The vehicle destined for the detention centre passed through a steel perimeter and pulled up outside a dome-shaped building on the edge of the city with a rusty sign that read: Biodome. The place reminded Marcus of the condemned buildings on Earth that were no longer fit for purpose. The cracked tarmac road to the facility showed further signs of neglect as weeds pushed through the fissures. A layer of red dust covered the white dome made of glass and the tarpaulin that partially covered it.
The area buzzed with activity as men in green uniforms patrolled the vicinity. Marcus waited his turn to get off the vehicle.
‘Inside please.’ A solider gestured to the entrance of the building. ‘And be ready to scan your identity chips.’
Marcus followed the other “detainees” inside the building. It felt like an internment camp in the presence of so many soldiers. The dome interior was a large, open space with a long table at the back wall where several people sat with DPads. The air had a faint smell of dung to it, and even though the space had been cleared, Marcus could see evidence by way of holes in the floor that the space used to be sectioned.
He’d heard the biodomes on Exilon 5 housed and cultivated several breeds of animal resurrected from preserved DNA following their extinction on Earth. The rusty sign and faint smell told him the animals had been moved on some time ago.
Now, those in charge used the space to herd a different animal. One day, Marcus would show them just how much of an animal he could be.
He moved only as fast as the person in front of him and reached the long trestle table where a woman with a DPad waited. A scanning flat plate on the table tilted outward at a forty-five-degree angle.
‘Press your left thumb on the plate,’ she said without looking up at him.
Marcus did and watched his identity chip produce a fake picture and details about the alter ego that Harvey had created for him on Earth.
She turned the plate back to her and swiped the information off screen to the left.
‘Mr Martin Casey, you will be assigned a construction job. Please wait over there.’ She pointed at a group gathered under a sign that read: Construction. ‘Someone will take you to the safe house soon.’
Safe house? Like the type they used for reformed addicts and criminals just out of prison with no place to go? Marcus would not let some woman order him around. He’d been Gaetano’s right hand man for fuck’s sake. Or at least he would have been if his son Enzo hadn’t muscled his way into the family business. Enzo had been nothing more than a pretty boy asshole and lazy, psychotic fucker who couldn’t organise an orgy in a brothel.
Marcus levelled a glare at her but she returned him a look filled with boredom and apathy.
‘Is there nothing else?’ he said. ‘I’m more qualified than that. Check my credentials.’
He’d given Harvey a list of his qualifications: strategist, management, right-hand man.
She turned the plate outward to show him the second page of information from his chip. He nearly threw up in his mouth when he saw only one thing under skills: Construction.
Harvey, the lying bastard. He searched for the man, finding him in another queue and paying him no attention. He turned back to the woman.
‘This is a mistake. My skills are listed wrong,’ Marcus stuttered. ‘Check again.’
‘No mistake. The chips never lie. Please stand over there. Next!’
She pointed off to the side and tended to the next person. Her disinterest irritated him more than Harvey’s lies about his skills. What kind of world put bitchy women in power and men like him at the bottom of the career barrel? The sooner he got out from under Harvey, the better.
He gritted his teeth and stood alongside a group of able-bodied men. Marcus could do manual fucking labour in his sleep. But it was beneath him. His true skills lay in his mind and he would put that to the test soon.
Harvey scanned his thumb and joked with the woman in charge. Ever since he had changed Marcus’ face, the man acted like he owned him. Harvey Buchanan did not compare to a man like Gaetano Agostini. Marcus would not follow a glorified geneticist for long.
Harvey joined him under the Construction sign.
‘What the fuck, man?’ Marcus hissed out of earshot of the others. ‘I didn’t agree to this. What happened to my other skills, the ones I told you to put down?’
‘What, strategist, management?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Can you read?’
‘A bit.’
‘Can you write?’
Marcus didn’t see how that mattered. ‘I didn’t need either when I was on Earth. So why here?’
‘Because this is not Earth. Your lot aren’t in control here. The ones with brains are, get it? You need to slide in under their radar.’
Marcus puffed out his chest. ‘I’m ten times better than these assholes in charge.’
‘But you’re uneducated and scrappy. You lose your temper over the most ridiculous things. You are unstable.’
‘Who fucking said that?’ Marcus hissed.
‘You just did. Most people just get on with it, but you think everyone owes you something because you once held a shaky position of power on Earth. Well, here’s the kicker. You only got that position because the educated relocated here. You’re no match for them. To be somebody on Exilon 5, you’ll have to prove yourself.’
Marcus gritted his teeth and kept the name he wanted to call Harvey to himself.
One of the soldiers came over and spoke to them formally. ‘I’ll be taking you to the safe house. The shared accommodation is nothing fancy, but you’ll be comfortable. Follow me, please.’
Marcus and his group followed the soldier out of the animal den and into a waiting vehicle. The soldier got in the front and laid a set of coordinates into the dashboard console. The self-driving vehicle drove away from the abandoned biodome and headed west along a road that left the city behind.
The contrast between the developed city and the land beyond shocked Marcus. Inside, carefully constructed roads and iconic buildings sat next to green spaces filled with trees and flowers. Outside, it looked like the world had fallen away. Except for the odd mountainous range in the distance, the single road appeared to run straight through a flat, stony landscape. Marcus stared into the distance. If there really were other cities on Exilon 5, he couldn’t see them.
The car turned left suddenly on to another isolated road and stopped outside a half-constructed neighbourhood, identifiable by the rows of unfinished houses in various states of build. From what Marcus could see, this build appeared to span an area covering approximately fifty acres. The vehicle pulled up outside a three-storey house made of brown brick—the only one that looked finished. The start of the city wasn’t far, maybe a mile or so.
‘You must scan your chips upon entry and exit,’ said the soldier from the front seat. ‘Your landlord is waiting inside.’
Marcus got out and entered the house. It looked nothing like the Deighton mansion on Earth. The house, with its wooden floors, white walls and basic, grey furniture, looked more like Albert Lee’s tavern than it did a home.
He missed the opulence of the mansions on Earth abandoned by those with money and power and occupied by the criminal factions. He hadn’t given up power to become a lowlife like the Waverley rejects he’d controlled there.
Harvey stood beside him. ‘It’s not that bad. I’ve lived in worse.’
‘Not bad?’ Marcus looked around the place that reminded him too much of his rough childhood home in Hunt’s point. ‘This is a fucking nightmare.’
‘Cheer up; things could be worse,’ said a tall man who appeared from another room.
The man had long, brown hair tied back in a ponytail and glasses. He looked around at the faces in the room.
He pulled a bunch of envelopes out of his back pocket and shuffled them in his hand. ‘Welcome, everyone. We’ve been promised more bodies for a while now. This neighbourhood build is six months behind schedule.’ He handed everyone an envelope. ‘My name’s Ollie Patterson. These contain your assigned rooms, your schedule, when you work, when you eat.’
‘How much do we get paid?’ one man asked.
‘You’re paid in food and board.’
‘Shit,’ said the man.
Marcus couldn’t agree more.
‘Get settled in. Work begins at 7am.’
Ollie left the room and the group tore open their envelopes.
Marcus opened his white envelope with a red dot in the left-hand corner. It contained a key to room four on the first floor, and a card with a holographic interface showing his schedule for the next day. He picked up the card and tried flicking the information on, like he would with a DPad, but only one screen existed. Then the schedule changed and something new popped up for that evening. It read:
Meeting at 10pm. Flip the card over and wait at the red location.
Marcus turned the card over and a map appeared of the building zone showing him his current location in green and another marked in red.
The others headed off to their rooms.
Harvey stayed behind and examined his room key. ‘Room 5. Looks like we’re beside each other. Isn’t that cosy?’
‘You can forget about coming into my room at night. I like girls.’
Harvey glanced at the card in Marcus’ hand. ‘See you at ten. Don’t be late. And don’t scan your chip when you leave.’
He walked off before Marcus could ask him what the meeting was for. What happened at ten?
☼
At ten minutes to ten, Marcus left his room. The directions that had disappeared right after he’d seen them had appeared on the back of his information card five minutes ago. They showed a path between his location and his destination. It looked to be two streets over—less than five minutes’ walk.
The place was empty when he crept downstairs. A scanner sat by the door. The soldier had said they must scan their chips upon exit and entry. Marcus slipped out the front door without scanning his, as Harvey had instructed.
The cool air felt weird on his face and panic hit him. Marcus groped for the mask he’d forgotten to bring. He searched his pockets, the ground. He clamped his hand over his mouth to limit the toxicity. It took a few controlled breaths and nothing bad to happen for him to remember where he was. He peeled his fingers away and drew in a little of the fresh air that made his lungs ache.
Fucking idiot, Marcus.
It felt strange, yet liberating not to wear a mask or check if his canister still had oxygen. The Indigenes, the ones the factions had put to work on Earth, had produced decent versions of the canister that were an improvement on the leaky versions given to the neighbourhoods.
Marcus followed the directions, passing by unfinished properties he guessed it would be his new job to build. In the distance, idle machines sat behind wire fencing. He wondered what they were for. With no experience in construction and no clue how to use a hammer for more than bashing people's skulls in, he wondered how long it would take for Ollie to figure him out.
But the more he thought about it, the more he admitted Harvey was right. His inability to read and write precluded him from many jobs. Before he became somebody, before the factions had risen to power on Earth, he’d been a genetic reject. Gaetano Agostini hadn’t cared if he could read or write. But this wasn’t Earth and he didn’t know where he fit in.
Yet.
He arrived at the location—an open-air storage area with bricks, roof tiles and metal girders—to find a group of men gathered at the metal fencing. A black vehicle waited. Harvey was already there talking with Ollie.
Curious, Marcus moved closer to hear Harvey speaking to Ollie in Russian. He settled at the back of the group of seven men and listened to the language most black-market dealers on Earth spoke. The Agostini faction’s biggest rival gang had been a group of Russians with no empathy and little patience.
Ollie and Harvey shook hands.
Then Ollie pointed to the vehicle. ‘Everyone get in. We’re taking a little trip out of town.’
Marcus sat in the back with the seven men, while Harvey and Ollie sat up front. Nobody spoke during the fifteen-minute journey, except for the two men up front who spoke in Russian to each other.
The car pulled over and Harvey turned around. ‘Everyone out.’
Marcus stepped out and looked around at the remote location. He hated remote places. He knew what happened there.
Harvey and Ollie stood before them. Neither man had a weapon, but that didn’t mean snipers weren’t positioned to take them out. He hoped he’d done enough to convince Harvey to keep him around.
Ollie spoke. ‘Those of you looking like you’re about to crap your pants, it’s not your time to die. So relax.’ Everyone exhaled, including Marcus. ‘You all know my name. The man to my left is John Caldwell.’
Harvey’s alias.
Ollie continued, ‘John and I need recruits for a new splinter group to disband the peace treaty and this man—’ He pointed at Harvey. ‘—has identified each of you as suitable candidates. The treaty has done nothing to improve life on Exilon 5. The rich stay rich while the poor build houses for the rich. The ITF says this world has no class divide, but that’s not true.’ Ollie paced in front of their group. ‘The Indigenes have liberties we do not enjoy. For starters, they have permission to hunt and kill animals in special zones where the bigger biodomes exist. We are now the second-class citizens the Indigenes once were. Their zones encroach on human boundary lines and limit access to other areas we use. We are not permitted to cross their land. It’s like the land is hallowed ground. This is our world and we will no longer live by these restrictions.’
‘The class divide is like this.’ Harvey demonstrated with his hand. ‘The genetically-superior humans, International Task Force, Indigenes, animals, then us. You see how wrong that is? And some Indigenes feel the treaty is bad. Some see privileges going to a special few, namely elders and anyone with a special connection to those elders. To help change things on this planet, we’ve joined forces with the other side.’
Other side? Marcus looked around.
‘We’ve brought some guests to meet with you,’ said Harvey.
Marcus couldn’t see much in the dark but he recognised their forms.
He froze as he counted at least ten Indigenes. ‘What the fuck are they doing here? Don’t you know what they can do?’
He stumbled back from their unchained presence. The last time he’d seen an Indigene it had been locked up in the attic of the old Deighton mansion, and Marcus had used a shock collar to keep it under control.
‘Yes, we do,’ said Harvey.
Of course he did. Harvey had said he’d created them.
‘They’re here to help us. Our goals are aligned. We will find new volunteers to join our cause. These Indigenes will convince more of their kind to join our cause.’
The Indigenes didn’t move but Marcus sensed their uneasiness.
‘Since the peace treaty and the creation of the GS humans, this planet has gone to shit,’ said Ollie. ‘We plan to stop the demise and return things to the way they were, pre-treaty.’
‘What do you want us to do exactly?’ said Marcus.
‘In their pursuit of GS evolution, the board members have created a void,’ said Harvey. ‘We will oust the ITF and replace it with a new police force that treats both the humans and Indigenes equally. And we will begin by discrediting Bill Taggart.’
Marcus had no problem with that.
‘But to understand both sides of the issues we face, each of you will pair with an Indigene.’
Ollie pointed to an Indigene, then to one of the men.
One Indigene stepped forward, a tall freak with yellow-flecked eyes and a hard stare. He stopped in front of Marcus, towering over him by a couple of feet.
‘Looks like I’m stuck with you,’ the freak said.
Fuck.