CHOSEN: A Paranormal, Sci-Fi, Dystopian Novel

by A. Bernette

  Soon after forming the World Consensus, people wanted more power, more identity. They wanted to be from somewhere and have associations with others that were tied to a place. The corporations and media played on this desire and soon, there was a campaign for the Homelands.

  At first it was fun and entertaining. The Homelands campaign was a way to have friendly competition in production of goods, services, academia, the arts, and athletics in order to support the World Consensus.

  Several years passed with the loose identification with Homelands. Once people became used to identifying with a Homeland, more structure was added to it and they became official areas governed by Region Leaders. The institution of the Regions strengthened the power of the World Consensus and made them a more formidable threat on a global scale.

  The homeless were called that because of their refusal to choose a homeland in a world that supposedly had no borders. It wasn’t what they’d fought so hard to accomplish. They were now much older but they still believed in one world and were against forced association with a Region and homeland.

  The final straw for the homeless was the requirement to register with a Homeland and have a second identification based on their registered homeland. The Regional Leaders had proposed to the United Congress that every citizen be legally required to identify with a Region in order to more accurately meet the needs of the citizens, both regionally and globally. Registration would allow them to collect accurate information on official citizen counts which was argued to aid in making sure each region was given their share of resources.

  The World Consensus no longer held the promise it once did and had again allowed for and even facilitated divisions based on regions and place of birth.

  The punishment for refusing to comply with registration was banishment from the region. No other region would accept the homeless as official citizens so they would truly be homeless and forced to live without any legal identity or resources.

  Prior to the attack, the government had already managed to greatly reduce the overhead for prisons and chose not to jail them due to costs. The homeless could not receive any benefits and were only permitted to work in jobs that no one else wanted. They were forced to pay a penalty tax for the burden they caused on society for refusing to comply and be accurately counted. They were also charged for a second type of uniform which identified them as being without a regional registration.

  And for greater insult and embarrassment the homeless were required to turn in their regular World Consensus government issued uniform. This clothing was phased out in favor of regionally specific uniforms. With the exception of those on government assignment, or attending approved private clothing functions and events, the regional uniform was required for all daily wear.

  Immediately following the attack, the United Congress hastily drafted a bill which was just as swiftly voted into law. It said that every person was required to register and every child was to be registered upon birth. After the fear instilled through the treatment of the first wave of homeless, very few people had chosen to resist the registry.

  The homeless were forced into hiding or to prove, many unsuccessfully, that they were not a part of the attack. Most wound up in the repurposed jails and prisons, now working the menial jobs for no pay. The government justified this forced labor by stating the attackers should be grateful that the death penalty had been abolished and that they were receiving room and board.

  They were stripped of all but basic human rights and had their World Consensus citizenship status reduced from basic to fringe. Not only did they take the adults who had pushed the homeless movement, they took any child sixteen or over as a para-adult and the rest were sent to the Agency for Orphaned Children.

  Children over ten were sent to a special program meant to remind them of their responsibilities and commitment to being a World and Regional citizen of the World Consensus. The younger children were eligible for immediate adoption to parents who were vetted to be strong and responsible citizens.

  It didn’t take long for those who chose to be homeless but had not been charged of any crimes to realize they were still being counted and still working in the system, without benefits. They could join a region if they chose but would have to pay an additional penalty tax for being reestablished as a full citizen and yet they could not receive benefits for the subsequent year. It was blackmail.

  In a matter of a few years all they’d worked for had been destroyed and returned it to what it had been, but only worse with all power aggregated. The corporations had bought the governments in all but name before anyone who was alive had even been born. They’d bought the healthcare system and controlled the jobs, food sources and food chain, media, and every essential good needed to live.

  The formation of the World Consensus simply gave them a more efficient way to leverage that power. Each Region Leader was also a high ranking official at one of the macro corporations that belonged to UniCorps.

  The homeless who escaped capture were now outlaws and harboring one would mean loss of full citizenship at a minimum and possibly land a citizen in prison with fringe status. The homeless who escaped or who chose to remain outside of the system, removed their internal registrations and now roamed the areas where no one wanted to live - the deserts, hills, and the old oil fields that were now dried up and abandoned.

  They set up camp where they could but most groups could never settle due to the ongoing searches by SEP Agents and the World Consensus. They were generally left alone as long as they stayed out of sight and out of the way, unless tensions flared or someone was needed to blame for a crisis, an attack, or even economic issues. Then the agents would begin hunting the homeless again.

  Those who had found the least desirable areas had the best chance of being left alone, but there were never any guarantees.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Edge

  Antarctic Research Center

  The energy on the ARC created a recognizable buzz in the air. Everyone was on edge and tempers flared with little to no cause.

  “Rupert, I need you to clean up the data and store everything new securely. No mistakes,” Zura barked orders.

  “Of course. I’ve got it under control,” he answered in as easy a voice as he could muster.

  “Johan, will we have everything ready to continue analysis from back home?” Zura turned her attention to Johan now.

  “Yes, of course. It’s the same process I’ve done every year, my love,” he smiled as he touched her shoulder gently.

  “Uh huh, and the latest data is loaded for today’s meeting already?” Zura asked absently as she decided to seek refuge in the ROC room.

  “Yes, honey,” he called after her as she walked away.

  The goal of everyone she came across was simple – keep her from having any other reason to reach her peak fury. Even Johan with his quiet patience and Mave couldn’t seem to bring her back to calm.

  The mounting tension was getting to them all. Mave followed Zura into the ROC room with a cup of coffee.

  “Coffee? It might help settle your nerves a little,” Mave offered.

  “Coffee isn’t going to do a damn thing for my nerves, Mave. The only thing that’s gonna help is if everyone here pulls their weight so this meeting goes like it’s supposed to,” Zura snapped as she looked up briefly from her work.

  She was revising her talking points for the meeting. Mave just looked at her with a raised eyebrow and sat it down beside her before walking back out of the room.

  “Whatever we do, we need to do it right today,” Johan said when Mave came back into the science center.

  “Yeah, we will already have the funders on us looking for any reason to discredit us. We don’t need Zura on us too, not if we can help it,” Rupert agreed with Johan.

  “She’ll be fine once we get started and she’s in performance mode. Plus, we’ll be there to back her,” Mave said with certainty. They’d been in difficult meetings before, but none as difficu
lt as the ones recently. She hoped she was right.

  “My friends, we need to head down to the ROC room. Let’s hope a few minutes to herself has helped,” Johan said hesitantly.

  Zura and her team now waited in the ROC room - ready. Zura had made them go over everything key to both the report and to the argument they planned to make again and again, ad nauseam. The notes that had been prepared now served only as a prop, no longer needed to state their case.

  Mave looked at Zura, trying to send her some calming thoughts but Zura wasn’t receiving anything. She was still on edge and needed to reserve every one of her emotions to get through this. She needed them to drive her past her nervousness and fear.

  Zura thought about the kids and the pangs of guilt she’d become too familiar with, returned. She hadn’t seen them today and didn’t know if she would. The kids would be okay, she told herself. They were almost para-adults after all. After today she could finally plan their sixteenth birthday party. Last minute planning, but there was nothing new there. At least Mave had promised to help her.

  The door from the lab opened, bringing Zura back from her thirty seconds away from the thoughts of the meeting that had consumed her entire being. It was one of the kitchen staff coming through the door rolling a double stacked cart filled with food. Johan directed him to set up the table on the side where coffee and juices were already waiting.

  Zura stood up after the young man setting up the food left the room. She studied the layout, satisfied at her choices. Perhaps another cup of coffee, another one, would help settle her nerves or at least give her some momentary comfort. She grabbed her mug from her seat and poured herself a tall cup of coffee, rich with fragrance.

  She looked at Mave and felt guilty for snapping about the coffee earlier, but now wasn’t the time for apologies. She added cream and two cubes of sugar, stirring it slowly as she watched the crystals dissolve in the coffee that had turned a lighter shade of brown.

  Mave took the pitcher of coffee and poured herself a cup of coffee, black, one scoop of sugar, before passing it to Rupert. Johan passed, one cup was good enough. He’d be jittery if he had another.

  “I believe we are as ready as we’ll be,” Zura finally spoke to her team.

  “Agreed,” Johan said tapping his fingers on the tablet in front of him.

  “What will be will be. We can only present what we know and try to convince them to do the right thing,” Rupert said. He ran a hand over his hair before pulling it back into a low ponytail. “Johan, will you propose revisiting your solution again today?” he asked curiously.

  “I’ll have to see how the rest goes. If I think there is a window for it, I will. If they balk at the rest of this, well, I’ll save it for another day. Don’t worry though, at some point, we’ll have to look at real options to solve the problem.” Johan looked at his beautiful wife Zura and smiled. He thought he almost saw a small smile cross her face, but he wasn’t sure. She was still only partially with them.

  A sense of foreboding quiet permeated the remainder of the ARC. The core team was in the ROC room, waiting because after months of preparation, they’d gotten down to the meeting day. The prior weeks had been unusually intense and stressful and finally culminated in today. It was their one chance to impress upon their funders the importance of taking action immediately.

  The representatives from UniCorps and the World Consensus would be arriving any moment. There were more people than usual this year because of what was in the report.

  ***

  MOST OF THE other staff were preparing as well, in different ways, trying to get their work done so they could leave for home and the winter season. The family unit belonging to Zura and Johan was no different.

  The light bounced off the walls in the living room and tried to find its way down the halls, but was blocked by the angles. There would be no one in there until hours from now. Everyone else’s preparations to leave meant the twins finally had some space and time to do what they’d wanted to do for days.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Explorers

  Antarctic Research Center

  Stephen and Stella took advantage of the distractions to finally investigate some of the information, mostly blueprints, Marco sent them from the Noah folder. He and Alexis were able to open a few files which he sent in chunks – just bits and pieces of a larger puzzle.

  Most of what they’d been able to open included the layout and design of the ARC. Having those files opened meant that they could feed their curiosity and explore. Stephen synced all the data he had from Marco to his tablet as he and Stella set out again.

  Today was day two of Stephen and Stella’s exploring the ARC using the blueprints. The first day hadn’t shown them anything new or exciting. The level one details were mostly the areas Stephen and Stella had lived with and in since they could remember. It also had the special safe room their parents had shown them a few years before.

  The fact that food and supplies were stored in those first areas made sense given the ARC’s remote location. If for any reason no one could get to them, at least they wouldn’t starve. None of this was new and it felt like a wasted day, except for the nature of the requirements to access the blueprints.

  Today they were going to the next layer of the blueprints. The blueprint program required that certain locations be accessed in the building before being allowed to continue. It was like an additional level of security so that someone following it couldn’t just go for the food or supplies or whatever else the mammoth ARC held.

  Stella sent Zura a quick note saying they were fine and would stay out of the way since they had all the meetings.

  Zura quickly shot a message back. “OK. Thanks.” Stella knew her mom was under more stress than usual. She continually heard her thinking how happy she’d be when it was all over and they were packing up and getting on that transport carrier back home. Of all the years they’d spent here, this had been the hardest for her mom’s team.

  Stephen and Stella got their ARC issued emergency light caps and flashlights and headed through the living areas of their family unit to the main area of their honeycomb. The green light flashed on the blueprint as they walked. They’d covered a good part of the honeycomb structures and had skipped the science center section, for the most part.

  Just the day before, as they started exploring, Stephen tucked the tablet in his pocket and walked in during the morning’s activities to say hi and let it register that he’d met that location requirement. They would go the other way today. The ARC was much larger than either of them had imagined and the blueprint showed at least three levels just like they thought they saw before.

  The three levels seemed to nearly mirror each other in size, but the sections varied with the second level having large sections that Stephen reasoned must be the warehouse and storage areas. Only exploration would tell.

  “Here we go,” said Stella as they went through a door leading, eventually to the warehouse area. She laughed nervously, “We would get in so much trouble if our parents found out what we were doing.” She thought of how gutsy Alexis had been back at camp. She wished she had half of that courage.

  The twins walked more than a hundred yards through a winding dark hallway too narrow to move shoulder to shoulder. Stephen took the lead. The only guidance they had was the blueprint, which they followed as they wove beyond their normal allowable range.

  The only sounds were the faint humming of a motor or engine running and the occasional sound of gurgling water. The air felt strangely dry though the temperature seemed to be extremely well controlled. The temperature reading on Stephen’s watch hadn’t changed since leaving the main level. Good insulation, thought Stephen.

  They continued walking slowly, allowing the light from their hats to go ahead of them. A few more turns and they finally made it to a door on the blueprint that simply read WS1. To the right of the door was a scanner. The door would require official identification to be opened.

  Step
hen held his hand up and Stella knocked it back down. “Are you crazy?” she said furiously. “If you scan yourself it’s going to be recorded that you scanned in here. We’ll have to try to get in another way, if we have time.”

  They continued down the hall passing more doors marked with WS and then numbers.

  “I would say that WS is for warehouse storage?” Stephen reasoned.

  “Makes sense to me. There are a lot of them. At least we won’t go hungry,” Stella shrugged. Of course, the idea of stored food wasn’t really appealing. “Probably dehydrated everything. Yuck.”

  As they left the honeycomb section marked by WS doors they headed down a short hallway and entered into another section. This one had doors marked with an S and a number only.

  “I wonder what these are?” Stephen wondered aloud to Stella.

  “Maybe more storage?” Stella wasn’t seeing anything exciting and boredom was beginning to creep in. “So we are just walking around storage and more storage. Maybe this is like a special storage center in case there is a major food crisis. They figure it won’t get damaged down here in no man’s land. Do you want to look at anything else? Something that’s maybe actually interesting?” Stella said turning to Stephen with a look of boredom.

  “Yes, we don’t have much time before we go home and I know there is something here. Otherwise, why would anyone keep it all under such high security?” Stephen answered unwilling to stop.

  The faint lighting cast shadows from their bodies along the ground as they walked. Her eyes followed the shadows for a moment, as she let herself get distracted by the distortion of their appearance from the overhead light. Their elongated legs and short torsos put her in mind of something alien. Then she thought of what Canson Pritchard had said about their being made. She didn’t want to think about that now. Hopefully, they could ask Mave about that strange conversation soon and get answers.