“And I’m supposed to feel fucking sorry them am I? I’m not having any of this fucking shite!” said John, spitting the chewing gum over the heads of the two men.
“Just hear me out will you?” pleaded Matt.
“We all know that every person who lives and works in the city compound came from a home and was brought here at the age of twelve, right? Just like us. The directors are the only people who are free to come and go as they please and even they have the same background as us. Everyone else is a prisoner. Every fucking one of us.”
John kept quiet, there was no arguing that point!
“Most of the managers are just as pissed off as we are. Did you ever think of that?” asked Matt.
No reply was John’s answer. Again he had never thought of it. A pregnant pause descended on the conversation, for several moments nobody talked as the awkward silence continued.
John broke first. “What’s his name?”
“Who?” asked Matt with a vacant expression?
“Your contact, the manager,” said John.
“We can’t tell you that,” replied Matt.
“Luke and I are the only two people who know his identity. We would like to keep it that way. It’s for safety reasons.”
“Come on,” insisted John. Matt dropped his eyes and just shook his head from side to side. John wanted to argue the point but he knew Matt was right, he was just being nosy.
“Ok!” he said. “I’m interested.”
“Good! I knew you would be,” said Luke who had spoken for the first time since he had arrived.
“We can tell you some things,” said Matt who had turned very enthusiastic all of a sudden.
“Luke and I were caught on camera one Sunday discussing how much we hated the place and how we wanted to do something about it. We were in my room at the time. It was about nine thirty at night. Max interrupted us. I almost fucking shit myself. But instead of being hit by a Pain Block, he said he was sick of things too. I just couldn’t believe my fucking ears.”
“I just can’t believe my fucking ears,” said John.
“Max! You never said it was Max.”
No! No!” said Matt, trying to explain.
During the following few hours Matt and Luke explained about the Computer simulation procedure, the purpose of which was to convince workers that they were being watched over at all times, by only one person. The director of the tower block. A god like individual who never slept and seemed to be everywhere at all times, watching everything, knowing everything. In reality the work load was actually being shared by twelve of the first level managers. John had never thought about it before, but it all made sense now.
“How could one individual have worked all those hours, twenty four hours a day seven days a week? How could he have been so stupid not to think of that before, for himself?” he pondered.
“All those mornings he had thought it was Max, and it was a different person all the time.”
As the three men sat in the centre of the compound that morning, Matt and Luke explained so many things to John. Since the creation of the Brotherhood eight months earlier, their numbers had swollen to twenty one.
John found out that their management contact had passed on his name as a possible Brotherhood member. He had been identified as a potential candidate because of his frequent on-camera outbursts.
“Like the one you had yesterday morning,” Matt said to him.
“What! That was your man?” John asked shocked.
“That was our man,” Matt repeated. “So why did he hit me with the Pain Block then?” asked John sounding annoyed.
“He had to,” explained Matt, “he was being watched himself. He’s got to be careful. He said to tell you that he’s sorry, but he had to do it.” John remained silent, trying to fathom out if he was telling the truth.
He looked long and hard into Matt’s eyes, and after giving him what seemed to be a long and piercing stare, decided to accept his version of yesterday’s events.
“Ok!” exclaimed John. “So this guy points you in the right direction of workers who are likely to feel the same way as you do. So then what? You go and approach them and find out if he’s right or wrong. Has he ever been wrong?”
“Nope!” answered Matt shaking his head.
“So where’s this all leading to? Asked John.
“I wish I knew,” replied Matt.
“All I know is that we are trying to do something about it. We’ve been recruiting people in cells.” John looked puzzled.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Well, we were asked by our contact to recruit workers in a specific way. You see, we are the only two people who know his identity. Except, we don’t really! Well, when we were contacted in the beginning and he explained to us about the simulated transmissions and the fact that he wasn’t Max, but that he did not want to reveal his true identity, we had to devise a code that would allow us to know that it was him.” John was intrigued.
“So how do you do it?” he asked.
“He coughs,” answered Luke. John raised an eyebrow. Luke continued,
“Before he says a word, he coughs and that way we know it’s him.”
“Cells!” exclaimed Matt.
“What?” asked John?
“Cells,” continued Matt.
“I was talking about cells. You see, we are the only two people who know his identity so to speak. We have recruited three people who in turn have recruited five people. The five people know the identity of the person who recruited them, they know each other, but they don’t know us. They have been told not to talk about it, to anyone, outside of their cells. None of the cells have contact with each other. It minimises the risks.”
“I’m the start of the next cell,” said John.
“Got it in one,” replied Matt.
“But how do know that you can trust your contact?” asked John.
“What choice have we got? Anyway, there’s nothing else on offer, we need some kind of hope. Besides, he could kill any one of us, any time he wanted, no questions asked. Why should he put his own life on the line? No, I trust him John.”
“Me too,” agreed Luke in support.
“He tells us more than we tell him. We’ve got nothing to tell him. Anyway, according to our contact, the tower block directors have been going out more in the last three months than they’ve done in the past three years. There’s hardly a day goes by without one of them going out! Something’s going on! But he doesn’t know what.”
“I can vouch for that too,” agreed Matt. “My window on the sixty first floor looks out across the perimeter fence and down the road. I’ve seen them in their cars, coming back late at night. He has also told us that the real Max doesn’t seem to be motivated anymore, it’s like he’s just not interested.”
“Ok! Ok! I give in. I’m convinced,” said John with a broad grin.
“I do feel the same way as you. I will join you. Now, will you give me a break and shut the fuck up for five minutes, it’s my day off for fuck sake.”
The three men exploded with laughter.
CHAPTER
7
Max stretched and sat upright on the couch where he had dozed off an hour earlier. A shaft of light crossing his unconscious vision had caused him to stir and waken. Sitting up he headed for the bar and poured a glass of orange juice. Then, walking to the corner of the pyramid, he looked through the eye piece of the high powered telescope positioned near the glass wall at the balk end of the snooker table. Sitting down he adjusted the vertical trajectory and peered into the distance of the compound far below. The travelling motion of the zoom lens moved smoothly with each turn of the thread. The passing ground moved in his vision like a virtual reality flight simulator. He altered the horizontal shift and continued to point the telescope in the direction of the solitary mast standing in the middle distance. Adjusting the focus, a vertical black line appeared, reminiscent of a ha
ir on a microscope. Tracking to its base, he stopped at the three men who now filled his viewfinder. He paused for some minutes to look down on the three engrossed in their idle banter, their arms flailing around like drowning men in a stormy sea. Max was envious of their obvious friendship, of their private conversations and little jokes. They were obviously enjoying each others’ company. It occurred to him to capture their conversation by using the camera positioned on top of the mast above their heads. But decided against it.
“At least they can get out on a Sunday, lucky bastards,” he thought.
“Here I am, the director of tower block five acting like some sick voyeur. Secretly spying, leering through a hole like a sick perv at a cheap peep show engrossed in a ménage de trois.”
Disgusted, he looked away.
His thoughts now turned to that stormy board meeting eight months earlier. The main item on the agenda that morning was the progress of work in the city. There was a problem, but the problem was that the city was ahead of schedule. It was after much debate and controversy that the consensus of opinion fell in favour of a weekly day off being introduced in order to slow things up. The last thing that any of the directors wanted was one hundred and twenty thousand captive men wandering around with nothing to do! Building the city was a logistical nightmare, but compounding the problem was the stark reality that the project had to be finished exactly on time, no earlier no later!
A buzz from the console brought Max back into the present. “Yes,” he said sharply.
“There was an incident reported this morning,” said Brian.
“One of the young assistants working in the dispensary has reported an act of gross insubordination. We’ve got it on camera. I’ve played it back and got a match. Personally it doesn’t look that bad to me. It’s someone called John 76359.”
“Monitor link!” said Max, as he sat down. Immediately Brian and Max were in visual contact.
“Doesn’t ring a bell,” said Max, as he shrugged his shoulders.
“Put him up,” he said.
As Brian turned to key in the name and number, Max was aware of how thin and pale he looked.
“He doesn’t look at all well,” he thought. The side view of Brian’s face made the dark bags under his eyes seem even more prominent than usual.
The screen blinked and then suddenly it filled with a new image. It was the face of a handsome young man with sharp features and shoulder length hair. His piercing blue eyes stared menacingly at Max. The numbers at the base of the screen flashed,
“John 76359.”
It was virtually the same image that Max had seen yesterday.
“Yes, I’ve seen this one before,” said Max.
“I’ll deal with him later. Anything else?” “No!” replied Brian.
“That’s it.”
Max hit the end transmission button. Leaning back from the control panel, he placed his feet up onto the desktop and crossed his legs. He took out a cigarette and tapped it on the end of the cardboard carton. He did not know why people did this, he had just seen it many times before in old movies and it seemed the right thing to do!
His thoughts drifted back to that telling evening all those years earlier. Andy Lenard had lain secured to the leg of the snooker table. His glazed pupils filling their sockets as the truth serum had gradually taken effect.
“How do you feel?” Max had asked.
“Not comfy,” Andy had slurred in reply.
Being tethered for some time, Andy was showing the obvious signs of discomfort. Max had then given him another blast of the drug just to make sure he was well under. Only then had he finally untied him. By that time Andy was almost unconscious and had to be physically dragged to the couch.
“Had a hard day?” Max had asked with a teasing smile.
“A long day,” Andy had droned.
As he sat on the floor of the lounge area draped and sprawling, his head had flopped from side to side as he had desperately clung to the squeaky base of the leather couch.
“The longest day,” he had repeated in dramatic fashion like some poignant line from the famous film.
Reflecting on the events of that day, Max had reclined onto the couch and had lit a cigarette. He had known that for that moment he was ahead of the game, but he had also known that the deception would not last for long. He had guessed that by the following evening some of the other directors would have found out about the management restructure and would then have started asking questions. Max had gathered his thoughts, as he prepared for the impending milking session.
“How did the meeting go today?” Max had inquired.
“Very well,” Andy replied. “Go on,” Max had encouraged. “We stuck rigidly to the agenda for a change.”
“Of course,” said Max out loud, as it hadn’t dawned on him that they had an agenda. How could he have been so stupid?
“The Agenda, where is it?” he asked.
“In the cabinet,” Andy had answered, as he had gestured pathetically.
“Just relax,” said Max.
“Take it easy!” He had then gone to retrieve the A4 sheets from the desk.
By the time Max had digested the contents of the various papers from the previous board meetings going back several years, he was utterly intrigued. In order to fill in the missing gaps he had then turned his attentions on Andy. Once Andy had started talking Max could hardly keep up with him. Events and dates poured from his mouth like a water pump gushing facts. Max had managed to find out almost everything and his head was spinning from the barrage.
It had all started back in 2,153. From his observatory high up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, a leading American astronomer Dr. Ross d’Burge had discovered a new star out in the night sky. Unsure of what he had stumbled across d’Burge kept quiet while he had continued to observe the distant object. There had been no hurry for d’Burge to divulge his secret! There were only a few observatories scattered throughout the globe capable of spotting the minute speck and that eventuality was highly unlikely. There was very little chance that anyone would discover it before his announcement was made.
Since the end of the International Astro Research Funding agreement in 2127 very few infra-red or radio telescopes were still in working order. With a world population in excess of nine hundred billion people, Governments had been under extreme pressure to save money by axing all the unnecessary research programmes. The bulk of the population was more worried about where they would get their next meal, rather than concerning themselves with the mysteries which lay beyond the stars. An escape-goat had to be found. Space research and all its manifestations was definitely not a good career move. Dr. d’Burge had the best equipped privately run observatory in the United States of America and in the following months he had tried on numerous occasions to estimate the size of the new star and its distance from earth. Apart from being an avid star gazer d’Burge had also been a brilliant mathematician, so his continual failure to arrive at the right equations had bothered him greatly. But just as Max had missed the obvious in forgetting about the agenda, d’Burge had missed the obvious in excluding the possibility that the object was moving closer to him day by day. Eventually it dawned on him, “Eureka!”
Before deciding to inform the American government, d’Burge spent over two years checking and rechecking his calculations. He had intended to publish his findings, tell the world of his discovery. Global acclaim would be his. At the eleventh hour he changed his mind fearing the repercussions. What would happen when the world population found out that a meteor fifty miles wide was heading straight for the planet earth at two thousand miles an hour? Doomsday had arrived, or would arrive in the future, in one hundred and seventy three years to be exact. He had gone to the authorities to inform them of his discovery and was immediately forced to sign the Protection of Sensitive Information Act, giving them all the necessary time to have his findings checked out.
A year later d’Burge and his family had m
ysteriously disappeared, as did several of his close friends. The government of the day was in a predicament. It was only a matter of time before other countries would also discover the meteor so a conspiracy of devious undertakings swung into action. The Security departments of three influential countries were invited to a secret top level meeting in the United States. So as not to over complicate the proceedings, only Germany and Canada were chosen. Two other obvious countries, China and Russia were excluded. Following this and the subsequent meetings a plan was hatched which would prove to be the biggest on-going deception in the history of mankind.
One of the first things they had agreed on, was that this would be an exclusive club of three. There was no point in opening up the debate to strange countries and cultures, the book was now firmly closed. A security operation was started the like of which would never be repeated. Everything was on a need to know basis, anyone who compromised the project in any way, received a terminal blow. Sites were chosen in the most secluded areas of each of the selected countries and a management company formed to co-ordinate and supervise the construction of the various cities. The chosen name of the new company was I.M.P.A.C.T. Incoming Meteor Positive Action Collectively Taken. A campaign was launched to lure well qualified experienced building professionals. Once the successful individuals had been identified and interviewed their fate was sealed. Over the years one by one these men slowly disappeared as the spider of deception spun its complex web.
In the beginning the work was undertaken by convicts on death row, category A prisoners on life sentences and mentally disturbed psychiatric patients. There had been no shortage of volunteers for the endless hours, days and years of hard labour. It was a preferable option to being executed. To many facing a tedious life sentence it was better than being banged up twenty four hours a day whilst their lives slowly ebbed away. Many of the workers were totally unaware of where they were or what was going on. The homeless and social misfits also became missing persons to swell the ranks of the secret working armies. The various governments of the day had claimed credit for the improvement in the homeless statistics.