John 76359
This is a work of fiction.
Any names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner.
Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 by Frederick Tony Zaccarini
John 76359
CHAPTER
1
The light filtered slowly through John's bedroom window. He could sense the warmth in colour, as his eyelids flickered mercilessly against the encroaching intrusion.
"No," he thought, “Five more minutes.”
He was reaching the surface now, his eyelids glowing hot as the thin translucent film shielded his senses against the strong bright light.
"Not yet, please."
His head ached, his body objected to the dawn and the pain it would soon bring.
"Bastards!" He screamed from the depths of his stomach, too late now, he was beginning to surface. Slowly his eyes opened. The ceiling, as usual, glowed brightly from wall to wall, as the low voltage drone started to gain momentum. Just another day for John!
"Good morning, John!" exclaimed the voice from the monitor on the wall. John briefly glanced up at the screen, as he stretched to clutch his first cigarette of the day. His eardrums almost bursting as the flame ignited, magnifying the sound of sparks that danced around his head. He drew deeply, filling his lungs with the sweet tasting drug, he held for an age, then spewed a thin column of smoke into the stale, and humid air.
Turning to face the window, he gazed from the vast expanse of glass that covered the entire surface area that was the left hand wall of his room. The Tower Block looked further away this morning he thought. Fifty metres away, the adjacent building was beginning to come to life like some ancient computerised console that had been fired up for the first time in a thousand years. Some cells were already fully illuminated. John saw the occupants stir and move around, whilst others flickered and flashed into life. Soon almost all the rooms were fully lit, except the usual ones, the ones that never lit.
“Get up now!”
John's shoe bounced back from the end of the annoying monitor and fell heavily to the ground. The fall broken by repeated layers of rubbish and cigarette cartons which decorated the floor of his room.
"Fuck Off!” he yelled "Fuck Off!"
The heating system was now beginning to start its daily grumble. It groaned, hissed and leaked in the damp putrid corner of John’s room, as the gallons of piping hot rusty water circulated endlessly round the system. Occasionally it dripped from an ill fitting pipe that had split and leaked the foul smelling liquid from a crystallised gash just below the joint at the bottom of the radiator.
John turned again to check the progress of the illuminating monster, the last flickering light finally ignited. It was a comfort for him to see Orion stand out in all its glory. He had grown quite attached to the sight of the Tower Block opposite and the shape formed by the darkened rooms, the ones that never lit. As he watched, it was almost hypnotic seeing all those people moving around, turning this way and that, like excitable bees in a busy honeycomb, he thought.
“A veritable hive of activity,” he said from under his breath, as he sniggered quietly to himself. From where he lay in bed, John could just make out the top of the building at the eightieth floor. Above this and to the right, the sky was a strange monotone grey that could barely be distinguished from the edge of the smooth moulded masonry. The appearance it gave was that the rooms were somehow two dimensional suspended columns of light.
“The windows to a thousand souls!” he thought.
“John 76359 get up!”
Turning slowly towards the source of voice, John stared piercingly at the monitor.
“76359 get up now!”
The monitor was suspended above the radiator and dominated the right hand corner of his room. Within the vision area of the screen, the head and shoulders of an imposing man in his mid thirties. His features and jaw line were strongly defined, his skin sallow in complexion with deeply pitted acne marks, the result of a difficult transition through puberty. Short cropped hair, vivid powder blue eyes, and a black polo neck top completed the menacing look.
“Get up now John,” said the man. John continued to stare defiantly at the screen and very slowly and deliberately stubbed out the remainder of his cigarette.
“Fuck off Max.”
The pain started almost before he had finished his sentence. It was so intense that he immediately crouched in the foetal position. From the back of his neck, and across the top of his head shot the sharp piercing pains, repeatedly stabbed and stabbed.
“Alright, alright!” he cried, “I’m getting up.”
Max grinned to reveal a gold plated canine tooth which glistened in the studio lighting. Slowly the pain evaporated then gradually disappeared. Keeping his eyes firmly locked on the screen, John eased himself to his knees and then finally to his feet.
“Every week,” said Max as he shook his head from side to side.
“Every week without fail.”
As the screen went blank John was aware that the piped music had started. It was louder than usual. It was just Max’s childish way of annoying him thought John.
“Stupid fucker if he thinks that stuff will get to me.” He quickly pulled on some clothes, and made a real effort to make up for the lost time, after all there was no point in antagonising Max any more this morning, his head was already sore enough, besides he had made his point and he would miss his startfast if he didn’t hurry up.
He quickly dressed in his usual dark grey boiler suit ignoring the smell of stale sweat which surrounded the garment and which became ever more intense the more he struggled. Bending down to fasten his boot straps, his eyes wandered across to the opposite building. Most of the workers had already gone by now, with only the last few suckers desperately trying to make their departure. As he looked away quickly from the scene, his panning glance was broken by what he thought was a burst of light from one of the darkened rooms. It was over in seconds but John was sure he had seen the figure of a Woman, staring back at him through the semi reflective curtain walling from a room in the building directly opposite.
“A Woman!” he said as he rose to his feet, then repeating the phrase one more time as he moved towards the glass partition. Now with hands cupped in an ark and wedged between glass and forehead John peered once more across the abyss, his eyes squeezed almost tight as he desperately tried to verify the sight which had met his eyes. “She was standing there,” he thought. He frantically wiped the glass to clear the growing condensation, but the back of his arm was greasy, which only added to his loss of vision.
Eight hundred metres below John could just make out the endless columns of men pouring out of the adjacent building.
“Oh shit!” he said, as it dawned on him that he had been standing there for at least ten minutes.
“I’ll never make it.” Quickly he grabbed the Power Belt, punched the door opening mechanism with the side of his hand and fled out into the reflective aluminium corridor. The sound of his furious footsteps echoed round the various landings as down and further down he descended. Lower and lower anticlockwise round and round, floor fifty six.
“Six more to the flumes,” he thought.
On arrival at the jump sight John pounced through the clear P.V.C. flaps to start his slippery descent to the ground floor. Inside, the tube was brightly lit except for the systematic dark flashes which signified the passing of each floor. As he sped ever downwards he recalled that very first morning on the flumes. He had been so excited. He had thought this was going to
be so wonderful, his first day at work. His first day as a real man.
Later and through time the excitement and fun of that first early morning ride gradually turned to apathy and tedium. According to some of the older guys the flumes and lifts had been added to the exterior of the tower blocks in 2,312 after a major riot. Some of the men on the upper floors had been complaining about the constant use of pain blocks when they were late. They had said it was unfair because it took them so much longer to reach the ground floor. Ahead John noticed the familiar orange stripe countdown bands which gradually increased in size as the exit approached. Passing the final dark section the flume turned sharply inside the building for the first time.
Out into the main registration area he finally slid to a halt. The place was completely deserted. He’d never been this late before. Hesitantly he got to his feet and made his way over to the large glass doors. As he moved forward John became aware that he was being tracked by the cameras high on the wall just to his left. He had often watched them scanning the crowds of men, watching while the hoards waited patiently to run their identification wrist bracelets under the scanner. This in turn revolved the barriers and counted each person out. He had often wondered whether or not they would notice if anyone was missing.
“Stupid idea!” he thought.
“Of course they would notice. Or would they?” For the first time ever he realised how much noise the rotating cameras actually made. He wondered if it was Max. As he reached the door he half expected to be hit by another pain block. It never happened.
Out into clean fresh morning air John felt relieved and lucky.
“Christ that was close,” he thought.
“Once a day is more than enough for me.” He looked down to check the time reading on his wrist brace Five fifty nine. He wasn’t safe yet. Eight hundred metres off in the distance the last of the stragglers were just reaching the entrance to the vast diagonal concrete shaft. Picking up speed he started towards the mouth of the cavern and his thoughts turned to the registration area and that fateful morning four months ago when Mark 21363 had been terminated. John had really liked him. He had been his best friend, he was almost thirty five years old.
The avenue that John now raced along was one hundred metres wide and eight hundred metres long. Everyone knew the dimensions because it was ten slabs wide, eighty slabs long and completely smooth. The low chest high walls at either side seemed to accentuate the distance
“Fifty.” He said out in a loud voice as he acknowledged the passing of the relevant neoprene concrete divider.
Growing bigger with each step the giant opening drew closer and closer. Although John was very fit, this morning he was beginning to perspire heavily with the effort of running in the thick padded garment. His breath quickened, beads of sweat trickled from his forehead and meandered from his temples. His damp shoulder length hair clung to the back of his neck, attracted there like a swarm of flies to sticky fly paper. It towered above him now, above, to the left, to the right and below. It consumed him. Down the slipway into the cold earth John descended.
CHAPTER
2
In the vast pyramid shaped glass penthouse suite on the top of tower block five Max was at his desk busily going through various computer data. He was checking on 76359. He had watched John’s arrival from the flumes at the registration area. He had seen the look of apprehension in John eyes as he had observed the rotating cameras which had tracked his every move to the front door. But Max had also noticed an independent look of defiance.
“I should have hit the bastard again!” he said out loud. Max was disappointed in his own lack of response. He was concerned about 76359. It was his job to see all and know all. As director of tower block five he had watched over its occupants for almost twelve years now, since he was John’s age. Since he was twenty one. From time to time some of his charges stepped out of line and were required to be reminded of their duties and responsibilities.
In the early days he had been very ambitious, thorough and extremely ruthless. He had followed every rule to the letter.
“You’re losing your edge Max,” he thought.
“You’re getting old.”
Now, with elbows on desk, he bent forward interlocking his fingers to support his chin. He stared intently at the blinking cursor and the vivid blue screen. John 76359. Max knew it was the word and numbers that would spell trouble for him any time now. He had seen this very symptoms in others many times before.
Switching the monitor off manually, Max yawned, stretched and stood up. Slowly and methodically he began to pace across the dark grey marble floor of his palatial office-apartment.
“Blinds up 70%!” he said in an authoritative voice. Instantly the surrounding diagonal glass walls became semi-transparent. The lighting that had previously filled the room was now replaced by the natural light from a crisp early morning sky. The pyramid, which was centred on top of the vast tower block C, stood fifty metres in from the edge and was itself fifty metres square. It had been specifically designed and positioned to be out of view from the top floor of the adjacent building. Max stopped for a moment to light a cigarette, and in that instant a faint audible buzz indicated that air filters had been activated. Max returned a wave of acknowledgement to Manfrid, his younger counterpart, who resided two hundred metres away in the adjacent pyramid.
Returning to his chair Max sat back to enjoy the moment. He liked this time of day. All the workers were in the City, thirty five in sick bay, three critical and one ready for disposal. Around ten thousand men lived in each tower block with the first two floors being used by a variety of essential services required to run this highly efficient vertical city. The seventy ninth and eightieth floors were occupied by the surveillance departments who like everyone else lived in the tower block.
Max’s thoughts drifted back to that last termination four months ago. It had been around the first of December and had all started because Mark 21363 had crouched down in the crowd to fasten a boot strap that had become undone. Max had been viewing the registration area on that particular morning and had observed him. Thinking that he had looked suspicious Max had challenged him. 21363 went completely berserk, he had stood up and had frantically started taking off the boot that he had just put on. He had then thrown it at the monitor.
“What the fuck are you looking at eh?” he had shouted wildly. Next came the other boot, then the Power Belt. Max had applied the pain block, I’ve got to stamp out this shit once and for all he thought. He then watched smiling as Mark danced his final death samba. Everyone in the area slowly fell silent and still as the spectacle continued. Finally a deathly quiet descended over the two hundred men who were present, as they looked on to see their work mate violently writhe and snake around on the floor. He just kept on shouting,
“Bastards!” over and over again, thought Max.
Eventually, after what seemed like an age, but in reality had only been about fifty seconds, the thrashing body had stopped. A thin trickle of blood eased from the contorted squalid corps that lay on the floor. The men had then turned and proceeded to vacate the building, no one daring to say anything.
Max pulled out another cigarette. Something was bothering him about that recent image which raced though his head. He leant forward and punched “Mark 21363 Termination” into the key board. He could have used the voice activator but he liked to do things manually whenever possible.
“Keep my hand in,” he thought, as he raised a little smile to himself.
The video playback which had now started showed the captions - Year 2,325. Month December. Date Monday 2nd. Time 5.42. Location Ground Floor T.B.5 Director Max Shnell. The scene which unfolded was just as Max had recalled, there was 21363 rolling about on the ground, whilst the onlookers followed the theatrical movements made by the unfortunate victim. The numbers at the base of the screen flashed “Mark 21363”. Max hit the keyboard again. The episode played for a second time, but this time the camera lo
oked down from a different perspective. The wide angle view exposed the entire crowd present in the registration area. The elevated bird’s eye position showed the tops of all heads as they religiously faced the performing star. Max noticed an interesting light area in the centre of the crowd, right at the back. He created a marquee box round the object.
“Enlarge 800%,” he said positively.
The image that now filled the screen was the sharp featured face of a handsome young man with shoulder length hair. His piercing blue eyes stared menacingly at Max. The numbers at the base of the screen flashed “John 76359”. Max tried to outstare that powerful gaze of the digital image but blinked and failed. Annoyed, he switched off the monitor, sat back, and pondered over that last intimidating image.
Max noticed that the sun was beginning to burn off the first of the early morning haze, and for a brief moment a flash of blue sky came and went.
“Bach,” he said in a loud voice.
The music started almost immediately. Max closed his eyes and slowly drifted off, as the peaceful sound gently washed over him.
A buzz from the console stirred Max. He was instantly sharp.
“What is it?” he said, checking the time on his watch.