by Phil Hurst
The Unjudged
The Battle for Cromer
Phil Hurst
Copyright © 2018 Phil Hurst. All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.
First edition 2018
www.writewithphil.com
Edited by Cal Gildart
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
For Emma
Prologue
Marcus
M arcus was well aware that his father was capable of great evil. To die by his hand, however, was still a surprise. Marcus’ head flew into the air, arcing away from his body, and for a moment, the son of the world’s most famous scientist resembled a macabre water feature as his blood created a string between his collapsing body and severed head. Marcus had been leaning against one of the railings, looking out from the boat at the silent beauty of a North Sea night, so his head soon cleared the confines of the yacht and disappeared into the night.
Marcus had always found emotions difficult to understand and difficult to form. The North Sea reached up and grabbed him, and before he could define his mood, he was floating in the ice-cold water. When his father starting shouting questions from the yacht, Marcus realised that he was part of an experiment. The current was quick, and by the time Maximus Tumi’s overworked crew could figure out how to turn the spotlights towards him, Marcus had floated out of reach of the beams.
Marcus watched as his father became nothing more than a tiny silhouette against the searchlights. Beneath his feet was Marcus’ corpse, which he had stood on in order to get a better view. Then the waves took Marcus away, and he lost sight of the boat entirely.
It was only after the lights of the yacht had receded that Marcus began to question what had happened. It occurred to him that he should be dead. It occurred to him that he should be flying away into space like the rest of the population did when they died. He hadn’t been tagged; he shouldn’t still be on the planet. His father had clearly done something to stop his ascension.
He couldn’t turn his head unless the current did it for him, so he just stared at whatever he could. A small fish began to nibble at his earlobe. This intrusion into his private space didn’t cause him any pain. It was like having a tooth out once the area had been fully anesthetised. He could feel the pressure, but that was it.
Marcus tried to shout to scare the creature away but found he could not. Consciousness was all that he had. He guessed that was purpose of his father’s experiment, not that he would ever know. The more he thought about it, the more Marcus was certain that his decapitation had been personal. If Maximus had just wanted to test a new implant, he could have used the human lab rats in the Canary Wharf complex.
The fish tore off the remainder of his earlobe, and the head of Marcus Tumi floated into the darkness of the night.
Part One
Paige
P aige Grimwood was returning home for the reckoning. The reckoner studied her passport intently, and she used the time to study him. A squat, forceful man, he had stomped to the car when she pulled up to the checkpoint. He looked disappointed at being forced to do some work on what he had probably thought would be a quiet posting. She tried to hide her apprehension but wasn’t sure that she was managing it.
The light of the border point illuminated another two reckoners, both of whom looked bored beyond belief. Paige wondered how long they’d been out here, watching for runaways like her or Unjudged spies. She kept her hands on the tops of her thighs to prevent herself from scratching her neck. The Tumi implant felt like it was throbbing under her skin.
The reckoner pointed his torch at her. "Reason for crossing the border?" he asked.
"I'm visiting my family."
"You don’t look like you’re from Cromer.”
"I hide it well."
The reckoner smiled and handed her passport back. Paige knew she was terrible at flirting. However, she also knew that she wasn’t unattractive. For the journey, she’d tied her long brown hair back into a tight ponytail, which made her green eyes stand out (even if she thought her nose was a little too big for her face). Her wide smile made her cheeks dimple. As she approached her 30th birthday, she was starting to notice the odd crease around her eyes, but she had friends in London who were faring much worse as age took hold of them. Some of them were hiding habits that the reckoners would most likely tag them for. Keeping secrets always aged people.
"You've come a funny way,” the reckoner said as he lightly kicked one of the car’s tyres.
"It's an old family shortcut,” she said as she tapped the car’s in-built display. "It's only taking an extra 20 minutes this time."
Unimpressed with her wit, he swung his torch over the car. "Anything I should be aware of?"
"There's a dead body in the boot."
He nodded seriously. "Apart from that?"
"I'm just going back to be with my mum during the reckoning. She's old. She'll be worried." A lie, but it was plausible. Inexplicable deaths among the over 60s had been an unforeseen consequence of the reckoning, and official government guidance suggested that families should be together when the knock on the door came. If she told the truth, that her adult brother was the reason for her concern, the reckoner might not have been so sympathetic.
The reckoner crouched down and ran his hand underneath the wheel arch. “If I run this passport number through the URC database, I’m not going to get anything I’m not expecting, am I?”
No, thought Paige, because I’ve just given you a fake one.
“I hope not,” she said. “If you do, it’ll be news to me.”
Of course, if he ran her real number, he’d also find the other reason for her impromptu trip to Cromer. There was an outstanding tag on her implant. Paige wasn’t being family-focused. She was running.
The reckoner handed her passport back, and she slid it into the glove compartment. She placed both of her hands on the top of the wheel. The reckoner waved to his colleagues and the barrier moved upwards. Before she could drive off, he leaned in through the window, so close that she could smell him.
"You know you’re entering Unjudged country?" His breath was hot and smelled faintly of garlic.
"I thought you lot had pushed them back.”
"Stay in the town. Stay out of the countryside. There are some strange people out there."
"I was born and bred in Cromer, reckoner. I’m one of them."
He leaned back, and she inched the car forward. She glanced in the rearview mirror and saw him thrust his hips theatrically in the direction of her departing car. The other reckoners laughed as she drove past them, and she revved the engine and sped into the darkness. Her hasty departure was her own passive aggressive way of letting them know that she didn’t appreciate being made fun of.
The road twisted around hedgerows and farmhouses. As she tried to put as much space between the reckoners and herself, Paige approached each corner at speed, cutting the verge as if following a racing line. If anything approached from the opposite direction, a collision would have been inevitable, but it didn’t enter her consideration. The lights sliced through the darkness in front of her.
It had been a long drive from London. The disp
lay had constantly tried to take her down the motorways and the busy roads, but she'd insisted on keeping to the backroads, which had more than doubled her journey time. Despite a couple of stops at small village car-charging stations, the journey had been almost nonstop.
Her route had also meant that the recent encounter was the first time she'd had to talk her way past a reckoner patrol. That was by design. Not only did the checkpoints cause massive tailbacks, but those manning them also tended to ask awkward questions. She couldn’t afford to have her implant scanned.
She would miss London. Before the reckoning, the capital had always had an aura of threat about it. There was always the chance you could get mugged by the stranger asking for change or that the person walking behind you might be following you home. It had been an intimidating place, and she had been happy to stay in Cromer and spend time with Sam.
Following the election of Maximus Tumi and his United Reckoning Cooperative three years previous, London became the first city on the planet to be reckoned. Almost overnight, the city became a picture of human cooperation and respect. Everyone still ignored each other, of course, but that underlying fear that something bad could happen to you at any time was nonexistent. Tumi implants had not only made Maximus Tumi a household name and the leader of the country, but they’d eliminated all crime in the capital. In theory, at least.
Paige had left her hometown of Cromer after London had been reckoned. She was persuaded partly by an extensive marketing campaign, and when she arrived, she realised she was one of thousands. The adverts ran constantly following the reckoning, promising a more secure, safer London, policed by the reckoners and enjoyed by all.
The only catch? Everyone moving there would have to have an implant installed. Once that happened, one wrong move could see you tagged and, if you couldn’t work it off, forced to spend eternity in The Store.
Despite the influx of people, Paige had been impressed with the quiet streets, the polite reckoners and the abundance of jobs in the banking and advertising industries, which had suffered a worker exodus following the reckoning. Paige had one interview at a large banking consortium, got the job and moved into a company-leased apartment within a week.
Her mother wasn’t impressed, and her brother hadn’t understood. She didn’t care about her mother. Sam’s willful ignorance had hurt, although he’d come around after a while. Within two weeks, she’d created a circle of friends after visiting a new residents cocktail mixer. Less than a month later, she had a boyfriend, a savings account and an opinion on the way that Stratford should be repopulated.
That was three years ago.
More recently, the car accident and her arrest had put a different spin on things.
She didn’t like running from her perfect London life, but she also didn’t want to face her penance in order to clear the tag from her implant. So she was heading back to Cromer to consider her options and hide where the London reckoner’s wouldn’t be looking for her. The fake passport had been expensive, but because it kept her out of jail or the work camps, then it was worth it.
She rounded a corner, and the railway viaducts of East Runton loomed out of the darkness. Thirty-feet tall, one carried the railway that connected Cromer with Sheringham, an even smaller town down the coast. The other was disused, a relic of a time when railways criss-crossed the countryside. Paige was surprised to see East Runton had been abandoned at some point in the recent past. Empty houses bordered the road, unsettling her for reasons she couldn’t place. Paige slowed down as she passed underneath the arch.
Without warning, someone stepped out from behind the brickwork. It was a kid, no older than 14. He didn’t look towards the oncoming car but instead lowered his head and looked at his feet. Paige slammed on the brakes but knew the car would not stop in time.
The thud of the impact echoed throughout the car. The boy, now a mess of uncontrolled limbs, flew through the air. He bounced on the tarmac and rolled to a stop. Paige hammered the brakes, turned the wheel and just managed to skid the car stationary before it hit him again.
Her heart pounded. Again? Why? She closed her eyes and saw the face of the homeless man from London as he hit her windscreen. She heard his scream echo through her head. This time, there had been no crunch, no blood on her dashboard. Just a thud and a streak of blood on the road in front of her.
Her whole body went numb as the itching of her implant took over all of her other senses. She looked at the boy, who was moving awkwardly on the floor. She considered driving on, leaving him. She had done it in London, where the reckoners were sure to find her. She could do it again here. She’d get away with it. It was only a kid without an implant. No one would care.
She couldn’t hear anything but her breathing. Paige heaved. And for a second, her fingers tightened on the steering wheel.
“No,” she said to the kid, although he wouldn’t be able to hear her. “Not this time.”
She got out of the car, leaving the headlights on. Above her, the brick arches of the railway viaduct reached into the night sky. The moon was so bright that night that the viaduct cast a shadow across the village. Paige looked at the houses, wondering whether there was anyone left in any of them who could help.
Paige crouched next to the young man. He was still breathing and still conscious. In London, she would have just waved down a passing reckoner patrol, and they would have helped her. Here, not 10 minutes’ drive from her hometown, she was on her own.
Her implant started to ache. She scratched her neck and tried to push the flashback out her head. This was different, she told herself. This was nothing like what happened in London. She crouched by the boy, who was moaning quietly.
“Are you hurt?” she said, before cursing herself for the stupid question.
The teenager rolled onto his back. He had dark skin and long smooth hair, which had fallen across this face. He was wearing a white shirt, which was now open at the chest and missing a few buttons, and a pair of jeans. He brushed the hair back from face, and Paige could see a graze on his chest that was red raw after dragging on the roadway. He reached into his mouth and ran his fingers along his teeth. The gesture was slow and meditated, yet it looked farcical to Paige. Was he really counting his teeth? Paige looked around for his shoes, wondering whether they’d been knocked off on impact or whether he hadn’t been wearing them.
“Welcome,” he said. There was no hint of pain in his voice. He spoke with purpose, as if he were a teacher addressing a class.
“Can you tell me your name?” Paige asked.
He held her gaze for a little longer than she was comfortable with, and Paige had a sense of foreboding that almost made her want to hit him again. She could feel the Tumi implant burning under the skin of her neck. The experience of Tumi guilt was a new one for her, but she’d heard about it. It was purely emotional. It had been studied by psychologists across the reckoned world. If someone thought they’d done something wrong, or something that was against the law, the tiny device would seemingly itch or gain weight.
In one widely reported example in northern Spain, a woman claimed her Tumi had moved up to her brain and was burning her from the inside. The local reckoners tried to persuade her that walking out of a corner shop with a forgotten bag of onions in her pockets—which she’d later paid for—wasn’t enough to get her formally tagged. Their persuasion didn’t work, though, and she died two days later.
“Are you OK?” Paige reached out to him. He continued to look at her as if he were sizing her up and pushed himself to his feet. “Careful.”
“I’m fine.” He held both hands out to steady himself. His head wobbled for moment, but he soon gained control of his balance. Then he lowered his head and started muttering under his breath.
“Are you sure you’re OK?” Paige asked. The boy nodded, took a small step towards Paige and pulled a knife from the waistband of his jeans. Paige scrambled backwards, feeling her way around the car while keeping her attention fixed on the knife.
> The boy took on a manic glint in his eyes. “I can feel your guilt. Your implant. That’s why you’re here.”
“Leave me alone.”
“Let me take it out.”
With a deftness of movement that surprised her, the teenager jumped forward, took hold of her shoulder and threw her to the ground. The roughness of the tarmac road cut into her clothes. She lost her breath momentarily, and before she could move, he had his leg across her neck. He stroked her hair back from her face with a single gentle gesture that made her feel quite sick. Paige thought back to self-defence lessons her mother had given her, but they all seemed useless now. There was nothing in the environment she could use to her advantage, no element of surprise she could gain. Her hands could only weakly grab his clothes.
“I can take it out,” he insisted, bringing the cold knife to the side of her neck. “You can be free like me.”
Paige clawed at him, but her throat was somewhere between squashed and crushed. Her energy was soon sapped as the teenager made it increasingly difficult for her to breathe. She recalled a BBC investigation about people who’d tried to remove their Tumi implants. They had tried to do it in a hospital with an experienced plastic surgeon. The damn things had vibrated at the unwanted intrusion so much that most of the people ended up resembling a Pez dispenser. Only with more blood. A lot more blood.
Paige closed her eyes and tried to accept her fate. She was about to die. Tumi implants were designed to be permanent. If it were possible that a teenager with a knife could remove them in the dark, they would be redundant. All those who tried to remove them died in the process. She’d seen the news, seen the government press releases. It was deadly mistake to make.
She felt the cold of the blade against her neck and the warmth of her blood on her skin.
