Cecelia Ahern - Perfect

“Fugitive.” Raphael points at me. “Not much use for this kind of thing when you’re on the run. Though it would have helped to know.”

“I’m sorry about this, Raphael,” I say.

“Don’t apologize. I knew the ending, remember? I feel strangely free. Perhaps my house in the mountains was my self-imposed imprisonment. This is the stuff I was made to do. Are you okay?”

I nod, then shake my head, then shrug. I tried to beat them, I tried to stay one step ahead of them, but now I’m here and I don’t know what this is.

“I’ll take that as a yes, only because I’m not good at reassurance.”

The car stalls in traffic and I look out at the warehouses that line the docks. Down a narrow alley that separates two warehouses I see two women on a cigarette break. They’re wearing white overalls covered in red stains, and the stains mark their arms, too, splattered all the way to their elbows.

“Raphael,” I say, hearing the tremor in my voice.

“Fish guts,” he says too quickly. “They use these warehouses to gut and pack fish.”

I’d like to believe that’s what’s happening in there now, but I don’t.

Raphael’s door opens and a Whistleblower orders him out. We barely even get to say good-bye, he just yells, “Good luck, kiddo,” before the door slams.

Then mine opens and I’m taken outside. I’m accompanied on either side by two Whistleblowers. Raphael is taken to another Whistleblower car, to be brought to Highland Castle.

The door slides open on the warehouse. The entrance has a security X-ray machine that I pass through safely, an ID machine that identifies me immediately. Men are taken right; women are taken left. I want to retch from the smell of fish in the building. As I’m entering the women’s quarters, another worker appears, her apron covered in red, like she’s just butchered a body. Our eyes meet and her eyes soften.

“Sorry,” she says softly, and hurries on to meet a friend, another worker in a bloodied apron, as if they’re late for something.

I step into the women’s quarters and I’m faced with hell.

FIFTY-SEVEN

HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE, my fellow Flawed women, turn to look at me. Some cheer, some come to me and shake my hand, pat me wherever they can reach me. One woman cries because she believes I can rescue her; another cries because my capture means that now all hope is lost.

I look around the warehouse and take in the scene. It is indeed a fish-processing facility, where fish are taken in fresh from the boats, gutted, and sent to the local market and businesses. Long lines of what look like rectangular sinks fill the space so that employees can work in a comfortable standing position. The floor is made of light clay tiles, for easy cleaning, and sloped so that the blood can easily flow to the drainage outlets. Why are we here? My imagination works overtime and the scene makes me shudder.

In the crowd I see one familiar face. A blond girl. I know her from a photograph I was given recently by her boyfriend, Leonard.

“Lizzie?” I ask.

She looks up at me, confused.

“Celestine North? How do you know me?”

“From your boyfriend, Leonard. He’s looking for you. He always knew you were Flawed. He helped me. I promised him I’d try to find you.”

She stands up, confused. “But Bahee told me that Leonard found out I was Flawed. That he didn’t want anything to do with me. He told me I had to leave. That I’d put them all in danger. I didn’t want to go, but he made me.”

I shake my head. “Bahee was lying all along, to a lot of people. Leonard loves you; he’s been looking for you since you left.”

“Oh.” Her eyes open in surprise at probably the best thing to have happened to her in the weeks since Bahee dumped her in the worst part of town. She smiles. “Thank you.”

“He rescued me from the Whistleblowers; he’s a good person,” I say.

A whistle is blown and everyone is silenced.

A projector lights up on the warehouse wall.

Flawed TV. Many groan to show their discontent and disapproval.

“We have Judge Crevan live on Flawed TV to tell us what’s happening today,” Pia Wang’s replacement says, bubbly, like she’s on an entertainment channel.

Crevan appears on-screen, sitting in a brown leather armchair in the Guild study, wearing his red robe. “It is the fortieth anniversary of the Guild, which my grandfather founded. I feel we have come a long way since then. If we can cast our minds back to the state of the country then, politically and economically, and the pandemonium which emerged from the careless, ruthless decisions for our leaders and then look at where we are now …

“We are on our way to becoming almost cleansed of all Flaws, of irrational, immoral, unethical, and downright irresponsible decisions. Our businesses are led with competence; we are recognized on the world stage as a country that is trustworthy, and one to do business with.

“Recently there have been a series of riots in the city and across small towns in the country; we appear to be losing our way, losing our focus. Today is a day to refocus. Today there will be a display of those we are protecting our society from. A parade of the poisonous few who do not think and act like us. Of course we love our family members—branding them does not make us love them less, but it helps us , sends a signal to the rest of the world that we are an organized, decent society.”

He looks straight down the camera lens, his blue eyes searing into all of us. “What you will see today is the reason why the Guild is in place. The people you will see are the population that you will join if you do not wish to live in our organized, decent society. I invite—I implore the public to get outside, line the streets, and support us.”

The picture disappears and all the women in the warehouse immediately start talking, debating, some keeping their cool, but mostly an air of panic is rising.

A whistle blows and it needs to be blown four times before the chatter dies.

A head Whistleblower stands above the rest and yells, “Flawed! Take off your clothes and dress in the outfits laid out in the piles at the top of the room. Do it without questions, and do it now!”

I stand on tiptoe to see what’s at the top of the room. I see red items; some look tie-dyed, as though they’ve been just stained, and suddenly the women I saw outside with the red stains on their white aprons make sense to me. They’ve been dying clothes red—red for Flawed.

At first the movement is slow. Women discuss it among themselves, before slowly shuffling up the sloped floor to the displayed clothes, but it’s when there’s a realization that the amount of each size is limited that everyone starts grabbing, some pushing others aside to fight for the red rags.

Small, medium, large, extra-large. An old woman beside me whimpers. I go to the table, grab an extra-large for her, hoping that that size will be enough for her. There are no other small sizes left. A woman to my left hands me hers and reaches for the medium pile.

“Thank you,” I say, confused.

Nobody tackles me, to my surprise. The old woman accepts the extra-large I hand to her, in tears.

When I shake the garment out from its crumpled pile and hold it up before me, I am appalled, as is everyone else, judging by the howls and the shrieks and the shouts. It’s a red string slip that leaves little to the imagination.

“I’m not wearing this,” a woman shouts. “I am not wearing this.”

The line quickly works its way across the crowd until everybody agrees to take the same stance, some confidently, some timidly, and the red slips are thrown to the floor of the warehouse.

A group of Whistleblowers make their way to the woman who began the protest. “By order of the Guild you must put on these clothes.”