The blood encroaching from Simon’s smoking head wound is a dark shadow of a clock, ticking as it seeps forward. Luke stares into it; it nags at him and won’t let him look away. What is it?
They need to talk. They need to think. There isn’t time.
The blood encroaching from Simon’s smoking head wound is a dark shadow of a clock, ticking as it seeps forward. Luke stares into it; it nags at him and won’t let him look away. What is it?
It’s darker than the blood from the old woman’s pierced throat.
He has a frame of reference now; understands the variable colour palette of his profession.
‘Fuck, they’re on their way. Ten minutes. How?’ Pol rocks his shoulder, points at her device; he looks away from the pool of rich crimson.
‘I don’t know. Maybe they can—could, rather, track Simon’s vitals.’
It is pointless to speculate; Teapot is on top.
Instead, Luke grabs the monitor on the desk with two hands. He runs them all around, up and down, until he finds what he’s looking for.
‘Plug the device in. He said it was the truth. If we’re going to do a dead man’s bidding, then we deserve to know. He owes me that much.’
As the pair wait for it to load, they shift where they stand, bloody footprints squelching and squeaking in the hall. The sound almost takes him back to physical education in school, but doesn’t.
The Great Dismissal was manufactured. It was not external market factors. It was not AI, laziness or meddling from other countries. It was us. A government that knew they were on the ropes.
Simon’s voice, once again, floods the hall.
Of course, it did not get its name until after the fact. At first it was just another recession. The country had been through it before, but this time people wanted to get ahead of it. The government pioneered a scheme; subsidies for those that reallocated their employees. If an employer felt someone was not up to task, they could put them back into circulation. The government would come along and scoop them up and redeploy them where needed. The slogans were nonsensical but catchy.
Schools, Hospitals, Police and Banks. Everyone contributes; we all say thanks.
‘I remember that,’ Pol says, distant.
We were to stave off economic collapse by trusting in the government’s ability to nationalise the workforce. Fool me once, eh? Employers caught on quickly. Suddenly no one was experienced enough, qualified enough, or competent enough to do even the most menial tasks. Decades of tenure meant nothing. Harsh psychometric examinations became the norm. Overnight, seventy five percent of the UK’s workforce were redundant, laid off with faint promise of reallocation.
The recession would not win!
The beauty was that they were not lying. Not completely. It is much easier to massage a half truth than it is to breathe life into a full lie. When the subsidies were found . . . wanting. When reallocation became constipated and slow, the people began to turn. The dark times. All part of the plan, of course.
Unified under a banner. Determined to depose the government, people were ready.
He stops for a second and instead a noise plays. It makes Luke sick; Pol flinches. Simon continues.
That noise. Synonymous with life as we would come to know it. Our shiny new government gateway profiles started to update. Notifications pinging through Britain’s streets and front rooms. See, everyone laid off had to provide DNA to assess relocation compatibility—nonsensical jargon. The first outing for my life’s work. The samples ready to go. And so, just when anger reached the crescendo, just when there was one enemy in the people’s sights, the test results came like a flood, banishing the old world.
It was no longer the people versus the government. It was neighbour on neighbour. Spouse on spouse. Sibling rivalries that stretched the length and breadth of the nation. On the news it was triumph, victory from the jaws of defeat. I remember the last Prime Minister, ever, on television weeping. All an act, of course. All premeditated and planned. It probably started as a white paper. Psychological warfare waged on their very own. When people are broken and there is no hope, that lowest ebb just before it all fades to black, that is when they strike.
My test was designed to reveal talents, yes. But life is so much more than what you are born with. The test was meant to give meaning to intangibles: desire, interest and passion. It could give you a pathway to knowing yourself. It still can.
The government’s self-awareness was genius; I will give them that. They could no longer run the country as expected. Their solution, therefore, was to create a new country with one singular expectation. Harsh, brutal and centred wholly on how much one contributes.
The taxpayer would always win.
He continues for a few moments longer: dates, documents and reference appendices on the device. Then it’s over; the hall is silent once more.
Luke takes a step back from the desk before he speaks, ‘The test was medicine for a disease they gave us.’
‘He wants us to release that to everyone. It will be carnage.’
‘Overdue carnage.’
He hears his tone. Then notices her face wrought with worry. People talk of seeing the big picture. He thought that was the government, their lies and society’s torture. But no, it’s in front of him; Pol and her unborn child. Their unborn child. It’s his father, warped into a pitiful drunk by a system that held him down.
‘We do this together. Or not at all. We make that choice now.’ He reaches for her hand and finds it.
The touch brings realisation. They barely know each other. Sharing a cosy train journey and a tandem bike ride, does not a couple make. But it’s not as clear cut as that. They’ve killed, learnt horrible truths and now are the only two people who can do anything about it.
‘I’m scared.’ A whisper.
‘Me too. I think it means we have something to lose. Or,’
‘Yes?’ Even quieter.
‘Something to protect.’
She’s with him now and snatches the device out of the monitor, hiding it in the cigarette case.
There’s a strange sound from outside. Tyres on gravel. Doors start to slam and shouts from outside invade their moment.
Just before the many men with many guns enter the hall, Luke finds the words he’s been looking for.
‘Truth. Nothing hidden between us now, right? If we’re to do this, we trust each other until the end. Or we die.’
Pol smiles, then both put on their game faces, as rifle barrels invite themselves in.
To be continued . . .
By Louis Urbanowski
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