Utopia: A Dark Thriller: Complete Edition

by Adam Steel

  He groaned as he remembered the incredible sex that he had had with Royale the night before. She had been insatiable. His penis was sore from her demands and he wondered how he would explain that to Ellie. Then he remembered, that the reason it had happened in the first place, was because Ellie had been so distant and frigid. He tried to reason that it was partly her fault. He knew that he was lying to himself. He argued with himself that any man would have done the same.

  It had been impossible for him to resist Royale’s demands. Her proposition had been, essentially, a promotion and a marriage proposal thrown into one. It had overwhelmed him. He couldn’t remember the whole encounter clearly. It was as though a fog had descended across his memories and lifted only in her presence.

  Mason – controller of people.

  Ellie will be realistic! he theorised.

  A Mason-ship is something that can’t be turned down, he told himself.

  She will understand that. Surely?

  He shook his head. What am I saying? He was thinking that Ellie might understand that he would have had to accept the glorious promotion, but he knew secretly that she would certainly not accept how he had gotten it. He did not know anymore. Everything had become so confusing. Ellie seemed so far away. It all felt very unreal to him.

  He got up and wandered around Royale’s extensive suite looking for his clothes. He could see the whole of Coney City through the walls of glass. The green lights shone out from mosaic of tiles down on the plaza of Diamond Square and lit up the night sky. Phoenix Palace looked like a fairy tale castle with its lights illuminating the whole of the front façade. He felt a pang of guilt when he thought of the Masquerade Ball, and Ellie.

  When he found the sunken bath it looked very different. It had not been an illusion. It had been very real. He remembered that part very clearly and it frightened him. Pieces of Synth-Skin floated on the top like a dead raft of seaweed. All the colour and smell had gone from the water. It was cold and lifeless without her.

  He scooped up his clothes from where he had abandoned them with such haste the night before and got dressed as fast as he could. Royale was nowhere to be found in the suite and he guessed that she must be in her Masonic Offices. He told himself that had to get out of there before she came back. He traced his steps back to the large arched doors. When he walked back out they slammed shut. The huge metal outer doors slid open and shut as he passed through them. They reminded him of a guillotine.

  He descended from the roof as quickly as he could manage. He was already late back to see Ellie. He knew that she would have expected him to have returned from the Eden conference hours ago.

  She’s probably working late anyway, he thought sourly. After all, she’s avoiding me. He thought about checking his Lecturon for messages, when he realised that he had left it in back in Royale’s penthouse. He convinced himself that there was no way that he was going to go back to retrieve it.

  He slipped through the Masonic Offices like a ghost. He did not look to see if Royale was in her suite. He worried that Katcher might be there. He couldn’t face him. What was it Royale had said?

  “Leave it to me, all you have to do is say yes.”

  He shuddered when he recalled her words. After experiencing Royale up close, he believed that there was nothing that she couldn’t do and that he was next on her list.

  He made his way down to his own office, on the same route that he had taken with Angela only a day before. He walked, in a daze, through Fin-Sen. Its stunning architecture lay unobserved by him. The glass elevator descended silently down towards the lobby: passing the floors, one by one, until it reached ground level. The elevator doors parted into the main lobby and he stepped out. He was glad to be getting out of Fin-Sen. His head hurt and he longed for the fresh air, away from the mental musk of Royale, even if it was only for a short time. He crossed the lobby, where the holographic portraits of the masons were hanging. They shimmered on the walls. Out of the corner of his eye, he could have sworn that he saw Royale’s image wink at him. He turned sharply on it, stopped and stared. It looked ahead impassively.

  As he turned to leave, he found himself looking up at the image of Mason Katcher. It glared down at him – the eyes seeming to follow his movements. He rubbed his tired eyes. It was all getting to him. I’m hallucinating. I must be…its madness, he thought.

  He looked again. The image still looked angry.

  “I’ll get you Li!” Katcher’s eyes seemed to be saying.

  What was it she said? Katcher not up to the mark anymore. He’s in an unfortunate position. What did she mean? Unfortunate? Time he retired. Leave it to me, she said. Could she really do that? To another Mason! She could do anything, he thought.

  His nerve broke and he fled from the building with Mason Katcher’s holographic eyes watching him from behind. He blinked the tears from his eyes, as he made the short walk, back to his penthouse. The lights of Coney City glittered all around him.

  All this could be mine, he thought. I could join the circle and make everything right.

  He slipped passed Mr Baginski (who was sound asleep at the lobby desk). Normally, the lack of attention the man was giving to his job would have annoyed him, but not tonight. Tonight he did not care. He was thinking about Ellie, and running scenarios of what he was going to say. They all seemed wrong. There was nothing to say.

  The lift stopped at the top floor and he walked out to his penthouse apartment. Something’s different! He could feel his heart getting faster and the hairs on the back of his neck were tingling. It was deathly quiet on the landing. He remembered Katcher’s look at the board-room and the imagined words from Katcher’s hologram echoed in his mind.

  “I’ll get you Li.”

  He shuddered as a cold, creeping feeling, went through his body. His penthouse door seemed to look different to him. He squinted at it. He imagined that the oriental, floral pattern seemed to twist and change into a laughing face. The vines forming a beckoning finger which were curling at him.

  “Come on in….Come on home Jon, take a load off. Lie down. Time to die,” it seemed to mock.

  The idea that Katcher had planned a nasty surprise for him flashed across his mind. He stood by the door trying to decide whether or not to put the key in the lock. He weighed up his options. The key shone in his hand and for a fleeting moment the brass metal changed to platinum in his mind’s eye. Then the illusion was gone. He shrugged off the idea of imaginary hit men sent by Mason Katcher. It did not matter to him. He had to see Ellie. He needed to see her again. His feelings of guilt and longing, twisted together inside him, crushing his heart.

  He unlocked, and pushed the door gently. It swung open. The automatic light was out. It was black inside, except for a little light coming in from the lounge window. He wondered if Ellie was asleep because it was so late. He had been unable to contact her through his Lecturon and now the device was stranded in Royale’s lair. He hoped that its messaging system was still not working.

  Royale might send one to Ellie, she might…He frowned. Ellie hadn’t messaged him either. She hadn’t left any messages at his hotel room in Sky-Scraper One.

  Nothing, he thought.

  His sudden flush of anger was replaced with a slow, creeping doubt, that perhaps something sinister had happened to her. He thought of Irene and it worried him even more. Royale did not like competition, and he knew it.

  He stepped cautiously into the room. A strange smell greeted him. The scent of Japanese incense was missing. It had been replaced with a faint, sweaty, rusty odour and something else that he couldn’t quite pin down: something a lot like motor oil. His hand started to go for the light switch.

  ‘Ellie?’ he called out nervously.

  A metal cylinder appeared from the darkness to his left and nuzzled into his head. A loud ‘click’ of a gun cocking, broke the silence. The oily smell got stronger.

  ‘Don’t move,’ a voice said from the darkness.

  Jon Li froze rigid.

&nb
sp; The door closed behind him; pushed by an unseen force. He chanced a look downwards and caught sight of a pair of TALOS boots standing off to his left. He could see them by the light, which was coming from the crack under the door. He immediately felt a surge of adrenaline. His worst fears were being realised.

  It’s a hit, he thought. Mason Katcher’s doing.

  He slowly raised his hands in surrender and a tap from the rifle barrel indicated to him to move forward. He shuffled into the middle of the room. He could hear the shadow breathing as it ushered him forwards away from the door. The rifle barrel was centred on the back of his head. He slammed his eyes shut. His heart was a thudding drum in his chest.

  ‘Who are you?’ the shadow said firmly.

  He opened one eye, and squinted. The shadow butted the barrel into his head sharply.

  ‘Speak! - Who are you?’ it demanded.

  ‘Mr Li. My name’s Jon Li. I live here. Don’t shoot. Please!’ he begged, holding his hands above his head.

  The shadow gave a short snort and relaxed the rifle a little. The lights came on in a blazing flash, and he was startled. His eyes adjusted gradually and took in the changes. He looked around the living room of his penthouse and noticed that there was a pile of blood-soaked bandages on one of the tables and the white sofa had a dark stain across it. A small bottle of rubbing alcohol and a pile of stained cotton wool buds adorned the surface of his coffee table. Nestled in the middle of a pile of blood-stained, wadded tissue was a crushed, metallic object. It was a bullet. Alongside it, were two pistols. One of the barrels was covered in powder. He understood that it meant that it had been fired recently. Terror ran through him and an image of Ellie raced through his mind. Ellie, lying on their bed, with her brains splattered across the wall and her dead eyes staring accusingly at him.

  His tortured mind constructed her accusing words.

  “Your fault, Jon. You had to be so good at your job. Look what you’ve done to me! Look what you’ve done to us! You were with HER while I was here being murdered! It’s all your fault!”

  He managed a glance back to the figure behind him. The large man glared back – the rifle still focused on him. He wore part of a TALOS uniform and he was heavily bandaged on one arm. He was looking straight at him. Jon Li’s mind went into total confusion. He was thinking that this was it for him. Katcher’s revenge. He could see that the man’s expression was really grim and that he looked like he hadn’t rested, or shaved, in several days. He noted that he looked rough, dangerous and intent on killing someone. He could see the man’s finger flex on the trigger: see the wheels turning in the troubled man’s mind. The finger relaxed slightly.

  ‘Get in here,’ the man shouted towards the bedroom.

  He was still pointing the gun at Jon Li. The bedroom door slid open, very slightly, and two small figures emerged from the darkness. He recognised Ellie instantly, but he did not recognise the other young woman with her.

  ‘It’s okay. It’s Jon. Put that thing down before you shoot someone,’ Ellie said uneasily.

  The man, partly dressed in the TALOS uniform, lowered the rifle slowly to his side, without releasing his grip on the trigger.

  ‘I’m sorry, Jon. We thought you were them,’ Ellie said, rushing towards him.

  He lowered his hands in disbelief and she embraced him tightly. The feel of her arms around him felt different. He went rigid. The difference between her and Royale was vast. Royale’s embrace had been hypnotic. It had felt to him like being in the coils of a lithe snake. There was a moment of silence, as he began to recover from the shock. He briefly glanced back at the man standing behind him and then turned on Ellie, pushing her off.

  ‘What the fuck is going on Ellie? You scared the fuckin' crap out of me. What’s he doing here?…with a fuckin' gun…for Christ’s sake! Who the fuck are you people?’ he demanded, in a release of nervous energy.

  The stream of obscenities sounded awkward coming from a man who never used them. Ellie looked shocked. She started to interrupt, but he cut her off and continued.

  ‘What are you doing here? Did Katcher send you? Who the fuck are these two? What the fuck…’

  The sound of the rifle being cocked silenced him.

  ‘Try shutting the fuck up for a minute, Mr Li,’ the man with the gun said.

  ‘That’s enough,’ cut in Ellie.

  She approached Jon Li again. He was glaring furiously at the man behind him.

  ‘It’s okay Jon,’ she soothed. ‘This is Max…and this is Aya - his partner. They need to talk to you. We have something very important to tell you. I think you should sit down,’ Ellie replied.

  Her voice was solemn, yet calm and he thought about speaking, but there was nothing left to say to dampen the insane situation that he now found himself in. He slumped his shoulders in defeat.

  Ellie led him to the dining table, where he sat down in front of Max and Aya. Jon Li sat in silence as Ellie began to explain what had happened at the hospital. He never said a word about Royale’s proposition, or what had happened between them. They took it in turns, laying it all down. They told him what was really going on in Utopia. About how Irene and Audrey had been murdered, and the scene had been covered up. About ISIAH, and the clients that had disappeared, or been allowed to die. About Vigilance, the jailbreak and the strange things that were really going on the prison system. About the fictional Slash-Knife Killer story that had been used to cover up the killings. About how Aarif had murdered Cherry Hammond, and had ordered Ajit to kill Aya, and how Aya had accidentally killed Ajit. About how TALOS were hunting them down to silence them and how they had been forced to fight for their lives in order to escape. Aya had explained as best as she could have about the things that she had seen on the strange Info Pad device. How all the threads led back to the masons who were orchestrating everything. Ellie thought that Jon Li had taken it all pretty well, considering what they had told him. He had remained silent throughout: quietly digesting the information.

  When they had finished, he had turned to Ellie and said, ‘and…just how did you come to meet these two?’ he quizzed.

  Ellie shifted uncomfortably. She began to recount what had happened at Plastic Paradise and how she had smuggled Aya and the wounded Max back to the penthouse, and treated him. She described how she had removed the bullet and stabilised him with heavy courses of designer antibiotics and plasma.

  ‘So let me get this straight,’ he started, after she had finished. ‘These two killed a TALOS guard, stole his uniform and weapons and then they ‘accidentally’ kill another man. Then, they break into your hospital. She sticks a gun in your face and you bring them home, patch them up and offer them some tea. Have I got that right, or am I missing something?!’

  Ellie shook her head.

  ‘Jon you just don’t get it. I’ve been terrified ever since Irene died. Don’t you understand? She found out something she shouldn’t have, and they killed her for it. They are behind everything and these two know exactly what I’m talking about!’ she said, looking towards Max and Aya.

  ‘They’re going to kill them too.’

  ‘It makes perfect sense,’ she continued. ‘There’s something terribly wrong with Utopia. There are people disappearing everywhere, all the time, and most people just can’t see it. It’s happening right under our noses. I helped them because I believed them.’

  Max nodded and said. ‘You got that right. Once you start questioning it, you see it everywhere, simple stuff that you never noticed before. I used to work in The Docking Station, and there were odd things going on all the time. You just never questioned it,’ he shrugged, as he recollected. ‘Guess that’s why they used us ex-soldiers to work there. Never ask questions….just follow orders.’

  Jon Li shook his head sadly.

  ‘Ellie, Ellie...I don’t know what you’ve fallen into here, but I do know you need help.’

  Ellie slammed her hands down angrily on the table.

  ‘NO! Dammit Jon! You’re as blind as th
e rest of them. You’ve been so brainwashed by all the propaganda about how great Utopia is, that you can’t see what’s right under your nose! Don’t you see it? All these things we told you about, they’re all connected! Weren’t you listening to a thing?’

  ‘Too true it is,’ cut in Max, as he comforted Aya. ‘This ‘perfect society’ we have here, is full of people that just vanish into thin air. They are creating all these stories, and excuses, to cover it up. If you can’t see that?’ he paused, ‘then we can’t trust you.’

  Jon Li shot Max an angry glare.

  ‘Okay master-mind. Let’s say it’s all true. Let’s say the Masons do order people removed and disappeared, and then cover it up. WHY? You haven’t explained that one. Why would they? What possible use would they have for removing thousands of people?’

  Max and Ellie looked at each other helplessly.

  Jon Li snorted. ‘Exactly.’

  Max shook his head. He was losing patience.

  ‘This is our lives were talking about here, and not just us, but everyone’s!’

  Ellie joined him, ‘Jon...Please…You know that something’s deeply wrong with the system. Think!…think Jon. I wouldn’t lie to you. This is really happening!’ she pleaded.

  He looked hard at her face, and he could see that she firmly believed it. He could read the fear in her eyes, as clear as day. He resigned the pointless argument, and got up to go.

  ‘I don’t think you’re lying, Ellie, but I do think you need some serious help. You can’t get over the fact that Irene is dead and this…fantasy…it isn’t helping. I’ll get to the bottom of all this nonsense and then you can get rid of this pair and we can go back to having a normal life again without all of this conspiracy nonsense.’

  Ellie shot to her feet to stop him.

  ‘Jon! You can’t! Stay with us. It’s not safe!’