by Mike Essex
“The short version?” she replied. “The skin copied your DNA earlier and created new strands of hair. It then rolled up the hair you no longer needed and blah blah science talk blah. Look, the important thing is, you look amazing!”
I stared at the mirror and took in the transformation. My freckles had gone, replaced by perfect lightly tanned skin. My ears were slightly larger with a cute pointy bit at the top that popped slightly out from behind my hair.
“So you couldn’t do anything about my big nose?” I asked
“Emmie, the skin goes over your face, I can’t change bone matter,” replied Grace.
“Ok, ok. Maybe something for Skin 3.0?” I continued to look at the changes. My blue eyes remained but my lips had changed. They were now fuller and far more seductive. A purple colour covered them from top to bottom. “I told you no ‘rocker synth’ Emmie’!”
“Sorry, I couldn’t resist, purple always did look good on you. You’ll need a new outfit to go with that face,” said Grace as she opened my wardrobe.
I didn’t own many clothes, mostly just jeans, strappy tops and sweaters that had been abandoned by the ‘haves’. The only nice outfit I owned was one I had been bought by Will for my twenty first Birthday. It was the only piece of clothing that wouldn’t look out of place where we needed to go. Grace spotted it instantly and handed it to me with a large smile on her face.
I slipped into a pair of light black jeans and high black heels that had not been much fun to walk in last time around. Grace handed me a black top which had a white V shape that ran from my neck down to my belly button, revealing a smaller blue top underneath. It clung tightly to my figure.
My outfit was finished with the one piece of jewellery that I owned, a large pearl necklace that had once belonged to my mother before that horrible day that took her away from me.
As I looked at myself in the mirror it felt odd. As if I was looking through a window at someone else who happened to be copying me. If I couldn’t recognise myself then that meant no one else would, which was perfect.
The fake skin no longer felt tight and had settled to feel quite natural and when combined with an outfit that would get ruined within twenty minutes on a typical day in Smyth West I felt ready to go.
“Perfect!” said Grace. “We just need a few more things before I can let you go,” said Grace.
“Such as?”
“Well you can’t very well have a brand new face and then just start using your existing credit cards or ID. That would defeat the entire point!”
“Ok but where would I even get a fake ID?”
“It’s ok, I know a guy. He’s a prop designer on set. He makes really good replicas for movies. So good you can’t even tell the difference. I’ll text him your photo now,” Grace really was proving very useful today.
“Cool but don’t I need a new name too?”
“Oh yeah, what would you like it to be? Emzie?”
“No, that’s ok you can keep that nickname between us. How about Jessica Young?”
“Seems a bit plain Jane to me but ok,”
She took my photo, sent it onward and we waited.
“So you have a new identity, what now?” asked Grace.
I knew exactly where I wanted to go.
“TethTech,” I replied.
NINE
Chris Jacobs
Chris stared at the news report in disbelief.
“We have reports just in that an attempt has been made on the life of the highly regarded inventor Tobias Zen,” said the reporter. “Earlier today a recording of the Jonathan Lewis show was cut short when a terrorist group stormed the studio.”
“No, no, no,” shouted Chris at the crackly standard definition screen.
“In exclusive footage CTT News is able to reveal the events that occurred during the attack. We warn you that this is not for the faint hearted,” said the reporter.
Chris watched as the events of last night were distorted and spliced together in a way that made it very clear that The Deck were responsible.
He watched as Grace stood up and started throwing accusations at Tobias. Unsurprisingly the reference to him killing a billion people had been cut from the video. He saw the audience frozen by the blue light, which was quickly disabled by the orange eyed man – whose eyes had now been digitally altered to a brown colour.
In this version of events there was no gunshot on the man’s head. Another digital alteration.
The scene of Chris firing at the orange eyed man had been delayed to make it look as if Chris and the other team were shooting at the crowd. Even the old man whose head had been cut by fallen glass, now appeared to be injured by a stray gunshot instead.
The message in this video was clear. Tobias was a hero and they were the terrorists.
“Shocking scenes, I’m sure you will agree,” said the reporter. “The terrorist group in this video are known as The Deck and this is not the first time they have attacked Tobias.”
“However we can also reveal the identities of many members of The Deck and warrants have now been issued for their arrest,” the reporter motioned to a large screen of photos which flashed by across the screen.
“Oh no,” Chris watched as his face appeared on the screen. A crystal clear image, that seemed to have been taken from a social network or one of his online profiles, rather than from the night of the attack. It would be more than enough for him to be easily caught.
His face on the screen changed, showing another member of The Deck and another until over fifteen team members had been exposed to the world.
They were fugitives now. This made things difficult.
As the photos went by Chris noticed that one of the people from the night did not appear.
Gabe.
The footage of the attack failed to show Gabe at any point. He wasn’t shown being shot, issuing orders or being escorted away by Tobias and his guards.
It was as if he had never been there. As if Tobias wanted to keep the fact he had been taken a big secret.
“Tobias Zen refused to comment on the attack but he has stated he will still be giving his press briefing today and that TethTech will be floated on the stock exchange as planned later today,” said the reporter.
“And now for something a little lighter. You’ve seen a human play the saxophone but have you ever seen a cat play one? You have now…” the reporter continued but Chris was in no mood for musical cats.
As he surveyed the concrete hub they called their base, he saw the worried faces of the remaining team. Many of them had now been revealed to the world, leaving a handful of people who could now travel outside safely. For everyone else it would only take a quick glimpse of a security camera for them to be spotted.
The remaining team would be enough to gather supplies but not enough to save Gabe or stop Tobias.
“Thank God Grace had worn a disguise. She is our best hope now,” said Chris.
TEN
Emmie Keyes
It was time to go. Grace had received word from her friend that ID’s would be waiting on route to help us get into the city undetected. With my new face fully formed, I was ready. I packed up some clothes and cosmetics into a backpack, grabbed my police badge and gun and left the apartment.
We passed Apartment 12B and I thought about saying goodbye to R&R. Who knew when I would see them again or when I would return; my apartment would likely no longer be the safe haven it once had been. But I realised I had nothing to say that would make any sense. Plus knowing I’d never said a final goodbye would give me a reason to come back when this was all over.
“Aren’t you going to wear a disguise?” I asked Grace.
“You have the only Skin 2.0 in existence. But there’s no need for me to use it, they don’t know who I am and a face like this is too good to hide,” she joked.
We left the building and stepped out onto the street. The sun was just rising as I turned my head and took one last look at my home. There was no turning back.
When we needed a new skill, someone would train in it to help the community. It helped make Smyth West a town that could sustain itself amongst the broken economy. We lived outside of the Government and away from the large cities. Our town didn’t receive any of their support and as we didn’t sell anything (merely trades) we didn’t have to pay tax. In many ways our town was a regression to the way people lived hundreds of years ago.
It worked but we were always afraid that one bad harvest or not having enough medicine would mean our entire town could be wiped out very quickly. We lived in houses that had been abandoned and we made them our own with whatever items we could find. Our homes were rarely repaired; whilst some of the houses had sunk into their foundations, others had become flooded and some had burnt down. For every house or apartment that was liveable another three were destroyed or boarded up. Despite this we tried to ensure everyone in the city had a place to live.
It wasn’t paradise but we survived day by day.
There was one item I owned that I didn’t trade for or find and that was my motorcycle. A gift from Will, it helped me to explore outside of our town and to make trades with other local villages. Thanks to solar power I never had to pay for fuel, even with the typically dull British weather, so as long as the bike didn’t break I could keep living this ‘free’ existence. If it did break I may have to train to become a mechanic, as Smyth West currently didn’t have one.
Grace and I mounted our motorcycles, left the city and headed up the country towards Birmingham, the biggest city in the UK. London was no longer the once glorious capital it had been before the 20 Day Siege.
The roads were quiet. With most of the UK’s population now living in ten large cities, people rarely travelled and if they did then they would use trains that were far quicker. As Smyth West was far too small a town to have a train station, we used the roads to reach our destination.
What vehicles we did see included old cars that had clearly been previously abandoned and seen better days. They were probably unwanted relics from the rich, who had no need for them in the large cities, which had now been reclaimed by other have-nots.
We also saw duocycles, which always made me laugh. They were designed as a way for twins who liked motorcycles to travel together safely. Motorcycles had been deemed one of the most unsafe ways to travel so an inventor decided they would be safer with two twins together. His logic was that they would both be paying attention to the road and therefore it could prevent accidents.
The bikes were the same as normal motorcycles but with two seats one behind each other. They also had a roll-cage at the top and a plastic dome around the entire bike. They looked awful and had been one of the worst selling inventions of the century.
The inventor’s loss was the have-nots gain. When the product flopped the haves, who were now embarrassed to be seen on a duocycle, had gotten rid of them. Over the years they had worked their way down to our communities. We still thought they looked stupid but if you wanted a free way to get around, they were very effective.
After fifty minutes of riding we approached a service station and Grace signalled to the left for me to come off the motorway. I did and we approached an abandoned petrol station with a few toilets and a greasy burger stand. There also stood a large retail stand which had once housed over one hundred shops but which was now a burnt out building that looked like it could barely support itself.
Ash floated through the air and clogged my lungs. The air stank of death and dampness lingered on. The remaining structure blocked out the sun leaving an echo of darkness blocking us out. The building may have been a shadow of its former self but it was still an imposing structure.
The building was supported by several large concrete pillars that sat around the outside of it. The entire wall in front of us had collapsed to the ground long ago leaving rubble shattered across the car park. Every car was either rusted or had been damaged by an amalgamation of glass, signage and merchandise from the stores. They were useless and a horrific reminder of the people who had no doubt been trapped inside the building when it burnt down.
The main centre itself was a horrific mass of twisted metal that had become warped from the flames. Almost everything I could see was a different shade of grey or black and the damage was absolute. There was no way anything inside had been spared from the flames.
It was easy to tell what had happened here. These places had once been thriving with people who needed to stop on long journeys but with most people now living in large cities and the have-nots having little money to spend, they were now mostly abandoned.
I imagined that the retail store had been looted and burned down, by scavengers or even the owners, and it simply made no sense to rebuild it. The owners probably took the insurance money and retired with no thought for the people they killed. Compared to the 20 Day Siege no one would bat an eyelid at a few hundred deaths especially in a region that wasn’t controlled by the haves.
“I need to go inside,” said Grace.
“Really? It doesn’t look stable at all,” I replied.
“It’s ok; I’ve been here lots before. Why don’t you wait outside and grab us a burger?”
I looked at the greasy fast food stand and figured ‘why not?’ “Who knows how long I’ll be alive anyway?” The owner seemed friendly. I asked him if he would be prepared to trade anything for two burgers and he asked if I could use my motorbike to charge a battery he used to power the heat in his shack. He hooked the battery up to my motorbike and I revved the engine.
I watched as Grace entered the burnt out shopping centre and I wondered exactly what kind of prop designer would want to meet in such a place.
--<><>--
Grace Wilkerson
The chaos that had happened years before was all too apparent as Grace kicked her feet through the ash of what had once been one of the UK’s biggest shopping centres.
The inside of the centre was a dangerous walk. The roof had originally been made of glass with metal lines zig-zagging back and forth which held triangular pieces of glass in place. Most of the pieces had shattered and splintered to the floor but a few still lingered in place. It was clear one day they would fall like jagged shards of death. As Grace looked up at them she hoped today was not that day.
The floor was covered in ash, rubble and dirt that had blown its way in from outside. The walkways had become waterlogged from the rain and soaked up the dirt covering the floor turning it into mud which filled cracks in the floor to make an uneven and slippy surface. As Grace carefully traipsed through the mud she could see where it had been dislodged from those who had dared enter this building before.
Each shop had been looted, their surviving products long gone. This had once been a centre full of colour where big brands competed for attention. The fire had destroyed almost all of that vibrant branding and the centre was little more than browns, greys and blacks. Each shop looked almost identical and had returned to their original shells. They were now just burnt out husks of metal architecture, collapsed metal shutters and broken products.
Grace pushed a bike out of her way. It was nothing more than a twisted column of steel and it clattered as she threw it down. She constantly shifted her gaze around the centre as she walked a well memorised route. As she walked a path she knew well she heard the loud rumble of a store collapsing. The damage done to this building would never end and as one of the stores collapsed in on itself the sound of metal on metal shook her ear drums.
Rather than stopping to assess the damage she ran forward and away from the sound. As she saw the mangled face of a burnt out mannequin, she jumped backwards in horror. Its plastic
face had almost all melted away leaving his eyes and bright red lips hanging there in mid-air from three twisted coils. She always felt this mannequin was mocking her, especially today.
The grizzly sight of the mannequin was nothing to the horrors this place had held the first time Grace came here. Back then this place had been full of death. Charred remains were scattered across the floor and each face she saw had a look of horror. She could picture the chaos that had emerged that day and could see how they had tried to escape but it hadn’t been enough.
Their bodies were fresh back then; mere weeks after the centre had been burnt down. Yet the smell still lingered. The smell of rotting flesh and decay. It made her sick then and still made her gag every time she walked through this place. She could never forget what she had seen that day.
She had been only eighteen the first time she entered this horrible mausoleum, arriving on a whim thanks to a note from a man called ‘Gabe’. What she saw that day changed her life forever.
The dead bodies had since been removed and buried in a mass grave around the back of the building. The first time she met Gabe, Grace had demanded that they give the bodies a decent burial. He agreed and helped her to dig the grave and carry the bodies out one by one. Through his compassion he and Grace had grown close.
Grace didn’t know any of the survivors but her conscience couldn’t bear the thought of all those people spending eternity strewn across a burnt out building. As she walked down the corridors past a burnt out hut of teddy bears, she hoped those people now had some sort of peace.
At the end of the corridor Grace spied a grey panelled maintenance door located next to some toilets. She entered a code on a digital keypad and the door clicked open.
Walking through the door, she passed down several sets of stairs into a basement area. This section was made of pure concrete that had protected it from the fire. It was the only liveable part of the building and was now protected with a lot of security.
Reaching the bottom of the stairs she reached a fresh set of double doors and entered a different key code this time. This door was far more secure and made of reinforced steel. It had clearly not been part of the original design.