The Roar

“She hung in the air like a ghost between them and they felt as if when Ellie died, so had a part of Mika, so they grieved for both of them.”

The pain of losing a child is incomprehensible, but after a year, Asha and David are trying to rebuild their lives. However, Mika’s insistence that she’s still alive prevents any sense of closure, for them or for their son. They coax and cajole him, they treat him with kid gloves, they send him to therapy, anything to get him to accept what they believe is the tragic truth about his sister, but his refusal is a constant thorn in their side. They are left mourning two children rather than one.

“There were no fields anymore, no woods or parks or gardens. There was no space for anything but concrete and people.”

In Clayton’s world, the vast majority of the population is robbed of an essential component of life—nature. While most of the world’s people live in cities, urban planners realize that green spaces are necessary to mental and emotional well-being. Not so for life behind The Wall, and while most of the younger generation have known nothing else, the lack of greenery leaves London’s residents, especially those dwelling in The Shadows—in a state of perpetual malaise.

“I wish those pills had never been invented. They do something strange to the people who take them. It’s as if their bodies are clinging to life but their souls and all the goodness in them have given up and gone. Humans will try anything to escape death.”

Mika’s therapist, Helen, bemoans the development of Everlife pills, a pharmaceutical life enhancer that, she believes, prolongs life longer than is natural or normal. One of the distinct features of Clayton’s world is its artificiality—the resort beaches, the prefab housing, the food—and Everlife pills are just one more example, a human attempt to escape death by synthetic means. Nature never intended humans to be immortal, and Everlife pills are one more way in which Clayton’s characters have lost touch with the natural world.

“Heating was too expensive for a refugee school. You had to go to a private school for heating, teachers, and windows.”

As a resident of The Shadows, Mika’s school is sorely underfunded. The rooms are frigid in the winter, and lessons are taught using prerecorded videos. “Their tutor, Mrs. Fowler, sat at the front, but the only thing she was paid to teach them was how to shut up and get on with their work” (59). It’s a damning comment on the lack of resources for schools in underserved neighborhoods, and yet another indictment by Clayton of a bifurcated class system.

“‘We can’t eat real food! It’s too expensive!’ someone shouted. ‘Only rich people eat real food!’”

When a YDF nurse arrives at Mika’s school with copious amounts of Fit Mix, she lectures the students on the importance of eating real food, but the students scoff. “Real” food has become a luxury only the rich can afford. In the contemporary world, when fast food is cheaper than fresh, organic produce, the plight of the poor in Clayton’s fictional world feels eerily relevant.

“While Mr. Gray was yelling at him, at the back of his mind was a whisper: ‘They’re trying to poison you, they’re telling you lies. It’s all lies. Don’t believe them.’

When the rest of Mika’s class willingly drinks the Fit Mix, Mika’s instincts tell him to refuse, that there’s more to this strange stuff than an altruistic government taking care of its poor. Although mocked and derided as a “paranoid freak,” Mika has the sense to defy peer pressure and school authority and heed his inner voice. It’s the same voice telling him Ellie is alive, the only beacon to help guide his choices. In that sense, he has no choice but to listen.

“There had never been anything like this for them before and it seemed like a desert mirage—”

When the YDF opens a fancy new arcade in The Shadows, it creates an almost hysterical excitement among the younger residents. The residents are so accustomed to the drab and dreary environment of their homes and school that the flashing neon and glamorous new shops make them feel seen and heard by the powers-that-be, an alluring promise that they too can share in the pie of prosperity. Of course, it’s all just another lie, a tactic to recruit the best and most adept children for Gorman’s army.

“‘Well yes, but we saw it all,’ Asha said. ‘They were broadcasting it twenty-four hours a day on television.’”

Mika’s mother pleads with her son to get rid of Ellie’s animal pictures, arguing that they are a reminder of a terrible past, of The Plague. When Mika counters that she never experienced The Plague firsthand, she responds that she saw it on TV, therefore it must be true. Clayton’s world, like the contemporary one, has a divided relationship with fake news and the dissemination of misinformation from the highest centers of power.

“Last time we met, I wanted to tell you a secret but I was scared for you, so I didn’t dare. However, I’ve changed my mind because you are in terrible danger and you need to know the truth.”

When Mika glimpses a note from Helen warning him of danger, his father disposes of it before he can read the entire message. Clayton cleverly uses devices such as these—half-read notes, vague warnings, mysterious disappearances—to keep her protagonist on high alert and her readers turning the page.

“You are icons of health and fitness and I have no doubt that very soon every one of you will prove yourself a fine citizen of the northern hemisphere.”

An appeal to civic pride is just one of the many strategies the YDF uses to maintain order and obedience. After weeks of drinking Fit Mix and participating in a grueling exercise regimen, the headmaster of Mika’s school congratulates the students on their participation and success. What he’s really congratulating them on, however, is their lack of independent thought. Ironically, schools are meant to be incubators of critical thinking, but in Clayton’s world, they are factories churning out docile, compliant soldiers.

“Mika began to realize that the prizes in this round were for the parents, not for them.”

When the Pod Fighter competition shifts to the Caribbean World Vacation Complex, and the families luxuriate at a beach resort while the competitors are forced to master underwater survival skills, Mika begins to see through the deception. The YDF knows that the competition is growing more dangerous, but they soften up the parents with sand and cocktails, minimizing any protest when the kids are placed in harm’s way.

“How dare they speak so disrespectfully about his parents? As if they were stupid because they were poor and wouldn’t realize they were being tricked!”

As Mika recovers from his harpoon injury, he overhears two medics discussing ways to pacify his parents—a new hover car and the possibility of a fancy new apartment, they suggest, will be enough to distract them from threats to their son’s safety. Mika bridles at the assumption that his parents can be so easily swayed by material objects. It’s a common assumption, in the real world, that poverty equals ignorance, and the poor are little more than rabid consumers. Mika, however, knows the reality is far more complex.

“He told them how much he missed her and that the game helped him cope with her death and by the time they went to bed, they had said he could compete, but only if he absolutely promised not to get involved in any dangerous games.”

After learning of Mika’s injury, his parents forbid him from competing any further. However, the competition represents Mika’s best chance of finding his sister, so he engages in a bit of emotional manipulation to win their consent. As is common for the genre, Mika may be a minor, but he already learning how to work the levers of power, how to push his parents’ buttons, and the adults are simply putty in his hands.

“I know you know things. So do I.”

In a scene straight out of a political thriller, Mika and Kobi communicate via written message because they are convinced their conversations may be bugged. Between Helen’s cryptic phone call and Mika’s justifiable paranoia, Clayton ratchets up the conspiratorial tension, adding yet another layer of danger to the narrative.

“What they were about to do to the children was not going to be easy if they had an atom of compassion. He looked at their details on a tablet and noted with satisfaction that three were retired traffic cops.”

After rounding up most of the children living in The Shadows, Gorman plans to implant mind control devices into their brains. Even the malevolent Gorman understands the highly questionable ethics of this plan, and only the most unsympathetic and insensitive candidates will suffice. Clayton’s specific inclusion of traffic cops in the grouping implies a distinct lack of empathy on the part of law enforcement.

“For the first time in history, children will do as they’re told. We should have invented these things years ago.”

Gorman exhibits a distinctly archaic attitude toward children, an attitude that views them as blank slates to be programmed and manipulated by adults, seen but not heard. Part of Gorman’s role as the antagonist is to deny the autonomy of the children, who possess more independence and creative spirit than any of the adults around them.

“Despite the fact it was a gift from the man she hated most in the world, she read it every night.”

Although Gorman’s motives are always self-interested—and Ellie knows this—she nevertheless takes great comfort in a book of poetry he has given her. In this regard, her relationship with her captor is conflicted. Her young mind, struggling with the adult concept of evil, hopes for a glimmer of morality from the old man despite her lack of trust. For Gorman’s part, the gift is simply another tool of manipulation designed to help him achieve his goals.

“He looked up as his ball rolled out of the maze to see beads of sweat on Ruben’s forehead and it occurred to him what a horrible world Ruben inhabited—a place where nothing mattered more than proving he was better than everyone else.”

As Mika and Ruben compete in a head-to-head test of their psychic skills, Mika catches a glimpse of his tormentor’s psyche, and for a brief moment, he seems to understand the roots of Ruben’s anger and bullying, an all-consuming obsession with superiority. While it doesn’t lessen Mika’s antipathy for Ruben, it perhaps instills a small shred of empathy. Ruben’s world is not a happy place, and Mika, for a moment, sees Ruben not solely as his tormentor but as a tangled knot of neuroses.

“Your love for your sister has crippled you.”

As Ruben tries to get inside Mika’s head, to manipulate him, he falls back on that old villainous adage—love and empathy equal weakness. In one sense, though, he may be right. Mika’s love for Ellie gives him something to lose, and makes him obsessive and desperate, two qualities that impede good judgment. In the end, however, Mika’s love triumphs, and Ruben’s anger and petulance defeat him.

“As he sat down he looked at the nine children as if he were a collector of fine jewels and had opened the box to admire them.”

When the nine final contestants meet Gorman in the flesh for the first time, they are shocked and frightened by his appearance—a walking skeleton with “eyes protrud[ing] from a skull face of bone and papery skin” (366). Like a classic Dickensian villain, Gorman personifies everything children fear: cruelty born of a life lived without joy or kindness. And indeed, Gorman sees the contestants not as human beings but as possessions to be kept only for their additive value to his cause.

“He smelled of nothing, Mika thought, as if he’d been freeze-dried fifty years ago.”

For Mika, the most unsettling thing about Gorman is not overt evil but the absence of anything Mika associates with life—smell, in particular. Even a foul odor would be preferable to nothing. It’s often said that the opposite of love is not hate but indifference, and for Mika, the opposite of purity and virtue is not fetid and rank but nothingness.

“But he was wrong; the tear had been cried for thousands of children not just one.”

As Mika leaves Cape Wrath—unsuccessful in his quest to reunite with Ellie—he is hit with a profound sadness. He realizes, however, that his sorrow is not restricted to his own personal loss, but to the broader feeling of empathy for all the children held prisoner by Gorman. It takes a deeper sense of empathy to cry for the plight of strangers, but Mika feels their pain deeply and intimately.

“It’s amazing how quickly people forget where they came from.”

When Mika is chauffeured to his new apartment in the Golden Turrets, the driver, knowing he has moved from The Shadows to a new life above the floodwaters, gives him an implicit moral lesson—don’t put too much stock in your own social status because it can be taken away as easily as it was given. His words prove prophetic as mobs of irate parents from The Shadows storm the Golden Turrets and ransack the dwellings of the rich in retribution for years of neglect and inequity.