Day Star: A Dystopian Romance

by Ella Storm

  The computer game behind me was forgotten. It was my greatest achievement, and I had become addicted to perfecting the design, making sure there were no hiccups or flaws. I grabbed the baseball bat by my desk and held it with two hands. Fear ran down my spine, and I bit down on my lower lip until I tasted blood. The kickass girl from the video game was miles away, her tough personality a figment of my imagination.

  I didn’t bother calling the authorities. There was a temporary blackout in communications. The government said the networks were being modernized, but rumors in the underground movement talked about a severe repression.

  I tiptoed through the house, seeing fragments of light through the thick blinds made to keep the UV rays from getting inside. Before I saw anyone, the stench assaulted me.

  He stood behind me, one hand gripping the top of the baseball bat, the other hand covering my mouth. “Don’t scream. I won’t hurt you, but you are going to have to put down the bat.” The command was firm, leaving no room for hesitation. I loosened my grip and he pulled the bat out of my hands.

  He removed his hand, leaving behind a foul-smelling, slimy residue on my skin. “Turn around.”

  My feet obeyed and moved of their own accord. I choked between gag reflexes. “You are dripping on my floor.”

  “I’m sorry. I had to escape through the sewage system.”

  “Are you a criminal on the run?” My heart raced. Would he hurt me like those men who killed my parents? I panicked. I was hyperventilating. I needed air. I was about to scream.

  He expected my reaction and was about to cover my mouth again with his hand, but I staggered backward to avoid his touch, slamming my head against the wall with a loud thud.

  “Calm down. I won’t hurt you. I promise.” His voice was a cool whisper, but I still didn’t feel reassured. “I just need to lie low for a few hours, then I’ll be out of here.”

  I didn’t respond.

  “Do you understand me?”

  I blinked yes with my eyes, too terrified to do anything else.

  We stood, neither of us moving. I kept my face turned away, but I felt his gaze burn my skin, taking my measure.

  I needed to get a hold of my anxiety and remembered the book Mastering Your Emotions advising to pretend to be in control of a situation even if you weren’t.

  “You stink.”

  “I do. Badly,” he admitted. “I need a shower and a quick wash of my clothes.” He looked around my house, the living area and the kitchen all fitting in a small square. “Where do you do your laundry?”

  Do you think this is a fucking hotel? Get the hell out of my house! My mind shouted at him. There was just so much advice I would follow from that damn book. I led him to the basement.

  He undressed then threw all his clothes with his shoes in my washer. “Can you please run the machine for me?”

  I reached for the laundry soap, set the cycle and let the machine work its magic.

  On our way back upstairs, he grabbed duct tape from my tool crate. I swallowed hard, already imagining being tied — pardon, taped — to my bed, and at his mercy.

  You are in control, I kept repeating to myself even though my knees shook. I led him straight to the bathroom, pushed the door open, and stepped aside to let him pass. He motioned with his head that I precede him.

  He tapped my hands behind my back and ordered me to sit on the toilet, then taped my feet to the toilet bowl.

  “Sorry. I wouldn’t resort to these measures unless it was necessary.”

  I’m a fucking agoraphobic. I’m more terrified of running outside than staying locked in this house with you. I kept silent.

  My parents’ murderers had threatened to kill me if I looked at them, and the same survival instinct kicked in. All this time, I had avoided direct eye contact. I kept my gaze to a spot above his head or at my feet. When he sucked in a breath and I heard the scratching sound of adhesive tape being ripped off, followed by a curse, I was too curious to remain indifferent. I moved my eyes just enough to get a glimpse of him rubbing a spot on his chest and placing a small object on the sink. He muttered something and asked if I had any baking soda.

  “In the fridge.”

  Not bothering to wrap a towel around himself, he slopped filth all over my floor on his way to the kitchen and back. That pissed me off.

  He came back with the baking soda and said, “It’s to remove the stench.”

  He scrubbed for a long time and washed. The bathroom steamed up, and I was relieved the door had remained opened, sending in a steady stream of cool air from the air-conditioning unit.

  I was startled when he pulled the shower curtain open. I was too busy imaging my demise to be aware that he turned the water off. He rubbed his hair with the towel then wrapped it around his hips. I still wouldn’t look at him.

  He left me taped to the toilet seat.

  After what seemed like an eternity, I saw his bare feet and the tip of a knife heading towards me.

  Chapter Three

  Was this how they would find my body? Strapped to a toilet seat? What did it matter when there was no dignity in death when you were murdered?

  I closed my eyes, ready to embrace my fate, and waited for the sharp pain of the knife to sear my flesh as it plunged into my breast.

  Instead, he squatted at my feet, cutting away at the duct tape. “So, do I smell like lilies and lavender?”

  My eyes flew open. “Huh?”

  “Your shower gel promises a spa experience embalmed in lilies and lavender.” He gave me a lopsided smile, and my heart skipped a beat. He then leaned forward and reached behind my back to free my hands. “It’s all right to breathe. I won’t hurt you.”

  I hadn’t realized I was holding my breath until my lungs filled with his scent. Yes. A definite improvement.

  When he took hold of my elbows to help me up, an electric shock coursed through me. His eyes bore right into me, making me uncomfortable. I lowered my gaze. On his right breast, there was a tattoo of the sun in vibrant colors. The artist’s rendition was lifelike. He had captured the essence of the sun in a way to keep hope alive, just over his heart. A smooth reddish spot the size of a quarter contrasted with the hair on his chest. The tape must have pulled out his chest hair when he ripped it off to retrieve the small object.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Helios.” My voice sounded gruff to my ears.

  “Helios… Helios,” he rolled my name on his tongue in a soft murmur as if to try it out. “Helios. The ancient Greek God of the Sun. That’s a beautiful name, though uncommon.”

  And you, my dear Adonis, are the ancient Greek God of beauty and desire, with your golden hair, baby-blue eyes and athletic form.

  “I’m Maverick.”

  I nodded to acknowledge his name.

  The buzzer of the washing machine rang loud and interrupted the introductions. He rushed me to the basement and put his laundry in the dryer.

  Upstairs, he made me sit close while he spied on the street from between the blinds of the living room window.

  “I don’t have much. Take whatever you want and leave.”

  He didn’t respond.

  “The DPP are going to come here canvassing the area, knocking on everybody’s doors. It’s better to leave now before they show up.” It surprised me that I could speak so calmly when I was frightened out of my wits.

  When the ozone layer burned away, the world economy collapsed and with it, the federal government. No longer able to pay for policing, health care and education, the government outsourced these services to private companies and gave them carte blanche for the running and management of their departments. The DPP, AKA the Department of People’s Protection, known amongst the lower class as the Department of People’s Persecution, was the police force created by a secret fund. They harassed the population while the military maintained the discipline on the streets.

  Maverick left the window and strolled around the living room, looking at the family pictures adorning
the plain white walls. Pictures of me smiling a lifetime ago, when I had a family to call my own. He stopped in front of the mantle and gazed at the picture of my parents on their wedding day. Next to it, I had placed the urn containing their remains so they would be together forever.

  He turned, his eyebrows raised with the unspoken question. I looked away, already feeling the tears pooling behind my lids. The pain was still too raw.

  I’d been self-sufficient from the time I was a teenager. My father, bless his soul, was a computer genius who created virtual-training computer games for the military. He taught me how to program and design video games and even had me work on parts of his projects. After his death, when no one from the government came to take me away, and the military continued to send him work, I figured there must have been a bug in the system and my parents’ deaths were not registered. I continued to create the games the military used to keep the population in a lethargic state and out of sight.

  The whistle of drones flying overhead made us both look up as if we could see them through the ceiling.

  “They will kill me when they find me. There won’t be a trial.” He stated, matter of fact. “The only way to guarantee we didn’t die for nothing is to get this in the right hands.” He held up the small object. I saw it was a computer chip wrapped in tape.

  He paced about, preoccupied with his thoughts. I dared to sneak brief peeks at him. The bath towel rested on his hips. His body was sinewy, and below his flat stomach, a small patch of dark curls escaped the folds of the towel. Living in isolation had taken physical human contact away from me. I wondered what it would be like to be in his arms.

  He hesitated a moment, then spoke. I could tell he was about to reveal something that would put me in as much danger as he was in, and I wanted nothing to do with it.

  “I wish you wouldn’t tell me.” I didn’t want to listen and placed my hands over my ears, chanting a lullaby loud enough to drown out his words.

  Maverick knelt in front of me and pulled my hands away from my ears. “Listen! This is important. There is a huge possibility that I will be dead within the next twenty-four hours so someone must understand what is going on.”

  I wrestled to free my wrists from his grasp, but he held tight, his fingers digging into my flesh.

  “I was the head engineer at Sento Technologies, responsible for running the atmospheric spheres. The data I received from my hierarchy did not match the data my computers were spewing. Mother was fabricating false data for me to feed into the computers. I later came across classified information ordering that the oxygen turbines be shut down but the atmospheric temperature raised and the rays intensified.” His voice was agitated. “All the data— everything is here.” He held out the palm holding the chip to my face. “And that’s not all. I dug deeper and discovered something else…” He took a deep breath and rushed through the rest of his speech as if to unburden himself, “The ozone layer is whole.”

  I guess the blank expression on my face told him I didn’t understand what he was saying.

  He exhaled and spoke more slowly. “Helios, the ozone layer is rebuilt. I don’t know when it happened, but we can go outside without any protective gear. Children can play outside. Farmers can grow food in open fields. Grandparents can garden. We can enjoy life again.”

  “You’re crazy.” I threw my hands over my mouth, afraid my outburst had angered him.

  “No, just listen. The sun is no longer dangerous and the ozone layer rebuilt itself. I came upon evidence that shows that Mother and her affiliate company, Sento Technologies, have been spraying the atmosphere with an odorless, colorless gas to poison the soil so nothing grows and people don’t discover that Mother Nature is healthy again. They’ve been manipulating the environment to make us think we still need to live under their protective spheres. They were alerted when I downloaded the supporting data. They would do anything to make sure no one else knows the truth, that’s why I’m on the run. I need to get this information to the right people.”

  I heard his words, but it was difficult to image a world different from the one we had, even if I longed for the life my parents had lived when they were dating.

  The sound of the drones had gotten louder. They were congregating in one area to do an extensive search. Deep down, he knew they would find him within the hour, and was prolonging the inevitable.

  “This information needs to get out. Mother and the military will do everything in their power to make sure it doesn’t.” His fingers dug deeper into my shoulders, making me wince. “Don’t you see? By controlling the climate, they are controlling our food source, and are keeping us enslaved, profiting from our misery.”

  All I wanted was for him to leave before the DPP got here. “What do you want from me.” The words spilled from my mouth before I really thought of the implication of getting involved.

  He smiled. Relief edged on his features.

  My resistance melted just a little. I could send an encrypted message to my best friend, Jason, and he would be able to relate it back to his community of rebels. Jason was a die-hard conspiracy theorist and had no love for the Government whom he says sold us out to the highest bidder. His only interest in life was to hack into servers.

  When the world descended into chaos because of lack of food, the Government claimed there were only so many greenhouses to feed everyone. Low-income families who needed more food had to send a child over the age of sixteen to work for one of the agencies in exchange for a bigger ration. They justified modern day slavery as food for labor. That was how the economy functioned.

  The dryer buzzed, and we went to retrieve his clothes. He wore faded blue jeans, a white T-shirt, a black jacket, and motorcycle boots. He truly looked superb.

  I was wearing a pair of blue jeans and a white pullover sweater that fit tight against my impressive chest. I had more than a handful to excite the other half of the population; on the premise they could see me when I stayed locked away in a prison of my making. I wondered if he saw me as a woman.

  I was twenty-four and still a virgin. Sure, I had had orgasms courtesy of my sex toys, and I watched porn to learn sexual techniques, but I never had the body of a man lay over mine. I never felt the caress of powerful hands run over my body and squeeze my breasts. I dreamed of the ecstasy of having a man’s mouth on my most intimate parts and the pleasure that would course through me when I ran my tongue over the length of his—

  “Are you all right?”

  I snapped out my sexual fantasy. Unable to respond, I shook my head. I was certain my face was red from the embarrassment.

  “You look flushed.”

  “It is hot down here,” I croaked, “I need a drink of water.”

  I filled two glasses from the kitchen tap and handed one to him.

  An abrupt rap on my front door startled us.

  “I need to answer that before they break down the door.”

  As I walked past him, he took hold of my arm and whispered. “There comes a time in a person’s life where they need to do what is right, at the risk of their personal safety and comfort. I have made my choice. You need to decide what your choice will be before you open that door. This is bigger than you and I. It’s about giving mankind their undeniable right to live with dignity.”

  Maverick let go of my arm and gave me a gentle shove towards the door.

  Chapter Four

  Two officers from the Department of People’s Protection stood on my porch. Over the gear designed to protect them from the sun’s UV rays, they had attached guns to their arms. The tinted faceplate of their helmets gave no clue to their identification. Only the hissing sound of the canned air suggested that living beings, and not robots, were inside those suits.

  “Are you alone?”

  I replied that I was.

  “We’ve had reports of an incident in the area. Have you seen anything out of the ordinary? It could be something small, like a noise outside your window.” The voice was metallic with a very monotone e
cho, punctuated with the eerie hissing sound of their breath.

  “No, I’m sorry. I’ve been too engrossed in Battlefield Glory for the past two hours to notice anything.”

  The tinted visor of the one speaking blinked twice, and the glass became clear. “Wow, everybody has been talking about this game. I’ve been trying to get an advance copy for months. Only a select few could get their hands on it.”

  I knew enough about the Persecution Police to be confident they knew that I had created the game.

  “They say that it’s a lifelike representation of what it’s like to be in battle. So many questions about the game are rushing through my mind right now.” He gushed like an excited teenager. “What tips can you give me for when I get my copy?”

  “I may have designed the game, but even I can’t beat it when there are too many variables to take into account.”

  Giving him the bum’s rush would have made him suspicious, so I motioned for him to come inside. His partner threw up his hands and walked away, most likely annoyed and bored with the hype behind the game.

  “Don’t mind him. He has a family and no time for video games.”

  “I don’t normally do this but it appears you are a big fan of the game. I’ll give you a copy of the latest version I’m working on. It’s not out yet, so it’s confidential. Your expertise and insight would be helpful with a fighting scene in a junkyard I’m struggling with.”

  The military’s idea of maintaining order and low crime levels was about keeping people off the streets. That meant keeping them indoors or underground, addicted to the television and the internet, and having their brains muddled by computer games. It didn’t concern them that crime was rampant in the underground slums where the poor lived in cramped, unsanitary areas.

  The military had commissioned me to make other games as addictive as the first one, and I had agreed on paper, the money too tempting to pass up. And once in a while they would deliver delights right to my door. Families were starving, barely able to keep their babies fed, while I managed to receive delicacies, my guilt forgotten as soon as a piece of rich chocolate melted on my tongue or I bit into a ripe strawberry covered in cream.