1
Marr was in her favourite place. Binoculars at hand and hidden in the bushes near the crest of a hill overlooking the approach to the port.
From there she could see both the approaching rigs and the port. She could see the nature of the activity in the dock.
Reporting on this activity was why she would typically be found in this hidden lookout. Her role was to report when there was increased security well ahead of the arrival of a rig. For typical cargo, the observers, sentinels, and ground crew would only show up after the rig breached the horizon on its final approach. However, for valuable cargo the dock was inspected and locked down sixty minutes before the rig arrived. This information was valuable for the raiders who would hit the rigs before they got near the citadel.
However, right now was different. At this moment, she was there by choice. In her free time, she often came to the lookout simply to watch the rigs come and go and reflect on the path before her.
This was one of those times. But with a difference. She knew things were in motion now. The waiting was nearly over. Soon she would embark on the path set out for her.
Marr was of average height and medium build. She had fair complexion, with a tint of olive. She had dark brown hair, and light blue eyes. She was attractive in a sense, but not obviously so. Her attractiveness was in the way her eyes smiled before her mouth. With the years of hardship and training, and because of the seriousness of the path she was on, that smile was rarely seen. This was useful, as it enabled her to pass by others barely noticed.
From her position on the hill, she not only had a view of the port, but the citadel as a whole.
She could see the seventy-foot-high wall and parts of the residential buildings which lined the inside of the wall.
The port was built into the wall. Huge doors would open to give access to the dock. Rigs could be parked inside the wall and the doors closed when the citadel came under threat.
So, since the doors were rarely closed during the day, she could see exactly what was going on.
Further in from the wall, she could see the vast green houses, incubation dorms, warehouses and factories that made up the middle ring.
And, beyond she could get a glimpse of the inner circle of the citadel with its fine buildings, huge stretches of greenery and towers.
Of course, she had never been to the inner circle. Her mentor was the only person she knew who had even seen anything of that part of the citadel.
She had lived in the middle ring until she turned eighteen, when she moved into the adult residential districts, embedded in the wall.
Marr had led a typical childhood.
She was born in an incubation centre and lived there until she was eighteen. She went to formal school until her tenth Birthday, which she shared with the eleven others in her dorm. On that day they all took the test. Her results meant she wouldn’t be furthering her formal education.
Instead, the day after the test, she woke to a half full dorm room. Those like her that were left behind, had now finished their formal schooling, and were cycled through the various labour jobs.
She worked with the industrial cleaning teams. Spent time in the greenhouses and the factories. She also spent time in the kitchens and with housekeeping. The latter being her least favourite.
During the eight years in labour training, Marr showed particular interest and prowess with all technically challenging aspects across the various areas. This enabled her to apply for an apprenticeship role with the keepers, the maintenance teams who ventured beyond the walls. They maintained fences, tended to the larger livestock, and managed the vineyards and orchards.
So, on her eighteenth Birthday she moved out of the dorm and into a h-pod in the residential district. She then spent five years as an apprentice, learning the ways of the keepers in the wild. She still had to return to the citadel at night, to check in, upload her logs, eat, and sleep. And being outside was extremely dangerous, but the freedom of movement made it all worthwhile.
2
An alarm sounded in Marr’s comms. She looked around. It was all quiet. Not good.
She crawled out of the hide and crept slowly down the path that led back to the orchards.
She soon came across a young woman lying flat on a small outcrop. She was overlooking Marr’s colleagues sweating and toiling below. The woman was snuggled up to a sniper rifle with her eye in the sight.
Marr unsheathed her 6-inch blade as she crawled up behind the young woman.
As Marr brought the knife up. The woman whispered, “Cut it out Marr, you are spoiling a perfect view.”
Marr put the knife away and stood up.
“Shit Marr! Get down. They will see us.”
“What? You afraid of getting caught drooling again?” Marr replied.
“You are just jealous of the action I get. Speaking of action, what is the story with your primary companion? We haven’t seen him for a good while?” Luna replied doing her best to change the subject.
“Firstly, Mentor is not my companion, primary or otherwise, you know that. You also know better than to ask questions of his whereabouts. Besides, we have nearly missed our check-in time.”
“You worry too much, Marr,” Luna retorted.
Marr’s demeanour changed. Time for play was over. It was time to step back into teacher and apprentice roles again.
“You don’t worry enough, and you know very well that if we don’t put some seemingly legit chatter on the comms soon, the fake logs may raise an alarm. We really can’t afford at this point in time to draw any scrutiny from the overlords.”
“I know,” Luna replied as she sat up and started packing up the rifle.
She then continued, “I just wish I knew more of what exactly was going on and what the plans for us are.”
“Luna, you know that it is for the best that we only know as much as we need to at any given time. The stakes are just too high. All will be revealed to those that follow the path. Speaking of which, it’s time for some revision.”
Luna groaned.
Marr continued, “Recite the creed.”
Luna replied, “Focus on that which is real in the heart. Create the space so that the process can emerge. Honour that which serves you well. Engage in the journey as it unfolds.”
“And, again with meaning,” Marr demanded.
Luna smiled but ignored her.
Marr had to admit, her smile was a killer. It could break the coldest of hearts.
Luna was twenty-one, ten years younger than Marr. And like Marr, Luna had been recruited by the resistance during the labour rotation. And red pilled at the age of eighteen. She had been under Marr’s wing ever since. She was of average height, with dark brown hair and eyes that matched her complexion. Some would say her complexion was warm with orange-red undertones. She was slim but strong and incredibly agile. And she was one of the best snipers Marr had known.
Marr nodded.
They both then disabled their bracelets.
Marr then said, “that all looks in order, let’s get ready for the pick-up.”
Luna added, “excellent, I am tired and ready for some food and rest.”
Then, they both waved a hand over the bracelet again and a slight green glow reappeared.
Luna looked up from packing away her stuff, “I still find it hard to believe the observers think we only talk once or twice every 30 minutes and that we only say that crap.”
Marr shrugged, “it works. Why question it. For as long as I’ve known, they don’t come looking, if we don’t give them any reason to. If we keep them thinking it takes eight hours to run those checks and not 1 hour, then we’ve got the space we need to train, learn, and prepare!”
Luna stood up and they both then made their way back down the hill, using the bushes for cover.
“Now recite the Story,” Marr requested.
Luna slowed and looked back. “What if it isn’t true? And don’t go reminding me about poor Billy and his mentor getting picked up for reciting the story without their bracelets being active. I know the overlords crack down hard on any mention of this story. But what if they just want to protect us from lies?”
Marr stopped dead. She grabbed Luna’s shoulders and spun her around to look at her.
“What is real in your heart?” Marr demanded.
Luna looked embarrassed. Her expression saddened. She then stood up properly. Pulled her shoulders back. Allowed her focus to drift and was quiet. Within a few moments, her smile returned. Her whole face lit up with an expression of both love and knowing.
Then she shared, “The story is the truth.”
“Right, now recite it,” Marr replied with warmth and forgiveness.
3
Luna turned, picked up her pace and started to speak. She spoke with confidence and grace. She gave the story love and in that she gave it life.
“There was a time when vast cities covered the planet. Life wasn’t perfect but it was far easier than today. There were wars and famine, and lots of work to do, but for most it was a safe time. A time when people could make a life for themselves. They could choose how they spent their time. They could work or not work. They could own things. They were properly rewarded for their work. Yes, there was imbalance and hardship, but there was equal access to opportunity.
“Then came the Reset. Utopian dreamers had installed sufficient numbers of their brainwashed followers into political, governmental, educational, and commercial systems. They made their move. They changed the laws and used influence within large corporations to twist and corrupt the minds of the overly trusting majority. They forced the societal systems to align with their utopian ideals. They used various trojan horses, including equality of outcome, retribution for past inequities and sustainability. They used tools like ESG, programmable centralised digital currency and military-grade psychological operations. They broke the balance. They moved society away from competency hierarchies. They broke the systems that had enabled tens of thousands of years of growth. They moved the emphasis to power and identity hierarchies. They insisted that everyone should own nothing and be happy about it. This left societies incapable of functioning properly as increasing numbers of their citizens had to devote their time to the dysfunctional bureaucracies needed to enforce the utopian’s ideology.
“The impact on the poor was immediate. Services stumbled and became incapable of serving all but the well off. Pandemics and other health crises became common place. Overreach, blind incompetence, and adeptness at covering up the truth took over as the prominent skillsets. The systems no longer served to provide refuge for the less fortunate. The systems simply provided support for the madness.
“The impact on the middle-income earners came too. Mass unemployment and the burden of the hugely inflated bureaucracies left whole countries laden with debt. The burden was too great, and societies crumbled. Fighting became common place. Neighbour fought against neighbour. Whole suburbs fell into disarray as the fighting escalated.
“More and more cities fell into anarchy as those with means left and then regrouped. They congregated in an ever-decreasing number of cities. But the worst was still to come.”
Luna continued,
“In the fifty first year after the Reset the rich elite achieved the seemingly impossible. Shielded by their wealth, from the chaos and mayhem that confronted the majority, they had blazed ahead with their space programs.
“The fruits of these programs had been largely mute until that year. In that year they successfully breached the galactic horizon. A manned craft from the Musk corporation had successfully used dark matter technology to jump from our solar system into another and back again.
“The opportunity presented by reaching new systems took all their attention. The priority became forging ties with other solar systems and accessing their tech. Up until this point the elites had protected sufficient elements of the societal systems to serve their needs. However, when they put all their attention into the riches beyond the skies, nothing stood in the way of the utopians from taking complete control.
“This was the final straw for those that opposed the utopian madness. They fought back hard. This was despite billions of their number being lost through negligence, war, and genocide. The latter being achieved through pandemic counter measures. The resistance regained control of most places. They re-grouped and concentrated their efforts on the six remaining utopian controlled cities. The resistance nicknamed these cities Tangoalfa, Indiasierra, Alfadelta, Mikelima, Alfaecho and Tangoecho.
“However, this massive push was all in vain. Unknown to most, the utopians had been planning their escape. Under the banner of saving the planet they had established five eco-friendly urbanised regions. This was common knowledge. However, it wasn’t understood that at the heart of each region was a self-contained and heavily fortified citadel. The resistance named these citadels Kuedia, Inquis, Norline, Genda and Utopiam. Those names have stuck and were even adopted by the overlords.
“When it was clear the final six cities would slip from their control, the utopians retreated to the citadels. From there they released weapons of all manner on the rest of the world. Chemical, biological and traditional. Whole regions became unliveable. Billions perished. Some directly, but most from famine as the systems outside the walls of the citadels were destroyed, polluted, or rendered useless.
“With the world in chaos, the utopians played their final trick. Already in control of all sources of communications and masters at delivering false narratives, they laid blame for the destruction at the feet of their opposition. Then they offered conditional sanctuary to anyone who came to the citadel gates. They housed them in the walls to discourage attack and they put them to work in the various factories and green houses. Using the growing knowledge of alien tech, they fortified their positions. Within a few years, the citadels were the only place where people could exist in relative safety.”
4
Luna took a pause at this point as her, and Marr had reached the edge of the hills.
Before them was a nine-foot-high chain link fence. The fence disappeared away towards the citadel to their right and into the distance on the left. Beyond the fence were the vast tracks of grazing lands, vineyards, and orchards. Just on the other side of the fence was a stretch of bushes and shrubs. This buffer also disappeared into the distance in both directions.
As they slid through a gap in the fence, they checked their comms and looked around.
“The transport is still a few minutes away, tell me what we know about what happened next,” Marr asked.
Luna continued, “The years of conflict and turmoil had been put to good use by those behind the utopian dream. They saw first-hand how their strategies hadn’t worked. It had simply created stronger division. That division awakened and strengthened the resolve of those they saw as oppressing them. Instead, the utopians used their newly acquired authority afforded to them by the citadels to shift gear. From this they conceived the Rule of Twelve.
“The Rule of Twelve said that all were equal, but only when at the same level of assigned privilege. They conceived the model with twelve levels. Each level would be granted certain privilege, and with it, power, and entitlement. Level 1 having the most, and level twelve having the least. They appointed sixty of themselves as the first EOs for this new world order. Twelve for each citadel. They decided that EOs would remain in these positions until their death.
“Appointment of EO replacement is from the level below. This in turn opens opportunity for promotion for the level below and so on. Each can have up to twelve devoted followers, or observers, who occupy the level below. This propagates down to level twelve. In reality each really only has one to two subordinates.
“Most, start and remain at level twelve. Known as the deprivileged, they are destined to work their entire lives. They live in the walls of the city without not much more than subsistence-based rewards for their toil.”
With that, Luna stopped talking. They both listened. Without speaking and at the exact same moment they both launched into a sprint. Dashing through the stretch of bushes and shrubs and running as fast as they could in the direction of the citadel. Their firm and able bodies responded to their will with beautiful precision.
Behind them, a huge airborne vehicle came over the horizon. It came low and fast. A cloud of dust rose in its wake. It would be on top of them in moments. Lowering out of the craft were two cables. Each with a sort of a hook mechanism at the end. The cables were weighted slightly so they extended out behind the craft but didn’t touch the top of the bushes.
Marr and Luna had separated slightly so whilst running level, there was now a gap between them. As they ran, they unfurled a length of tether from their belts and clipped one end into their body harness. Just as the massive quadcopter reached their position, Marr and Luna sprung into the air, pivoting as they went and letting go of the loose end of the tethers.
The craft passed overhead and then climbed. The tethers spiralled out and caught the cables. The locking mechanisms found each other and made a secure bond. As the craft climbed the cables where unfelled some more so when they went taut, Marr and Luna only felt a slight pull as they flew through the air. The winches then reversed direction, bringing Marr and Luna into the belly of the transport. The doors in the floor closed below them.
Once unclipped from the winches, Marr and Luna headed straight for their lockers. The lockers were hidden in the walls of the hold. They stowed most of their equipment and changed out of their fatigues and into their keepers’ outfits. Then they each found a spare console to sync the fake logs.
Only when the consoles and lockers were hidden from view again, did they give the other a high five and acknowledge their colleagues. A dozen other colleagues were already in this space completing a similar routine.
As the adrenaline rush dissipated, sweat soaked their clothes and added to the illusion they were crafting. They found seats and settled in for the ride.
5
The transport made two further stops on its course towards the citadel. These stops were to pick up other keepers from the sheds, vineyards, and orchards. Now that the transport was within visual range of the citadel, these subsequent pickups were done in full view, and done with far less sophistication or glamour.
The quadcopter would land in a predesignated area and the keepers would come aboard. By the time they reached the citadel there were near fifty keepers squashed into the hold.
The transport slowed as it approached the wall of the citadel. A huge door slid open exposing a platform on which the transport landed. The doors closed behind the transport the moment it touched the pad.
Similar doors were now closing around the circumference of the citadel as other transports returned for the night with their load of keepers.
Within the transport, the occupants waited patiently as the transport’s four massive rotors came to rest.
When the back doors finally opened, Marr, Luna, and everyone else filed out, walked across the pad, and started to queue at a mantrap. One at a time, they entered the mantrap and waited for their logs and vitals to be scanned. A misstep here would have the person picked up by sentinels and taken away, never to be seen or heard of again. However, once cleared by the operators of the mantrap, the keepers would be free to roam the outer ring of the citadel in search of food, recreation, and rest.
Recreation was not on the minds of Marr and Luna as they left the transport pad and headed towards the nearest Hyperloop station. The signs were there. More real work was on the horizon, so if it was tomorrow, a good night’s rest was going to be essential.
Like most of those who worked outside the walls, Marr and Luna shared a h-pod near the port. It meant they had to use the Hyperloop instead of walking. But the location had its advantages. Firstly, there was always more things going on near the port. And secondly, it was rougher, so the sentinels and observers stayed clear of the bars and recreation rooms, mostly.
The Hyperloops were frequent and fast, so it wasn’t that much of an inconvenience.
“Let’s go via the stores, as I need to get a food pack,” Luna announced as they boarded the train.
“We still have two portions of cacciatore,” Marr replied.
“I don’t feel like it. I am in the mood for a curry. Besides if we aren’t going for a drink, perhaps we can get a dessert as a treat?”
“Fine,” Marr agreed.
She knew it wasn’t going to be a battle she could win or be bothered with.
The Hyperloop didn’t take long to reach their stop. The stores were on lower levels. So, they made their way down the access stairs instead of heading straight to their h-pod. The stores were busy as labourers exchanged their EUs for essential supplies and food. The habitation pods were small and had little storage so most made daily trips rather than stocking up.
Twenty minutes later, and Marr and Luna were opening the glass door to their shared space. Their h-pod consisted of a living room, two small bedrooms and a shared bathroom. The glass door opened into the living room and served as the only window. The living room contained a kitchenette, and a table with two chairs. It didn’t need much more as they were rarely there for more than showering, sleeping, or eating. The kitchen had a small storage cupboard, a basic sink and the rehydration unit used to process the food packs.
“You shower first, as it’s my turn to prepare the food,” Marr insisted as they stowed their boots.
“What level to you think observers need to be at before they can get access to have a bigger h-pod?” Luna asked as she headed for the shower.
“That is something the likes of us will never need to know,” Marr replied.
