by Adam Steel
Utopia had been born and it remained in perfect isolation with the masons firmly at its head.
Each of the masons took one step towards the main controller and placed a right hand across their keys,’ embracing the precious symbol of office against their chests.
The light in the vault flickered brightly.
With heads bowed they recited a mantra in unison.
“We, the creators stand before you Albert Coney, our founder, ready to honour the pledge.
We, who have risen from the The Day of Reckoning, pledge our allegiance to the cause.
There will be Freedom in Utopia.
There will be Equality in Utopia.
Utopia will stand as the beacon of light, now and forever.
We will not fail, nor turn from the path.
Utopia endures.”
Echoes from the voices reverberated around the chamber as the masons stepped back and waited for the hologram to respond. The hologram ‘glitched’.
‘Your pledge has been heard. Freedom and Equality exists in Utopia. Continue fellow Masons.’
The hologram shimmered and vanished as an image of a key appeared across the screens.
The masons took each of their keys and inserted them into place on the control panels. As each key was turned the tiny microchips on the key spikes locked home, activating each terminal in turn.
The room began to take on a new life of its own. A kaleidoscopic set of panels opened and silver forms emerged out of the floor to form a ring of seats behind the masons. The masons sat down at their stations and computer panels slid forwards on telescopic arms until they were in the perfect position for each operator. A deep humming noise emanated from underground as the machinery awoke and the mainframe computer system came alive. A spinning silver key flashed up on each of the screens as the keys were accessed, unlocking the interface for Utopia’s main computer system. The computer greedily drew the data from each key, absorbing and digesting the updated content; insatiable in its thirst for new information.
Mason Henson took chair of the meeting. She looked out across the room at her mason colleagues. Each one of Utopia’s main institutions was administered by a pair of masons. Henson was the closest of the masons to being a politician in the traditional sense. She was the public face of the masons and together with her mason partner Damon Deckler they ran the Centre for Utopian Reform and Education, or CURE as it was known. It incorporated an elite military arm ‘TALOS’ that was under the direct supervision of Mason Deckler. The masons had installed CURE where police forces and state of the art reform programmes had been merged together to combat crime in the fledgling nation and together with its military brother TALOS, it had brought swift order to the developing twin cities of Utopia. The old military structure had been recalled from every international outpost after The Day of Reckoning to be united with CURE, and to assist with the immense rebuilding programme. They surrounded Utopia in an impenetrable ring of firepower. From the very best military units, Deckler had created his special TALOS division. Spreading outwards from their newly established base of Arethusa, they had paved the way for social order in what would later become Coney City at the heart of Utopia and Eden City located two hundred miles to the North.
Mason Bruce Katcher was a financial analyst and together with Mason Hester Royale they ran Fin-Sen which was Utopia’s financial and administrative system. The new currency for Utopia was the Uto-Credit. Fin-Sen’s headquarters was effectively the seat of power for the masons and resided at the very centre of Coney City. The huge structure towered over the surrounding buildings and its construction had marked the beginning of the mason’s collective rule. The system was superior to any other comparable system of its kind in the world. It was a closely guarded secret that injected Utopian society with abundant wealth and independence.
Mason Paul De-Barr was an eminent surgeon and Mason Henri Batide was a respected psychologist. Together they oversaw the health system which was referred to as ‘ISIAH.’ It stood for ‘Integrated Systems for Independent and Advanced Health.’ It was a very advanced system in which integrated hospitals had been constructed to include luxurious health centres and retirement homes. The Day of Reckoning had devastated the population, mercilessly harvesting the sick and infirm. The abundant wealth provided by Fin-Sen and the power supplied by Project F2-Genie, had insured a new health system that eclipsed even the most opulent private healthcare systems of the past.
Across the room sat a pair of identical twins. Their steely gazes were fixed on Mason Henson: waiting impatiently for her to get started. Masons Alexis Coney and Jonus Coney (The Coney Twins as they were known), were the twin sons of the mason’s founder Albert Coney. They had designed and controlled Project F2-Genie, which was a cutting edge power station that fuelled Utopia and provided it with a near limitless source of power. Genie, as it was affectionately known, had made Utopia entirely self-sufficient and its energy flowed through every street and home in the country.
Utopia had been painstakingly designed from the ground up to become the perfect republic: wealthy, highly advanced and envied by the rest of the world. It was divorced from the global strife of the rest of the world and it had grown strong in its short lifespan. The demand from outsiders to come to Utopia was overwhelming. Many opportunists sought entry into the emerging nation, searching for their big break or a better life, but restrictions were severely enforced as the rebuilding gathered speed and the quotas of personnel were soon filled.
The airports had never been reconstructed. It was felt that many Utopians would never set foot in an aircraft again after The Day of Reckoning. The masons showed little interest in the other nations, much to other nation’s frustration. Only a single major shipping lane connected Utopia to the world it resided in and Utopia’s borders were vigilantly guarded. It was called the ‘Port of Utopiana,’ and it was located on the south coast of Utopia. The port was connected by a high speed monorail to Coney City.
Henson composed herself and looked to her screen as she began the meeting.
‘Fellow masons. We have gathered here today to discuss the on-going progress of phase one.’ She paused while the computer screens displayed graphs for each of the masons to digest.
The light in the room changed from blue to rainbow as the multi-coloured screens flashed before their faces.
‘The latest reports coming in are still very encouraging but it is still my belief we may need to move through to phase two,’ Henson reported. Her face was full of her usual confidence.
Mason De-Barr mumbled something to Mason Batide and adjusted his monitor slightly. He looked irritated.
Henson continued. ‘The reconstruction proceeds on schedule and as planned,’ she confirmed. Her voice was full of enthusiasm.
As she spoke the screens changed to a three dimensional image of the Fin-Sen building. It zoomed outwards to show a full map of Coney City. It spread outwards from a central point. Each section was designated as a Sector in a different colour. The Fin-Sen building was constructed in Sector Zero which was right in the middle of Coney City on a plaza known as Diamond Square.
Henson looked around the room at the masons who were studying the model. Her timing was perfect, as always.
‘The reformation is set to proceed into Sectors Six and Seven shortly, once we begin phase two,’ she advised confidently.
Katcher looked bored as the city on screen changed into the predicted form of spiralling towers and complex structures: replacing the old worn out buildings of what used to be a dock area in Sector Seven, and a worn out industrial and residential area in Sector Six.
The Coney Twins merely stared impassively at the image.
The screen zoomed out further to show a second, smaller city further up the map.
Henson ‘clicked’ something on the control pad and then looked up at her waiting audience.
‘Eden City is nearing completion as planned, as do our plans for the building of Sanctuary City in the near future, and…
’
Katcher cut her off mid-sentence. ‘How can you even discuss the founding of a third city with Genie the way it is? When are we going to get to the real issues here?’ he interrupted, almost, but not quite, rudely.
Henson glared across at Katcher while Mason Royale cut in.
‘The shortage of resource in Genie is exactly why we must move through to phase two, Royale asserted firmly.
Her beautiful face was spoiled only briefly by the seriousness of her expression.
Deckler leaned forward and impatiently hit several keys on his panel causing the screens to change once again to a new set of data.
‘We’ve all but exhausted our external resource,’ he said, in a voice that was firm and steady.
He looked at Royale and they found agreement in each other’s eyes.
She smiled, almost unnoticeably at him.
Deckler looked down at the keyboard distracted momentarily. He coughed once.
‘The fringe elements are under control now. We can focus security on ensuring that phase two is a success,’ he said.
‘I agree. We have reached the limit of our current resource and if we don’t do something now the outlook will be failure. That is clearly un-acceptable,’ Royale replied.
Her aura was one of complete control.
She glanced around at the faces of the other masons as they were taking in the implications of the colourful charts.
Batide leaned forward adjusting his spectacles as he spoke.
‘People are going to notice the changes through ISIAH. This won’t go unnoticed,’ he commented in a concerned voice.
‘They will certainly notice the rolling blackouts if we don’t move to phase two!’ Royale snapped back. ‘Public confidence will plummet,’ she added defiantly.
Deckler leaned forward, fixing Batide with a steely stare.
‘Besides. That’s what I’m here for,’ Deckler challenged.
He looked back at Royale as he said it.
She acknowledged him with a slight nod and relaxed back.
Batide sank back in his seat considering. ‘And the Genie tours? They’re going to continue through this?’ he queried, pushing the centre of his glasses with one finger firmly to his elderly face.
Henson nodded. ‘The potential ascendants have already been selected. The tours will continue as normal,’ she said with conviction.
Katcher gestured to the two silent twins across the room, ‘And what from Genie itself? Any other solutions?’
He looked smug when he asked the question.
The room went silent as the masons turned their attention to the twins.
‘Our research continues,’ they stated in monotone unison.
The room waited for something more.
Katcher was about to speak again when the twins jointly broke the silence.
‘Enact phase two,’ the twins prompted.
There was no further debate.
All eyes were on the Coney Twins; watching them with intrigue as their nimble fingers entered codes into their panels in perfect synchrony.
Katcher thought he noticed a tiny twitch at the corner of Alexis’s mouth. He only knew it was Alexis because of the name above the station he was sitting in; otherwise there would have been no way of telling which was which because their identities were so perfectly similar.
The humming noise resonated louder as the main computer system interpreted the commands and a message appeared across every screen.
It read:
SYSTEM ACTIVATED
PHASE 2 INITIATED
Batide stared at the message and took a deep breath in. He looked worried.
Henson stood up and made the final salutation. ‘Our business here is complete. Freedom and Equality fellow Masons of Utopia. I bid you all a safe journey.’
The masons nodded back at her, and one by one, they retrieved the precious keys and returned them to their chains.
The motion in the room began to change as the masons got up to leave. The seats submerged back into the floor and the screens returned to blank as the last mason left and the doors began to close.
The vault was sealed until the next time.
Chapter 2: The Request
Plastic Paradise: Sector Two
Friday 1st June
The hospital where Ellie and Irene worked was located in Sector Two of Coney City. They had a nick-name for it, “Plastic Paradise.” It was part of the ISIAH health system and the patients were referred to as clients. Thousands of people worked at Plastic Paradise, some of them like Ellie and Irene had come from the base at Arethusa. Others had arrived in later years. Now there would be no new staff from abroad, Utopia would train its own from its finest stock.
Arethusa had grown from a refugee medical camp into a fortress. It now served as the main military base and the headquarters of TALOS with Mason Damon Deckler in command.
On the Day of Reckoning the old hospital systems in London had been obliterated. Forty five hospitals were reduced to ashes in one day. Ellie’s mother had been working in one of them on that day, along with ten thousand or so staff. They all died together with the two thousand patients and visitors.
The devastation of that day meant that there was a gaping hole which needed to be filled with new doctors and nurses and ancillary staff. Ellie and Irene had been fast-tracked to gain the equivalent of Medical Doctorates at Arethusa. Bridget had taken on the role of a psychiatric nurse and been relocated to the newer Eden City the year before. She was to work in a new psychiatric facility that would alleviate some of the pressure upon Plastic Paradise.
Ellie had been glad the psychiatric patients were getting their own facility. The Day of Reckoning, and the horrors in its aftermath, had left many people permanently troubled and their haunted faces and outbursts made her nervous. She had been sorry to see Bridget go. Their past experiences at Arethusa had bonded them together in a close friendship and she missed her already.
Ellie had gleaned much about plastic surgery from dealing with the multiple knife and gunshot injuries that she had worked on at Arethusa. Irene had been allocated to work with burns victims at Arethusa. When she had relocated to the newly built Plastic Paradise, she had decided to concentrate on the treatment of cancers.
New developments in the treatment of cancer offered greater hope for the younger clients and it excited Irene to work with these innovative cures. ISIAH had made rapid progress in the treatment of many forms of cancer. At the Centre for Utopian Biotechnology (CUB) in Sector Eight, brilliant scientists worked on drug treatments and gene therapies that revolutionised health care.
It was early morning when Ellie arrived for work at Plastic Paradise. It was an impressive design. A blank canvas had been offered to a group of young architects commissioned by the masons. They were given instructions to come up with a model on which all other ISIAH hospitals would be based; except this one was to be the largest of them all. They did not disappoint the masons or the citizens of Utopia and in turn they were not disappointed by the lucrative salaries offered by Fin-Sen.
Ellie hurried along towards her department. It was cool inside the air conditioned building. The ground floor of the hospital housed the main reception, outpatients, research and development departments and various laboratories. On the lower levels were the biomedical sciences, pharmacy, morgue, stores, maintenance, laundry and car parks. There were a lot more departments on those levels but Ellie never ventured into most of them. At ground level, a covered walkway connected the main hospital with a separate block where there was a swimming pool, gymnasium and health salon.
The first floor where Ellie worked consisted of numerous consultancy rooms, minor surgery clinics, electronic equipment laboratories and all of the administration offices. The third and fourth floors had all of the operating theatres and most of the specialist treatments wards. Irene worked on the third floor in the oncology unit. The kidney dialysis unit was also on Irene’s floor. The top floor housed the staff restaurant, visitor’s
canteen, kitchens and a huge library. The roof area had an immense glass house and solar water heating system which provided hot water and a quantity of fresh food for the kitchens. There was a beautiful balcony area on the roof where staff could go and look out over the grounds of the hospital. However, it was little used. Ellie loved to go up there and sit in the quite of the glass house when the weather was poor. It was always full of interesting and exotic plants; some of them custom-engineered at the CUB.
Ellie marched into her office on the first floor at 8.55 a.m. She was early, as usual. Her role was consultant surgeon with a speciality for cosmetic surgery. She worked as part of a team of ten plastic surgeons all with different specialities. She was predominantly assigned to deal with facial surgery and breast augmentation although she sometimes agreed to perform abdominoplasties. Ellie and her team of consultant surgeons were able to deliver plastic surgery of almost any kind that was requested by the citizens of Utopia and her department was renowned for its excellence.
Edie was her personal receptionist and medical secretary. Each of the consultants had their own designated ‘Edie.’
The overall head of Ellie’s department and the hospital was Mason Paul De-Barr. He rarely made an appearance; preferring instead to concentrate on his own research projects, which revolved around fertility treatments.
Ellie had several registrars that she could delegate minor tasks to, leaving her to concentrate on the more intricate and demanding surgery. She spent most mornings conducting her clinics and the afternoons completing a ward round of her clients. Her daily routine was organised by the directives which came from Mason De-Barr and her clients were processed through the central systems of ISIAH.
Her receptionist looked up from doing her nails to acknowledge her.
‘Good morning Dr Rushford,’ Edie offered with a false smile.
