We all ducked our heads as they went by, the finely attired guards that united what had once been as separate worlds. If they were near we said ‘please' and we said ‘thank you'; we minded who we spoke to and what it was we spoke about. We never spoke more to our own race than to others, for that was as dangerous as slurring one of them, as speaking out.

They went by now and I said to Mapps in a quiet, cultured voice I'd learned at forms how nice the weather was today. It wasn't nice at all and he knew it. But he craned his shiny olive neck and checked for himself to see if that swirly puked-up mess we call sky was just a shade lighter. The closest guard was glancing up too, almost inadvertently, until a senior officer with a tall red hat and five black poufs swinging about his lean person rapped his skull.

I suppose that just goes to show how people, even government people, keep hoping their mistakes might yet be undone. Only those of us still on, or maybe those who even remember, the dark streets know how far gone we are. We don't accept it, but we play it. Every day we play it, like some worn out board game great granddad used to bring out, before the guards came and took it away. Not in the interest of equal rights to have that old thing, they said, not if everyone else couldn't have one. So they took the board game. If I closed my eyes I could still picture the faded lengths of the snakes and the grey lines of the squares. How foreign it had seemed.

"It does look lovely this day, doesn't it?" Mapps looked back down at the road and I nodded pleasantly. Rhodes and Gina smiled warmly for several more moments, then glanced back. We had decided long ago, in our first years at the forms, that they would be our look outs whenever we went out. It was safer with the two of them peering about, they could get away with it, what with their sweet cherub faces. They looked like church paintings, rosy cheeks and wide innocent eyes. Mapps and I somehow always managed to appear as though we were up to something.

Rhodes looked at me with his wide eyes, blonde lashes catching the rays from the nearby lamp posts. Over his head I caught the top of the nuclear plant, whose energy lit the whole city and more. I was supposed to work there in just a few more years, they had been gearing me towards it for years. I didn't particularly care for the microscopic centres falling apart, it sounded a lot like killing. First you force the tiny things together, because they won't get together on their own, and then you make them open up and release even smaller parts which is all exothermic. So, like vultures, we collect and take from them energy so that we can have light and heat and all that good stuff we hold in our iron claws.

I found myself making a face at the thought of society - of humanity.

"Therese," Mapps called me quietly as we passed a short couple whose rights to wear togas were clearly protected. The use of my church name cleared my face, I smiled.

"Sorry-"

"What has she done?" It was another guard, black eyes looking down at Mapps, not even acknowledging me. If it was I in the presence of one such as he - and he being clearly of ancient French (which is a term we no longer use, all are Human) descent, what with his finely honed accent and turn of nose - I would have been hauled off to the Court.

"Nothing sir," Mapps replied, calmly returning the guard's gaze. "Merely stepped on my toe, perfectly fine."

For the first time the guard glanced at me, although it seemed quite clear he didn't want to, or at least not for long.

They say there are no minorities on Earth, they preach it to the civilizations the ESTUs, that is, Extended Space Travel Units. People like me know different, we are the few. Pale, white, not exceptional, few. We have no accent, no colouring, no distinct background to brag about in quiet corners where the guards do not listen. Mapps' mother has a book in her mattress tracing their history back to the province Middle East and Rhodes' great aunt has some relics from when the province of Europe was a country. We are not allowed to have these things; I do not have these things.

Looking up at the guard, his pale nose and upper lip turned delicately towards the sky, his suit immaculate - right down the golden UEP stitched on his breast pocket - I was sure that even he, hidden in some nook or cranny of a relative's home, had something that connected him to his ancestry. He looked down at me like one who knows my only connection to such a past was a crinkled book or two, printed in China, when it was a country and not a district. We never talk of countries in forms anymore.

"She ought to mind where she is stepping, the young girl. Treading on another's rights is a sin and Earth will not stand for it."

"O' course sir, I'm mightily sorry," immediately I bit my lip. "I mean I am quite sorry, sir, I am."

I felt everyone tense up and passersby moved imperceptibly faster until the North street was quite quiet and empty. My friends stood still without breathing, waiting on the guard whose face was becoming a darker and deeper shade of raspberry.

"Are you now?" My mind sped past any number of offenses he could hit me with for the use of contractions not only in public speech but to a guard. My stomach swirled and I felt ill; I wondered if it showed on my face at all. Mapps squeezed my hand briefly, but I could take no courage from it.

"Well we'll see ab-" His rage stumbled over his own blunder, jaw worked, the colour high in his cheeks never left. He took my hold of my arm with his polyflex glove. The lamp flickered. A breeze blew some unknown scrap of paper down the street, which someone would undoubtedly be fined for. Mapp, Rhodes and Gina watched me go, I could feel their eyes on me, and I looked up at the bumbling guard, my own rage suddenly bubbling up and out of me.

"Oh so you can screw up but if someone like me," his hand tightened its iron grip on my arm, "if someone like me, with white skin - yes I said it - with no discernable history in the old countries slips up and uses a goddammed contraction-"

There was a crack and a pin point of pain and I remembered no more until I woke up in a sanitary, completely unremarkable room. There was no smell that I could smell, nothing but grey and smooth curves for me to see, and no sound but mysterious and vague echoes to hear. I laid back on the wall, which was cold and made me smile.

It was silly, smiling when I had no where I was or what Mapps was doing, but somehow, in this little grey room, I felt more free than I had in the rest of my life.