27 November 2012
Adrian Written By: Tesh Samuel
Chapter 1
My name is Adrian. From an outside point of view, I am sure I appear just like any other average teenage boy, trying to get along in school. But I am not. At least not anymore. It is now the year 2108 and for many, including myself, it is not a happy time. So this is what drives me when I find that strange object in the streets. This was the moment when I stopped being a normal teenage boy.
"You'd better get home," says Maggie Smith as she fixes her square glasses that make her eyes appear unnaturally large. "The curfew has been moved back to nine o'clock remember?"
No one particularly likes Maggie. Maybe it's the glasses, or the fluffy ginger hair or maybe it's her constant obsession to remind everyone of what they already know. Whatever it is, I feel sorry for her. And so instead of telling her to "GO AWAY!" as would have liked to, I simply looked at her with a smile and a nod and shuffled along the street in the direction of my home. "Hey, Adrian," she called out to me after just a few steps.
"Yes Maggie?"
"What was you doing here? Sitting on the bench? You looked quite startled when I came across to you. It was almost like you were hiding something?"
"Oh, er, it was nothing," I exclaimed. "Just a Christmas present, for my mum"
"Oh ok... Well, I will see you at school. Bye!" And off she went skipping through the snow. She was right. I was startled when she came up to me a few moments ago, I was definitely hiding something from her, but it was not a christmas present for my mother.
Just a few moments ago, I had been sitting alone on the bench. I had found something. Something I thought intriguing, lying in the snow. It was small, metallic and square, roughly the size of a mobile phone, or perhaps a little bigger. It had a sign printed onto it in red; it looked almost like a coat of arms and under that was printed the words 'TOP SECRET'. I was looking at it, trying to work out what it was, when spotty little Maggie Smith came trodding along in her ugly green jacket and stupid flowery Wellington boots. I don't hate Maggie Smith. I try to be as nice to her as I possibly can. But she always seems to show up at the most inconvenient of times and it is really annoying.
It is freezing. I can see my breath circulate through the cold air. But I am kept warm by my many layers of clothing, my black knitted scarf and blue cardigan. It is the middle of winter and the snow has fallen down thick. Piles of it line up through the streets. Public transport appears to have slowed down almost to a complete stop.
I pass Hammington's. A bakery that pulls in a respectable business here. There are cakes in the windows in all sorts of wonderful colours and shapes. Cup cakes. Birthday cakes. Wedding cakes. There are also a variation of cookies and loaves of bread. Jessica Hammington's family owns that bakery. My feet do not stop moving, but my thoughts get lost into one thing at the sight of this building. I think of Jessica's unnaturally red hair, (I'm pretty sure she dyes it) and how beautiful she was that day when she and her family came to my house for dinner.
"Look what I made" she had told me as she held out a little cup cake covered in glitter and stars and a pink flower sitting on top. She had the largest grin on her face and I almost
"Oh wow!" I said in genuine amazement. I really was impressed. But perhaps that was just because it was Jessica who made it. Jessica was beautiful. "Can I try some?"
"Sure!" She ripped the cake in two and we both had our piece. It put a smile on my face. It tasted so good. She smiled back at me. I planned to go and see her the next day. I had gone to the trouble to pick a rose from the garden, even practiced a speech that I was going to use to ask her out. But when that day came, when I knocked on the door, greeted by police and her distraught parents, Jessica was gone. She had been taken in the night. No note was left. Just trails of blood leading to the front door. No one ever found her. Frankly, the polices attempts at finding her were rather pathetic. That was nearly four years ago.
After continuing through the snow for another ten minutes or so, the time is 20:54 according to my watch. I finally get home to my semi-detached brick house that sits opposite Blakthorn Hospital. Blakthorn is the eastern section of the sector that I live in, Sector 7. Sector 7 sits somewhere to the south of Redwin, a large community that formed sixty-seven years ago. No one talks about what happened sixty-seven years ago.
I kick off my shoes and attempt to sneak up the stairs without my mother hearing me. Miraculously, I manage it. Probably because she is too busy flirting with her new lover Christof. I see her through the living room door as I pass to the stairs. Giggling. Wrapped around his muscular, greasy body. It revolts me.
After the first few steps up the stairs, I don't bother avoiding the creaking, but I do take extra care not to let the door slam as I enter my bedroom. I turn the lock, remove my scarf and my jacket and go to sit on my bed. Here I am. All alone in my prison of white walls covered in Polaroid pictures and The New Shining Glory posters. The New Shining Glory is a rock band that I used to like very much. I could sit there for hours replaying their songs and reciting their lyrics. But I'm not so much into music anymore. I pull the strange metallic object out of my bag and give it a closer inspection. There is something printed on the back:
Deliver to
President Matrik Newman: 67 Candle Street Sector 1 - Scarlott Redwin 1SC 0KQ
This document provides information of national security. Unorthorised use of this information is strictly prohibited and punishable by death. This includes: reading or knowing its contents if you are not the person it is addressed to. Passing on or receiving information about its contents. Having said document in your possession unless instructed otherwise by a government official. Approved under the Redwin National Act of Security 2039
'Having said document in your possession unless instructed otherwise by a government official'... 'Punishable by death' Suddenly I don't feel so safe carrying this thing around. Not that i felt safe anyway. Where did it come from? How did it end up lying around on the street? What do I do with it now? My natural instinct is to dispose if it. But it is obviously an important document. Who knows what concequences might incur if this doesn't reach it's destination? Could it be something to do with the curfew? Might it explain why the entire sector is in lockdown? No. Disposing of it is definitely the wrong idea. Maybe I ought to give it back? Call the authorities and have them take it? But then what will happen to me? 'Punishable by death'. That doesn't sound like a very appealing thought. What should I do with it? Should I look inside?
It hits nine o'clock and there are sirens sounding from outside. I leave my bed for a moment to look out between my curtains. Windows pull shut, blinds roll down, people sprint through the street trying to get inside as quickly as possible and a repeating voice sounds through the speakers set up on tall posts in the street. "Sector 7 is in lockdown. Please return to your homes immediately. Anyone who objects will be neutralised". When the voice finally stops I return to sitting on my bed.
I decide to examine the metallic object; put it to my ear. Shake it. I hear nothing. I want to open it, but I don't know how. All the better really, opening it would not be a wise idea, but my curiosity is getting the better of me. Or it would be, if I could figure out how do it.
There is a knock on the window. My head suddenly whips round as Inspect it. At first I wonder who it could be, but then it's obvious who it must be. I quickly push the strange object under the pillow before getting off the bed, shuffling across the room and slightly withdraw the curtain, revealing a dazzling blue eye. I smile, pull the window open and then Arthor Merrywether climbed into my bedroom. I quickly shut the window again as he removed his thick black jacket with an immense sigh of relief, revealing his spiky black hair and his un-ironed, black and grey checkered shirt.
"Arthor!" I exclaimed once he completely stumbles into my room. "You know you really need to stop climbing through my window at night, anyone would think-"
"-You're not going to believe this," he interupts, finally free of his jacket and looking at me.
"What's happened?"
"I need to show you something. Turn on your tv. Channel nine". I wheeled round to the television set in the corner of my room, switched it on and flicked onto the channel that Arthor had told me to. Channel 9: Redwin News +1. The repeats of the eight o'clock news from an hour ago was on now and Newel Harpike, the white haired, skinny news anchor in a suit, was sitting at his desk reporting an outbreak from Sector 4's high security prison.
"You wanted to show me a news report of a prison outbreak?" I asked in confusion. "You didn't have to climb through my window for that, you could have just told me if you thought it that important I knew".
"Just hold on a minute. Keep watching."
The man on the tv went on to explain that at twelve minutes past eleven last night, approximately one-hundred-and-thirty inmates escaped from Mercycrown Top Security Prison. Over five billion credits worth of damage was caused, seventy five of the eighty staff of the prison have been either killed or are seriously wounded; the last five trapped in the prison with a further seventeen inmates.
The tv cuts away to the prison as a load of prisoners come bundling out of it. "Look here," says Arthor. "Look carefully." I am looking. I strain my eyes and browse the screen for something significant.
"What is it I'm looking for?" I ask.
"It's a person, an inmate. Someone you know."
"Who!?" I asked suddenly, turning quickly to Arthor.
"Just watch OK"
Adrian • Opuss № I