The Biocrime Spectrum (Books 1-4)
Page 32
The days and nights merged through the eternal boredom of solitary confinement and Katcher had lost count of the days he had been on this vessel. Each day was only slightly discernable from the previous one and it was difficult to either keep the count or be reminded of the mental signposts that provided any clues to him. He had fallen asleep while the vessel was docked in the Port of Oakland: he was tired and overwhelmed with the proceedings and the next time he awoke and looked through the porthole in his room, it was pitch black outside and there was nothing that could give an offering to what his bearings could be.
Over the following days, he exercised whenever he could in the restricted exercise area and interchanged his clothing between his own and the orange Biocrime overalls so he could wash his clothes several times each day, just to pass the time. For amusement, he produced a low humming noise to mimic and synchronize with the sounds of the engines of the vessel coming from deep below, and, like a child, he played a range of Scrabble games in his mind with imaginary friends.
Katcher also kept himself occupied by playing games within his book; deciding which part of War and Peace was the best, and fluctuating between the endless number of characters within the story. He became obsessed with the name of Kirsten Chambers and, although her name only appeared on the cover of the printed book and several times within the frontispiece, he etched her name out with his fingernails and, failing to find any type of utensil to write with, he used leftover synth coffee and his index finger to scrawl a capital ‘T’—for Tolstoy—in her place.
He tried to recount parts of War and Peace as a mental exercise, and read aloud certain key moments that enthused him; or counted votes in his internal competition to decide upon the best extract from the book, before agreeing on the scene where Prince Andrew was hit in the head with a bludgeon in the field of battle, chiding himself for not appreciating the vast blue sky above him as he lay on the battleground looking towards the heavens, half-way between life and death.
Inspired by this passage of prose, Katcher looked out the porthole, wanting to see a magnificent vista of the blue sky melding into the splendid shades of aquamarine, but all he saw was grey clouded skies, and an endless depressing dark steel blue ocean that resembled a flat plain of concrete, rather than a panorama of hues that inspired the imagination.
Although it was painful to recollect, his mind jumped from thinking about the failed revolution, his meetings with Banda, and the death that consumed his good friends, Scanlen and Renalda. He also thought about why he was given a printed copy of War and Peace, as well as the small amount of personal belongings. Was it for Biocrime to offer some kind of homage to the person they had captured and assuage the institutional guilt of sending people off to their likely death? Was it Biocrime again paying lip service to their motto of ‘do no evil’, providing mementoes as last rites to prisoners before their de facto execution?
Katcher again looked out the porthole and decided it must be day fifteen of this journey. He thought that whatever awaited him and his fellow travellers when they arrived at the southern penal zone would be simple, compared to this interminable and insufferable boredom. He used his powers of concentration to imagine a clear blue sky but the view outside remained stubbornly attached to a deep wet grey. Katcher was right: it was day fifteen of this journey, which meant there were five more days of internal introspection, literary competitions, mental games with imaginary friends and the inane repetitive washing of clothes.
The final day of the journey to the southern penal zone was marred by inclement weather, heavy rain and winds at the speed of a hundred and thirty miles per hour, and a rising swell rocked the MV Nova Tampa. It was still around two hundred miles away from its destination, and the vessel barely moved at seventeen knots per hour and, perhaps, still another ten hours of the journey to go.
It was three o’clock in the morning and Katcher couldn’t sleep. He’d exhausted all permutations for amusing himself and biding his time, and even sleeping couldn’t keep the infinitesimal tedium at bay. The rocking of the vessel and the pounding of the restless waves against the side walls made sleep difficult, but Katcher had almost reached his mental point of oblivion and it was unclear to him whether another escape into the nocturnal zone would make any difference. He matched his circadian rhythms with the rolling of the vessel and this helped to close his mind and moved him into a hallucinogenic state that made the time move faster.
Several hours later, the encroaching sunlight through the porthole made Katcher more alert to his environment and he surmised the vessel was closer to land. The roaring sounds of the rough seas had been replaced with a serene flat expanse of water and the vessel cut through the waves cleanly and efficiently. He peered out of the porthole and the aftermath of the storm had left a cold cloudy veneer of steam above the water, almost as though they were travelling through a discarded haunted cemetery in the dead of night. He could see flashes of land and trees through the cold clouds of water vapor but could not make out whether the vessel was closer to a mainland, or whether these were some kind of disparate islands playing tricks on his mind.
All of a sudden, his door was unlocked and two plastic-masked Biocrime security guards barged in officiously, followed by three robocops, and instructed Katcher to collect his items and place them in the grey hemp bag, and then cuffed his hands. He was moved out of his room and, through the corridor, he could see all the other detainees moving upwards in unison. It was perversely quiet and Katcher felt the anxiety building up deep into his throat, as he imagined the feelings of Jeanne d’Arc, the heroine from the French Zone during the Hundred Years’ war in the fourteen hundreds, just before she was burnt at the stake. And the feelings of the scores of people throughout the Europe Zone that were led to their extermination during the world war of the 1940s: the Jews, Romani, Russians, Poles; the gay men and lesbians; the mentally and physically disabled; all the people from history Katcher identified with. Katcher and all the detainees were moved from their cells and, eventually, all four-hundred-and-sixty were huddled at the open top deck of the vessel, resembling pockets of penguins jostling for the best view from the icepack.
The views from the open top deck of the vessel were impressive and showed a large island leading into the port, but it was difficult to discern fully what lay beyond, as the vapor above the cold waters partially obscured the view. The vessel moved closer towards the Port of Auckland, and a group of Biocrime security officers and robocops advanced in a small dinghy to activate two tug boats that would help navigate the MV Nova Tampa into the port.
Katcher could see on either side of the water, a solid titanium picketed fence of around a hundred feet high that seemed to go on as far as the eye could see. There was a pungent smell, not overwhelming, but constant—a combination of decaying food and meat, sewerage, excrement and an odd industrial chemical stench.
The two heads of the port were surrounded by lush forest, but there were instances where Katcher could see the rubble of what seemed to be a series of old dwellings. In the distance, there was a collection of taller skyscrapers and apartment buildings, but instead of seeing the clean and stylized concrete designs, these were covered with green moss, lichen and overgrown foliage. From what he could see, many of the building structures had crumbled and were decrepit, a modern-day version of the ruins of the ancient Colosseum in the Southern Europe zone. It was a confusing sight, almost like coming across a forgotten and broken city in the middle of a cold savannah; lush, seductive and mysterious, but not in a clever or benevolent manner.
It was relatively peaceful, until Katcher heard the sound of some kind of animal that screeched in the distance, followed by other unusual guttural noises, and he could hear the sound of water and waves lapping the foreshore. It was gentle and serene, but it was an awkward silence. In the aftermath of the storm, the skies were still a deep dark gray, and a light drizzling rain began to fall.
Through the crowd of detainees on the top deck, Katcher could see familiar f
aces: Newton, Kransich and, further along, Radhika Romanov. It was like an unintended collective act of silence, and the use for words had expired, a suggestion there was no further need for them.
As the crisp breeze flushed through the top deck and onto Katcher’s face, he optimistically reminded himself about the doubts of what lay exactly within the confines of the universal penal zone—doubts which were just about to be removed. Every citizen knew about the universal penal zone: most were fearful, but there were cynics who believed that like all propaganda, these zones were just a fanciful idea to deter the citizen population from illegal behavior and anti-community activities. The cynics believed the opposite of the common version—far from being a place of dread and horrible deaths, it was actually a utopian haven of plenty: a type of Faustian bargain for activists to give up the errors of their ways in the common land, never to return, but live the life of pleasure in a remote area. The universal penal zone was outside of the continuum and no-one could see what went on there, so any absurd or fanciful theory could be entertained.
The vessel arrived closer to the docks in the Port of Auckland. There was a well-serviced embarking ramp and jetty but beyond that, it was decrepit, aged and rusted. Further beyond the jetty through the lush forest, Katcher could see small pockets of activity through the canopy. It looked partially like a human zoo, partially like a wildlife enclosure and had the feel of an apocalypse, a forgotten world from a thousand years ago.
In the distance, Katcher could see what looked a disheveled bearded man masturbating, mimicking the actions of a chimpanzee, gesticulating wildly. His eyes scanned to another part of the forest, and he saw a tiger for the first time in his life, but it seemed about twice the size he expected it to be and was feasting on the carcass of what he assumed to be a woman. Further along, he could see a smaller group of upright animals that had a human appearance, but were crushing the head of some kind of beast with a large stone. Katcher had never seen these kinds of creatures before, but they reminded him of homo naledi, a species of primitive hominin humans that roamed the world about 350,000 years ago.
There were other animals that ventured close to the docks to gain a closer look at the incoming vessel, as though they were curiously expecting an incoming treat and a fresh delivery of sustenance, and they seemed to suggest their approval. It was hard to discern but many had human similarities and all had consistent features—hollow faces and emaciated bodies, an indicator of a lack of food and resources in this universal penal zone.
Katcher could feel the dread enveloping his insides, and felt a strong tension inside his stomach, as well as the feeling of nausea created by the stench. The glimpses of life that he saw at the Port of Auckland confirmed the many fears he held of the universal penal zone and now, he was going to witness it for himself and suffer his demise.
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About the Author
Erik Tabain is a future fiction writer and is the author of the Biocrime Spectrum series. He occasionally dabbles in crime writing and horror stories. He has lived in many parts of the world—including the United Kingdom, Eastern Europe, North America and Australia—but his online home is: www.eriktabain.com
You can connect with Erik Tabain on Facebook and Twitter.
First published in 2018
All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in a form or binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Text copyright ©E. Jokovich, ARMEDIA Pty. Ltd. 2018
ISBN 978-0-6481644-3-2 (ebook)
Typeset by ARMEDIA Pty. Ltd.
Published by ARMEDIA
PO Box 1265, Darlinghurst NSW 1300, Australia
info@armedia.net.au
Contents
1. Raw power
2. The human divide
3. The year 3034
4. The snowflake effect
5. I like to watch
6. Seeing the light
7. Modernity in the fourth millenium
8. The Movement is coming
9. The affair that crossed the divide
10. Going underground
11. Scanners
12. The meeting with Katcher
13. The borderless world
14. Recruiting Katcher
15. The death zones
16. An evil plan
17. The bombing at Anza Vista
18. Framing a bomber
19. The next move
20. A new day
21. A mysterious disappearance
22. The propaganda machine
23. Death in the underground
24. The rise of the revolution
25. Biocrime retaliates
26. Taking back San Francisco
27. Lifebook comes back to life
28. The search for Katcher
29. The end of a double agent
30. Memory extraction
31. An untimely end
32. Closing in
33. Arrest and processing
34. Deportation
35. Arrival at the Port of Auckland
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About the Author