by Enn Kae
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Abe got out of the bath and scrubbed his body down with a grey towel that slung over the curtain rail. He threw over his body whatever clothes were available from the mountainous piles that shaped his living room-cum-bedroom. This wasn't where he expected to find himself at his age: almost forty; living in ten-square metres of space by the walls of the outer zones of London and commuting to his cleaning job. He found his job from the one of many Pro-gen owned employment agencies. They operated with a fierce ruthlessness. All competitors had been squeezed out of the market and the work which was available was provided in such appalling conditions that, unless you had some other means to feed yourself, you were better off staying at home than having to endure the work.
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Abe's only reprieve was that, in a week's time, he was going to make the journey from Euston to Brixham in Devon and leave his enslaved existence behind him. It had taken him a year to find a job and he gladly accepted it, cleaning Battersea Power Station, because he would be able to ration out his food and the cost of his commute to work and save all the rest. A year's hard-earned savings paid for the ticket to see Ophelia. It was a one-way ticket. He didn't plan on returning.
Battersea Power Station was a relic of Britain's great industrial past. It was built in the 1930s with the splendour of modernity: its clean lines clawed upwards to demonstrate the masculinity of the art-deco movement. Now it stood - handed down the decades, from one owner to another, since the cessation of its operation in 1975. Time had shifted to build new and more impressive buildings that tinkered on London's landscape but Battersea Power Station stood still, uncompromisingly uncomfortable, in an inauthentic world. Four chimneys that once blew smoke in a former life now stood silently whispering to each other, ignored by the world around them. The hustle from the eateries, the tremors from the trample of tourists that trod the embankment and the light from shinier buildings dulled its existence into the shadows of history. Battersea Power Station was the perfect place for anyone to work in isolation.
It was Monday and Abe was going to work his final week in the overbearing mass of brick. Inside, the hollowed remnants of history were visible in every corner. The courtyard was beautifully reconstructed and it hosted a splendid traditional English garden whilst the corridors surrounding it protested the encroachment of any further development. Abe's job was to clean the interior of the building; the corridors and the chambers. He had initially started the job with another a year ago but his colleague had since been laid off. He managed the work, though he often asked himself why he was doing it.
The half a dozen or so suits that walked around the station every so often completely ignored him and he never asked any of them that question. Their gait intimated him; he too was intelligent, though he didn't fit their kind and they projected a sense of superiority and hatred towards him. He sometimes felt them snarl at him and he was afraid of making eye contact with them, for they had a powerful stare which made him feel very uneasy. He often thought what the Jews in the ghettos of Warsaw felt when confronted with the visual assault of their oppressor. He often thought what immigrants to England had felt over the years when assaulted with the accusatory eyes of the natives. He often thought... it often seemed like his thoughts were the only things that kept him company.
Abe ran out of cleaning supplies. He had initially been allocated a provision but, seeing as though he now was responsible for the ordering of them, he used the supplies sparingly before having to spend hours of his own time ringing up suppliers to find the best price. He was in the middle of cleaning the second floor when he had to make a visit to the storeroom. He walked down the left wing of the building, to the end of the corridor and turned left to enter the storeroom. He was confronted with an unfamiliar sight. This chamber, like all others in the station, had been through several different incarnations; from control rooms to offices to supply rooms. He walked into the chamber expecting stacks of cleaning equipment but, instead, found they had been replaced with desks, tables and computers.
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Abe took a step out of the room. He looked around. He didn't want to call out. Perhaps he got the wrong floor, he thought. There wasn't any reason why he would have got it wrong. The building had been simply constructed and all you had to do was know your positioning from north to south. It wasn't rocket science. He looked at the security tab. It confirmed that it was indeed the correct room. All security tabs facing north were coloured blue. It was indeed the former storeroom. He went back in.
Abe thought that, since the room had been modified, perhaps his cleaning supplies had been left for him somewhere in the room. The lights were off and all that aided his sight was the glare from the monitors. He thought that he would definitely loose his job for being in the room as he had a very strong feeling that he really shouldn't be there. Loosing his job, despite his final week there, would still pose a problem for him. He had already budgeted his scraps of money and the final week at work was to pay for his commute to work and his meals for the week. He focused on looking for the supplies, if any. As he looked he happened to glance at the monitors. The screens showed several maps of Britain with red blots over the major cities. Disregarding what he saw, he continued his search for his materials.
As Abe stood in a dark corner of the room, his eyes returned to the images on the monitors. He had the uncomfortable feeling that he really shouldn't be in the room but he was paralysed by the need to replenish his stock. He heard the door go - the sound of which went through him, jolting him out of the corner where he stood and under the nearest desk. He felt the presence of two men. It was two of the half a dozen or so suits that regularly walked around the building, busily looking powerful. He heard them come in but they didn't come in all the way, nor did they turn on the lights. He heard the movement of a chair and the sound of one of them sitting on it. There was a pause, then:
"So, what is there left to do now?" spoke the first with a gruffness.
"Well, we're aiming to install all the equipment in all of the rooms in about a month," replied the other in a monotone.
"And then?"
"We'll start with London. As it's the capital, all the eyes of the world will be on it. The first will be in the centre. We were thinking somewhere near the financial hub or, maybe, Fleet Street. We haven't decided yet."
"Have you checked the specifications?"
"The directives were simply that we destroy the masses and we can do that by any means we wish. We had planned to initially destroy their food supply but we've already tried that many times over and the numbers being killed off are too little and it's a slow process. Then the planning changed to a biochemical weapon but, as much as we tried, we haven't developed a virus which Pro-gens are resistant to. Lastly, we went for this option. You have to remember that this is a new project. It's highly confidential so we cannot let our own people know what we're planning. If we contaminate the water supply, we'll run the risk of killing our own. Therefore, this is the last option. It's clean and it's neat."
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"Okay, so how will it be delivered? You will have to ensure that all Pro-gens are out of the vicinity. How are you going to organise that?"
"We have organised a conference for all Pro-gens to attend. They are all required to attend it in another city. All the equipment will be installed in all of the chambers and rigged up to the chimneys. The chimneys will emit vector field particles which will protect us from the blast."
"Gravitational or electric particles?"
"Well, this is Battersea Power Station...so, it will be electric..."
"So, when will it all be operational and ready to go?"
"We're planning on seeing the new year in with a bang and the 13th of December is ideal for us."
"Okay, well I trust everything you have planned here with your team. You've done an excellent job in a year. This is why we Pro-gens are genetically pre-disposed to rule the world. The Re-gens are a stain on this world and there needs to be a great
cull of their numbers. They may have helped create us but even they have tried depopulating the world with their fabricated wars, famine and diseases. It's taken them millions of years to evolve yet it's taken them a fraction of that time to destroy the world that created them! They are not worthy of this earth and we will be interned forever in the future history of this planet."
The echo of those words resonated throughout Abe's body, pumping his lungs in a systematic motion of longer and shorter breaths. He began to silently hyperventilate. His hope in not being discovered came as they left the room. He counted ten minutes after they left before he peered his head from under the desk. In the darkness, he crept like the cockroach that he felt he was after hearing that particular conversation. He peered through the glass window in the door to see if the corridor was clear and he tabbed himself out. His heart crawled up his throat with every step he took to get back to the end of the corridor. All he wanted to do now was get out of the building.
He walked to the other end of the corridor to take the stairwell down to the ground floor. He thought he could make a break for it when he felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned around and a man spoke.
"What are you doing here? Hasn't your shift ended?"
Abe took a very deep breath and ran. The air stabbed the back of his mouth as he ran, inhaling and exhaling, to remove his self safely away from them. The Pro-gens weren't fast - any superiority that had been bestowed upon them was mostly of the intellectual kind. They may have been slightly larger but their strict vegetarian diet produced non-athletic adults. They narrowly managed to grab him but his fear of loosing his life propelled him through each door of each landing and out the front door. Once he was out of the building, he ran to the nearby embankment and down the promenade.
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Abe's pursuers stopped by the time he was outside, amongst the public. They couldn't risk it - they hadn't determined the reason why he ran in the first place but treated it as suspicious nevertheless. They stopped running after a quick risk assessment - they would follow this up another way. Re-gens were viewed by Pro-gens as an annoyance: to them, people like Abe were nothing but cattle. That brief encounter prior to Abe's flight was the only time they had ever spoken to him and, invariably, it was going to be the last. They usually communicated via written messages regarding his day-to-day work activities, all of which was going to end. He was going to loose his job and he immediately started thinking about where he would go to forage for food for the rest of the week. When he reached further up the embankment, he stopped to look back and catch his breath, arching over the wall that kept people away from the river.
Abe looked around again. He was safely away from his pursuers. He caught his breath and then a glimpse of the crowd that walked by him (who eyed him suspiciously) which exacerbated his anxiety. What began as an opportunity to catch his breath turned into a full-blown anxiety attack. Beads of sweat exploded through his skin, bathing it in the salt water. He lay down on a bench near the wall. He looked up at the grey clouds that began to cover the blue sky and he closed his eyes. He couldn't go home, he thought. He had another five days left before he could board the train to get to his destination, to be with Ophelia.
Abe had just enough money in his pocket to get home. There, he would be able to access the rest that he had saved. The banks made it impossible to open a bank account and maintaining it had become harder. He was charged to keep money in and charged to take it out so, in the end, he resorted to depositing his money in his mattress. It was possibly the best thing to do in spite of it being an archaic method, thus it would go undetected by a potential thief. It worked for him and it was also the place he stored his train ticket for the fateful trip he planned to finally escape his indentured existence. The train would leave at 11am on Saturday and that was five days away. His heart was in his mouth with the thought of what might be happening inside his little ten-by-ten studio apartment; what they might be searching for or what they might be taking. He had to get home but he knew that could only happen under the cover of a dark sky.
Abe arrived at his neighbourhood in Walthamstow, East London; a crime-ridden hotspot that the police had given up trying to manage. Gangs and guns governed Walthamstow. The government finally had enough of managing crime and proceeded to take a new course of approach. They stated that 'communities needed to create change in their own backyard.' The ruling elite simply allowed Re-gens to kill each other with impunity. Abe stopped by the nearest corner-shop and he was served by Pawel, a British man of Polish heritage. Like Abe, Pawel lived his life in two very different worlds and each world sought to keep them both at their periphery. They shared a common experience; they weren't strong enough to withstand the perils of living in the underworld so they just kept their head down and tried to survive the best way they knew how. They both wanted so desperately to join what, they thought, was mainstream society: a law-abiding society which was, in reality, a life of servitude to the powerful Pro-gens.
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The underground currency of Re-gens had been developed by a revolutionary of the underworld and it even had its own stock exchange which combined elements of a barter system and a free market economy. Abe was considered a 'gora' by everyone that lived on his estate. To the others on the estate, Abe was a sell-out; someone who embraced the mainstream order but who could only exist as a slave within it. Abe and Pawel had both accepted these judgements of other Re-gens. They were both driven by their principles. They didn't want to exist by the rules of what they regarded as an inferior system to that of their oppressors. They were truly living in no-man's land. The system that disgusted both Pawel and Abe was, in actual fact, a very sophisticated means by which a very large population of Re-gens were surviving the economic and social exclusion that had been placed upon them.
Pawel had an anxious look on his face, more so than his usual look of dread.
"What's wrong?" asked Abe. "Have those idiots been in to terrorise you again?"
"No." He looked at Abe with the colour of dishwater.
"What's wrong? You look like you're about to see your best friend be hanged."
"I'm sorry Abe, it was something I heard tonight."
The pause was longer than Abe could abide with. Abe's chest was beginning to contract with what he sensed was to come from Pawel's mouth.
"Your place was hit. Word is that someone is out for you. Two men arrived on your estate and did your place in. You have your warden to thank for stopping them."
"What happened?"
"Well, one of the soldiers was patrolling the estate and he saw a car pull up. Two guys got out and went up. They were followed and they were seen breaking in. They were in there for a while before the rest of your warden's crew arrived. Anyway, there was a scuffle. They've got one of them... the other one got away. Take my advice.... don't go back tonight."
"But I have to go back...all my stuff..."
"Look, stay at mine and I'll find out by tomorrow what the score is. I'm finishing here in a couple of hours. You can hang here tonight, the flat upstairs is empty."
"But I need to get my money and stuff."
"How much was in there?"
"A year's savings."
"Don't worry, man. Nobody's after that. The warden and his soldiers make more money in a month than you do in a year! They don't care about your money. Believe it or not, they've got something a lot more valuable. Go upstairs - here, take a bottle with you, sleep it off."
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Abe's concern for his money was slightly allayed by his trust in Pawel's judgement. Abe and Pawel went back years. Pawel's parents were scientists in their home country but gave it all up as they were swallowed by the tide of migration that occurred with what was the former EU. His parents came to London dreaming of utilising their skills to contribute to British society but soon found that all academic doors were shut to them and, instead, they joined the rest of the Polish immigrants in becoming Britain's new underdog. They sold their property in Poland and, with the
favourable exchange rate at the time, invested in a shop. That was going to be their new future and their only child, Pawel, was born into a lifetime of subservience to it. Like his parents, Pawel would also never know what it would be like to utilise the capacity of his talent, skills and knowledge.
Abe and Pawel shared a bond that was defined by their common subjugation. They shared a certain level of trust. Abe took comfort in Pawel's words and went upstairs to steady his nerves, heart and head. He downed a quarter bottle of brandy to bring him down to the point where he could rest his head and sleep. Abe ate a plate of fish and chips that was left for him in the oven. The heavy meal, combined with the alcohol, sent him to sleep on the sofa bed.
The light stung Abe's eyes as he flickered his eyelids to open. The flat had no curtains and sparse little else. Pawel had provided some bedding but, aside from the rudimentary furniture, the empty spaces craved many more soft furnishings. Abe opened his eyes with the frosted hesitation of the day. His mind started stirring like a mill turning its wheels to churn thoughts, motioning him out of bed. His first thought was to get out of his apartment; he knew neither if he would be able to recover his money nor what they had done to his apartment. It was half eight in the morning; a safe time to stir into action before the troops that patrolled the estate came out for their duty.
Abe let himself out by the back door and left a note for Pawel, telling him he would return to give him an update. His thoughts were now on his mattress; where he kept his stash of money and his train ticket. He could see the image of the date and time on the train ticket flash through his mind as he loped down the street towards the Priory Court Estate; a tower block crumbling beneath the edifice of an abandoned world. He entered the estate and he ran up the flights of stairs inside the tower block. The elevator was out of bounds for the residents and only the wardens and their soldiers had access to it. Up at the eleventh floor he saw, at the end of the corridor, his apartment. He walked steadily towards it, expecting the worst. He could see the front door moving, aided by the wind. He prepared himself for the worst and pushed the door open.
Peering through, Abe took his steps forward. A thought crept into his mind. He thought that the state of his apartment didn't really matter to him anymore because he had already given up on the place. As it was a very small studio apartment, it didn't take him long to examine the scene for any signs of destruction. Aside from the broken front door, everything else was intact. He locked eyes on his bed and jumped forth to examine the mattress. He searched the seam where he had last sewn in his money and train ticket. He crashed to the floor with his head in his hands. The stitching was intact.
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Abe's exhalation was short- lived. There was someone at the door. It was a young man, in his mid-twenties, and he was wearing an oversized black puffer coat and a black woollen hat. He stood in Abe's doorway and his demeanour was menacing, if not threatening. Abe looked up from where he sat on the floor, and resigned himself to accept that things were going to get a lot more difficult. Abe knew his money was safe but the presence of the man in the doorway was a nefarious imposition - Abe sensed that he would have to, in some way, owe the man and his gang for the favour they did for him the previous night. Abe resolutely decided not to play their game so he withdrew eye contact and looked down at the floor. Abe thought of Ophelia. He thought of how she had been waiting for him in the only spot of England that was still beautiful, untouched by urbanisation.
"Hey, you Abe?" It was a grunt, rather than a question. The question broke the tension and brought Abe back into the room from his daydream.
Abe didn't feel like answering because he had already formed an opinion about the man. Abe loathed stupidity and the man grunting in the doorway signified everything that he detested. Abe loathed the soldiers of the estate for their inability to think outside of their confined and narrow existence and for giving up so much of their existence to the control of their 'elders', the wardens of the various estates dotted around Walthamstow. Abe continued to ignore the man so he walked into the room and knelt down and pressed his nose into Abe's.
"Well, are you?"
Abe's refusal to reply infuriated the man - who was, in fact, one of the soldiers of Priory Estate - and Abe was peeled off the floor and pushed and shoved towards the front door. They jarred in the doorway. The person to cave was going to be the one who hadn't eaten much lately. Abe collapsed in the doorway, his knees caving in from the pressure bearing down on his shoulders by his captor. Abe felt the impact resonate through this legs as he fell down to his knees. After he was hit on the base of his head, Abe fell into a deep sleep and as he did so he heard the soldier say: "I'm trying to help you out, you dick."
Abe awoke to a blurred whiteness from the light-bulb on the ceiling. A face interrupted the picture and he sprung up like a lever. He was supported to sit up on what was his own bed. Rubbing his eyes, the fog disappeared to reveal three men. One was sat and tied to a chair. The other was the soldier, who was stood by Abe and holding a gun to Abe's temple. The third was the soldier's boss, the warden of the estate, standing at the side of the bed with his arms folded at his waist.
Abe noticed the rather large chest on the man on the chair and he continued to gaze at him at length, slowly blinking as he came to, to see a white face burrowed under a field of blond cropped and coiffed hair. He looked again at the familiar face. As he did so, Abe caught sight of the gun that was being held to his temple. Abe was disturbed by his recognition of the man sitting on the chair.
"Do you know dis guy?" yelled the soldier, wasting no time.
Abe looked on at the hostage. He didn't want to succumb to the pressure of informing. Abe harboured a sense of loyalty towards his former employers. He was like a servant to his abusive master, like a forgiving dog to its abusive owner. He refrained to speak, arousing suspicion.
"Yeah, of course you know. We're not dumb." The interrogation continued.
Abe remained in silence. Abe learned to act dumb and say nothing. It was a strategy that got him out of many difficult spots in his lifetime.
"Yeah, of course, he's not going to say anything. He's one of them now. I bet he's tried to do them over. That's why they came here, innit? He's a gora now so he's gonna try and protect him. This is between them. Just leave 'em to it, innit!'' The young soldier shot his mouth off, much to Abe's irritation. Abe felt compelled to interject.
"Shut your mouth. You don't know anything. You look at me and you think I'm a traitor to Re-gens. Well, isn't that easy for you! What challenge have you risen to apart from walking up in the afternoon and figuring out who to rob next?"
"Whatcha talkin' bout?" retorted the soldier.
"Yeah, you think I'm one of them...the gora people but... do you know what? At least, I've done my best. I'm proud that I never took the easy route, like you."
"Yeah, where's that got ya? How old are you? How much do you make? I make bare dough, bruv!" The mocking sounds struck through Abe like a shower of silver shards.
Abe remained resolute in his composure. As indentured as he was, he was free from the bondage of the pursuit of wealth, of bits of paper that consumed the very being of everyone in that room. He was pushed over twice to the margins of society; first by Pro-gens and then by his fellow Re-gens. The Re-gens hated him for supporting the system of their oppressor. He was ignored by everyone around him. At work he was treated like scum. At home he was treated like a pariah. He was the invisible man. Now, a week before he planned to escape the worlds which kept him voiceless and powerless, he had the power to determine their fate. He could spill the beans about the cull or he could remain silent, thereby enabling them to fight each other over the truth.
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The warden grew tense with impatience. His eyes opened wider and his breathing grew deeper. His chest puffed up with each breath. Abe had seen the warden before but never like this; Abe was mostly snarled at by him around Priory Estate. The warden was tall and broad with a rugby player's build. He had
an unkind face. His bald head and rather swollen face reminded Abe of his neighbour's bulldog. The warden had a trimmed yet heavy brown beard, presumably to compensate for the lack of hair on top. His eyes pierced through Abe with the ferocity of a wolf. Despite that, there was an air of nobility about him. Abe sense that the warden possibly hid a forgiving nature. The warden fixed his gaze on Abe but Abe refused to be intimated any longer.
"Look.....sorry, I don't know your name. I've seen you around but...'' Abe gulped as he braved an attempt to engage with the warden.
"Just call me J. J for...well, it's just J."
"Well, J. I'm just someone who is trying to get out of this place. I work at Battersea Power Station and when I came home last night Pawel from the shop around the corner told me I had been broken into. I thought it was you guys and I didn't want to come straight home because it was dark so I stayed out all night. I don't understand what's going on. Can you tell me why I'm always being broken into? What have I done to you? I pay your taxes and all I want is to be left alone. Do I deserve to be broken into so many times by your crew?''
"We're not interested in your shitty little hole here, mate. We've been keeping a close eye on your place for months. You've been broken in by your gora masters. They were the ones breaking in,'' replied J with a force of truth.
