nicholasjames

Hi all,

I have just joined, as I had entered this story into a short story competition but quickly realised I would get no comments back, and I'd like to know what people think of it. So if any of you can find time to comment it would be appreciated. Who knows, some of you may even enjoy it !!

EDIT - I haven't got a disclaimer anywhere, but then none of you seem to anyways so I don't know if it's important. In case it is, no one is allowed to copy/edit/submit to anywhere the below writing. And don't be offended by that - I'm not presuming anyone would

*****
The phone rang. I lifted my head from my hands and cursed the heat. The light flashed, and the tone pulsed. On, off, on, off. I waited until it stopped, until the noise had ended. I could feel sweat on my forehead. Where was he? I should be on my way to the city port by now. But instead I was still at my desk, waiting for the news and to hand over the rest of the money. Maybe something had gone wrong. Maybe the woman had turned on him, had somehow known he had been coming and pushed the button first.

Maybe Marco wasn't coming back.

The phone rang again, and again I ignored it. Even minutes seem like an eternity when you have somewhere else to be. My cell rang. This line I couldn't ignore. Withheld number. I stammered hello, wiping my brow with my sleeve. It came away wet.

"Marco failed. I have pushed the button."

A woman's voice. Her. My heart beat faster.

"My men are coming for you, Mr Moss. Goodbye."

I ran. Down the hallway, down the stairs, past the building reception, down the street towards my apartment, in the front door, up the stairs, in through my apartment's front door. I closed it, locked it, walked into my bedroom, found my holdall. I stuffed clothes into it, my swipe cards, extra shoes, my toothbrush. My id card. Where was my id card? In the living room. I walked into it. Then I noticed the man sitting on my couch, on a sheet of plastic. My heart stopped.

"Hello, Mr Moss. She sent us to bring you to her."

Nowhere to run to. I dropped the holdall.

"Don't struggle" he said.

Something pressed into my neck from behind and the world turned black.

I woke. Where am I? Above the ground, in a hovver. I could see the power transmitters. Above the streets. They sparkled clean. It was fake, and she had pushed the button. Now the people might never know.

"Other men went to your office. It was as dirty as your apartment. Why do you keep it like that, Mr Moss?"

"That's the way things are. What you see around you is a lie." My head ached, reflected in my voice.

"No, Mr Moss. She keeps things clean. It is better that way. The streets, the air, the people."

"It's a lie. It is sour underneath, and above, and the people need to know." I moved and saw I had been placed in plastic, all but my head.

"If they knew society would collapse. It is all they have left to cling to. Your filth is not welcome here."

The hovver buzzed, turned, the cloudless sky yellow in the side window. The cloudless sky was always yellow. And the streets were always clean. I looked at the man. Smooth features. No hair. No stubble. No finger nails. No sweat despite the heat. No way to live. I spat on him, and he recoiled as if struck. Pressure against my neck again, blackness, welcoming now it was expected.

A chair. Restraints. A white room, no dirt. A speaker in the wall coming to life, and my nakedness in the chair. A pubic hair out of place on the white floor.

"Wake up , Mr Moss."

"My name is Tobias."

"You gave up your identity along with your fellow residents, Mr Moss. A long time ago. But not, I see, all the dirtiness of your primitive form."

Satisfaction. There must be a camera, she had noticed the hair.

"Look at the people, Mr Moss."

A video wall, becoming translucent, a scene of a home. A family and their smiles. Their children with no redeeming features, no hair, no eyebrows or lashes, like the man who had brought me here. No sense of a life.

"Why have you done this? It is against the nature of man." I lifted my head toward the speaker in the wall.

"War is filthy, Mr Moss. Dirt leads to men not caring about themselves; it leads to ill health and to famine. Famine leads to monetary arguments, to crime and to suffering. And suffering, eventually, leads to war. And war is so filthy, Mr Moss. So hard to clean up. So we process the people, we process everything. And when the time comes that we have processed all we can store, we push the button and purge the stores themselves. We purge them to clean them. We purge them to keep filthy people like you from hurting others."

"I want to see."

"Of course, Mr Moss. For you too are to be purged, and cleansed, and removed from this pure city."

The man again. Coming into the room behind me. Undoing my restraints and taking me by my naked arm. No plastic suit on him though. Just a gloved pair of hands, one with the stun gun. Into another room, a row of plastic suits.

"Put one on. You disgust me, and I do not wish for you to dirty this place in which I work."

He set down his stun gun. Handing me a suit. I spat again, in his face. He recoiled once more, gloved hands wiping his face. A moment of blindness, all I needed. The stun gun, now against his neck, now he fell to the floor.

Move. Fast. But to where? A clean mind is an ordered one. Signs on the walls. To flee or to find her? The button had been pushed, too late to get proof. The bleach would be in the stores, dissolving. The lasers would clean the residue after. Flee.

I ran. No heat in this building, air conditioned, protected from the glare outside. Protected from the rays that had turned the smog yellow and kept the heat inside. There was no sky. There was just a barrier of filth. But still the people knew nothing. Right. Right again. Hovver bay straight on. Into the hovver which had brought me here, but no holdall, no swipe cards and no id cards. No way to get through the city port. No way out of the city sphere.

Tag along Tobias. Tag along to a city transport, out of the sphere. Tag along and discover the wastes in the north, find the people that live on the ground. In this city you only come in or go out upwards, toward the stars. Never to the ground. Never to the filth. It would kill you. So they say.

Rumours will always persist, even here. Rumours of primitives outside of the city. And there I will go.

Wait now outside the city port. Watch for the transport. Up it goes, now accelerate, accelerate hard as it pushes forward towards the sphere edge, keep the hovver as close as you dare so we might pass through as one object.

And I am clear, and the sky is no longer yellow. It is black, and it sparkles with stars. The heat is rising, soon it will be too much to bear. Back under what the people call clouds, back to a yellow hue and hot but not yet burning heat. To the north. To come back when it is time. When it is time to stop her from pushing the button once more.

To the north. To the wastes. Underneath these yellow clouds.
*****

Thanks for taking the time to read,
Nick

nicebutdim

I thought that was actually rather good. Ok, its sounds a lot like the matrix, but there's nothign wrong with that. I really what to find out what that button does, always a sign of something good. Not much to say really except that I liked it, I can't pick any holes. Cheers, nicebutdim.