2035 Revelation

by Freddy Campbell

  “The world is deeply divided,” said the South African, “and I don’t see how that will change. Even a country like South Africa is divided. Because of apartheid, we will have a reaction of violence, sooner or later. The oppressed will rise up. How can the government be so stupid? Most of the leaders of the world don’t know their ass from a hole in the ground!”

  There was a pause while they pondered.

  A waiter came over to their table.

  “Shall I pour some brandy, Your Grace?” he asked.

  The Englishman nodded and thanked him.

  They stared into their glasses. The brandy glowed in the candlelight.

  “I say, chaps, perhaps we should form a group,” said the Englishman.

  “A group with a very specific aim,” said the Indian.

  “The aim will be to unify different races and nations,” said the South African.

  “To end warfare,” said the American.

  “To save the planet from irresponsible human exploitation,” said the Indian.

  “To bring order to the utter chaos,” said the Englishman.

  There was another pause as they looked at each other.

  “We will need to recruit new people very carefully,” said the Indian.

  “Yeah,” said the American, “this might actually be the beginning of something.”

  “Let’s meet here in twelve months time,” said the Englishman, “when we have all finished university and we have had time to think upon it. If we decide to take it forward, we will have had time to consider how to proceed.”

  He stood and held out his glass of brandy.

  The others followed suit.

  “To the future of this world,” said the Indian.

  “To the future of our world,” said the Englishman.

  “While the rest of the world is planning the year ahead,” said the South African, “we will plan the future.”

  * * * * * *

  13th April 2035

  DAY 2

  G1L3E290718RN052CBS4UBWM4C half opened his eyes, only for a moment.

  Morning light leaked into the dormitory from the shaded windows, yet the young men around him were still asleep.

  Could he have a name, he wondered. Mark.

  Since he was a baby, he had only had a number.

  He searched his memories to the time when he was a child at the Nursery. One of his earliest memories was waking up with the nurse’s smiling face looking down at him. He must have been nearly four yours old. Those were sunny days. He and the other boys had laughed and played together.

  When he was five, he was transferred to the school complex and the training had begun. There had been no laughter and no play. He was part of a unit of one hundred boys from that time on. They never saw the nurses again. The Supervisors instructed them in all their activities. They learnt English, Maths, IT and Science. They had daily fitness training. There was no team sport or anything competitive. In later years, there were additional courses in practical work like catering, laundry, cleaning, construction, gardening, woodwork, metalwork, textile work, industrial work and mechanics. Everything they did at school was preparation for their adult life as Workers. They were taught to suppress any independent thinking. There were no individual or competitive activities: no art or creativity, no learning music, except the Anthem of the New Order.

  Every hour of every day was regimented. The Supervisors explained that they were learning to work for the Common Good, for the purpose of Unity, for 100 per cent Carbon Neutrality, and for the harmony of the world. All religion had been purged in the War of Unification. They were taught about the excesses of the old era, and how the planet had been on the verge of irreversible damage and catastrophe. They were shown how many of the natural habitats in the world had recovered. They were taught that the purpose of their young lives was to serve and obey the Executive. They learnt that the Executive were the enlightened leaders of Global Unification.

  They learnt placid acceptance of their roles. Whatever they were instructed to do, they should do without questioning. Questions were against the Golden Rule of serving the Common Good. Through learning acceptance of the New Order, they were steered away from independent thought. If a child asked a question, they would ask the group if the question was for the Common Good and if it accepted the New Order. What was enforced was that the individual should be the servant of the group. Their identity was the unit, and the unit was part of the whole number of units of Workers: a vast army. If they refused to participate, they were removed. They were not told what happened to anyone who was removed.

  From the age of eleven, they learnt how to observe other units of children in other zones. Giving an alert tag on another child was keeping the Golden Rule. They were taught that flagging up a child meant that he could be helped by his teachers. The child could receive more schooling in the ways of the New Order and be prepared so that they would be able to contribute as an adult.

  There were no religious festivals. At the onset of the New Order, Christmas had been eradicated along with all other events in the calendar that had any history or any association with a religion. His generation of Level Three Workers had never known any of these. The year was marked by the changing of the seasons in the city. There was a week every year to mark the time when the New Order was launched. The calendar was counted from the start of the New Order.

  The notes for Rise sounded and the room came alive. Mark followed the routine. He dressed and went to breakfast. When he went to place his hand over the scanner screen, the voice spoke his identity number and said,

  “Today you will work in Observation Room 412 until lunch, then you will work in Loading Bay 048 until dinner.”

  * * * * * *

  In the heart of London, the immaculate figure of President Hussain was taking his seat on the throne on the raised area in the Operations Room in the glazed courtyard of Buckingham Palace. He gestured for the staff to sit.

  “What have you got?”

  He addressed the elegant woman sitting at the desk to his right. His manner was as someone who expects his every command to be obeyed instantly.

  “Good morning President, we have identified and located the Level Three Potential Rebel, code Charlie Thirty-Five Sixty-Four, in Sector Four in New Birmingham. May we proceed with the interception?”

  The President looked at some of the screens showing the target. There was a call sound on another screen next to the president - a girl’s face came up.

  President Hussain raised a finger and touched the glass on his desk.

  “Hello my Poppet, hold on a moment for grandpa.”

  He touched the screen again.

  “Take him down now,” he said to the woman, “then extract information.”

  He moved his attention back to the girl, his hand touching the glass again.

  “What are you up today, my Pudding?”

  “We’re going on a trip to visit Hadrian’s Wall today!” replied the girl.

  * * * * * *

  In Sector Four in New Birmingham, Mark was taking the same route as the day before. He passed Workers walking to their different sections.

  Suddenly he noticed there was a man in Level Three Worker clothes running flat out towards him.

  The man was within ten metres of him when two figures in black dived at the runner and all three skidded across the floor to Mark’s left.

  The three figures convulsed on the ground as the two men in black struggled to restrain the runner. The runner was trying to shout something but one man in black punched him in the face. Then the man was kneeling on the runner’s chest and holding him down. The other man in black taped his mouth and jammed a needle in the runner’s neck, squeezing the syringe, and then he thrust a black hood over his head. The Worker was dragged away, hands taped and body limp.

  The passing Workers seemed to barely notice.

  Mark continued to Room 412.

  The Supervisors surrounded him.

  “Have you
anything to report?” asked the senior one, a finger raised.

  Mark shook his head.

  The Supervisor pointed to a desk and their eyes all followed his movement across the room.

  Mark worked on observation as before, but today his mind was active, wondering why the man had been intercepted and what had happened to him.

  * * * * * *

  At the remains of a Roman fort on Hadrian’s Wall in Northern England, a drone transporter touched down and a group of sixteen school children and two teachers spilled out. They explored the ruins of the ancient walls.

  A teacher called the children together and asked one of them to touch a button on a screen she was holding. A three dimensional hologram sprung up over the walls to show the extent of the original fort. The children murmured their approval. Voices explained the purpose of the wall, how the Romans had used the site and how the fort had linked with others along the line of fortification. The teacher sent the children to wander through the rooms.

  While this was happening, a sniper, camouflaged to blend with the hillside, was training his weapon on the group. He followed one little girl in his sights. The display identified her as the target. He zoomed in on her head as she stood, looking at a display. He pulled the trigger. A ball of granite, the size of a grape, shot out at high velocity and struck the girl on her forehead. She fell to the floor, her body motionless. Two classmates went over to her. One screamed. The two teachers ran over to the girl’s body. One teacher knelt, pulled on gloves from a medical bag and checked her pulse.

  “I’ll call the emergency services. You get the children away from here,” said the teacher who was kneeling.

  The second teacher stood staring.

  “Contact school,” continued the first teacher. “Get someone to meet you at the next stop. They can cover me. I’ll go to the hospital. You go. Now.”

  The force of that last word jolted the second teacher into action.

  As the second teacher turned to herd the children towards the drone transporter, the first teacher touched her screen.

  “We need an air ambulance immediately, code red,” she said.

  “We have your location and details. How many casualties?” came the response.

  “One nine year old female. She collapsed suddenly, without warning.”

  “Air ambulance alerted. Time to arrival: six minutes, fifty seconds. Can you send us images?”

  “Affirmative. Top priority. The casualty is the granddaughter of President Hussain,” said the teacher.

  The teacher pressed pause on the screen. She looked around her but she was alone. She adjusted the body and smudged the forehead of the girl with dirt around where a stone protruded. She found the ball of granite and slipped it into her pocket. Then she took some video footage of the girl’s position on the ground.

  The drone transporter with the school group took off and headed South.

  * * * * * *

  Some time after morning tea break, Mark asked a Supervisor for a loo break. The Supervisor gave a small nod and he left the room.

  The WC was along the corridor.

  He was washing his hands when he was aware of a man standing at another basin next to him. They were alone in the room.

  He glanced at the man in the mirror.

  With a jolt, Mark realised that he had seen him before: it was the man in his dream!

  “Mark,” said the man, looking straight ahead into the mirror, his mouth hardly moving,

  “My name is Sebastian. If you want to learn who you are, give me a sign by washing your face.”

  Mark’s mouth fell open a fraction.

  His eyes stared into the mirror for a moment.

  His eyebrows furrowed slightly.

  Mark bent and scooped water onto his face.

  The man continued, “You are going to be moved so that we can have a chance to talk. I will see you later. Carry on as normal. Be careful, they are watching you.”

  The man turned to leave. As he passed behind him, he brushed against Mark’s arm. The movement was enough to jab a small needle into Mark’s arm and deliver a dose of antidote.

  Mark dried his hands and face then walked back to his station in Room 412. His stride was the same as before but his eyes were more active, like they were taking in new surroundings.

  Inside Room 412, he slipped back to his place. The Supervisors were looking his way. He kept his focus on the screen and worked in his usual manner until the notes that signaled the end of the session.

  He made his way to the canteen.

  He passed the place where the runner had been taken. The floor was clean and there was no sign of a struggle.

  He ate lunch in his usual place, while the music and Announcements played. The faces and numbers of Workers who were to be awarded a Spring Holiday Break were shown.

  When it was his turn at one of the information scanner screens, he placed his hand on the screen. “You will report to Sick Bay 734 in the Hospital Complex immediately,” said the voice.

  He tried again, just to make sure. The voice repeated the same instruction.

  The Sick Bay block was some distance away, in the Hospital Complex. His steps were the normal, unhurried stride of any Worker in his unit. Silently, he counted his steps.

  At last, he reached the Sick Bay section and took a lift to Level 7. The corridor was spotless, empty and smelt of antiseptic. He came to a white door marked 734 and paused. He took a deep breath, knocked and opened the door. A male nurse looked up and got up from behind a desk. He wore a white mask over his face. Beyond, there was a corridor with doors on either side where there must be a number of wards.

  The nurse came over to him. He held a scanner that he waved in front of his chest, his eyes and his face, and then scanned his hand.

  “Viral infection 623” said the electronic voice.

  The nurse calmly led him along the corridor to a ward and showed him his bed, then the lockers and washing area. Following the nurse’s instruction, he took off his boots and his day gear, showered and changed into the hospital long shirt, pyjamas and slippers and climbed into the bed. The smell reminded him of his childhood in the Nursery. Some of the tension in his muscles eased. Gentle sounds were played in the ward.

  A doctor wearing a mask came to check him over. He held a sleek, black scanner and moved it over his whole body.

  “Some facial acne; eczema on hands and legs; verrucas on left foot,” the doctor reeled off a list of ailments to the nurse, who stood beside a trolley with an array of instruments. The nurse passed him a tool that looked like a torch, not much bigger than a pen. The doctor went methodically around the areas of eczema and zapped every area with a flash of bright light. He used a similar instrument on the acne. He took another tool and set about treating the verrucas. When he was done, he grunted and nodded. He instructed the nurse to maintain the medication and then left.

  The nurse brought him water and two small white pills with minute numbers.

  “You need to rest,” he said, and went about his business in the ward.

  Mark surveyed the room. There were two lines of beds and windows on the end wall. Most of the beds were empty but there were two other male patients in the beds near him. The screens showed a film about butterflies and their habitats.

  Later on the nurse brought him supper on a tray and more medication. The food was similar to what he was used to in the canteen. He ate it all then settled down to rest. He soon fell asleep.

  He had a dream: he was being carried along in a trench of fast moving water. The water was dark grey. Pieces of dirt were raining down on the conduit so the water was getting increasingly darkened. He struggled to push away the filth but his efforts were in vain.

  * * * * * *

  President Hussain was standing in his dressing room with two butlers and two aides. The screen on the wall connected with his daughter-in-law. She was at the hospital.

  “How is she?” he asked.

  “It’s not looking good,” t
he woman said. “The doctors say she is in a coma. She is stable but they cannot say how long it will be before she comes around. They are running more tests.”

  “How are you doing?” asked the President.

  The woman did not answer. Her eyes welled and she dabbed her nose with a tissue.

  “Don’t worry. We will get the best doctors onto it. I have a formal dinner tonight but I will call you later.”

  The screen went blank.

  The President turned to his aides.

  “What does the report say about the cause?” he asked.

  “The teachers said she fell without warning,” replied one aide. “Her only injury was the impact to her head.”

  “I want this thoroughly investigated. I want people crawling all over that site first thing in the morning. This might be a plain accident. Or it might be foul play. Find the teachers. Debrief them fully. If that turd Sandher is behind this, he will get what is coming to him. With interest.”

  * * * * * *

  Mark awoke because a hand was shaking his arm. He looked up and found the nurse was standing with Sebastian next to him.

  Mark stared at them.

  “It’s decision time. This is very important. If you want to come to our meeting, it’s time to get dressed,” said Sebastian. “If, on the other hand, you want to go back to the unit and carry on just as you were, we can arrange that right away - you’ll forget all about us, about coming here. If you come to the meeting with me, you will begin to find out who you are. It’s time to decide because there is no going back if you come with us now.”

  “Join you,” said Mark.

  “Are you sure?” asked Sebastian, studying his face.

  “Yes,” replied Mark.

  Mark dressed.

  The other two young men in the ward were also getting ready.

  They stood together and Sebastian addressed the three of them.