END OF PRIDE (The Soteria Trilogy Book 1) Read online

  Six weeks earlier, Brie found out her biological registration chip also served as a satellite tracking device. She took the most extreme measure to make sure the Union would struggle to find her. With a rusty scalpel and a pair of pliers, she took on the gruesome task of removing it from the back of her neck without anaesthetic. Her chip now rested on the sea floor somewhere between Queensland and the former country of Papua New Guinea.

  Her rations were scarce. Concern rumbled in the pit of her empty stomach. Soon she would need to rely on the jungle for food. Due to the necrosis syndrome in both the air and the watercourses, many animals had become infected and therefore unhealthy to eat. Brie knew that hunting in the jungle presented a risk. Although the jungle provided enough plant life to eat, a large percentage of it caused violent sickness or powerful hallucinations. Brie couldn’t afford either.

  Because of her constant sweating, the self-inflicted wound on the back of her neck struggled to heal. Instead it became infected, weeping a mustard yellow discharge. If her body didn’t fight the infection, blood poisoning would take her within the coming weeks. She pushed on through the undergrowth, trying not to think about the throbbing wound.

  It was no accident that Brie had made it to the Northern Sector. She had planned it that way. The landmass of former Thailand was one of the few places within Soteria where there was land on the other side of the boundary wall. Other than parts of former New Zealand and Fiji, the rest of the giant walled barrier had water on both sides, making it almost impossible to get across the walls unnoticed. The ocean served as the world’s largest natural moat, proving to be a very successful security measure for the Union. The wall wasn’t so much designed to keep people out of Soteria; they meant it to keep the citizens in.

  Given the lack of available Fosform Five in the Northern Sector, the previous decade saw Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia fade into abandonment. Those that inhabited the once-tropical paradise fell victim to the syndrome. Over the years the region collapsed into an unoccupied jungle environment. Abandoned cities had become relics of the past.

  As far as she knew, seven hundred kilometres separated Brie from any other registered law-abiding sub-plaza citizens. She sensed that solitude. That void in her life where human interaction once thrived had been replaced with introversion and paranoia. She hadn’t had a conversation in weeks. Isolation had begun to take its toll on her sanity.

  She diverted her eyes from the top of the impenetrable concrete mass to the thick jungle beside her. She came across a small rocky stream and stopped. Removing her oxygen conditioner, she took a large breath. Despite the flesh-eating heavy metals in the air, the coolish breeze blowing on her injured skin dissolved her claustrophobia. It provided brief relief from the mask’s restrictions. She leaned forward and made a bowl shape with her filthy, callused hands and scooped water from the stream to rinse her face. She wanted nothing more than to drink from the stream, to plunge her head into the current and gulp huge mouthfuls but her desire to survive held her back. Instead, she filled a small plastic bottle from inside her pack and added two tiny Fosform capsules designed to filter tainted river water. After those two, only three more tablets remained in her supplies. Brie waited for the capsules to dissolve, until the water turned a faint turquoise colour, then gulped down a few mouthfuls. The Fosform made the water taste bitter but bitter was better than poison.

  As the rising sun approached, the surrounding scenery became visible. The bluey-grey of first light started to show. Birds continued their morning song, sensing the impending sunrise. The sun meant a higher risk, a greater chance of being seen, hunted. Daylight also presented a greater chance of radiation burn from the sun’s relentless fury. Brie re-fitted the mask and continued her slow traverse of the jungle clearing beside the wall. She followed the perimeter, keeping the wall to her right, searching for places to scale the giant concrete barrier. Having never seen it before, Brie didn’t know what to expect, but she thought it would’ve been guarded with Union soldiers. She hadn’t seen a single soldier since following the wall. Given the size of the walls surrounding the Empire, it would be impossible to have the entire perimeter guarded. That was thousands of kilometres.

  The jungle’s confinement got the better of Brie. She left the safety of the undergrowth to head out onto the flat, clearer land at the base of the wall to increase her pace. Despite the dangers, it was a risk she was willing to take.

  The bare ground beneath her, cleared by machinery and infused with anti-vegetation toxins, should have allowed her to progress with ease. But the exposure in the open space between the wall and the jungle’s safety increased her nervousness. Despite her growing anxiety, intrigue got the better of her.

  Brie walked right up to the base of the wall and placed her hand on the daunting concrete mass. It was lifelessly cold from the darkness of night. So smooth and so tall, it was hard to comprehend how they had built the wall the whole way around the borders of the Empire in just ten short years. She marvelled at the structure, lost in a dream-like state. She stroked the cold concrete that restricted her from her freedom.

  “Hey! I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

  Brie froze. The hairs on the back of her neck stiffened. She wasn’t sure whether to turn and face the voice or to make a run for it. Stone cold acceptance hit her fast. There was nowhere to run.

  Brie turned her head in the voice’s direction expecting to see Union soldiers. Her heart hammered, her pulse pumped behind her rapidly observant eyes.

  She saw nothing.

  THREE

  I let my mind wander.

  As I had trained myself to do, I made my thoughts leave the monotony of the dosage line. I thought about everything that fuelled my hatred. Trust me, there was an awful lot to think about. I don’t know why I questioned everything. Maybe it was inherent in my nature. Maybe it was the way my parents raised me. For whatever reason, I couldn’t just accept the cold, controlling truths of our shitty existence like everyone else. I just couldn’t.

  Often I wished I had the freedom to make my own choices. Often I dreamed of leaving behind my membership number and my registration chip to venture off and find somewhere better, somewhere cleaner and brighter and healthier and real. While I did my best to keep this optimistic longing alive, I had to accept the fact there was a high probability this other place, this utopia I longed for, most probably didn’t exist. I hadn’t even seen the Earth’s surface in well over four months. The unbearable weather, the crime and the necrosis kept most prudent citizens below ground. The surface of the Earth in 2059 AD was not a place I missed.

  I’d been in line at the dispensary for almost two hours. Based on the amount of Union doctors on duty, I would probably be in line for another two. I wouldn’t be able to hold my bladder that long. The Union supplied public urinal bays outside the corridor of the medical precinct, but they charged a disgustingly high four credits for use. I held it out of stubborn principle.

  Thirst made my mouth dry and my head thump. The long thermal lights running along the ceiling of the corridor seemed brighter than usual, uncomfortably bright. They contributed to the dull pain behind my eyes.

  Stationed at ten-metre intervals along the walls of the corridor, Humanist Union soldiers stood in a textbook stance with their high-voltage taser cannons resting across their chests. Soldiers were always present at the Fosform Five dispensaries to enforce order. The Humanist Union Army comprised fiercely trained men only. They didn't permit women to join the defence force. It went against their morals, they said. The instructions were to shoot first, ask questions later. If anyone tried to compromise the distribution and administration of the formula, they received a taser blast to the face. The soldiers communicated with no one in the line and showed no emotion. They stood statue-still and just watched, waiting to deal with civil disobedience. It rarely happened.

  The Union’s propaganda slogan was stamped in large capital letters above the flowerbeds in the hall –

  LOYALTY
-UNION-SAFETY-SALVATION.

  Oh, how I loathed those four bloody words.

  They had been hammered it into me since my first years of school when the Union came into power. I was eight years old. I remember those days well. It was just before the months changed, just before the war started and just before the damn artificial sunlight ruined everything.

  Alongside those four words the notorious soaring eagle, red, high and bold was printed along the corridor wall. The Empire’s bird-of-prey logo angered me as much as their contradictory slogan did. You couldn’t travel through a single block within the sub-plaza without seeing that ominous red bird hovering above you on the walls, on soldier’s uniforms, on almost everything, as a stark reminder that you were under the Humanist Union’s watchful eye.

  I hated that damn bird. It represented everything that was wrong with Soteria.

  Progress in the line was slow but steady. I smelt the strong citrus acidic scent of sanitiser and anaesthetic. I knew I was getting closer to the injection booths. More images of the city prior to the revolution appeared on the walls. It flooded my thoughts with childhood memories. The city had transformed so much since I was young. I missed it every day. I missed the sun shining and the wind blowing on my back, the sand between my toes and the smell of the ocean air. Sure there was an artificial beach on Tier Two with white rubber flooring and crystal clear, chlorinated water but it wasn’t the same. I missed the actual real world.

  Although it was decaying and infected, the real world still existed in a physical sense. When Turner’s Necrosis Syndrome (TNS) was first discovered in 2051, the Union began constructing subterranean cities, made possible because of the advances made in the Artificial Revolution of ‘45. Scientific breakthrough established the ability to source healthy doses of the required vitamins, radioactive energy and heat from artificial sunlight. They designed artificial air supplies and carbon reservoirs with synthetic oxygen conditioners. This therefore eliminated the need to live in Earth’s tainted atmosphere in order to survive.

  At that point, only the wealthy could afford to purchase apartments in the underground plazas. Nearly a decade after the discovery of the corrosive disease most of the lower class still lived on the surface, battling constantly to find Fosform Five doses or portable oxygen conditioners to stay alive. It was a battle they all ended up losing.

  The Union completed building the 3rd Sydney West Sub Plaza at the end of 2057. They included me in one of the first consignments of citizen residents invited into the plaza as reward for the year I spent after graduation volunteering on the construction of the walls in the Pacific Ocean. I use the word volunteering lightly because they indisputably forced me into compliance. I did my bit for the good of the Union and that was my reward – safe, supervised and controlled housing in a sub-plaza apartment. The Union monitored my daily movements and recorded all audio from within my small apartment. Regardless, it was better than hustling to survive on the surface.

  They designed the underground sub-plaza of 3rd Sydney West with seven underground tiers and seven blocks on each tier. Each block housed up to five thousand citizens. That meant that 3rd Sydney West Sub-Plaza could house 245,000 residents. Your socio-economic status determined which tier became your home. As a low-income earner I was allocated to the dull Navy-blue of Tier Three.

  When 3rd Sydney West opened for public occupancy, there were already six other sub-plazas in the original Sydney metropolitan area and more being built on the Central Coast. They referred to this hub of civilisation as the Empire’s Eastern Sector. There was talk of linking all the sub-plazas in the Eastern Sector by an underground train system. The Humanist Union would most likely persuade surface-dwellers to dig the tunnels with the promise of a sub-plaza apartment. To my knowledge they had made no progress on this underground labyrinth of trains. That didn’t mean the digging hadn’t started, though. I was a worker of no real significance. Although the Union paid my credits, I was not privy to anything more than public knowledge and believe me, public knowledge was scarce.

  Sub-plazas in the Eastern Sector were self-sufficient. Once the Humanist Union entered your membership number into the residency list, you never needed to leave. Your apartment, employment, entertainment and recreation were all available within your plaza. Sports fields, botanical gardens, restaurants, cinemas, theme parks and brothels were all within the sub-plaza and you were welcome to utilise everything. Once in a sub-plaza most people intended on spending the rest of their days inside, confined to their safe and controlled life, in a way, biding time until death.

  That’s not to say they couldn’t remove you, though.

  If you broke any community rules, they not only banished you from the sub-plaza, they removed your supply of Fosform Five and left you to fend for yourself on the surface, trying to survive the TNS, the crime, the cannibalism and the poverty. That was best case. Worst case was a taser blast to the head. That thought alone frightened most modest citizens into civil obedience. Apparently with loyalty and union came safety and salvation.

  What a sick joke.

  They named Soteria after the Greek Goddess of safety, deliverance and salvation, despite the fact it was illegal to believe in the gods and demigods of Ancient Greece.

  The Empire of Soteria Humanist Union and our propaganda-fuelled society apparently kept us safe by stripping us of all our freedom, choices and rights. The Humanist Union stripped us of everything that made us human.

  Salvation and safety, they say?

  The way I saw it is that we were prisoners in our own lives.

  I wanted to break the chains.

  FOUR

  They must be hiding in the trees.

  As if synced with Brie’s manic thoughts, two men appeared from the thick protection of the jungle. They walked forward and stood in the muddy clearing. Dressed in faded civilian clothing, Brie knew right away they weren’t Union soldiers. Both men had short beards and short, dishevelled hair. Neither man wore a portable oxygen conditioner.

  Although relieved, Brie remained guarded. They may not have been Union soldiers, but they were still strangers, armed with assault rifles, and they remained a threat. They looked hardened, dirty and rough. It crossed Brie’s mind that they could’ve been worse than soldiers.

  Caution kept her motionless.

  “You look a little lost out here, sweetheart,” said the older of the two. He had quite a distinguished eastern Australian accent. He grinned cheerfully.

  Brie removed her oxygen conditioner to talk. “What do you want?”

  “Well… I want many things, sweetheart. I want far too many things to talk about this early in the morning. I’m more concerned why a young lass is walking around at the base of the bloody wall at the crack of dawn ready to get killed… You know this strip of land between you and me is filled with shock mines? Horrible bloody things. I’m amazed you got to the wall in one piece. Now, come on, nice and slow, let’s get you back over here.”

  “Who are you?” Brie asked, her tone a strange mix of fear and hostility.

  “Well, not that it’ll mean much to you right now, but I’m Bruce and this is my buddy, Francis. Me and Francis are on night patrol.”

  Francis didn’t say a word. He just stared at her with an unsettling look, nodding slowly. Standing alone beside the huge concrete wall, Brie was far too terrified to move.

  “Night patrol? What do you mean ‘night patrol’?”

  “Damn, woman. You ask a lot of bloody questions.”

  “Well, I’m sorry but I’m a little fucking confused,” snapped Brie. “I mean, other than you being Bruce and he being Francis, who are you and what the hell are you doing walking around the jungle with godforsaken guns…”

  Brie surprised herself with her fiery response. She was only small. She had long, straight brunette hair, although tangled, and innocent, girlish features. She hadn’t seen herself over the previous few months on the run but she knew she had thinned out, her dirty clothes hanging from her narrow frame.
Now, dirty, nervous and alone, she would have looked like nothing more than a scared teenager.

  “Okay, look. I’ll explain everything when you get back over here away from those damn shock mines. If you step on one, Francis and I will pull metal splinters out of our arses for days. We aren’t here to hurt you, okay? We’re here to help. By the looks of things, you sure aren’t part of the Union and anyone who’s an enemy of the Union is a friend o’ mine. If we wanted to hurt you, we would’ve put a bullet in your skull while you were embracing the damn concrete.”

  He had a point.

  Brie didn’t have many options, and she knew it. She walked on cautious tippy-toes towards her armed audience. She looked down at the bare dirt beneath her. There were no signs of mines. No metal. No wiring. Nothing. Almost afraid to breathe, Brie crept across the barren land awaiting a painful explosion. It didn’t come. By the time she reached the safety of the trees she was sweating heavily, her heart hammering. She inhaled a mouthful of tainted, poisonous air and wiped the sweat from her upper lip.

  Relief.

  “Okay then sweetheart,” said Bruce holding out his hand. “Now for the formal introductions. I’m Bruce Chadwick and this is Francis… Well, just Francis...” He cackled.

  Once again Francis didn’t speak.

  “I’m Brie. Brie Kallas.” Brie shook both their hands with her right, gripping her oxygen conditioner tightly in her left. “So, who are you guys? What are you doing out here and why don’t you talk, Francis?”