The Modest Proposal Institute: A YA Dystopian Thriller

by Paul James

  “Thank you, Founder,” Alexis said curtly. “We will do our best, though I fear the worst.”

  Right after the meeting, Shane called Alexis. “What do you think?”

  “I think Dean and Alexander look very old,” Alexis said, still angry, “and their age is clouding their judgment.”

  “They gave you what you asked for.”

  “After an hour of bluster!” Alexis said. “Do you think you’ll have time to persuade them to action when the first of your cities comes under attack?”

  “Our security systems keep the cities safe.”

  “The spaceport’s security systems kept it safe until now, and now the number of attackers will overwhelm it. You’ll find the same. Today it works because nobody knows you’re there. Tomorrow it will be millions of desperate people in boats and submarines. The world is going from a population of eight billion people back down to one billion people in a very short timeframe. No matter how good you think your systems are, they can’t fight seven billion desperate people. Space is the only safe place until the population has stabilized back at preindustrial levels.”

  “We’ve had this argument many times,” Shane said. “I’m confident some places here on Earth will survive intact and the all-consuming disaster you foresee won’t happen.”

  “Good luck with that,” Alexis said. “I have a war to fight, so I’m getting back to Jamie.”

  Shane called Kurt and Yves. Even if Alexis was only partially right, they needed to ramp up the defenses of every city and island the institute had.

  Chapter 35: Under Attack at the Spaceport

  “Any change, Jamie?” Alexis asked as he returned to the spaceport’s Control Room.

  “The first freighter has arrived early and is loading at the underwater port,” Jamie said, “which gives me more hope than I had before. But if you mean out there,” he pointed to the fence and the swirling mob of people beyond it, “there’s no real change. They’re working themselves up to attack but haven’t reached that point yet.”

  Alexis attached a pistol and holster to his belt and checked the automatic rifles on the table.

  “I’m still hoping we don’t need these,” he said.

  “You don’t,” Jamie said. “You can leave on the space plane. It’s fueled and ready to leave.”

  Alexis spoke to the pilot on his communicator. “Take the plane to South America, pilot,” he said. “I’ll stay here.”

  “Yes, sir,” the robot pilot replied, and Alexis and Jamie watched the plane move from the pad to the runway.

  As it thundered down the airstrip, Alexis said, “We have to keep this landing site. We can let these people in for a few days, but a landing site in Africa is vital to our regular moon flights.”

  Jamie nodded. He knew Alexis wasn’t trying to convince him; Alexis was speaking to those members of the council and the Founders who were no doubt watching and listening on the institute’s internal monitoring systems.

  “The good news is we have more food on the way,” Alexis said, “so if those folks outside do attack, we need to have a delivery ready to go. Two of the heavy lifting drones with a pallet of stores should settle them down.”

  “I’ll have it organized,” Jamie said.

  “How long before loading the Rays is complete?” Alexis asked.

  “They estimate about six p.m.,” Jamie said, “and sunset is just after. It will be dark by six thirty.”

  “What are your plans for those last minutes?”

  “To have everybody onboard the Rays by a quarter past six with the robots providing covering fire if needed. Then, if they haven’t attacked, we spray the last of the tear gas all around the perimeter. That should keep them out for another thirty minutes, just long enough to disconnect the power plant and hook it up to the heavy lifters. It’s going to be flown to the secure location up north, where the farmers are.”

  “Then the last robots, you, and I step into the Ray and we’re all out of here?” Alexis asked.

  “Exactly. If the mob outside plays nicely, we’ll all be well out to sea by the time they enter the site. They’ll find nothing edible or useable and they’ll break inconsequential things in their disappointed rage while we watch from afar. Then, over the next few days, I expect they’ll leave in search of food elsewhere. We’ll return once they’re gone.”

  “Let’s hope you’re right,” Alexis said.

  “If they don’t play nice,” Jamie continued, “Plan B is a fighting retreat to the loading dock. There won’t be time to disconnect the power plant, so we destroy it and send the heavy lifters north to safety.”

  The afternoon was tense. Small gangs attempted to scale the fences but were thwarted by the electrified fence and industrial-sized tasers. The shocks threw the climbers off and deterred others for a time. Men outside continued firing at anything that moved inside the compound but, even when hit, the robots weren’t damaged. Their Kevlar outfits saw to that.

  By five thirty p.m. the sun was low at the horizon and light was fading. Long shadows from sand dunes and resort buildings crept across the sandy ground, throwing parts of the fence into darkness. Jamie activated the perimeter lights and those outside the fence retreated.

  Alexis checked the loading bay. They were running a bit behind schedule and a quick check of the perimeter showed the crowds again pushing forward as twilight deepened.

  “Feeding time, I think,” he said.

  Jamie nodded and ordered the heavy lifters to carry the pallet of food outside the fence. They watched the drones move slowly across the crowd, teasing them into taking notice with crates brightly lit so those who could read English would recognize names of various foodstuffs.

  At first it appeared their diversion wouldn’t work, but when they saw the lifters placing the pallet on the ground about a quarter mile away, people left the fence and began running, hoping to get a larger share before the whole crowd descended on the boxes. Fighting soon broke out among the mob and Alexis breathed a sigh of relief. He turned to Jamie. “That may keep them occupied,” he said.

  “Or it may make them so angry they turn on us the moment there’s nothing left to be had,” Jamie responded as he watched the two drones land on either side of the power plant and the robot mechanics move to attach cables from the lifters to the power plant base.

  Fascinated though he was by the potential disaster he was watching over the institute’s live feed, Shane’s hopes for their safety were rising. It was going to be tight, but it was beginning to look like Alexis, Jamie, and the others might be okay.

  Chapter 36: A Fighting Retreat

  Alexis picked up a rifle and checked it carefully. Years of target practice at school meant everyone in the institute was comfortable with guns, but none of them had ever come this close to shooting a human being.

  Shane, watching, found he was unable to summon any strong feelings about killing the invaders. Like everyone, he’d practiced shooting with the security project many times, and part of him wanted to see how Alexis and the others handled the experience in real life. But it had the potential to bring the world down on their heads and it was too soon for that because both Shane’s underwater cities and Alexis’s Moon City still relied too much on Earth for supplies.

  “Whichever way this retreat ends,” Shane heard Alexis say to Jamie, “we have to speed up our self-sufficiency on the moon.”

  Jamie nodded. “I agree, but the new farm pods aren’t through their first harvest yet. Until they are, we won’t know what really works. We have to wait until that’s done, otherwise we could build things that are useless.”

  “We can build new domes to be ready for whatever works, so that’s what we have to do. I wish I hadn’t agreed to let the institute push Shane’s cities forward at the expense of ours. I thought we had more time.”

  “The thing is,” Jamie said, “events happen quickly when those who obey authority see that those who don’t are being rewarded. Authority just evaporates. The people out there still h
ave a government in their capital city but no one takes its orders anymore.”

  Alexis was about to respond when a movement in the shadows at the shoreline caught his eye. He zoomed the monitor in and saw people struggling out of the sea onto the beach.

  He pressed the emergency button and the security system activated the tear gas nozzles, blanketing the whole perimeter with gray gas. The men on the beach retreated to the sea to wash their eyes and escape the stinging fumes. Unfortunately, the gas was so dense that it was now hard to see the perimeter fence; the bright light of the lamps simply rebounded off the mist.

  “It’s time we were going,” Jamie said. “Everyone should be at the Ray by now and waiting for us to arrive.”

  As he spoke, a monitor showed an old battered truck crash into the fence. It didn’t penetrate but it did cause the breakers to trip. The lights and electric fence went dead. Men scrambled over the cab of the truck, over the wire, and dropped down inside the compound.

  Alexis and Jamie started running. With the power gone, the elevators were out of commission. They ran downstairs to the lower floor where the loading bay was located. Now that they were outside the Control Room, they could hear the screaming mob as it poured across the ground, heading for the Control Tower and the resort. They heard the roar of the heavy lifters rising in the air with the power plant and guns firing in the heat of the moment. They jogged on, confident they would reach the loading bay and airlock before anyone broke into the building itself.

  Only when they reached the lower levels did they discover they were trapped. The loss of power had locked all the watertight and fire doors. They couldn’t get through to the airlock.

  “Can we blast the doors open?” Alexis asked.

  “They’re designed to withstand bigger blasts than these guns are capable of,” Jamie said. “We need the door opened from the other side and I’ve lost contact with the Ray.”

  “There has to be an emergency override somewhere.”

  “There is but it’s in the Control Room. I’ll go back and open this door,” he said, pointing at the door they’d been pulling at. “You stay here and defend the door until I get back.” He turned and sprinted back up the stairs before Alexis could respond.

  Alexis put his back to the door, switched off his rifle’s safety catch, then his pistol, cocked the pistol and placed it back in its holster. He drew a deep breath and settled down to wait. Now it was a race between Jamie and the invaders.

  Voices echoed down the stairwell and through the empty corridors. Alexis scanned the stairs hopefully. He now realized that if he wasn’t careful, he could shoot the returning Jamie. He tried to remember what Jamie had been wearing but gave up; who took note of that stuff ever?

  The voices grew louder; then a thud behind him told him the door was unlocked. He turned the handle and it opened. Alexis wedged himself between the door and its frame to prevent it closing again and waited.

  He heard gunfire loud in the stairwell and was about to step out to help Jamie when he caught himself. He had to ensure the door stayed open, for his own sake and Jamie’s. The firing echoed again in the stairwell and, before the sounds had died away, Jamie jumped down the last few stairs and ran to the door. Feet and legs appeared on the stairs and Alexis opened fire. The man screamed and tumbled down to the floor. More legs appeared. As Jamie rushed through the door, Alexis brought down the next pursuer and stepped back, slamming the door shut behind him. He spun the locking wheel until the bars clunked solidly home in their sockets.

  They ran without speaking, their way brightly lit by the Ray’s headlamps. In moments, they were inside the airlock. The outer door sealed and the inner door opened.

  “That was close,” Jamie said as they walked through the door and into the Ray. “I’m glad we practiced with these things,” he continued, gesturing with his rifle. “The only reason I’m alive is they were shooting wildly and I wasn’t.”

  Alexis punched his shoulder. “Remember when we didn’t want to include shooting in the Institute Olympics because it wasn’t traditional enough?”

  “Yeah, but I remember that was you. I’m pretty sure I thought it was a good idea even then.”

  “Sure, you did.”

  “I did! Remember me saying—”

  “Good evening, Captain,” Alexis said as an officer approached.

  “Are we okay to leave? There’s no one else?” the officer asked.

  “We checked the monitors before the power went out,” Jamie said. “As captain of the spaceport, I had to leave last, and we were the last.”

  The captain spoke quickly and behind them the hull doors closed. Engines revved up and the Ray began to move. “We will join the other two Rays out in the bay, and then, gentlemen, perhaps you’d join me for dinner.”

  For Shane, the attack on the spaceport ended a suspicion he’d been harboring since the day Leon disappeared. Neither Alexis’s space program people nor the spaceport security team had used, or even suggested using, a weapon that could make people disappear. If such a weapon existed, and he still felt it more probable than not, its existence was with Tomas in the robot program.

  But Tomas, no matter how long Shane watched and listened, had also shown no sign of having such a weapon hidden away. With Tomas, everything was about his NuMen and their variants. The robots were incredible in so many ways but they were conventionally armed. Shane knew that, if he wasn’t so certain of guilt, he’d accept Tomas as innocent too. His intuition, something he had never believed in until now, continued to tell him that Tomas was behind Leon’s disappearance. He just had to find the evidence somehow.

  Chapter 37: Fortress Spaceport

  Two weeks later, when the monitors showed the spaceport empty of invaders, Alexis and Jamie had the Ray move back into the loading dock. Shane watched their progress from Shaneville on the institute’s security stream, no longer suspicious but simply curious. The two space leaders made their way through the building with NuMan troops providing additional support. It was soon clear that there was no one alive in the Control Tower and, after NuMan scouts had cruised the whole spaceport and resort complex, it was clear no one alive remained there either.

  “We’ll need breathing equipment until the NuMen have gathered up the bodies and buried them,” Jamie said, surveying the thousands of dead who lay where they’d fallen when they’d fought over scraps of food and water.

  Alexis nodded. “We need the fence repaired and the power back on right away too,” he said. “Some may be watching and will return if they think we can feed them.”

  “The drones show no sign of life for miles around,” Jamie said, “but I agree. We need the perimeter secured.”

  “I want a second electrified fence outside the present one,” Alexis said, “razor wire on both fences, and mines surrounding the new outer fence, which means we’ll need a wildlife fence to stop animals entering the minefield.”

  “Expensive,” Jamie said.

  Alexis tapped his communicator for Shane.

  “Alexis,” Shane answered immediately. “What is it?”

  “I presume we’ve stopped paying the lease on this land now?” They’d discussed ending the lease payments with the Founders during the days they’d waited for the looters to leave.

  “Yeah. That’s done.”

  “Then we can use that money to build the passive defense system I want here.”

  “A construction crew will be in touch before the day is out,” Shane said.

  “Good. I want more than just a security fence here,” Alexis said.

  “Okay—you know how much money you have to work with. Anything more is your own cost.” Shane dropped the call but maintained his surveillance.

  “I’ve ordered the heavy lifters to bring the power plant back first,” Jamie said. “There’s plenty of fuel in the tanks, so it can be running in an hour or so. After that, they’ll bring back the desalination plant so we can replenish the Rays and the spaceport’s own water tanks.”

&nbs
p; Alexis nodded. “I’ll have the construction crews bring a new desalination plant with them.”

  “The nuclear submarine is approaching. Looks like we’ll have some power very soon. Then we can see what works and what doesn’t.” Jamie continued to survey the area through the monitors. Everything looked clear. “You know, your plan for hard passive defenses here will raise concerns with many, particularly Dean.”

  “I know, but active defenses would cost a fortune and tie troops here for years,” Alexis said. “It has to be automatic, passive, and impregnable. NuMen, mines, automated shrapnel cannon, missiles, drones—whatever it takes to stop a repeat of this without the ongoing expense. Our money in future has to go to the essentials—building new lands far away from Earth.”

  Alexis got his way. The spaceport returned to operation with its small community of factory farmers, engineers, maintenance crew, and technical staff. After some time, even the resort reopened. All of this was safeguarded behind a defensive wall that kept even the most aggressive attackers at bay. Not that there were many; for as the years passed, the populations surrounding the desert fell back to pre-twentieth century levels and border attacks dwindled with the population.

  Chapter 38: The Old Institute Ends

  The final threat to the institute in those early years grew slowly at first, then seemed to explode in demented aggression during the 2030 American midterm elections. There were many candidates who were hostile to the institute. The Founders and Nadia continued making the institute’s case in the media, hoping to prevent the most dangerous ones from being elected. Their hopes were dashed. Impoverished Americans were now as eager as everyone in the Western world to find salvation, however violently, and almost all the candidates calling for war were elected.