Prologue
Long Before The Collapse
First there were the endless wars fueled by governments that poured their countries’ money into ever more costly and complex technology and machinery for killing each other off. Entire centuries were engulfed by wars until whole populations were wiped out or displaced to camps where the rule of law broke down. Famine and disease followed, killing off more swaths of surviving populations.
Arable lands were ravaged by successive plagues of insects. Animals went extinct and the seas turned too hot for many life forms. The promise of nuclear energy gave way to deadly explosions followed by climate disruptions that rivaled even the fallout from nuclear wars which culminated in a search for life beyond Earth. Those searches devolved into aborted attempts at relocation to other planets and, over time, societies lost much of the technological knowledge they’d developed.
After several centuries colonies of survivors formed into city-states or moved deep into mountain ranges to cut themselves off from the horrors left behind. The natural ecology of climate and vegetation had become so disrupted that near the sea only tropical plants grew, while high in the mountains deciduous trees slowly took root.
One city located at the edge of a hot sea was renamed Infinius. It came under the control of a brutal dictator who installed systems that controlled every aspect of life. The Regime, as it was known, named what had come before The Collapse and made it a priority to “cleanse” the people of memory so they could be re-educated into obedience.
The Cleanse was simple and effective. The Regime divided people into lotteries with identity cards. Each lottery group was assigned three numbers. The Regime decided which numbers to choose for The Cleanse. When a group was announced, their children were sent to Child Holding Centers and the adults were rounded up and delivered to a Cleansing Camp. The moment they arrived, they were stripped of whatever personal belongings and clothing they had and then marched into a great hall. Men and women together naked under blaring lights. And then, a siren sounded and another sound, lower than the siren, a kind of buzzing noise that grew louder as the siren faded. People slumped over as the buzzing continued until it finally ended. After that no one remembered much of anything and they were sent to re-education centers where they were indoctrinated to follow obediently anything and everything that The Regime and Premier Villinkash ordered. Since even The Regime realized the city needed some thinking members, the ones who escaped were watched and reported on by The Cleansed. Thus The Regime maintained maximum control over the population and all its goods and services were owned and operated by The Regime. And The Regime controlled all the wealth except where corruption ruled. And it ruled everywhere.
Part One
The Race
Niko was twelve when he ran away from Child Holding Center Number Five. It had been a particularly bad day. Two boys sent to solitary with only water and another beaten by a fat guard for not walking fast enough to the exercise square. Still, Niko had managed to hide in the kitchen behind two giant flour sacks. Always hungry, he had stuffed two slices of stale bread into his mouth. Of course just being there was a punishable offense.
A fine powder coated the floor where rats had chewed holes in the sacks. A scattering of tiny paw prints made haphazard patterns like bird tracks in snow. There was no way to avoid leaving footprints. Niko worried if he was caught . . . well, he refused to think about that.
Crap guards, he thought. Crap feeders. Never give us enough. Sell what’s supposed to be for us on the black market. One meal a day for kids is not enough. Bastards.
A soft, scraping sound interrupted his thoughts. He peeked around the sacks and saw a boy he knew. Younger than Niko and small for his age, the boy was scraping a long, pointed butcher knife against the inside of the vat used to make the putrid soup the feeders served once a week. The boy scraped and then swiped the goo off with his index finger, and sucked what he’d gathered.
As Niko considered some way to approach him so they could both escape, the door swung open. Two large guards caught the boy by his arms and pinned him against the vat.
Niko ducked his head back behind the sacks. He wanted to help the boy and attack the guards, but he couldn’t figure out a way to overpower them all by himself. Even if he could, he knew eventually they would beat him. And there were worse punishments. He’d heard about them. His heart pounded and ached at the same time. But, even though he’d grown stronger in the past few months, he knew it was useless. He covered his ears, but the boy’s cries would reverberate in his nightmares for years. And always there would be that scraping sound just before he would awake in a cold sweat.
When whatever they had done to the boy was over, the guards laughed, and Niko could hear them swilling something from bottles. Soon they were slurring their words and reeling around where the boy had been pinned. After some time, they opened the back door to an infested alley and threw the bottles onto a rubbish pile. Niko heard shattering glass as the bottles landed. Then, laughing, they tossed the boy’s thin, lifeless body on top of the heap. It landed with a thud.
Back in the kitchen, they clapped each other on the back and soon stumbled around until both of them slid to the floor right next to the flour sacks.
Niko slipped from his hiding place and passed the snuffling, snoring guards. He found the knife the boy had used. It was cold and sticky with his blood. Niko approached the first guard, whose head was tilted to one side, drool dripping to his chin.
He contemplated the guard for a moment, remembering him from the yard where the boys were allowed to run around each day for fifteen minutes. A feeling of hate welled up in Niko. Hate of the guard, the hunger, the whole place, and everyone in it.
When he stuck the pointed end of that knife hard into the side of the guard’s neck, blood spurted out like a fountain and Niko jumped back. The guard moaned for a second and then was still. Niko moved to the other guard but decided to simply leave the knife in his open palm. No one would miss Niko, he thought. And they would blame the guard for what had happened there because Niko knew that, in this system, no one was safe from blame.
After he was done, he moved swiftly to the door, pushed it open, and glanced at the poor boy’s body lying like a dead leaf on top of the rubbish heap. Then Niko ran for his life. Ran past the open gates that allowed delivery trucks to enter, past the spindly pine trees, past piles of gravel and broken fences. Ran as far as he could without stopping. He had no plan, but was sure no one would bother to find him. He’d be just another boy lost forever.
He didn’t stop running until long after darkness had enveloped the city. And he never knew that his disappearance back at Child Holding Center Number Five had, indeed, been noted by someone.
Six years later, Niko spotted his name on one of the InCom kiosks scattered like scarecrows throughout the city. You couldn’t avoid them, always blasting lists at you. Lists telling you what to think, what to do, what not to do, the latest threat to the city, who to report, ways the Regime was so very good for you. That day, exactly halfway down, number seven of thirteen, his name was on a list.
He had known, when he moved to The Ring, this day might come. Now he had turned eighteen and that day was here.
The mechanical voice barked lists day and night.
These five citizens have reported neighbors for the List of Hoarders.