Utopia Project: Everyone Must Die

by Billy Dering

  Perplexed for a split second by the childish grins he had seen, Kid shook it off and opened the valves. A wave rushed down both slides. He knew that by the time the soldiers reached the end of the enclosed tubes, the water would be carrying them at tremendous and uncontrollable speeds. Kid ran out onto the platform and looked over the rail.

  Jess had reached the bottom and was working to unlatch more of the pool tarp fasteners. He was already pulling the tarp back when the first soldier exited the tube on his side. As the enemy hit the elevated lip at the bottom of the slide, he was launched high in the air. Jess was able to pull the tarp back just enough so that the soldier flew into the deep and empty concrete basin. A puddle of blood grew around his shattered skull.

  The second soldier exited the other tube and landed on the tarp. Trying to stand, he pushed the chair out of his way and pulled out his weapon. Like a newborn deer, the soldier’s legs wobbled as he tried to keep his balance on the loosened tarp. He started firing, but Jess aggressively tugged and shook the pool cover to disrupt the soldier’s balance.

  Seeing Jess’s plight, Kid scrambled down from the platform, taking three steps at a time.

  As the soldier got his feet under him, his aim was becoming more controlled. Jess was trapped and all he could do was keep jerking the tarp he held in his hands.

  Jumping off the final step, Kid ran to the edge of the pool opposite Jess. He was peering at the soldier’s back as he started feverishly unlatching the first pool tarp fastener on his side. When it released, the tarp gave way a few inches and the enemy tumbled over, but did not roll into the empty pool. The soldier again stood up and sustained his balance, but Kid was now the target. With nowhere to hide, he tried to stay one step ahead of the next spark of weapon fire as he dropped and rolled.

  Jess scrambled to unlatch more fasteners on his side. He released two in quick succession and the soldier finally tumbled off of the edge of the tarp into the deep empty pool. While free-falling, the soldier pulled the trigger and an errant shot fired straight up in the air before his body slammed into the concrete bottom. The water level rose around and over the two unconscious combatants.

  Kid ran to the base of the stairs and turned off the water valves and then helped Jess pull the tarp back over and fasten it down.

  “We have to get out to the ships tonight. They’re going to come looking for all of these guys they’ve sent out here that never made it back,” Kid huffed with heavy breaths. “We’ve been able to fight them off, but it’s just a matter of time before our luck runs out.”

  II

  EXTRICATION

  Chapter 11

  December 27, 2044

  Tuesday, Early Evening

  New Jersey coast, Utopia Project

  Ship Number One

  The day after the event

  Elder-76 continued in the absence of Elder-1. She said to Sara, “We will continue your evaluation, but please, relax and do not worry.” Her voice was calm, so calm that it almost sounded eerie. She sounded like someone who might be leading a séance. “We are Elder-76, the lead psychologist for the project, at least ever since the prior lead abruptly left the project a few weeks ago. Over the next few days, you will be more fully evaluated by our ten-member team of psychologists.”

  Sara pursed her lips and nodded, but remained silent.

  “You may speak,” the elder advised, “so long as you are cooperative and respectful. Should you not be, Elder-1 will not be pleased. You will not get a second chance.”

  Swallowing hard, Sara squeaked out, “Did you say the entire world was killed off last night?”

  “The entire human population, except for a few stragglers such as yourself and your friends. We intentionally left certain wildlife tracts intact around the world to ensure the survival of many animal species. Of course, we used pinpoint beam strikes to eliminate all people living in and around these designated areas, so there should not be any human survivors, anywhere.”

  Sara sat in shock, floating in a zero-gravity somber abyss. The entire human population. It was unimaginable. She tried to shake herself out of it.

  “Ma’am, it was mentioned before that we were captured, and not killed, because we are females and there was a need for production of offspring. Does that mean we are only here to have children?” She rubbed her arm to confirm that she was not dreaming, or more aptly, was not in the middle of a nightmare.

  Elder-76 turned to Elder-12, but he remained silent so she clarified with her mesmerizing voice, “No, but please make sure to only call them offspring. ‘Children’ and even ‘babies’ are not recognized words here. You will do much more than produce offspring, especially once your conditioning is complete. Everyone here is a fully productive and conforming member of our society, male and female alike. But unlike the old society, females here do not individually raise their own offspring. Our society does, collectively.”

  “So women deliver… offspring, and you take them?”

  “Precisely,” she answered. “Were it not for the problems we encountered in the beginning with cloning and test tube incubation, we would not need females in the actual birthing process at all. In fact, the first 23 members of our society were clones who developed in test tubes. But despite all of our technology, there are certain biological and physiological attributes that could not yet be properly developed or duplicated. We then proceeded to take offspring right from birthing tables as planned, or even unplanned, adoptions, until such time as our own members were old enough to produce their own offspring.”

  “So your first 23…” Sara started and froze as Elder-1 entered the room.

  “Continue,” he ordered.

  Clearing her throat, Sara asked, “So your first 23 members were clones and look exactly alike?”

  “No.” Elder-1 interrupted and his lips tightened. “The 23 all look different because they were cloned from different hosts. They were grown from the stem cells of offspring we had in our custody as part of a previous, but similar, project. A project that was unfortunately… derailed. Our original conditioning program in America in 2025 would’ve been years ahead of its time were it not for the antics of a deranged woman in Georgia who died after the birth of her spawn.”

  Sara knew he was referring to the CCP and she felt the familiar discomfort. That meant that somewhere on these ships, amongst the first 23 members, was the clone of the CCP’s Baby Doe—the child who disappeared and became lost to the world after Anna Delilah’s death. She shivered. It was another connection to the CCP. Somehow she knew it would not be the last.

  “Her death was blamed on our conditioning project, and was front-page news, where it put us in a horrible and negative light. She alone set the conditioning movement back 20 years,” he said, sounding bitter.

  “Anna Delilah…” Sara muttered.

  Elder-1 paused.

  Sara was not about to mention her connection to that event and reveal that she had been born on the same hospital hall just days after Anna Delilah had delivered her baby. Not with Elder-1’s obvious disdain about the event.

  “Yes, Anna Delilah. As she is known in history,” he added as he paced in her room. His tone then turned even more sour “Damn that woman, and that day in 2025. We can only hope she died very, very painfully.”

  Like a hurricane forming, bands of anger and hurt started circling inside Sara. She had always sympathized with Anna Delilah. The woman fell from a third story window ledge while trying to save her child from being taken into a government project.

  “After that woman died, our original conditioning project, the Child Conditioning Program, was stopped in 2025. That, after we,” he touched his chest, “had spent so many years developing it. But we were fortunate. We were able to continue the initiative covertly, albeit modified over time, through the Utopia Project.”

  Sara’s shoulders began to sag under the heaviness of his words. After the recent discovery of the Utopia Project, she had not made the connection, or thought about the timing, but i
t made perfect sense. The public outcry over Anna Delilah’s death forced the shutdown of the CCP in 2025, but it was not actually shut down. It was carried on through the Utopia Project.

  “Do you realize how little time was really required to achieve a sufficient level of conditioning for a newborn?” he asked.

  “No,” Sara answered, and almost added, but I would imagine for most mothers, even one day would be too much.

  Elder-76 jumped in, “We just needed a newborn for the first four hours after birth, and two hours per day for the next 30 days, and then two hours per month for the rest of their life. The offspring could have been with the mother every moment, except during the actual conditioning sessions, even on the very first day.”

  There was such a stark contrast in the tones of the two elders. Elder-76’s voice was soft and soothing. Elder-1 was terse and forceful, and always sounded like he was on the verge of an angry outburst.

  Elder-1 continued, “We were scheduled to start phasing this into the birthing process in several large and powerful countries within the next several months, on a voluntary basis. At least at first.”

  It was the CCP all over again, Sara realized, and even expanded to include the general public and not just members of the military. She felt her face flush and needed to change the subject.

  “If this is the Utopia Project, the news said you were stationed off the coast of Greenland. How did your ships get here so fast?”

  “We were in Greenland,” Elder-1 answered. “But we started heading south when we initiated the world’s rebirth, and lucky we did, because the satellite system has been inoperable since late last night. That meant we had to quickly get boots on the ground here to eliminate any survivors.”

  Sara fought back her fear for the survivors and asked, “So after you are done here, will you move your ships?”

  “We will be moving, but not far. We have a cleanup crew at the ready so we can set up our base camp on the barrier island just south of here, Long Beach Island.”

  “Why there, of all places?” She was surprised.

  “Our research had previously concluded that it would be a very good candidate for a home base, and it was on the short list,” he answered. “It will not require substantial cleanup since the winter population is quite minimal and since it is an island with only one bridge to the mainland, containment will not be a problem. Most of the power to the island comes from nearby solar panel farms, which can be quickly re-established. The Long Beach Island option became a no-brainer when we realized how close it was to this system malfunction area.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Even with a sparse population, we can’t imagine the stench with the dead bodies.”

  He shrugged. “It will not last long. We made as many passes as we did with the neutron beams so that we would expedite the decomposition process. Within a year or maybe two, there will be only skeletal remains.”

  The walkie-talkie on Elder-1’s belt came to life and chirped. “Go ahead.”

  “Sir, we were asked to inform you the moment the search party retrieval boat was ready to be launched. If they leave now, they should be able to pick up the four members left on the beach, and be back before 9:00 p.m.”

  “Commence launch,” he radioed back.

  “Yes, Sir.”

  Elder-1 said to Sara. “That is enough for now. Rest. Tomorrow morning you will have your first conditioning session. Within the week, assuming you are not in the middle of your menstrual cycle, you will be impregnated. Remember what we said about 100% cooperation. We will tell you what we are doing to ease your immediate fear of the unknown. It is easier for us to overcome a person’s will than their fear.” As Elder-1 headed toward the door with Elder-76 and Elder-12, he turned and added, “We will answer more questions in the future, but as the conditioning proceeds, you will ask less and less.”

  How could somebody be so demented and evil? This place is the stuff of nightmares, Sara thought to herself after the elders walked out. She knew she had to escape before this conditioning turned her into a pregnant zombie, or worse.

  She recalled that one of the other girls had already been killed. Her stomach felt hollow at the thought that it might be Maria, who Sara feared might be defiant, or at least flippant.

  She laid down but her emotions were still too raw to allow her to fall asleep. The death of Anna Delilah and the Civil Crisis of 2025 were still hanging over her, and she was still in shock that the Utopia Project was really a covert continuation of the CCP.

  It always resonated with her that Anna Delilah’s child, the CCP’s Baby Doe, had also grown up without a mother. Sara could feel the child’s pain, like a kindred spirit. Tonight, like many nights before, she tormented over the death of her own mother and of the life they would have shared had Mom not died the day Sara was born. Those thoughts swirled in her mind as she rested on her now tear-dampened pillow.

  In the hallway, with the door now closed, Elder-12 nodded and left with haste. Elder-1 walked with Elder-76, and he asked her, “What is your snap assessment of this last captive?”

  “She seems intelligent and strong-willed. We could sense that based on her questions, her tone and the manner in which she kept herself restrained. Her conditioning, and that for the other captives, will require a modified program since our conditioning plan is meant to start at birth.”

  “Is that a problem?”

  “No,” she answered and then paused. “But some of the other lead elders have asked if these captives should just be imprisoned and impregnated until they can no longer bear any more offspring, to save time and resources.”

  Her words made Elder-1 stop in his tracks. “In the long run, that would require more resources.” He turned to her. “Elder-76, how many years do you have invested in the Utopia Project?”

  She was hesitant to speak, and even regretful that she already had. “Almost 13 years now.”

  “More than 20 years,” Elder-1 started. “Yes, more than 20 years of my own existence has been invested in this project, as well as the Child Conditioning Program before that, both with the goal of furthering the use of conditioning. And although they are not infants, with these captives we have an opportunity to condition someone not raised on our ships and fully validate and prove the techniques that we spent all of those years developing.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “So we will condition them. And if it is not 100% effective for any or all of the captives, we will simply eliminate them, as well as those who failed in conditioning them,” he said and briskly walked away.

  Elder-76 glared at Elder-1’s back. She whispered, with her teeth clenched through her fake smile, “Yes, Sir.”

  Chapter 12

  December 27, 2044

  Tuesday Evening

  New Jersey coast

  The day after the event

  Kid and Jess went back down to the beach in the darkness, grabbed their belongings and commandeered the 26-foot boat left by the soldiers. They took off their pants and shoes and threw them in the boat before they pushed the heavy craft and freed it from the sand in the shallows.

  “We have the oar, but do you have the rope with the tow hook?” Kid asked as he jumped into the boat and grabbed his backpack.

  “Yeah. Remember, on land it’s called rope, but on a boat, it’s called line,” Jess added as he gave a firm push off.

  Kid rolled his eyes. “Get in the boat.”

  They both grabbed a towel from their backpacks. After patting down their legs and feet, they put their pants back on. Kid was still cold, but thankful to be dry.

  After making a path far out to sea behind the large vessels, Jess shut down the boat’s engine. They knew the tide approached the beach on an angle to the coastline, and if they estimated correctly, they would drift up to the ships. They also had an oar to help make steering adjustments.

  As they drifted closer, both stared up at the vessels in disbelief, amazed at their enormity. The three gray ships appeared to be identical and we
re lined up in a row with their bows facing the shore. Kid noted that all three had a massive anchor chain descending from a large hole in the hull at the bow, and a smaller anchor chain dropping from the ship’s stern. The two outside ships were connected to the center one by rope bridges that sagged, and reminded him of the walkways over deep gorges he had seen in movies. A tall crane stood on each vessel, and above the main deck there appeared to be at least four levels capped by a large bridge.

  Jess said, “We have to get in the middle ship. That’s where they were taken aboard.” Steering them between middle and southernmost ship, he pointed. “They were taken up using one of those davits.”

  Kid peered up and noticed that each ship had eight tenders on deck, four on both the port and starboard sides, and each was parked under a boat-hoist, or davit as Jess called it. The small boats were dwarfed by the host ships, but still appeared big enough for possibly 20 or 25 passengers. “And they said the Titanic was short on lifeboats,” he commented.

  “So Kid, how were we planning to get on the ship?”

  “I thought we could throw the tow hook up and snag the deck rail, but from shore it didn’t look so high.”

  “The bulwarks all the way up there?” Jess pointed. “There’s no way. Even the rope bridges are too high to reach with the tow hook.”

  So much for that plan! Kid thought.

  Glancing down at the water, Jess added, “And we better come up with something quick. Or we are going to drift past the ships and will have to wait until we are close to shore to turn the boat engine back on. Then we’ll have to drive all the way around out to sea and try again.”

  “That will take too much time. Let’s find another way to get in, and fast,” Kid said, sounding frustrated. As he started back-paddling with the oar to slow their drift, he realized he did not have an alternate plan, and couldn’t think of any viable options… except possibly one. “What about there?” He pointed up. “See the round opening halfway up, where the anchor chain enters the side of the hull?”