1 Chapter 1

1

The pale, dusty light of another day filtered through the streaked and stained window of Julian’s module. He lay on his yellowing, regulation mattress, with its lumps and bumps, covered by one of two allocated blankets, and stared unblinkingly at the window. He was only vaguely aware of his thoughts. They were the usual ones about wanting to stay in bed, about there being no real purpose in getting out of bed, and about wanting his life to be different, more fulfilling. His only obstacle was, without ever having experienced much change in his thirty-four years, his imagination simply wasn’t up to the task. Instead, he was left with a dead, empty feeling and a quiet yearning for something he couldn’t name.

With great reluctance Julian crawled out of bed and, knowing he was being monitored, immediately pulled on his dirty, navy blue overalls which had been left in a pile beside his bed the night before. The observers had, of course, seen his slender, toned form naked on many occasions. Almost daily. They saw everyone naked. But the purpose of their ever-seeing eye wasn’t titillation. It was control.

He fried a synthetic-protein sausage and cracked an egg into the pan. While they sizzled and bubbled he toasted a single slice of bread and made some tea using the same teabag he’d used the previous evening. He carried his meagre morning meal to the small wooden table by the refrigerator and sat down. The notion occurred to him that he was weary in his bones. Life had been hard. No harder than anyone else’s, but just so…pointless. He cut off a small piece of sausage, some egg and a corner of toast, pushed it all onto the tines of his fork then paused, the utensil midway between the plate and his mouth. He stared at the dirty white of the refrigerator and felt his eyes water. How much longer can I endure?he wondered before blinking back his tears and eating his breakfast. When he’d finished and rinsed his dishes clean, Julian undid the straps on his overalls and put on a clean shirt. After pulling on his boots and socks, he left module 511 in K block and joined the streams of other workers who were heading, just as he was, to their jobs at various departments in the Business District.

“Good morning, Julian,” said Lucy, a pale-faced woman with dark hair, blue eyes, and about the same number of years as he had under his belt.

She was smiling, but he couldn’t think why. No one else smiled. It transformed her face from the pretty side of plain to something altogether more attractive.

“Good morning, Lucy,” he replied, not adding anything more, for nothing more was expected.

“Good morning, Julian,” said Alastair, a dark-haired man who spent whatever free time he had doing pushups and squats.

Exercise had produced a toned, muscular body, but Julian couldn’t see the point of all that unnecessary exertion. The man was certainly good to look at, like Lucy when she smiled, but at the end of the day, there was no purpose to it. To Julian it was just more pointless effort for little reward.

“Good morning, Alastair,” he replied.

Again there was no further communication.

Julian replied to dozens more ‘good mornings’ on his way to the Business District; people he recognised simply because they took the same route as him, and always had. It paid to be polite, but cautious. Words had power and the citizens of Earth had learned to use them carefully.

Julian was a Grade C citizen and enjoyed more stimulating employment than those in Grades D to H. He worked for the Department of Communications, monitoring telephone conversations and other electronic correspondence. Naturally, the citizens of Earth knew any exchange of electronic information was carefully monitored. It was no secret. A great number had done away with mobile phones and computers, and had gone back to writing letters, like in the old days. Letters were more difficult to check. They had to be physically read by people who read thousands of letters a day. Without the back up of electronic programmes, things could slip through in a letter.

Anything that spoke against the Archon overlords, the mysterious reptilian invaders who were the power behind the one world government, or their rules and laws, was to be flagged and forwarded to the Top Floor for further investigation. A thoughtless opinion, even one said in jest, was important enough for those in power, and wanting to remain there, to want to be alerted to its existence. Conversations had become akin to a walk through a mine field and were therefore kept to a minimum. It was permitted, for example, for a citizen to note the price of cigarettes had gone up, but they couldn’t utter a single word of complaint about it. A citizen may likewise mention they’ve had no hot water for the past three days, yet adding a personal thought or criticism would mean the conversation was reported. Such strict guidelines made Julian’s job more difficult because the citizens had, through necessity, devised codes, ways of expressing their thoughts that, on the surface, seemed harmless enough, but conveyed their dissatisfaction and irritation just as clearly. Even when he recognised that a particular citizen was breaking some law or other, even with the print out of their conversation in front of him, proving their treason was often extremely difficult.