Dead City: Prologue & Chapter 1

You are the carbon they want to sequester. Do not comply.

Prologue

After

Food Production Zone #3

Entry Gate #5

The bus was quiet that morning. Clammy with the breath and sweat of thirty men, but quiet.

Normal.

Joel scanned the other riders. All had closely shaven heads, all were dressed in the same white t-shirt and pocketless trousers he had pulled on that morning, and all slouched, avoiding eye contact.

Normal.

The bus rode the speed bump then rolled up to the check point that marked the boundary of the city limits. The passenger beside him snorted and his head lolled against Joel’s shoulder. Joel remained still, sensing the heat from the man’s head through his t-shirt.

In the past, Joel would have shrugged his shoulder to wake the man. The man would have raised a hand, muttered ‘sorry’ and lolled his head against the window, or rubbed his eyes to wake himself. Now, Joel’s heart beat a little faster as he willed the man to wake slowly.

Waking was the time it could happen.

That moment when you morphed from bone-tired factory worker to dangerous inmate, an enemy to be extinguished.

The man snorted, sat up, and looked out of the window. Joel remained still, ready to launch himself down the aisle if the man so much as flinched.

The bus continued its journey, rumbling over speed bumps, its inmates jostled as it ran over widening potholes that grew deeper with each passing season. Joel scanned the surrounding countryside. Fields that had been filled with the golden heads of waving corn only three years ago now lay fallow, filled with weeds and grasses. In some part of the country there must grow the wheat and barley he’d seen in the fields at home. But, like the other men on the bus, this wasn’t his home.

Chapter 1

Before

“Take the nasal spray.” The cameraman pushed a small bottle into Massimo’s hand. “Use it.”

The bottle fit in the palm of his hand, just a transparent plastic bottle with a pump-action nozzle, filled with clear liquid. It had no markings. No label. Untraceable. He turned away from the man and forced a squirt of liquid into each nostril. It hit the sensitive membranes with a sting, and he flinched as the liquid burned. It tasted of menthol with an acrid, chemical, afterbite.

“What is it?” he asked.

The cameraman glanced at him with indifference then turned to walk away.

“Hey!” he hissed. “What about my wife?”

The cameraman made no sign that he had heard Massimo’s call and disappeared into the living room. Chatter from his guests floated into the hallway, the clink of glasses and laughter followed.

Suddenly uncomfortable in his own home, sweat beaded at Massimo’s temple as he followed the man along the hallway and into the open-plan apartment. His belly griped. I have no choice, he thought as the pain twisted deep in his gut, none.

You always have a choice.

Not this time. This time the payback is too much.

His internal struggles continued as he stepped into the room, memories of the grotesque video they had sent to his phone singed onto his memory. It was hideous. Career and life destroying. A deepfake, but who would believe that? No one. ‘Leaking’ it, as they had threatened to do, would destroy him. He clenched his fists. The palms were wet and perspiration began to darken his shirt at the armpits and small of his back.

At the kitchen island the chef was preparing their meal.

Last supper.

He faltered, overwhelmed by a wave of light-headedness.

“Massimo! Come watch.” Arnette, slipped her arm through his.

She smelled of vanilla. He turned to her, scanning her face, looking deep into her eyes, soaking in the beauty of her face, the delicate outline of her nose, the blue of her eyes. He gripped the bottle. ‘Only you’ the message had said. ‘But what about my wife?’ his pleading voice echoed, as he relived the moment in the hallway.

“What?” she asked, instantly aware of his tension. “What’s wrong?” she whispered whilst keeping the elegant hostess smile on her face, the smile she had perfected in the early years of their marriage as his career had begun to skyrocket.

I’m a coward. Forgive me.

“Come on, Leo is just about ready.”

It comes down to this. Your wife or your reputation.

With that kind of reputation, I will have no wife!

His stomach gurgled.

No career if you don’t do it. No life. You would have to kill yourself.

If they leak the video, then I will.

Exactly. No choice.

With a final glance at Arnette, he forced a smile and strode with her to the island.

A camera was set on a tripod facing the celebrity chef. He was making final preparations on the large slab of marble that topped the impressive island. The guests, the people they had demanded he invite, gathered around. The tension among the guests was palpable. What they were about to do was illegal, a frisson of excitement for a class of people who had everything money could buy, and could buy anything they wanted.

Anything.

Massimo swallowed and forced himself to smile and make jokes.

Exactly what the ‘party’ would entail was unclear. He suspected something insidious. Something illegal. Something that would capture their loyalty just as his had been captured. Taken at the point of a knife. Coercion. Blackmail. Something hideous.

Sure, but why not just use the deepfake stuff like they did with you?

No idea. It’s someone’s idea of a good time. Someone with more money than morals.

That’s true of most of your friends.

True.

He watched the celebrity chef, Leo Arnold, make his final preparations: checking his reflection in the mirror, running a finger through his fringe, damping down the shine on his nose with a tissue.

Minutes later, Leo stood at the kitchen island, talking with excitement as he sautéed the perfectly sliced pangolin. He added a splash of cognac to the sizzling meat with a skilful hand. The audience, the eight guests he believed were connoisseurs who had paid seven thousand dollars each for the pleasure of tasting the illicit meat, clapped as he tipped the pan to the flame. Fire burst inside the pan, dying quickly as the alcohol burned off. Earlier in the day, he had brought the live pangolin to be butchered claiming that it was part of the ‘thrill’ for the guests to see the animal live, thus proving it was a genuine pangolin. He had also encouraged them to take selfies.

Is he in on it? Massimo wasn’t sure.

The chef had brought his own camera, complete with tripod, to live stream the event to his subscribers, ‘for paid patrons only, of course’. He relayed this information with gloating pride adding that he had broken the five-thousand-mark last week. It was amazing what rich people would pay to watch edgy meals being prepared, he had declared. Then he’d drawn a little closer to Massimo and confided in conspiratorial tones that he’d even had one sicko ask him to create a dish with human flesh. Leo had balked at that, cooking illegally trafficked exotic animals being where he drew the line.

Massimo watched as Leo flipped the meat with the spatula. The guests watched, chattering among themselves, showing a little less interest in the proceedings now that the flash of burning alcohol had damped down.  

“The pangolin was trafficked from Guangxi Province in China,” Leo told his audience, realising he was losing their attention. He turned to his camera with professional ease. “It left Asia through Kwai Chung cargo port in Hong Kong.”

“Are you sure it’s safe to eat?” Sophie Barnard asked. She was a slender woman with expertly coloured blonde hair but with the tell-tale tight skin of major cosmetic surgery. A surprisingly glamorous wife for a politician.

“It only takes seconds to sauté,” Leo returned, adding another splash of cognac with a dramatic flourish. “So perfectly safe.” Flames leapt high. “The secret to great tasting pangolin, is-” Leo stalled, releasing the pan’s handle to cough. He sucked at the air and rapped at his chest with a tight fist. His eyes began to bulge.

Massimo watched the man as his face took on a strangled look. Is this part of it? He resisted the urge to step forward and help.

Leo swayed, grasped for the pan’s handle, overreached, and knocked it from the gas hob. It flipped, and a slick of oil ignited. The pan rocked then fell from the island, landing with a thud and spray of flaming oil. Sautéed pangolin slid across the floor.

“Fire!” Leo gasped, his voice wheezy as he clutched at his throat.

The politician’s wife shouted for wet cloths as flames crept up the side of Leo’s right trouser leg. His face took on a bluish tinge. Massimo watched the chef combusting in horrified paralysis as someone shouted, ‘Stop, drop, and roll!’.

As he staggered, Leo stood on a slice of oily pangolin and crashed against the island. The politician, James Barnard, removed his jacket to flap it against Leo’s legs. Scratch marks appeared on his skin as he clawed at his throat, and fire-retardant foam was sprayed across the floor as smoke spiralled to the ceiling. An alarm pierced the air.

Is this part of it?

Massimo watched on in stunned and frozen silence unsure what part he should play.

Leo’s camera continued to record.

Mason Briars, CEO of Sarmer Bio Labs, sprayed Leo’s smouldering leg with another layer of foam just as a capillary burst inside the chef’s left eye. Doused in foam below the waist, Leo continued to claw at his throat, staggering among the horrified onlookers, his free arm grasping towards them, his mouth open and closing, fish-like.

As blood began to trickle from the chef’s nose, Sophie Barnard began to cough, her eyes bulging as she grasped her throat.

Massimo scanned the room for the camera guy and caught sight of him in the far corner, video recorder resting on his shoulder, filming the scene. “What the hell is this?” Massimo hissed as the cameraman turned to video another guest in spasm on the floor. His face was hidden behind a black diving style mask, complete with respirator. “What have you done!” Massimo screamed across the room. “What the hell is this!”

Ignoring Massimo’s shouts, the cameraman continued to film, walking through the room, zooming in on each guest in turn, capturing their moments of agony.

The bottle of clear liquid felt hard in Massimo’s hand. “Arnette!” He swivelled, searching the room for his wife. Sophie, the politician’s wife, staggered towards him, hand outstretched, blood leaking from her nose. She grabbed the collar of Massimo’s jacket. He yanked her hand then pushed her away as she continued to claw the air.

“Arnette!”

Wet towel in hand, horror etched onto her face, Arnette stood paralysed by the chaotic scene. Massimo took a stride towards her. “I’m coming,” he called and held up the bottle. “I’m coming!”

Mason Briars staggered against him, chest heaving, desperately pulling at the air. Massimo pushed him with force, his gaze locked onto Arnette’s horrified face. Her mouth hung open and she hit a fist against her sternum.

“Arnette!” he called.

She stared at him with desperate eyes and he reached her as a trickle of blood began to leak from her nose.