by O M Faure
‘Yes, of course we’d love to,’ I rush to answer before DeAnn can decline.
‘See you tomorrow then.’ The blonde woman smiles as she holds the lift doors open.
We get out and Anthony walks us to our next appointment.
18
DeAnn
Conurbation of London, November 1, 2081
* * *
Burke takes us to a part of the Programme building that we haven’t seen before. It’s deep underground and we pass through several rooms where soldiers are relaxing or attending briefings.
Everyone is dressed in fatigues here and there are a lot more weapons on display; guns on their belts, rifles being cleaned, knives strapped around thighs. This doesn’t look like the Programme facility I’m accustomed to; it feels like a military operation. I suppose this was the logical evolution of the Cassandra Programme, if they had to protect themselves against external attacks like the one that happened yesterday. Or rather, sixty-five years ago. But still, it’s jarring.
The vast majority of military personnel we cross paths with are men. They assess us as we walk past. Some have nasty-looking scars and no one smiles. Any one of these soldiers could overpower us at any moment. We have no idea who these people are, after all. None of the men looks very happy to see us.
Burke stops in front of a large door, I hesitate; he could be taking us to an interrogation room. I step in after him, on my guard, but it’s only a gym. There are soldiers everywhere, lifting weights, looking at themselves in mirrors or watching a holographic projection showing them how to use a piece of equipment and replicate it. They’re all muscular and fit and I like the room’s intensity and drive, the relative silence only interrupted by grunts of effort. The smell of sweat and linoleum is familiar, so I breathe in and make an effort to relax.
Our guide escorts us to a small room at the back of the gym where a large muscular man, probably aged sixty or so, is waiting for us. He’s wearing fatigues, his hair is white and short, his forehead is high and there are deep frown lines in his tanned face. He makes no move to welcome us; instead he gives us a once over, his hands clasped behind his back.
‘Agent Carpenter, Agent Sagewright, come in.’ His South African accent lends a clipped rhythm to the order.
There are mats on the floor, a few pieces of equipment and we’re surrounded by glass, so it seems that our training will be on public display. I wonder if that’s on purpose. They strike me as the kind of people who don’t do much by chance. Burke closes the glass door and stands to attention behind us, waiting for instructions.
‘You’ve already met Captain Burke and I’m Colonel Schalk Groebler. I oversee all Programme field operatives and you’ll now report to me during your year here.’
Say, what now? We don’t report to this guy, that’s for sure. I stay quiet and exchange a look with Olivia, willing her to remain silent.
‘This afternoon I’ll brief you on the basic knowledge needed to survive during your mission. We’ll then evaluate your level of fitness.’
Groebler looks Olivia up and down, his thoughts barely concealed; he obviously thinks she’s a fat slob and not fit to be here.
Olivia crumples a little, the way she does when she loses her self-confidence. She crosses her arms, bends in the middle and angles her feet inward. My temper rises before I have time to think. What the hell? I’m feeling protective of Snow White, that’s new. For the first time since I’ve met her, I’m actually feeling something like a partnership with her. She’s the only one who knows that we’re in over our heads. The only one on the planet, right now, who has any idea who I am and who cares if I live or die. I push down the knee-jerk protectiveness and force myself to keep a blank face.
‘As Captain Burke is going to be your CO for the remainder of the year, we need to evaluate your field readiness in order to adapt our…’ he looks for the right word and I wonder what he was going to say: monitoring? ‘…assistance to your needs.’
He makes a face, as if the last words had left a bad taste in his mouth.
Burke proceeds to test Olivia and me on basic self-defense and fitness exercises. I let Olivia go first. Obviously Burke takes control of her within seconds. She flops on the mat like a helpless bunny, her red hair spreading in a halo around her head. To her credit, she doesn’t give up and thrashes to get up, but he’s simply too strong. Burke smiles and holds her wrists down, pinning her with his hips. He stays like that longer than strictly necessary and a blush blooms on Olivia’s face as he whispers something in her ear. She gets up really fast, tugging on her tank top, and hurries over to sit back on the mat, next to me.
Once again, it occurs to me that we’re in the bowels of a military building, surrounded by soldiers whose allegiance is unknown and that we have no idea what their end-game is. So I decide to play dumb and match Olivia’s level of ineptitude. It takes every ounce of my self-control not to respond with the Krav Maga moves that my muscle-memory is begging to apply. Burke makes short work of me, he trips me up and instead of catching my fall, lets me drop to the ground and bends my arm against my back, holding it painfully. Cocky bastard. I yelp, taking on a more high-pitched voice.
‘Ow, ow, my shoulder!’
As Burke gets up, he exchanges a smirk with Groebler.
Olivia is gawping at me in surprise and I shake my head quickly, as I take my seat on the floor next to her. She gets it and thankfully doesn’t say anything. We continue in that vein for a couple of hours, Groebler running us through evaluations, Olivia failing naturally at everything and me doing marginally better but not by much. We’ve become quite the attraction, with a dozen agents gathered on the other side of the glass walls looking in and catcalling. More than once I nearly blow it and take over, taunted by their jeering. But I resist the urge to twist Burke’s wrist and make him scream for mercy.
Finally, the onlookers tire of watching Burke kick our asses again and again, and drift away. Colonel Groebler stands at one end of the room and the three of us look up from the exercise mats; Olivia red-faced and discouraged, Burke smug and calm, me humiliated and silent.
‘Ladies,’ in his mouth the word sounds like a terrible insult, ‘the level of operative skills you displayed here is a disgrace. That the Programme would risk your lives and more importantly that they’d risk all of our lives by sending amateurs here is...’ He breathes hard and closes his mouth, his jaw working with the effort of staying calm.
Olivia looks at her shoes. He’s right, of course. How on earth did our records get changed? We were never agents. Something is going on, but I’m damned if I know what. There’s no advantage in telling him that we’re back-office personnel, though, so I keep silent and wait for the rest of the dressing-down.
‘Your fitness level and stamina, your physical condition,’ he looks disdainfully at Olivia’s curves, ‘are below standard even for desk staff here, let alone field agents.’ He turns to me, shaking his head with disgust. ‘Your ability to defend yourselves against attack is nil, your knowledge of survival skills isn’t enough for you to find your way out of a mall. Don’t you realize where they’re sending you?’ Each word is hammered as he gets visibly worked up with each sentence. ‘You’re going to Uganda.’ He makes it sound like the seventh ring of hell. ‘This is a fucking joke…’
He takes a deep breath and tries to calm down, but a vein is bulging out of his neck as one of his fists punctuates each point he makes.
‘Do you have any idea how they reacted when they ran out of food a few years ago? They started out by killing each other with machetes, that’s how. Then they sent raiding parties to take over parts of Tanzania and Kenya. The situation there is back to a manageable level, but it’s still a fucking mess. There’s no water, no sanitation, little food and diseases are running rampant. They’re all on top of each other like vermin.’
Vermin? So nothing much has changed, racism is alive and well, even on the eve of the twenty-second century. I’m not even surprised. He seems to have completel
y lost sight of who he’s talking to. I mean, I’m African American for God’s sake.
Burke clears his throat and Groebler snaps out of it. He takes a big breath.
‘It is what it is.’ He squares his jaw. ‘We’ll just have to… assist you as best we can.’
Again the hesitation.
He taps his iMode and the gym disappears, as the glass around us frosts over and a screen materializes on the walls of our small room.
‘You’ve been briefed about the overpopulation issue, correct?’
‘Yes, Madison…’ Olivia starts.
‘I bet she didn’t tell you the whole story. Bleeding-heart leftists, all the same,’ he mutters.
A world map appears on the glass panel in front of us. It’s in 3D with countries glowing in different colors. The map is mostly green all over, except for most of Asia, which is bright yellow. The date ‘2015’ is floating, superimposed at the top left corner of the map, revolving on itself and glowing against the Atlantic Ocean’s light blue backdrop.
I get up to reach for the map and the display reacts to my iMode bracelet. As I touch Asia, a figure appears above the continent: 4.4 billion. I try a green one: Europe: 0.7 billion. Africa is green as well, I hover above it and 1.2 billion appears.
Groebler says something inaudible and the date’s digital numbers start turning fast as the map goes from mostly green to red and amber all over. Finally, the date stops at 2081 and the map stabilizes.
Below my hovering hand, Africa is glowing bright red, Asia is red as well; the Americas are amber. Only Europe and Japan are still green.
The figure floating above Africa now says five billion. I stare at the number, frowning.
‘It can’t be… you mean to say that Africa’s population has quadrupled over the last sixty-five years?’
‘Yes, exactly. Asia’s not far behind either: They’ve nearly doubled in the same amount of time.’
‘How could this happen? What about one-child policies?’ I ask. ‘If overpopulation is an issue, surely you’d have imposed them everywhere by now?’
He bursts out laughing.
‘Don’t be ridiculous. You can’t impose a one-child policy in democracies, it’s impossible. People just won’t do it unless they’re forced. And how would you enforce it? Any government that’s tried has been toppled. Nobody has the guts to do what’s necessary.’ Groebler sniggers unpleasantly.
Burke chimes in, ‘China was the only country to ever apply a one-child policy and that’s how they developed into the number one economic power in the world. But as soon as they became a democracy, any attempt at population control collapsed.’
Groebler taps on Africa and it starts to throb, pulsating in a deep, dark red. ‘Elsewhere – forget about imposing anything at all. I was born in Africa; believe me, things will never change there. These people just want to buy a goat and raise a family of ten. That’s how they define success and happiness. We won’t be able to convince them to stop multiplying.’
‘If that’s what they want, who are we to say otherwise?’ Olivia says.
He shakes his head, irritated. ‘What about the rest of us? They’re putting the world in jeopardy and you feel sorry for them because they can’t live out their dream?’ The Colonel’s voice rises now, as he becomes increasingly absorbed in what he’s saying.
‘When the United Nations started to become aware of the overpopulation crisis, they asked the international community to show self-control and produce fewer children – and guess who did it? We did. White snowflakes like you took pledges to have one child or none. And what did the rest of the world do? They just continued to proliferate and now we’re overrun. That’s why in the Coalition countries, we actually encourage fertility.’
‘What?’ Olivia says, all doe-eyed and guileless. ‘But that’s mad – if there isn’t enough food for everyone anymore, why add to the issue?’
‘Because the white race is being wiped out, fast. That’s what’s really happening. Maybe white women like you should stop being so fucking squeamish and spread your legs more often.’
Olivia goes beetroot red and looks at her shoes.
‘We waited too long to work on a global solution. White populations are going to die because of self-restraint, while the rest of the world breeds their way into a catastrophic shit show.’
He looks at his iMode. ‘Captain Burke, finish the assessment without me, I’ve seen enough. You’re leaving for Uganda on Monday at zero six hundred hours. As you’re in charge of the Kampala operations and stationed locally anyway, you’ll oversee their mission there, as well. Make the necessary preparations. I expect reports every week and ongoing evaluations of their ability to continue.’
He turns and leaves the room, not even putting on the pretense of civility anymore.
I see the back of him with relief. As the door closes, Olivia and I look at each other.
‘Can you believe how racist…’ Olivia starts, but I stop her, shaking my head.
Burke lets out an embarrassed chuckle. ‘Apologies, Colonel Groebler does get overworked when the topic is Africa. Please don’t take it personally.’ He looks at me. ‘We’re completely aware that you’re American and we don’t lump you in with the Africans.’
I’m even more appalled at this than I was by Groebler’s straight-out racism, but I keep my face straight. So what does he mean? That he tolerates my skin color because I have the right passport?
‘Why is Colonel Groebler so angry?’ Olivia asks.
‘You have to understand, he’s an Afrikaner,’ Burke says, as if it explained anything. Seeing our blank looks, he adds, ‘When food started to become scarce, riots broke out all over the world. In 2071, things got particularly bad in South Africa. The government had done a piss-poor job of running the country but could hardly admit that the famine and unrest were their fault, so they looked for a scapegoat. There was still a large population of Afrikaners there and the government blamed them, saying they were parasites who had pilfered the country’s resources and exploited the locals for too long. They massacred thousands of whites and the rest fled. Groebler’s family was killed. He was on mission for the Programme and only learned about it when he came back. There was nothing he could have done, but he still blames himself.’
I don’t believe this is the whole truth. Funny how white Africans keep pushing the narrative of being victims of genocide. I keep my face impassive and bite the inside of my cheek.
Olivia looks appalled. She asks for details and Burke says he had a wife and two young sons under ten years old.
‘Afrikaners were stripped of their nationalities by the South African government and all their possessions were nationalized or appropriated. It happened all over Africa after that, like dominoes: Zimbabwe, Namibia, Sudan, Niger. Most African-born whites are now refugees in Europe or Australia, it’s the new diaspora of this century.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ Captain Burke says, sitting down next to me. ‘We don’t all feel like him. He’s just concerned about your safety and wants to make sure you come back to the KEW in one piece.’ He smiles charmingly.
‘The queue?’ I ask.
‘No, no, the Kingdom of England and Wales. Home.’ His eyebrows crease and then rise. ‘Oh that’s right, you don’t know about the triple secession yet.’
Olivia looks pensive. ‘The flag… of course.’ She says it more to herself than anyone else.
‘Scotland and Ireland broke off after we left the United States of Europe.’ He glances at his iMode bracelet. ‘We’re late. I need to take you to the shooting range to evaluate your skills with a gun.’
He gets up and we follow him through a maze of hallways and down to the building’s basement. There, he watches as Olivia and I learn to assemble and disassemble the new models of guns. They’re very similar to the old ones. But these ones have a DNA ‘fingerprint’ which means they can only be fired by the person who owns them.
While we handle the firearms, Burke carries on explaining. ‘Ther
e were retaliations when we dared to leave the USE, Europeans were sore losers, but you know us – stiff upper lip, self-control and all that.’ He smiles. ‘We can withstand anything. So we just became an autarky of sorts. Now we produce pretty much everything we need and what we don’t make ourselves we get from our allies, the US, Australia and Russia.’
‘Why those three countries?’ I ask.
‘Because we’re all part of the Coalition.’
‘It must be hard to be completely closed off, not having access to foreign things. Don’t you feel isolated sometimes?’ Olivia asks.
‘I’ve never known anything else. This happened before I was born.’ He shrugs. ‘And at least that way we took back control of our national destiny and our immigration policies.’ I feel him glance at me and wonder what he really means by that. ‘So it was all worth it.’
Ear protectors on, we spend a couple of hours acquainting ourselves with the guns as Burke shows us the new features. He helps Olivia with her stance, from behind, holding her arms up as he wraps himself around her. She lets him. Of course she does. It’s like a revolting rom-com set in a neo-Nazi future.
He only looks at her as he speaks. I see her through his eyes: A perfect specimen of a white English rose. Her red hair and freckles, her milky white skin, her fertile hips and soft curves. Suddenly I feel too dark, too hard and dried up. Not the kind of woman anyone here would want. He takes Olivia’s elbow solicitously and whispers that she should be particularly careful in Africa. She’ll be a prime target but he’ll be there to protect her. I feel nauseous.
Next, Burke drones on about the implications of the UK disbandment and the topic comes to the royal family. I hide an eye roll as he expands on the sorry status of his shrunken country and its useless monarchy. ‘Scotland and Ireland are both republics now. The King’s a bit of a womanizer and he hasn’t married, so we’ve plenty of bastards but no heir.’