《Paper Aeroplanes》 Tui 5031 My ears were upgraded the day before the first paper aeroplane lodged in my window. I didn''t notice the intrusion at first. I was too busy staring in my mirror, tilting my head back and forth. It wasn¡¯t the metal caps I was fascinated by. Half my neighbours had them already, designed to protect us from sonic booms. It was the hair. Our hair was always cut short, but they¡¯d shaved it in semi-circles around my ears for the operation. I prodded and poked at bumpy skin and bone, running fingertips across the soft fuzz. The numbing gel made my skull feel like a balloon filled to bursting. I turned to catch a glimpse from the back¡ªand that was when I saw it. A scrappily folded aeroplane, crunched between the bars like a downed fighter jet with squiggles of ink for spilled fuel. A sulphurous wind swept past, filling my cell with an acrid spell and rocking the plane back and forth. I leapt for it before it could tumble out and tugged open the poor excuse for origami. Good morning, person of golden hair. Who are you? Regards, Elia I turned it over, but there was nothing more. Peering outside revealed no faces staring from the grey cement of Block A, dull even in the pink hues of sunrise. It had come from out there. But where? How? Nothing moved except the bubbling mud pool that threatened the barbed wire fence between the two compounds. To the left, more colourless buildings and a patrolling guard. To the right, a single railway track snaking between rocky hills. The foul wind rushed again past my window and I gagged, forced to yank my head back from the bars and slam the window shut. If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. I¡¯d crumpled the aeroplane even worse¡ªso much that when I refolded it and launched it across my cell, it folded in on itself and sagged to the tiled floor less than a metre away. Still staring at the intrusion with numbed surprise, I pulled a fresh piece of paper from my only drawer of personal belongings, and my finest black pen¡ªthe one I¡¯d traded a week¡¯s breakfasts for. I folded an aerodynamic paper aircraft that could actually glide, then wrote my reply on one crisp wing. Tui 5031. Donated by the Macdonald family. Scheduled for deployment to the North Australia front next year. I¡¯d never written to someone before¡ªnot outside of our military reporting classes. In my evenings of solitude, I preferred to copy illustrations from library books; anything to record what the outside world looked like. But as I read my words they felt¡­ hollow. Robotic. Except for my chosen name, I had just repeated facts logged on my file. But what else was there to say about me? Who are you? Did you throw your plane from Block A? I don¡¯t think this is going to work. Actually I think this is against the rules. I peered through the window again, but still no one looked back. My door buzzed to unlocked, calling me to breakfast. Reluctantly I placed the paper aeroplane down, and marched out to start my day. Mary Poppins Every Sunday evening, after a morning of combat training and an afternoon of language, we lost most of our evening to hear the lecture on how we were Aotearoa¡¯s saviours. Normally Lieutenant Jiangshi¡¯s speeches filled me with a bubble of pride that pushed me through the next hard week of training. He¡¯d come from here too; a prototype that exceeded all expectations until a scatter bomb stole his legs. Our hero. He never questioned. He never regretted. He¡¯d sacrificed the body the government had given him so a real human could stay on the ground in New Zealand. But that day my ears rang from the surgery, the freshly shaved hair itched, and the paper aeroplane tapped at my brain. Who was Kali? And why had they sent a message? How had they got it to my window? Especially with an aeroplane so limp it might as well have been sat in acid rain for hours. ¡°Tui, get up!¡± my neighbour hissed. I jumped up from the bench and saluted with the rest as the lieutenant left the stage¡ªbut a nurse was watching. As we lined up for our serum shots, he kept watching me. And as he flicked open the cap on my wrist and inserted the needle, he spoke. ¡°Did you not enjoy Lieutenant 62¡¯s speech today?¡± ¡°Yes, yes I did, I¡¯m sorry.¡± The amber liquid gurgled out of the tube and into my bloodstream. The earache faded as my whole mind numbed into a peaceful buzz. Calmness enveloped me. What had come over me, to miss the lieutenant¡¯s wise words? ¡°My ears hurt. It won¡¯t happen again.¡± The nurse eyed me, still suspicious. He tapped his wristscreen then nodded my dismissal. ¡°I have made a note on your file. You will discuss it with your counsellor tomorrow.¡± We marched single-file back to our cells in perfect silence. Each figure in front of me disappeared through their doors. An echo of curiosity wanted me to glance back to see if it was as uniform behind as well¡ªbut then I would break the uniformity, and the serum was digging its claws in, making my mind heavy. I scanned my wrist and stepped into the comforting separation of white walls on all sides. There were no nurses, or counsellors, or instructing officers here. The security camera in the corner had stopped flashing months ago, and budget cuts meant they couldn¡¯t repair it. The serum rushed to my head with a wave of guilt as I thumped down on the bed. That was my fault. The scene replayed. Tearing out wires with wild fingers, because a serum shortage had made me weak. I had been so desperate for a moment of privacy that I¡¯d destroyed compound property. I hadn¡¯t been willing to make that sacrifice for the country that created me. The lieutenant would never have been so ungrateful. Without the government, we wouldn¡¯t even exist.The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. Next to the window, my aeroplane moved. I blinked at it, trying to react. It moved again, almost folding itself against the glass. Inside me, under the serum, Tui shouted that it was going to get damaged, and they¡¯d spent too much time making it perfect to allow that. I stumbled across my room, picking it up and sliding open the window. The paper shifted restlessly in my fingers, pulling away. I looked back and forth down the muddy alley between the blocks, but no security passed. Summoning all the energy and focus I could manage from beneath the serum that urged me to sleep, I threw the aeroplane out into the world, expecting it to slide into the mud. But it sailed up like a magnet had caught it, zipping straight through an open window on the 3rd floor of Block A. I gazed up with my mouth hanging open, but no one appeared. Guilt for disobeying communication rules fluttered at the back of my mind, but I was too enraptured. Strange things happened in Block A. None of us knew what. We only heard whispers of more than the usual procedures. In my whole life, I had never communicated with anyone outside Block B. I stayed by the window, this time grateful for the stench of sulphur. It kept me alert, knocking my senses back into action. When the aeroplane floated back as directly as it had flown off, its other wing now scrawled on, I plucked it from the air.
It¡¯s a direct method of communication that they can¡¯t spy on. No one is forcing you to reply¡ªif it¡¯s really too much hassle. But isn¡¯t that the beauty of this? We¡¯re not doing what we¡¯re told. You can reply. Or you can ignore me. You have a choice. (But you should reply, because this has to be the most interesting thing that¡¯s happened to you in years.) Kali
I laughed, then blinked in surprise at the sound. I scribbled out a reply, glancing up every few seconds in case Kali appeared at the window.
Well I thought the aeroplanes would end up in the mud! How did you make it fly to you? Can everyone in Block A make things fly? It was like Mary Poppins with an umbrella!
The aeroplane whisked away, and returned with one question.
Who is Mary Poppins?
Mary Poppins is¡­ Mary Poppins. The magical English nanny. There¡¯s a book, and a film¡ªit¡¯s in the library. Do you not have a library in Block A?
We do. I went there once and every word was post-bomb, pro-war propaganda.
You have to ask for the Cultural Education section! Our GB cousins donat
The serum pulled suddenly, weights on every angle of my brain. I tried to fight through and keep writing to Kali, keep asking questions about life outside Block B, but the next letters fluttered away every time I reached for them. The pen slipped from my fingers. Eruption That was the first night I fell asleep under my window. I soon lost track of the number of mornings I woke up stiff and chilled, my room stinking of sulphur. There was no way to escape the serum¡¯s effects, but I found ways to delay it. The cold, stinky breeze cleared my head, as did pinching my wrist, and tapping rhythmic patterns into the windowsill. I¡¯d never had reason to fight the serum before, but now I craved the freedom to exchange aeroplanes with Kali more than the sweet, easy anaesthesia of serum flooding my veins. Between messages, I sketched more than I ever had before. Birds and mountains and fern forests; all images I¡¯d glimpsed in the library but never seen with my own eyes. Except one day, when my door beeped loudly and the lock buzzed open, it was still dark. Boots clumped in as I started awake, neck cricked. I grabbed the new aeroplanes scattered around me, scrunching them behind my back, but the guard didn¡¯t glance down. He slammed my window shut and buzzed it to locked. ¡°Wh-what¡­?¡± I croaked¡ªthen scolded myself. I shouldn¡¯t question the guards. They knew best. Except that wasn¡¯t what Kali had said in her last aeroplane. My insides crawled at the reminder. I tugged at my strength. Had they found out about the aeroplanes? Or was it another¡ªStolen novel; please report. "Eruption. Mount Ngauruhoe. One week lockdown, minimum.¡± He left. The door locked. I piled the aeroplanes into my arms and scrambled onto my bed, curling up with them in the corner. I unfolded the latest one and squinted to read it in the dim green glow of the permanent night light.
I do not understand why you talk of them as if they are trying to help us. They are the ones keeping us here. They¡¯re keeping us safe. And now you sound like one of their puppets. Aspiring to be the next Lieutenant Jiangshi? Planning to get your legs blown to a thousand pieces then return as an inspirational figurehead?
A lump lodged in my throat just rereading it.
He¡¯s a hero. Okay, I¡¯ll play. Security keeps us safe from what exactly? No eruption or mud pool or poison gas out there is going to hurt us like they do. Do you think the regular humans without security are given serum to convince them that their lives are worth living? Do they vanish in the night because an experiment went wrong? Procedures don¡¯t go wrong in Block B. They¡¯re standardised. No. It¡¯s just easier to hide the ones that go wrong.
Even with the serum pulling me under, I¡¯d been unable to argue. But I winced rereading my own words. They felt weak and repetitive¡ªbecause I¡¯d heard them a hundred times before. A phrase spoken so much it¡¯s lost its spark and become a cliche. Kali¡¯s treason was new. Counselling On the first day of the eruption, the toxic cloud of volcanic waste descended to kill our country further, blocking even a glimpse of Kali¡¯s building through the barrier of glass and bars. Ash fluttered like snowflakes, piling up on my windowsill. Earthquakes and aftershocks shook the compound, but it held firm. On the third day, they started rationing serum. On the fifth day, our weekly Explosives and Incendiaries training went ahead, and I burned that latest aeroplane and its dangerous words without anyone noticing. But those words had already engraved on my brain, and burning the evidence couldn¡¯t erase them. The longer I went without serum, the less my replies to her made sense. And on the eighth day of lockdown, my neighbour didn¡¯t come out of his room. ¡°Where did he go?¡± My counsellor, Dr Walker, looked up from her monitor with a creased forehead. I bit my tongue. Normally I sat in silence in her office unless spoken to. But this was important. The day the first aeroplane had arrived, Phoenix had been the one to try and make me stand before a nurse noticed. We¡¯d been neighbours for two years. Someone should ask after him. ¡°Phoenix¡ª5189. Is he ill? I haven¡¯t seen him all day. You¡¯re his counsellor too.¡±Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. Dr Walker set her stylus down and settled back in her hard plastic chair to survey me. ¡°5189 has been deployed early. He left for the Samoan front late last night.¡± I blinked. Dr Walker didn¡¯t. ¡°But Phoenix was claustrophobic. He said you were still working on it. And we¡¯re in lockdown. There¡¯s no trains.¡± ¡°5031, must I remind you of confidentiality clauses? 5189 may have told you of his defect, but I am not at liberty to discuss his treatment with any but his donor family. Besides, we are not here to discuss 5189, we are here to discuss your own defects.¡± She swiped her screen, dismissing the topic to the past. ¡°Now, have you had any further violent outbursts? I can increase your serum dose if required, we have reserves available for special cases.¡± I recalled how last night I had kicked the metal bedframe until my toe bled. It still stung if I pressed my nail against the top of my boot. The serum would muffle the pain. Had it muffled Phoenix¡¯s screams too, as they tried to fix his claustrophobia and failed and dragged him from his bed in the night to dump in the North Island wastes? I focused on the whitewashed wall behind Dr Walker, not allowing any emotion to show. ¡°No. I feel calm.¡± Dr Walker tapped her screen, eyes flicking to the clock on her desk. She swiped again, never looking at me. ¡°Wonderful. That means your next procedure will be brought forward to next week. If all goes well, we can get you deployed before Anzac Day. We will meet again after your recovery.¡± Sketch #1 On the tenth day, they unlocked the window¡ªbut outside, security was fixing the electric fence that had finally been dislodged by the mud pool. It had doubled in size under the cover of the ash cloud. I sketched as I waited on my bed, like I had been doing all week, but the feathers and beaks of the birds under my pen kept smudging when I peered up. Questions bubbled in my mind like the mud pool; questions that no one in Block B would give an honest answer too. But even that was secondary to the urge to hear something, anything, from Kali. Her aeroplanes flew free of the regulations that controlled my life. Each day with less serum and no messages increased the longing to have more than just another aeroplane. Security left at sunset. I shoved my window up, and something yanked the aeroplane from between my fingers before I had even held it out. It struggled in the southeasterlies still galing, tearing a crisp wing, then vanished into the depths of Kali¡¯s room. As always, there was no sign of her. It took far too long for a reply to such a simple question. I could have written her essays, told her how much I missed hearing from her, or asked her opinion on Phoenix¡ªbut the options were overwhelming, and I¡¯d scribbled out the first thing I thought of.
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I blinked down at the reused aeroplane, creased half from the wind, and half from Kali¡¯s careless handling.
I just never see you at the window. And it¡¯s hard to imagine sitting next to you when you¡¯ve got an empty face in my head.
The words were still visible through the harsh lines I had forced over them. I made a new aeroplane.
It doesn¡¯t matter. I just never see you at the window and wondered. Forget it. Did you have serum shortages too?
The next aeroplane had a drawing. It was little more than a stick figure, but I drank it all in. Short dark hair. Tall, compared to the other mini stick figures drawn around it. Wearing the same uniform as me¡ªbut on the pocket was a number. 4001.
They don¡¯t use serum on most of us in Block A. It conflicts with some of the procedures. But we did have a shortage of fresh fruit and vegetables, which was a disaster. Kumara and chicken ALL week.
The corners of my lips tugged up and I touched the ink of stick figure Kali¡¯s face. I¡¯d imagined new conversations every night as I drifted between waking thoughts and dreams, but none of it came close to Kali¡¯s real voice. What would it sound like if she spoke to me in person, not separated by bars and fences and windows? ¡°5031 Macdonald, report.¡± My pen splattered, ink spraying onto my uniform and sheets as the loudspeaker blared. I scribbled 5031 over the half-complete drawing and shoved it between the bars. When I turned, the guards were already waiting by my door. Sketch #2 Tui, that drawing is incredible! Why would you scribble over it? And why have you never mentioned how well you can draw? Did that aeroplane make it to you? I was only gushing over your drawing abilities. Quite embarrassing really. (But in all seriousness you have top level skills.) Please send an aeroplane back soon, Tui. Tui, are you okay? I¡¯m worried. Sorry. Procedure. Won¡¯t be drawing again soon. Got a new hand to train. Human? I stopped drawing. It hurt too much to witness a stranger''s hand make mistakes and stumble. But it hurt even more to consider losing Kali, so in the times I used to draw, I wrote whole letters to her. We worked through the library together. I loved the children''s books in the Cultural Education section, which so often had illustrations that whisked me into some human''s life in their ink lines and splashes of watercolour. Kali picked military histories. There was nothing from the past century, of course. But it seems that wars have remained the same for as long as humans have organised themselves to have weapons and enemies. Kali saw things beneath the hard facts we were permitted to read and watch. In failed battle plans: the stubbornness of men allowed to play with lives like dice. The never agains: forgotten before even a generation had passed. And the perpetual race for a trump card, a weapon that would put some country or dictator or alliance on top... until the enemy copied. I could fight the serum enough by this point that I didn''t need Kali to point out that we, the saviours of Aotearoa, were just another trump card. And now all the world had clone technology, the experiments in Block A were the search for something new. When we weren''t discussing books or films from the library, we talked of nurses and counsellors and doctors and teachers. The more time passed, the less shocked I was by her abrasive comments, and the more open I became in my own criticism. The staff were safe to talk of. Other clones¡ªtheir tears, their procedures, their unending obedience¡ªwere taboo, even for Kali. It was too close to our own realities. Why did you send the first aeroplane through my window? Why not someone else''s? Because you always looked outside. Left and right and up and down, like you were searching. No one else ever looked outside like you did. I just want to see what it''s like out there. I wish we could go out for one day before deployment. See what we''re meant to be saving, the humans we''re saving. Pretend to be human for a day. We are human. Do not let them make you think otherwise. We are skin and blood and spirit. They make us harder to break, and better at killing, and mind-numbed with serum, but that does not take our humanity. That is their greatest lie. Never believe it. If they let us out, New Zealand would have to face the lie it already knows. They couldn''t deny it then. I ripped that aeroplane into shreds of confetti. They floated around my room as I collected fistfuls and pushed them out of my window into the twilight. Wind whirled them away into the oblivion of the wastes that surrounded us. My chest burned with guilt and fear¡ªthose emotions, so human-like¡ªas I watched for Kali at her windows, and battled her words in my soul. Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. It couldn''t be true. If we were human¡ª I folded a new aeroplane with trembling fingers, metal and skin and bone and blood and wires. Had she seen me destroy her message? If we were human¡ª How''s the view from the other side of Block A? I do not know. That side of the building consists only of staff offices. Shorter than usual. More abrupt. She''d seen me throw away her words. I plunged down the path of pretending nothing was different. If I got into Block A we could sneak into one of the offices. My new hand is crazy strong, I could break the lock. Then we could find out what it looks like outside the compound together. I''d dreamed of it the night before, halfway between sleep and waking. Looking out of a window at the vast wastes, Kali''s fingers brushing mine. Goosebumps rose on the skin of my hand¡ªmy human hand, untainted by the compound¡ªas I inked the last word. Switching the pen to my human hand, I added a tiny drawing. It was the first one I''d finished since the procedure. Two figures, one tall, leaning into each other as they watched the sun. Ungainly, disproportioned, but it held an echo of my old drawings. She was upset I''d ripped up her letter, but maybe this would help. Maybe she''d been imagining the same. Do not joke. The second abrupt message punched me square in the heart. That human heart, a duplicate of my donor''s. They hadn''t done any procedures there. I''m not joking. No one from Block A ever gets transferred to Block B, so you can''t come here. But if someone goes off the rails they can get transferred into Block A. It''s the only way we''d get to meet in person. Just for a while, before deployment. You are being foolish. You do not want to be here. You do not understand what they do to us here. You are safer in Block B. I don''t care about extra procedures. I''m tired of talking through paper. I want to have a real conversation with you. And you said there''s no serum in Block A, so it''ll be the real Tui you talk to, not serum-controlled-Tui. Deployment is coming. I can''t lose you and never have even heard your voice. No, Tui. I forbid it. Whatever you''re planning, my voice is certain as hellfire not worth it. I fell asleep hugging that aeroplane, imagining Kali''s voice saying those words in my ear. She was wrong. I had made my decision to leave Block B long before telling Kali. The Macdonalds If we¡¯re human, this is murder. The government is murdering us. They¡¯re making us murder for them. Anything to win. The same as every other government in the world. This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.