Utopia: A Dark Thriller: Complete Edition

by Adam Steel

  Max’s eyes snapped open. He snarled at the gibbering wreck in the corridor.

  The man shrank backwards from the furious gaze, muttering.

  Max straightened up, pushing the vivid images from his mind by sheer effort of will. He was in control again. But without his pickup it wouldn’t last.

  Max made his way to the front room where he came across three men, who were slouched on a tattered couch. They all looked like they were floating on dope. The table in front of them was littered with small red pills, along with a set of scales, and several crumples of paper. Max thought he recognised one of the men. His usual dealer was absent and in his place was a large Jamaican man. He had his shirt off revealing his muscular brown body. His eyes were glazed over. He was in his own paradise world. The others seemed nervous of him.

  The Apexir trade in Coney City was controlled by two brothers and the man slouched on the couch in front of Max was one of them. ‘Marko’, that was his name. Max had heard it mentioned a few times. He’d seen the man only once before, when he was picking up. He didn’t usually make a personal appearance. Marko was like him: hooked on the substance that he sold. The other older brother was a lot smarter.

  Marko looked Max over with a dazed expression. His head swayed slightly.

  ‘Whose dis mon?’ he whispered to the man sitting next to him.

  ‘Just a regular,’ the other man replied staring at Max, ‘I’ll deal with him.’

  Marko shot Max a wide grin as the other man got up slowly and unsteadily to attend to him.

  ‘The usual Benson?’ he drawled, and began measuring out the little red pills.

  ‘Yeah,’ Max replied.

  His eyes roamed hungrily over the heaps of Bleeders on the table in front of them. He wanted them to stop it, but they seemed to have a control all of their own. He hated having the liaisons. They were, however, a necessary evil.

  Marko leaned forward: fascinated by the steady drips of crimson that fell from Max’s palms.

  ‘Mi bredren, yu need wi help, yu a pain'’, he said, in a strong Jamaican accent. His voice was smooth, almost silky and hypnotic.

  Max struggled to understand him.

  Inside Marko’s mind there was peace. He saw a blue sky with tropical plants and palm trees which stirred in a lazy breeze. It was a vision of his home. Around the paradise a warm pink sea lapped at his feet while he lay in the sun.

  Max drifted hopelessly on Marko’s voice: seeing the peace behind his eyes and longing to be there.

  In Marko’s outstretched hand, a single red pill sat in his dark palm.

  An offering to the ‘Red Sea' of Max’s mind.

  Max hesitated, and then took the offering swallowing it down dry.

  Marko slouched back grinning insanely.

  The other man counted out the rest of Max’s pickup.

  Max closed his eyes and waited while the Apexir hit took hold.

  “Sandy screamed at him through the flames. The Red Sea around the oasis roared and churned violently. The waters began to rise swallowing up the small island. He heard a hideous sizzling noise as the water reached Sandy’s blackened legs. The ocean continued to rise up; swallowing her and Sophie beneath the waves. Clouds of steam rose up from the red waves as the flames were extinguished. Finally she was gone. Her piercing scream was silenced. The water settled, leaving only small ripples where the island had once been. The ocean became calm and turned a soft pink. A tender blue sky appeared above it. The sun was shining. A great fog rose from the pink waters to fill his mind. The pain ceased and all was calm again.”

  Max opened his eyes.

  One of Marko’s men stood in front of him holding out a crumpled piece of paper bulging with pills.

  ‘300 Credits,’ he said, cold and matter of fact.

  Max nodded, reached into his wallet, and began thumbing through the correct amounts of notes, when everything went to hell.

  The front door cracked and then bent inwards, exploding in a rain of splinters. A black battering-ram, appeared in-between the two halves. A surprised, stuttering cry, came from the corridor. It was followed by the sound of heavy boots that were now stampeding up the corridor.

  There was a loud “CRACK” of electricity.

  Max whipped around to see three, then four, men burst into the room. In his mental paradise they moved in slow motion. He could see them very clearly. They were wearing the steel-grey outfits of CURE officers. In their hands they brandished Taser weapons. The same type he had hung up only the day before.

  ‘FREEZE! Nobody moves! they yelled. ‘This is a bust! You’re all under arrest for the supply and trafficking of an illegal substance!’

  Marko didn’t hesitate. His dull eyes flared into life as he went for a bulky object at his waist.

  Max saw the nearest officer aim and squeeze the trigger on his Taser. He could see the wires begin to move from the end of the weapon.

  Apexir was an extremely efficient combat drug when the user was properly train to glide on its dizzying highs and it was almost an effortless task for Max to move away from the approaching wires. He ducked away from the extendable wires that leapt from the end of the nearest officer’s Taser. They hit Marko in the shoulder, emitting a shrieking, ‘buzzing’ noise. Marko screamed, juddering in place, and his hands flailed as the operator turned up the current flowing from the weapon.

  ‘NOBODY MOVE!’ shouted another of the CURE officers.

  The room froze.

  When Marko began to drool, the Taser operator released the charge and he slumped back onto the couch. A thin wisp of smoke rose from his oily dreadlocks. He was breathing, but seemed paralysed.

  Max knew the look. He’d seen enough shocked people down at the docking station when TALOS had had their fun with someone who’d stepped out of line.

  He (and the others) froze: locked by the menacing sights of the other officer’s Tasers that were now focused directly on them. He knew how much the weapons would hurt, and he didn’t want to mess with them, or the grim-faces behind them.

  A man emerged from the corridor. He wore an immaculately trimmed hat that marked him as a CURE Sergeant. His badge shone proudly from his shoulder. It still bore the classic eight pointed star of the old police services, although the crown had been replaced with a shining relief of the mason’s key.

  The man smiled at the shivering Marko on the couch.

  ‘Ah. Marko Marseilles. We’ve been looking for you for a long time,’ he said in a smug tone of voice.

  Marko mumbled something incomprehensible. His eyes were closed.

  ‘Didn’t see that one coming did you?’ the Sergeant snorted. ‘No one escapes the Black Fox.’

  Max understood.

  Black Fox provided the CURE authorities with its surveillance equipment. The cameras that scanned his workplace were the same technology. The flat had been under surveillance.

  He dimly recalled a grey van parked across the street. If only I hadn’t left it so long. Would have been more switched on to it.

  They had been watching him enter.

  Probably been watching for weeks – seeing Marko come and go, he thought. He was wishing that he’d been ten minutes later. Then he’d have been clear.

  He could see one of the surveillance officers in the doorway now. The logo of a ‘winking fox’ on his recording device seemed to ‘bark’ a laugh at him. He closed his eyes and breathed. Today really couldn’t get any worse.

  Max figured he had nothing to lose.

  ‘Guys, lay off, I’m also with CURE. I’m with Security Services at the Port’, he stated with as much authority as he could muster.

  The Sergeant strode across the room and fixed him with a steely glare.

  Max was sure the man could see the pink ocean behind his own eyes every bit as clearly as he had seen it in Marko’s.

  ‘You’re part of the Marseilles gang. You must be one of those greasing the wheels for them. Am I right?’ the Sergeant said flatly.

  Max started to protest
.

  He hadn’t been involved with the gang itself. He’d known of it of course. The Apexir didn’t appear from nowhere, but he’d never considered himself in league with the pushers.

  ‘No! I mean…No. Of course not. I’m just…Just...’ he struggled to find the words to describe himself. A junkie? A loser? A druggie? A Red-Head? his mind offered suggestions. He didn’t feel that he fitted any of them conclusively.

  The man at the entrance, with the Black Fox equipment, stepped forward and hit a button on the device he was carrying and Max’s voice came across in the room: crackling, but clear. It had recorded everything he’d been saying over his last few visits to the flat. They had weeks’ worth of transcripts. All they’d been waiting for was Marko to drop in and then they would catch the big fish.

  ‘Yeah,’ echoed around the room.

  Max hung his head, defeated. It was no use arguing. CURE had not become the most efficient criminal justice system in the world by listening to feeble excuses.

  The Sergeant glanced at the CURE tattoo on Max’s shoulder.

  ‘What you are son, is a sell-out. You’ve sold out your country. You’re no different from that wreck out in the corridor. You’re with CURE alright. You can consider yourself an honoured guest of CURE for quite some time to come,’ he said.

  Max hung his head as one of the officers moved to cuff him.

  ‘This isn’t my country. Not any more,’ Max said bitterly.

  His voice that was full of misery and despair as the cuffs clicked home.

  Chapter 8: Mr Li

  Ellie’s Apartment: Sector Three

  Saturday 2nd June

  Ellie was sitting alone at her breakfast bar sipping a glass of pure grape juice. A picture of a stunning garden adorned the side of the grape juice packaging.

  The label read: Water of Eden.

  The grapes were grown in Eden City in the north in giant domes. Bridget had never ceased to remind her that the foreign food products in Coney City were grown up there.

  Ellie was wearing only her underwear: a matching set of pink lace, bra and panties.

  She studied the pretty gold watch that her father had given her many years ago and smiled when she thought of him. The little gold hands pointed at the time. It was 7.30 a.m. She spoke to the watch in her mind as though it was her father’s face she was talking too. You wouldn’t believe where I’m going today! That’s right. I’m going to see it for myself. The F2-Genie Project. The power source of Utopia. They selected me. You know what that might mean? Only the most privileged of Utopians get to see what I’m about to see. Can you imagine that? They chose me. Your little Ell. I’ve finally made something of myself. What would you say to that?

  The delicate gold hands ticked over one minute and she could now see her reflection in the glass of its face. It was full of excitement. Tours for citizens that had made outstanding contributions like our fine Dr Rushford.

  She jumped down from the stool and headed for the bedroom.

  She slipped on her best executive-styled, black and white dress and finished her outfit off with a pair of heeled court shoes that emphasised her neat ankles.

  Ellie went into the large white bathroom and stared at her face in the mirror. She could feel a tiny twitch in her eyelid and wondered if anyone else could actually see it. For a few seconds she observed her eyelid carefully. No. Can’t see anything. Feels weird. Nerves. That’s all it is. Nerves.

  She peeled off a thin layer of skin on her finger and observed the angry red cut on her finger. ‘Tutting,’ she applied a new layer of Synth-Skin across the wound. It was indistinguishable from her natural skin. She admired her handiwork. The Synth-Skin covered the blemish nicely.

  Ellie stepped back and took a long look at her reflection and her thoughts turned to her parents again. I’ll make you proud of me. You wait and see if I don’t.

  She went into the living room and collected her Info Pad, checking for any last minute instructions that might have come from the office of Mason Henson. There were none. The meticulous documents she had received yesterday had outlined everything in precise detail.

  She gathered up the paperwork that had been sent, including the request letter. As she prepared to leave, she thought about the afternoon she had spent with Bridget and Irene. Her mind should have been on the forthcoming event, ‘The tour’, but she could not shake off the fallout from Irene’s latest ‘Off’ day. Irene’s latest, crazy scheme had left her questioning her own repressed longing to find Mr Right and have a child of her own. She felt mentally drained from the effort of trying to talk some sense into Irene the previous afternoon and was still in a state of bewilderment at Irene’s news that she was having a baby. Correction. ‘A super baby’.

  Ellie sighed. She had been so excited about going on the tour, but Irene’s latest episode was threatening to put a dampener on the day. She was finding it hard to shake of the feeling of impending doom when Irene’s latest scheme imploded with all the force of a black hole. She considered calling Irene (now that she was likely to be realising what a catastrophic idea her drinking and chain smoking had been) but she resisted the urge. She needed to focus on the task at hand. This wasn’t just any privileged tour of the mason’s facilities. This was to be a tour of the F2-Genie Project, the most prestigious and ‘hard-to-get’ tour. It was one of the ultimate accolades and also it was rumoured one of the many steps towards actually becoming a mason.

  She took a deep breath. Irene would have to wait for another day.

  A little voice niggled at Ellie’s sub-conscious. You know what you’re missing in your life? Love. Real love with the right man and you won’t get it unless you’re prepared to let him in. Your walls are higher than Arethusa’s and just as impenetrable.

  She headed for the door and on the way out she recalled what Irene had said to her just before they had parted.

  “Ell. You know what you need? A man. Hell, if anyone deserves a bit of happiness it’s you. Just think of it, with the right man you could be just as happy as me!”

  Ellie frowned.

  She was still thinking about Irene’s words when she left the apartment block and stepped out into the early morning light.

  It had been raining lightly earlier and the misty feel of the air felt refreshing. She took a deep breath in and looked up hopefully at the clearing blue sky. She put her hands in her coat pockets and started walking down Lime Street.

  A passer-by gave her an approving look and she smiled inwardly as she caught his look, whilst still portraying a cool exterior. Good, she thought. That’s right guys, check it out.

  Her outfit was flawless. Today could be the day. All Mr Right had to do was cross her path and abase himself at how purely gorgeous and available Dr Rushford ‘the citizen who had made an ‘outstanding contributions’ was’. Mr Right. She was convinced that he was ‘out there’ somewhere. Fleetingly, her mind flashed back to Arethusa and to her lover Corporal Richards. He could have been Mr Right if he had lived. Ellie dug her nails into her hand hard and forced herself to banish the despair at losing her lover and the awful way in which he had died.

  The area she lived in, Sector Three, was a luxury suburban mix of apartments, schools and parks. An electric car glided smoothly past her on the quiet street. Its tyres made a swishing noise on the wet road surface. Ellie could hear the voices of excited children heading out for the education centre and her mind tripped back to the day before and Irene’s disastrous news that she was having a baby. It was impossible for her to believe that Irene would actually make it as far as becoming a mother. It seemed so unfair. She even contemplated the way in which Irene had arranged her pregnancy and considered if it was the answer for her. The idea was dismissed as fast as it arrived. She wanted a child of her own, but it had to be with the right person. If he ever showed himself, that was.

  She hurried along to the station. It took her less than ten minutes to reach to monorail station in Sector Three. The train that would take her down to the south
coast was due in five minutes.

  Her instructions were to rendezvous with a shuttle bus at the Port of Utopiana. It would take them onwards to Genie. She figured that the other invitees might already be on the train when she boarded it. It ran from Sector Zero and would have gone through Sectors One and Two already. Begrudgingly, she realised the others probably lived in better sectors than her (except for Victor). He would be coming down from Eden City on the monorail, just like Bridget had done the day before.

  She recalled the details of the invitees that would be joining her on the tour.

  Mr Jon Li. Fin-Sen: Executive

  Professor Victor Archer. I.S.I.A.H. Chief Psychiatrist, Blair Ridge: Eden City

  Corporal Kristoff Ranger. TALOS. 14th Division

  She paused as she considered the names.

  Mr Jon Li. Executive.

  She had an image of him that was anything but pleasant: short, pasty, straight black hair, spotty, and if he was an executive, then she presumed he would be introverted and boring. Ellie dismissed the unattractive picture of Mr Li and turned to the next name on the list.

  Professor Victor Archer. She knew of Professor Archer. Bridget had told her about him last year when she had been appointed. She had told her that he was in charge of the new psychiatric facility at Blair Ridge. She also recalled that Bridget had described him in her own words as, “a nasty little creep that she would avoid like the plague” – in fact Bridget had quipped, “he probably invented the plague.”

  Ellie decided that if Bridget could say such bad things about him, then she would do well to steer clear of him.

  The monorail train was gliding into the station and slowing to a halt in front of her. Passengers got on and off as Ellie stepped up onto the train. She quickly found a seat near the window. The train was busy with workers who were heading for the Port of Utopiana.