The Gated Trilogy

by Matt Drabble

  Reluctantly, the driver pulled over and Avery quickly made her way down the aisle and then off the bus.

  The heavens started to open as soon as her heel struck the pavement. “Oh, come on!” she snapped, frustrated as the rain started to fall.

  She stood under the shelter of the bus stop, hoping that it was just a passing shower, but the rain grew in intensity and volume. She checked her phone app for directions and saw that she was only about half a mile away from the campaign headquarters. She was going to have to run to make her interview but god only knew what state she would be in when she turned up.

  “Do you need a lift?”

  She turned towards the voice and saw a smartly dressed attractive man leaning out of a car window. The car was sleek and expensive and the man was riding in the back.

  “Piss off,” she answered.

  “The rain really is starting to come down. You’ll catch your death of a cold in this weather.” The man beamed.

  “Look, sunshine, I’m no more about to get into a car with a stranger than I’m about to levitate. Why don’t you sod off and try offering sweeties to kids.”

  The man continued to smile as though her words had no effect which only infuriated her further.

  “Do I have to call the police?” she demanded, letting her fury at the shitty start to her day flow through her. “Or how about I just drag you out of that gas-guzzling monstrosity and kick your ass in front of all of these nice people?”

  A crowd had started to gather, faces eager for monotony to be momentarily put aside by the confrontation.

  “I was really only just offering a lift, Miss Grant. There’s really no need to be rude; after all, we’re going to the same place.”

  Her heart skipped a beat and suddenly she felt sick as for the first time she looked at the man properly. “Mr Tolanson,” she gasped.

  “One and the same.” He smiled kindly.

  “I’d vote for you,” a man called out from the back of the gathered crowd. “About time we had a decent bloke running the place.”

  “Bloody politicians, all the bloody same!” another man cried out to several agreeing murmurs.

  “What the hell does someone like you know about real life?” a woman yelled, and more heads nodded.

  “All just pigs with your noses stuck in the trough!” another woman shouted to several laughs.

  Avery watched on mortified as her potential employer climbed out of his car and addressed the crowd.

  “I beg to differ, folks,” Tolanson said directly to the agitated crowd. “Not all of us are the same. I do not come from the same lofty perches of wealth and power that so many of my opponents do. I’ve had to work for everything in life and I know what it’s like to suffer. I’ve worked real jobs with real pressure. I’ve spent many sleepless nights worrying about how I’m going to keep a roof over my head and food on the table. I know what it’s like to be willing to work and with no one to give you a chance to earn.”

  Avery could feel the crowd leaning in to listen further. She could see their faces open and listening, willing to be swayed as Tolanson spoke.

  “I’m not going to stand here and make you all a bunch of empty promises. I’m not going to tell you that if you vote for me then your lives will all miraculously get better. My opponents will. Oh yes, they’ll promise you the moon and piss in your pockets when you’re not looking because they don’t know what it’s like for people like us. But I can promise you that I will try. I can promise you that my vision for our country is a country for all of us, not just to protect those at the top.”

  The crowd gave a little cheer and Avery started to feel a little tingle. If truth be told, she’d been thinking of the job as a stepping stone. Take an independent candidate, run him well and move on up. The last thing that she’d expected was to find a cause, to find the real deal, to find a candidate.

  “Now if you’ll excuse me, like most of you I have to get back to work.” Tolanson smiled to the crowd as he started to climb back into the car.

  Avery stood rooted to the spot, wondering if she’d just blown her big chance, but Tolanson spoke from the darkness inside. “Are you coming?” he asked.

  She hesitated for just a moment. The car’s interior seemed impossibly black and a single stab of irrational fear made her breathing halt. But in the end she shook away the irrational thoughts and climbed inside. The door closed behind her.

  ----------

  “You sure about her?” McDere asked two weeks later as he looked out through the office window to the large space beyond.

  The campaign office was alive with hurrying workers . There were multiple desks all adorned with phones and the hive was buzzing.

  “She’ll do a good job,” Tolanson mused as he watched the young woman supervising.

  “That’s not quite the same thing,” McDere pressed.

  Tolanson looked up in surprise; his second-in-command would normally never ask the same question twice. The big man was a ball of tension and his broad shoulders were bunched under the expertly tailored suit.

  “Speak,” Tolanson ordered.

  “I don’t trust her… I don’t know why.”

  For McDere this was a speech comparable to the Gettysburg Address; language was not the man’s forte.

  Tolanson stared hard through the window at Avery. She came highly recommended and his extensive research into the woman had shown nothing to be fearful of. His ability to control those around him made it easy to shake a hand or work a room, but an election required contact with millions of strangers. His campaign needed an official manager to run things on a daily basis as his influence only stretched so far.

  “Let me see the file again,” he ordered, holding out his hand.

  McDere placed the thick folder in his grip and Tolanson started to flip through it.

  Avery’s credentials were impeccable. The only thing that seemed to be holding her back in the industry was seemingly the lack of a penis.

  She had gone about her work the hard way, trudging through a forest of smoky rooms and groping hands. Her qualifications put most of her peers to shame and her intellect even more so.

  Tolanson sat down in a plush office chair and closed his eyes. He made a steeple with his fingers as his forehead creased in deep concentration. His senses would never be as sharp again as they had been in the beginning.

  When he had been a child preacher, the world had been opened to him and laid bare. But the decades had passed and his mistakes had been bountiful. Now the hardest part was trying to hold on to his own ego.

  He had built Eden Gardens and his people had thrived while the world around them faltered. He had made blood sacrifices to the old gods and they had been generous with their rewards. But now his links had faded, faded to the point where he could barely feel them anymore.

  At the back of his dark mind, he wondered if they were even still here, if their silence indicated that they had turned to bitter dust and left him behind.

  Thoughts of rage started to creep into the corners of his mind and he had to fight hard to keep them at bay. Images fleeted across his mind of the revolt in his town: two interlopers whom he had brought into the community had turned on him and burned his kingdom to the ground. Faces danced tantalisingly out of reach, tormenting him with their vapour forms forever beyond his touch.

  He had suffered greatly and his shame had been almost as painful as his death. But he had served them for decades, blood had flowed like a river in tribute, and they had finally brought him back.

  His return should have been a glorious coronation but somehow the young teacher that he’d followed across the ocean almost ended him for good.

  The most dangerous factor had once again been his own hubris. But he had survived and he had endured and now he had far grander plans.

  Tolan Christian may be long gone but Christian Tolanson would soon stride the world like a colossus. He would make an offering so big that the gods would have no choice but to notice him again.
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  “Sir?” McDere prompted.

  “She’s everything that we want and need,” he finally said to McDere.

  The big man merely nodded and fell silent again.

  Tolanson looked out of the window and watched the busy worker bees as they scurried about their business. Politics was a messy business and one that suited him just fine.

  His ability to influence those around him was a good starting point but soon his reach would enable him to control a whole country’s fate.

  To the outside world he was a young fresh-faced optimist offering a new future to a crumbling world. The people wanted leadership, they wanted hope, they wanted something new and they had never seen anything like him before.

  CHAPTER 2

  A Brief Interlude Part 1

  25 YEARS AGO – DUNDERLINE UNIVERSITY

  The young man looked out over the packed audience. He could read the mood in the room like it was being beamed directly into his mind; it was one of many gifts that he held in his arsenal.

  He was in his mid twenties but looked considerably younger with light blonde hair and twinkling crystal blue eyes. His features were soft and a little feminine but his build, although fairly slight, exuded a quiet steely strength.

  “I don’t know about any of you,” he said as he leaned into the microphone perched atop the lectern, “but I’m growing sick and tired of being told that having high standards is somehow a bad thing. There is a creeping evil in this world, one that threatens our very way of life and the world around us.”

  He paused as the heads bobbed up and down in unison; student minds were always easy to lead. Brains freshly opened up to knowledge coupled with inexperience of life made for a potent cocktail.

  “And I can tell you one more thing for certain,” the young man continued, “I for one chose to take a stand against their invasions into our future. I will stand, not fall; I will rise, not slip; I will fight, not die, to save this country… your country… OUR COUNTRY!” He roared to a thunderous ovation in a perfectly clipped English accent that spoke of breeding and class.

  Dunderine University was the very pinnacle of higher education in the UK. The current ruling class sent their offspring here to become the next generation of leaders both in business and in politics.

  The building itself was a monument to the greatness of the colonial past when the country owned three-quarters of the globe. The decadence adorned every wall with antiques splashed across every room. It cost a fortune to attend but the money was largely irrelevant. It was breeding that mattered here and only the best was acceptable.

  The Great Hall was packed for the Student President debate. Attendance was mandatory and the young future of the country sat in pristine blazers and ties. Predominantly white faces that were clean-shaven looked up to the stage in rapt attention.

  There were two students running for election as Student President. William Forsyth had been the long-standing favourite - a young blonde man with movie star looks, athletic build and popularity.

  The election had been seen as a mere formality. The most popular young man in Dunderline University had thought that his campaign should have largely consisted of simply announcing his desire to win.

  The only trouble was that a second student had thrown his hat into the ring, coming from nowhere and suddenly grabbing the election by the throat.

  Christian Tolanson held his hands up to quiet the applause as Forsyth looked on still trying to comprehend just how his position as the school’s alpha had been usurped so quickly and seamlessly.

  “Now I know that political correctness will tell us that we are all equal…,” Tolanson went on, “…that we are all deserving and that we should all take an equal share. I know that the modern world wants to shun us, to tell us that our ideals are outdated, that we ourselves are a remnant of the past, one that deserves to be expunged from history. But I say no. I say that we are not the past, we are not outdated; we, my friends, we are the future and we are the key to returning our country to the very pinnacle of the world once again.”

  Again, the captivated audience responded with fierce applause.

  “I firmly believe that we are the chosen ones, my friends; we are the anointed, placed upon the higher shelf by God himself: an army of his soldiers to pick up his standard and carry his fight to the world beyond these walls. I give you my word, brothers - I promise you that I will be your general, your leader. I will be the first one over the trenches and all I ask is that you follow me to a brighter future.”

  William had known for some time now that the election was over but now Tolanson had rubberstamped his victory. He couldn’t help but wonder if the school was about to storm the stage and carry Tolanson aloft on their shoulders out of the hall, such was the bubbling fervour.

  The Forsyths lived by an unofficial family motto: whether you won or lost the race, you shook your opponent’s hand, until you picked your moment to stab him in the back.

  He crossed the stage and shook Tolanson’s hand as they both stepped out from behind the lecterns and waved to the cheering crowd. He shook the other young man’s hand warmly with a beaming smile.

  “Congratulations,” he whispered in Tolanson’s ear, keeping his tone friendly.

  “It was a close race,” Tolanson replied graciously.

  “No it wasn’t,” Forsyth said, still smiling widely as they both beamed at the audience.

  He backed away, leaving Tolanson basking in the crowd’s applause, throwing in a few claps of his own for good measure before slipping off stage and into the shadows.

  The university was set over four buildings, all forming a protective square. There was the main building, which housed the educational facilities, as well as two accommodation wings and an administration block.

  Forsyth moved swiftly through the cold and damp English night. The inner land was landscaped into immaculate lawns and gardens where the students would congregate during lazy summer afternoons and evenings. This time of year, however, the quad was deserted and his boots crunched across the gravel as he continued at pace through the common ground and towards the admin building.

  His mind was still reeling; not just from his rapid fall from the throne, but also with the nagging thought that wormed its way through his subconscious - that he actually wanted Tolanson to win.

  The outer doors were unlocked as Dunderline operated on an honour system; they were gentlemen, after all.

  He knew that his father would be furious at his defeat in the Student President election. The old man could not abide anything that sullied the Forsyth name. Frederick Forsyth would not be interested in the reason for failure, only the failure itself. Fortunately, he also didn’t care about playing fair.

  William checked the admin halls for any sign of life but the place was deserted.

  He still moved cautiously. Getting caught in here without a good reason could very well see him expelled. He resisted the urge to turn on a light to guide him for fear of it being seen from outside.

  The building was old and creaked in its sleep. William moved into the main office and slid in behind the secretary’s desk. Fortunately, the woman hadn’t turned off the system, only allowed it to hibernate. Her laziness was going to be his ticket.

  He fired up the computer and immediately started searching for any files pertaining to Christian Tolanson. There had to be something that he could use to regain his position atop the university’s food chain.

  Tolanson had seemingly appeared out of nowhere, and no matter who William had asked, no one had any information about the young man’s past. Worse still was that no one seemed to care. Tolanson had swept through the place, leaving behind a trail of automatic attraction that had charmed everyone from staff to students. Even William had to admit that the guy had a way about him, and if they weren’t in direct competition, he would have probably sought out the man’s friendship. But the rest of students didn’t have Frederick Forsyth for a father.

  Strangely, the computer offered
little in the way of background information. Dunderline was a very strictly run operation and their application process was notorious throughout the higher education world. It was impossible that Tolanson had just wandered in off the street - the young man had to have connections and wealth just to even apply.

  William pushed back from the desk, annoyed and disappointed. He had hoped to find answers and instead had only found more questions. Inspiration struck and he walked swiftly into the main office. The old fart who ran the place was called Sir Jeremiah Dunderline, another relic off the family tree from the family who had built the place. A Dunderline had always held office at the university and always would. Jeremiah’s mistrust of modern technology was legendary and the man must have hardcopy files somewhere. It was just a case of finding them.

  ----------

  Christian Tolanson made his way slowly out through the main hall. The crowd had been pumped and it had been hard for him to resist the urge to turn a Student President election speech into a sermon. It had been a while since he’d had the opportunity to preach and he missed the pulpit, but this was the wrong audience to hear God’s word.

  He shook hands and beamed at them with a broad smile that radiated warmth. His power was growing again but slowly. He was fortunate that these young men had yet to be tainted by the cynical world beyond these borders.

  The darkness started to close in around him and he knew that he needed privacy. He scanned the closing-in crowd and thankfully spotted McDere.

  He waved to the large shape and the boy came quickly, barging his way through the crowd, sending smaller students tumbling.

  Tolanson soon found himself being led with great urgency and force until they broke clear of the grasping hands all desperate for his touch. The cold air outside was blissfully bracing and he found his mind slowly calmed by the night air and the silence.

  “Dorm,” was all he needed to say to McDere and they were on their way.

  Tolanson was a little under six feet and McDere towered above him at six four. The bigger man held him effortlessly under one arm and practically carried him towards the dorms. McDere’s face was broad with what was often mistaken for an unintelligent gleam.