it may have been that she was imagining it, but it seemed to her that not just in this job, but with other contracts her, her colleagues were starting to treat her with condescension, or if not that, then with pity. As though she were losing it….

It might have been her imagination, but when she returned to that building for her swabbing, the staff appeared to be whispering and pointing when they thought she could not notice. Maybe she was imagining that too, but it seemed to her that the nurse who dealt with her was even more curt and seemed even more inclined to make the process painful than was usual. ‘I have to be sure,’ she warned her as she scraped vigorously and hard at the membrane of her mouth, ‘that the reading will be accurate.’

She was also, unexpectedly given another test. She was asked to enter a small, bare cubicle, where two pairs of electrodes were placed on her head. She was then left alone, whilst several blinding lights came on whilst the lights were re-adjusted on each occasion again. Could these be x-rays, or something else? she wondered, though her questions were brushed aside by the nurse. ‘It is just something to check out your electro-magnetic activity,’ she was told. ‘Nothing at all to worry about. It’s routine.’

Alice was given a slip of paper to show to the officials, and she was directed to a new office, where she was told ‘It’ll all be sorted out more quickly for a little extra money.’

Alice left for home, feeling more light-hearted than she had done in months, ever since her first summons to the office. That things might actually be resolved now! That the end was in sight at last, and she could go back to a relatively worry-free life! Just wait till she told Charles and her friends and colleagues!

Surprisingly, however, some of them were extremely negative, particularly when she explained that she had been caught making bank transactions illegally with her passport. She had gone to visit Charles in his office, but had come across Renee, his colleague, instead, with whom she had previously chatted on quite a few occasions. When she had recounted to story of the caught transaction, and how totally unreasonable, how unfair it was, Alice got a reaction she had not expected. Renee had turned on her.

‘You’ll get a criminal record for that!’ she had harangued. ‘You’ll be banned for at least ten years, and even now, they are probably making their prison case against you even now!’

‘They won’t let you go when you return tomorrow,’ she added, circling an arm round her for sympathy. ‘You’ll get a black stamp, you can be sure of that.’

Alice had not been able to sleep that night before she was due to get her B27. That night she dreamt of the building as she had on numerous occasions before, that she was lost somewhere within the building, on the higher floors, amongst the distorted and charred ruins of the derelict rooms, the exit impossible to find. In this new dream, there was a new development. Now there was a fire again, trapping her within, choking her, all exits barred by that malignant sigil, which would not allow her stigmatised card-reading through.

The girl who dealt with her in the main office, however, was surprisingly kind the next day when she explained the problem over the B27. ‘How awful!’ she sympathised’ bringing her a cup of water. ‘But I’m afraid this is the way things are done here.’

She had then got her B27 without any difficulties at all.

Charles was delighted, and they celebrated in a café-bar, though this time away from the prying eyes of the mall, as Alice explained to Charles that it would take her a long time to regain her trust in the system here again. ‘And I am not out of the woods yet,’ she reminded him. I have to get a full quota of work again.’

Charles, this time, was surprisingly sympathetic with her fear, and expressed plenty of indignity at the way Renee had behaved towards her. ‘She is a very negative person,’ he told her. ‘She likes to play on people’s fears. You should never have confided in her, what possessed you to do it?’

‘You have certainly had more than your fair share of flak,’ he told her. Let’s hope you can resolve it all soon.

Alice thought long and hard about what she would tell Susan Nice and the authorities when it was time to present her new B27 and ID/health certificates the next time she had to visit that office again. She would have to Act and Look Positive, she reminded herself. The work was coming in even as she was presenting herself that very day, and everything was now in control. Everything would be fine.

It was in such a mood that she returned, armed with her papers, the very next week.

It not bother her this time as much as it could have done, that she was made once more to wait several hours in the queue before getting the chance to actually join the queue proper so to speak, nor that once again she was not able to leave the building, even to get a cup of coffee or something to eat: remember: she told herself, the trick was to humour them at all times. She tried to busy herself reading the paper she had brought with her, even with some work she had brought with her to do, but nothing could quite dispel the butterflies she still felt, the way her heart was beating harder and faster than she wanted it to. Her eye was also drawn to the notices put up at the front of the room, with all the personal details of each failed claimant displayed, the black sigil heading each paper. What had each person done wrong? – she had wondered again, why had they not got their card? Were they all criminals? or sick? Or had been denied some other kind of essential paper, or had they just been unlucky? She was relieved, however, to see that none of the named appeared to be from her background or class, it was a thing that only seemed, in fact, to be levied at their own, for the most part. She, on the other hand, should be exempt. After all, she had for some time, been within the ‘B’ category of clients.

The day leached away, the light fading from the room, and the oppressive crowds diminished. Alice began to feel somewhat drowsy, and she hoped that she would get her grey card soon, so that she could get home to a nice little meal and glass of wine. It might have been her imagination, but at times it did seem to her that the officials in charge were watching her somewhat speculatively. Once, she was sure that one of the individuals called in had returned with what had looked like – what was it? one of those SZ40 thingies clamped under her arm, a frowzy-looking little blonde, but this individual had only given a resigned sigh before departing, her head bowed.

At another point, she had heard two officials heatedly discussing what had looked like a psychedelically-lurid diagram of what could have been someone’s brain, something about it being the signature of someone who ‘had something to hide,’ but she could not be sure of this.

‘Alice Little.’ Her name called, at last. One of the officials, an efficient-looking individual in uniform, whom Alice now recognised as Susan Nice’s secretary, was beckoning her now, towards one of the front rooms. When they got there, she was motioned to sit down and the door then closed on them, so that they were alone. There was no sign of any grey card on the table, but what looked from the angle it was displayed, to be a letter of some kind.

‘What’s this?’ demanded Alice sharply of the girl. ‘Am I in some kind of trouble?’

‘No.’ replied the girl, ‘Of course not.’

She then said something in rapid-fire speech that Alice could not quite catch, but for the term ‘permisssion of labour.’

‘But I am in the ‘B’ category!’ cried out Alice, knowing all too well what was coming. ‘B’ categories don’t need a permission of Labour!’

‘If you would just take in what it is telling you here, love,’ the secretary told her frostily. She turned the page so that its heading, displaying the black sigil, was now visible to her.

A noise at the door made her turn. Susan Nice was in the doorway, smiling as ever, her benign, crocodile smile. On the table, she placed what Alice now recognised to be the scan that was made of the electro-magnetic pattern of her brainwaves. Next to that was placed the DVD used at the interview when she had been forced to admit guilt of her unauthorised bank transaction, and then another sheaf of photographs. With a sinking sense of nausea, Alice realised that they depicted her conversation with the man who had arranged to buy off the Customs file on her computer.

At a nod from Susan, the secretary began to read the declaration out. It appeared to be very detailed, very comprehensive, and most certainly could mean nothing less than a black stamp. She was to be stripped of all rights of citizenship, it seemed, with no right of appeal, as guilt had already been established. Further tests would be established to see whether or not she was a danger to the public, in the light of her recent positive electro-scan, it seemed. She could now be sent away in precisely one month from now, if she was otherwise considered not to be such a danger to the public. The room began to move, and she began to sway. To think this could be happening to her, she thought. The shame of it, the shame, what had she ever done to deserve this.

Susan Nice, smiling as ever, asked if she would like to accompany her now to have her passport stamped, or if she needed any help in finding her way along the floors above. A discrete bleep made her start and turn, not quite able to miss the fleeting glance of malice in Susan Nice’s eyes, behind that as-ever unruffled, benign smile. Two Security men, who perhaps might have been ambulancemen also, were standing there, waiting.

Alice Little still felt it might be more politic to go quietly, in case there was still a chance somewhere, that she might be able to get an appeal heard. Icy sweat had broken out down her spine and her limbs were shaking, but she was damned if she was going to give them the satisfaction of seeing her reduced to the pitiful state she had witnessed in that strange woman here, so many months before.

As she moved along with her escorts, however, Alice chanced to see her reflection in one of the rooms where she would be required to wait until the procedure was finished. She hardly recognised herself. Gone was the young, dynamic entrepreneur as she had seen herself up to recent months. The reflection showed a woman who had aged at least ten years, the face somehow coarsened, then reset and distorted by what had happened to her since the Office had first contacted her. Was this recently all it had taken to reduce her to this state? – she wondered. But perhaps, it had not taken so very much after all. Maybe, she reflected, as the escorts arrived to formally detain her within this house of horrors, presumably until she could be safely expelled, there had been a kind of inevitability form all this in the beginning, something that had somehow been pre-ordained to happen to her, just as that malignant old fortune-teller had foretold. The Office had somehow, obscurely, always recognised her as being a potential Victim, not fit as a citizen within this great and wonderful kingdom. The Office had finally claimed her, and taken away her freedom at last.