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00:47 Friday 19 March 2077
Back in her apartment, Michelle lay on the bed, looking up at the ceiling, her mind buzzing with thoughts regarding what she had seen over the last three days. She knew that staring at the ceiling was a complete waste of time, but it didn’t stop her doing it. She wouldn’t find any answers hidden in the creases of the artex, no matter how hard she looked.
She knew what she would like to do, but she was a soldier and not just a rank and file soldier at that. She’d just been trusted with details of the final solution, quite possibly the most important event in mankind’s history since the Revelation of 2015. She had no choice but to keep this information to herself. She couldn’t even tell Danielle, and she told her everything. Well, almost everything.
She wasn’t looking forward to having to keep this enormous secret. Danielle was part of the resistance movement, yes, but she wasn’t and never could be privy to this information. The workers on the island had no contact with the outside world, not two-way contact at least. Entire families had been flown out and, although living in luxury and wanting for nothing, they were, in essence, prisoners. The island provided them with everything that they could possibly ask for, bar the freedom to live. They had no bills to pay; electricity, gas, and water were free. First class healthcare was provided for all – at no cost whatsoever. They didn’t receive salaries, and thus might appear to be slaves, but money is only necessary if you need to buy things. Workers could work extra hours in order to receive upgrades on equipment, such as an eighty inch television instead of the fifty inch that was standard issue, but unless you particularly wanted to upgrade equipment there was no pressure to work extra hours. The island was a true representation of what Paradise should be like. There was no crime or at least none that Michelle was aware of. There was no need to steal, and disagreements appeared to be settled amicably. As far as she could see, on the surface, there was no reason for anybody to try to escape.
She fully understood that she was a member of a very small elite, those that had not only visited the island but had also been allowed to leave. Her father, Maurice, was also a member of that unique group, although he hadn’t witnessed any of the things that Michelle had seen during her short stay. But she knew that the fact that he had been to the island – and returned – wasn’t sufficient reason to be able to talk to him about her trip.
If she’d been a religious woman, perhaps she would have prayed for guidance from a deity but, like billions of others, the Revelation had stripped her of any last vestige of religious faith that she may have had. Of course, there were millions who still practised their individual religious beliefs but Michelle wasn’t one of them; religion hadn’t been outlawed – it hadn’t needed to be. It’s power and influence had been critically curtailed.
Michelle awoke from unsolicited sleep with a start. She hadn’t deliberately tried to sleep, but her eyes had begun to feel heavy and her drowsiness had overcome her desire to stay awake. Danielle popped her head around the bedroom door.
“Hey, lazybones. You having a crafty afternoon nap?”
“Not intentionally. I just needed to relax and forget about things for a while.”
“Forget about things? What things? Tell me. Maybe I can help.”
Michelle wished that she could empty her thoughts out onto the duvet and let Danielle sift through the turmoil that was going on in her mind, although she wasn’t sure that she’d be doing Danielle any favours if she did tell her what was troubling her. It would just lead to both of them facing a crisis of conscience.
“It’s nothing, Danielle. Just some administrative stuff that I need to sort out. Not a biggie. Don’t worry about it. I’ll sort it out tomorrow.”
Danielle flumped onto the bed, settled herself alongside her lover, and took Michelle’s hand in her own.
“Well, if you need to talk, I’m always here.”
The mood was interrupted by Michelle’s mobile ringing. She leaned over Danielle and stretched to pick it up from the bedside table. Zafar’s voice brought her up to date with recent events.
“Michelle. It’s Zafar. There’s been a development in the manhunt.”
“Have they caught them?”
“Yes and no.”
“What does that mean? Have they got them or not.”
“The fugitives were caught, yes.”
“And?”
“They were caught heading to a safe house that we’d identified earlier. One of six actually.”
“And?”
“And they were trapped by a Defender patrol.”
“So what happened?”
“The long and the short of it is that the patrol disobeyed the restrain and retain order. One of the team was the older brother of Alice Sedgeley, you know, the little girl who was hanged at the birthday party. Reports are still a bit cloudy but it seems that Liam goaded the patrol until Alice’s brother cracked and shot him dead. The other two boys were killed too.”
“What about the girl?”
“Rebecca Walker?”
“It seems that she was innocent. A hostage, should they have needed one. She’s being reunited with her parents as we speak.”
“So where does that leave things?”
“It gives us a bit of breathing space to get the Final Solution in place. He’ll come back. We know that. But we’ve got a few years before he can be a problem again. Of course, we’ll have no idea where he is or even who he will be, but whoever he is will have been rendered harmless by the Final Solution.”
“So, business as usual then.”
“Yep. Back to harrying the Illuminati and the ONP again. I know it’ll feel like we’re not making much progress against the Illuminati, but as long as we can keep them busy, as long as we can be a pain in the arse, then that’ll distract them from what we’re really up to. Anyway, we’ll speak more about it later today. Get some sleep, Michelle. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight Zafar.”
Michelle hung up the call and snuggled up to Danielle.
“That was Zafar. It seems that Liam, Conner, and Jeremy are all dead, killed by a Defender patrol that ignored the no-kill order.”
“So, we’ve got seven year’s breathing space again?”
“I suppose so, yes. Let’s get some sleep now.”
As the couple dropped off to sleep, three souls circled the planet seeking their next host bodies.