Flesh and Alloy: A dystopian novel

by Nathan Lunn

  The lowest shelf held a variety of stored liquours and plain alcohols, bottled in a gorgeously enticing rainbow of colours, shapes and sizes, each diluted with a strong quantity of air. Sloppily placed stains ran around the base of the bottles, leaking to the edge of the wood and spreading out along the metal rim, souring the air with a smell of rust and damp. The second shelf up boasted an assortment of electronic and physical holoporn devices, flashing bright pink in exaggerated call – grimy and cracked tablets were dispersed over this same shelf, a shrinking diversity of PseudoReality devices atop like the cherry of a banana sundae. The third cradled his weapons supply, the right corner was sagging, overburdened by boxes upon boxes of brightly coloured ammunition, and the left held a long rifle, affixed with costly modifications: a scope, double-taped magazines, and a blown-out silencer, all added to the standing weapon, the last of which highlighted its place upon the shelf instead of in active duty – it was broken, and had been for some time judging by the dust collected around it. The top shelf boasted his collection of poisons, each held in their unique containment systems, and recognisable instantly to the trained eye; two spaces were missing, only noticeable to Eddie by the lack of dust in their outlines, a small circle on both the left and the right sides. Reaching up, Eddie grabbed a small rectangular box in the middle of the shelf and turned it over in his hands, catching the lid with the light. The glyph imprinted on the plastic identified it as Retarder – a time dilated poison applied through the body and triggered by a selected person’s commlink at the time that they choose – when activated it spread high-voltage electric shocks throughout the target’s body, rendering them deceased in a matter of moments; the major difficulty of use being the strength of the effects – the electrical charge emitted was capable of passing through clothing and sometimes thin walls, so it had to be triggered from a far distance to ensure the user’s safety. This had been one of the few reasons it was outlawed. Thinking it crucial to his future plans – Eddie pocketed it and moved out of the cupboard, leaving the top shelf bare and the light to automatically flicker off, but not before grabbing a bottle of orange liquid from the bottom row. He placed his new items on the table with the television, and moved into the bathroom, walking around the damp towels to jump into the shower and remove some of the dirt from his hair and skin. As he left the bathroom, slipping into some comfortable clothes and past his newly piled items, a voice piped into his commlink, alerting him of a visitor waiting at his doorway. A tap of his temple brought up the stammering front camera, revealing the sweaty and suavely clothed Kye pounding on his door and yelling to let him in.

  ***

  The car pulled away from Eddie and the kerb, rising once more into the air with a blast and a shudder. Kye watched him enter Danny’s apartment, shivering at the memories he had had there, before they flew out of view, and he faced forward to the city once more. The car was manoeuvred back into the traffic line, slotting in behind a garbage truck and in front of a small PubliCab. Floating advertisements scrolled past the window, and a service bot slapped a sticker onto the outside of the glass. Shaking her head, Julie activated the wipers, peeling the sticker off without even bothering to read it. As it fluttered past Kye’s window, he could make out a single word – Gala – but it was gone before he could see what else it was promoting. His gaze was drawn back to the front of the car as they reached the workshop, the hovercar slowing to a snail’s pace as they inched forward into the dangerous situation.

  Alternating red and blue flashes unveiled the full extent of the Police Force swarming over the building like moths to a light, some setting up exclusion zones, whilst others busted down doorways and pushed back the interested public who were poking around for a story – the quiet neighbourhood very rarely got any sort of police presence, and so the questions were flying around towards the officers about previous crimes they had ignored. True to form, they could be seen waving the residents away from the doorways, attempting to dispel some of the drawing buzz. Julie brought the car to a stop, a few blocks out from the workshop, slowly to seem as natural as possible.

  “What are the police doing here, Douglass?” She turned around to look at him to see he was tapping furiously at his temple, eyes glazed in concentration. “Did you not get a tip off? They’re all over, I need to back up.” This phrase cut through her babbling, rousing Douglass to yell and grab the front of her seat.

  “No! No, we can’t back up, that’s going to look far too suspicious.” He eased off his grip, composing himself. “There’s too many drones on flight around the block, if we back up or stop they’re going to head straight to our car to ID us.” He tapped at his temple once more and closed his connection.

  “Can you not pay them off?” Julie asked Douglass.

  He replied fast, stroking at his chin as he thought, “Not with all these people around, they have to go through the official investigation stages or they get an inquiry of their own. In due time.”

  “Where do we go then? Our apartments?” Kye asked, straining to see out of the window.

  “Those areas are bound to be crawling soon, we can’t stop any longer. We’re going to have to stay on the move or out of sight from now on,” Douglass replied, holding up a finger as he took a fast call. “Yes? Yes, okay, sure. I understand, thank you.” He turned back to the car’s occupants, addressing them directly: “We need to get some new clothes.”

  Limited time to be confused, Julie pushed the car forward at a normal pace, keeping herself calm as they flew up and past the workshop. Exhaling a breath they had all been collectively holding, she lifted the car away from the site. A train of news vehicles, swooping down to pick on the story like vultures at a fresh corpse, moved past the hovercar, each from a different company and each toting a stream of camera drones in their wake. Flashing white lights began almost as soon as they reached the workshop, and an uproar began as the police attempted to remove them from the location, reporters jumping out of their cars with arms outstretched and microphones pointed for interviews.

  A short stop at a boutique tailor’s, and they were all dressed in their finest – paid for as anonymously as possible. The self-service machines had helped them to measure sizes in an efficient speed, and the industrial sized printers at the back of the shop spat out their chosen designs in almost record time. They had to move to a public shower and get cleaned up before they switched into their regalia, and as soon as they were ready, Kye offered to get out at Danny’s apartment and get a hold of Eddie. Once he had been picked up and brought up to speed, the car returned to the tailor’s and they fitted him for clothes of his own, changing into them immediately and clambering back into the car, ready to head onto their planned location.

  29

  Nothing was going as planned for Ellie Croft, and the CAAF Cares event she had worked so tirelessly to promote was in shambles. Catering had provided less than they needed, as the planner had sorely underestimated the population that had eventually turned out, predicting over four thousand under what had actually been in attendance and resulting in a very stressed and hungered group of people. On top of this, a great wind had stirred up despite weather charts recommending the opposite, flooding through the tight streets of the slums and whipping around corners with an unseen tenacity that took people and decorations clean off the streets. The grey overcast clouding provided a light cover from the sunlight, and diluted the entire block to a dull washed out tone, punctuated only slightly by the red, white and blue balloons that had been sparsely placed on the side of each housing doorway. A large banner ran across the front of the main street, sagging on one corner and tightening in the wind, that read: ‘CAAF CARES!’ and a small subtitle underneath which read: ‘The Renovations and Revocations Event’. Streamers littered the pock-marked floor, half shredded in the drains overflowing with rubbish and leaves, whilst the white cleaned service bots (which stood in a marked comparison to the soot stained walls of the buildings they were steaming) meandered around the various buildings, fin
ishing off the final preparations on the fronts of the houses that would line the main parade route and event square.

  The cleanliness was only a facade to the dank and dirt inside though, as their occupants hid in wait behind the wooden slats that constituted as windows on the back of their houses – new glass was being fitted at the front side, along with new doorways and retiling of the roofs. It was a loud grouping of procedures, and the noises irritated the homeowners to no end. One particularly irritated person, a man called Tom Kendt, had gone to complain at one of the service Bots, but was sent away to rage in his house alone. Most of this month had not gone his way, starting with a loss of his job after the top floor of the factory was destroyed in a radical terrorist attack, and then came the retrieval of his severance pay (a looting he found in the destruction), and the subsequent pseudo-makeover of his home. Even worse, the CAAF Cares event was taking place in lieu of the usual drop-off, and as such his supplies were going to be limited for the next few weeks – the lavish spread they had laid out beside his house had been restricted to news teams anyway, and a few certain individuals who could be relied upon to give good, positive interviews. Avoiding the threatening drones floating about the blocks, Tom decided to stay inside, keeping far from damages and any possibility of things going further wrong than they already had done.

  Overlooking the entire event with a stern eye, was Ellie Croft. A brown haired, shapely woman with long slender legs and a penchant for bossiness – her natural business acumen and authoritarian approach to work always landed her as the head of the Croft Family’s events, whether it was for the public or for their own personal home parties. Afflicted with the unnecessary extensive care that plagues those with perfectionism, she was often prone to anger when things didn’t result like her vision had been prophesied, and often punished those who were not even at fault for the outcome.

  She stressed over the minute details as she ran around the front of the event square, barking short orders at the service bots who had completed their job to an unshakable quality, grabbing at floating balloons until they popped and forcing others to blow them up again. As she stood in the middle of the square, looking around at the picture she was hoping to sell to the reporters and conservationists that would flock to the event, she scowled. Each house front had been cleaned spotless, and affixed with newly darkened windows, giving the wrong impression of a recently renovated housing block for all of this slum area. She sighed, and span around, ensuring that you couldn't see any of the dirt that lay just below the surface from any possible angle, and tapped her temple, sending the bots away – forgoing the tip and review as they were owned personally by the CAAF. The sagging banner irked her, but she ignored it for the time being, moving instead to the table of food and surveying over its contents.

  A solar heated metal plate weakly burned above half the table’s sheet, warming the sizzling dishes as it buzzed – mountains of entirely identical sausage rolls, 3D printed and laid atop each other like bricks to a building; a large bowl of communal salsa, so red it could be mistaken as blood, waited next to a similarly large dish presenting different colours of nacho chips; next to this was a triple-decker cake, iced with small houses that popped against the plain white of the background fondant; the only thing that was labelled was the bowl of olives and feta. Ellie had requested this specifically, expecting some of the individuals chosen for interviews to have no idea what it is, and others to be misinformed. One delicacy was enough of a stretch to provide the illusion of cost, and olives were out of fashion this year, and thus extremely cheap, so it was the correct business choice.

  Ignoring the house directly next to the food table (as it held a detestably loud and nonsensical occupant), Ellie moved to the next nearest house, watching her steps around the piles of mud the bots had left behind.

  “Get these cleaned immediately!” she barked to some human guards following her around, and they scurried into action grabbing the mud with their hands and flinging it to the sides of the food table’s house, slapping onto the already dirty walls of the back garden. Enraged, a man ran out, fist shaking and yelling:

  “Unbelievable, this is unbelievable! Can you explain why this is…” He petered out as he noticed the guns of the guards trained towards him. He stopped in his spot by the food table. He flashed a look at Ellie as she moved towards him, stroking the arm of the guard as she passed by and reached a few feet in front of the man.

  “Who may you be?” she asked, leaning away from the food and closer to the man.

  “I’m– well I don’t think it matters all that much, but I’m Tom. Tom Kendt. I tried to speak about this to one of your men earlier – the silver one, but they sent me away.”

  Ellie nodded, and spoke again. “And what is all the shouting about in the middle of my event?” Her tone was sweet, but her eyes told a different story.

  Tom replied, ramping up in anger as he went on, his words escaping before planning, “Your CAAF Cares event is a joke, the drops around here have been unbelievably meagre, and now you are doing this instead of giving us more that we need? The unsanctioned changes to my house have been incessantly loud all morning, and the food placed outside is unavailable to eat – moreover, no one from your team has been answering my questions, and right when I am comfortable to settle down, one of your men throws this mess of mud into my fucking gar–”

  “Enough!” Ellie’s eyes burned with defiance and anger, as she moved forward, her guards priming their weapons and aiming them like clockwork. “I have had more than enough of your unfair complaining.” She laughed a little, mirthlessly. “I do detest swearing.” Tom stood, cowering, not under the gaze of five fully automatic weapons, but from Ellie’s stare. “Now, we have given your house a nice makeover, and if anyone from the news teams comes to ask you anything, that is what you should say to them.” She reached up and tapped Tom’s forehead. “You understand?” Tom went silent, his gaze shooting to the guns that raised back at his head. Ellie pursed her lips, feigning disappointment. She grabbed his chin. “I said, do you understand?”

  He nodded, fear in his eyes. Speaking through smushed lips, he pulled his body away from her. “Yes, I understand. I’m sorry.” She nodded in mock care and he ran back into his house, the guards dropping their weapons only as soon as he had passed through the doorway. As he disappeared, Ellie turned back to them, shouting and waving her arm for someone to bring her the cleaning fluids. One of the guards grabbed his bag, slid it off his back and pulled out the bottle, pouring the thick, gel-like liquid over her hand. He then proceeded to rub it in, lathering the gel over the areas where she had touched Tom, before stopping and wiping it off. She barked at him once more, to reapply, and he did, repeating the process then applying a cooling lotion to her, keeping her hands soft and supple, whilst his own remained red raw with the intense burn of the bleaching lotion.

  As soon as she was clean, she pulled the guard close and commanded him with a hushed whisper, “Have him executed once the ceremonies are over. For the time being, keep him out of my sight.” The guard nodded and tapped his temple, relaying the instructions to his colleagues. Ellie, now a little further satisfied, cast an angered look towards the sagging banner, but once more chose to ignore it, and head back to her mobile office to conduct a final splash of business.

  A large silver cylinder, much like a silo tilted on its edge, was perched at the outskirts of the slums – the hover truck that towed it rumbling away to its side. A set of stairs led into the office – there was a table at the head, immaculately cleared and a monitor pushed out of the wood panelling; a fish tank full of water and floating holographic fish; row after row of metal cabinets; a viola encased to the far side. The opposite side held a pleather sofa, a mink rug draped on the floor and chairs like melted cheese. Ellie sat on the sofa instead of by the desk, tapping her temple to incite a call with the guest she had booked for the event. The CAAF Cares Renovations and Revocations event was planned in the wake of the release of some older legislat
ion – a rule of ancient times regarding the home ownership once the mortgage of a house was paid off had been removed – instead, now, the house would permanently belong to the building companies, and the people who had bought those out. This was being toted by the Croft Administering Aid Foundation as a positive thing (and it certainly was for their shareholders), due to their owning of most of the MidMeri building companies. On top of this, they were finally allowed the option of removal of any unsavoury tenants, ensuring that their housing blocks and designs held only the top class of occupant. As a result of this change, outlined to the news in the coming event, a lot of the tenants of the houses nearby would be chosen for relocation. These alternate houses hadn’t yet been chosen, but Ellie had not even bothered to concern herself with that issue – she was in charge of the event and as long as that went off without any more hitches, she had done her job correctly.