Chapter 1

Introducing the main characters.

The house was more of a jungle than anything. In the rooms, the vegetation had grown so thick it was almost as if the plants were growing straight out of the walls. Dirty dishes piled up at the side of the kitchen sink because the space was currently occupied by a genetically-altered spruce seedling. Even with the extreme humidity that had been accumulating inside the house for months, the seedling emitted the sweet scent of strawberries.

   Outside, Warm air, curious for late January, had brought with it an omnipresent rain cloud. The sky reminded him of the dark grey of ash. It wasn't the exact same color, maybe a few shades lighter now that the rain had let up, but close enough to put Beck in a melancholy mood.

   “Dad.”            

   Beck leaned in close to the window, face nearly pressing the glass, fog blurring out the dull scene beyond.

   “Dad, we have to go soon. Are you almost ready or what?” Tyler said, making sure to place extra annoyance in his tone, and sighing deeply for good measure.

   “Yeah, let me just grab my coat . . .” Beck said, focusing on his the task at hand just long enough to adjust his glasses and retrieve his coat from the hallway closet. As he started to lace up his shoes, his mind began to wander again.

   “Dad, come on. Hurry up.”

   Tyler was in the kitchen, carelessly flipping the car keys around his finger.

   “I told you not to do that,” Beck said with the authority of an evening breeze. He walked into the kitchen, brushing the drooping foliage out of his way, and grabbed a select few papers off the cluttered table then stuffed them untidily into the open briefcase next to them.

   “You told me not to do it in public. We're not in public, we're still in the house,” Tyler said defiantly. “Besides, it's not like I'm gonna lose them or anything.”

   Beck sighed, not even willing to argue his usual point that it was bad to advertise the possession of car keys when they were in the city, especially since he kept neglecting to make a spare set for Tyler's own personal use. Instead, he resorted to the default statement “keep it up, and I'll take them away. Then you won't have the car or the keys.”

   Tyler continued the argument until they walked out the front door, but he kept the keys safely tucked inside of his coat pocket.

   Outside, the rain had picked up again. Beck hung back in the garage, whipping out the umbrella and cautiously venturing out towards the car. Tyler was already sitting in the driver's seat, running his hands through his wet, unkempt hair, trying to get the dark brown locks to stick up at odd angles. Beck got in beside him a moment later, making sure to close the soaking umbrella outside the car and stick it in a plastic bag.

   Tyler stared at his father with an exaggerated grin, waiting for him to notice the devil horns jutting out of the remains of his bangs. When Beck noticed, he gave Tyler a halfhearted smile and pushed the hair back into place.

   It took a few tries to start, and when it finally got going, the old automobile gave a shudder accompanied by a thick black plume of smoke that emerged from the tailpipe, but it started and soon Tyler had them racing off into the downpour.

   Beck stared out the window at the sky as the thick ceiling of cloud cover rolled over itself, undulating, turning dark and then lightening back up.

   “It's not stopping anytime soon, is it?” Tyler asked indifferently.

   “No. It's supposed to keep up until tomorrow morning,” Beck said. It's strange though, he thinks. After all, it's the middle of January and there hasn't been a single flake of snow. The news stations on the T.V. and the radio had been raving lately that a decade ago, the area had an average of fifteen feet of snow, and now people are walking around in shorts and t-shirts. Apparently global warming was all the rage.

   It's just the weather being the weather, Beck thought solemnly. He leaned back in the seat and closed his eyes.

   He could feel the car go over the bump that signaled they were exiting the gated community and were on their own. He had made this trip countless times himself, and he could picture the rolling countryside with its lush green fields and rows of empty animal pastures. Of course, with the weather, it would be concealed by thick fog.

   He couldn’t remember dozing off, but the next thing he knew, Tyler was shaking him gently awake. “Dad, come on,” he said, getting out of the car. “Let's go.”

   Beck mumbled something incoherent, rubbed his eyes, and scratched at the graying stubble on his chin he just could not seem to keep clean-shaven.

   Grabbing the suitcase and unfolding the umbrella, Beck stepped out of the car and paused for a minute, head down, waiting for Tyler to get the hint. After a moment, a small click sounded as the doors locked.

   The two walked silently through the outer city streets. If it hadn't been raining, the air might have been warm, but their clothes were quickly soaked through despite the umbrella held cautiously above them. A wet chill rolled down their spines.

   They passed by a number of abandoned houses and dilapidated buildings. A few restaurants were in disrepair and obviously not in use. A neon sign hung by one link, dangling over the porch of one. It’s nearly black dirt and ash, and probably hasn't been turned on in years. There was nobody around and there never seemed to be. The city security had campaigned a few years ago to forcefully remove any squatters still hanging about in the Skirts. They pass by what used to be a public library. Now it’s just a smoldering ruin: a monolithic reminder of the dangers of idealism.

   A wall was soon looming over them. Twelve feet tall and made of solid black steel that glinted ominously in the grey morning light. The wall wrapped around the entire perimeter of the inner city. A gate opens, spotlights turn on, and they are stopped by a trio of heavily armed guards that step out to block their passage"the whole deal. Without a word, Beck pulled out the I.D. card attached by a retractable cable to the handle of his briefcase. The guard looked at the card and nodded, then gestures toward Tyler, but his card is already out and glowing in the light.

   They pass through without another word.

   Beyond the wall, the scene is dramatically different; towering skyscrapers in perfect alignment, meshed together in a perfect grid pattern, and plate-glass windows that had colorful advertisements that projected onto them. The streetlights that lined the roads and the sidewalks activated in unison at exactly 6 o'clock every evening. Cars whipped by at dangerous speeds, but their controls were entirely automated, so as long as you paid attention to where you were walking, there was no chance of an accident.

Here, in the midst of the city, the commotion and movement of thousands of people seemed mechanical, as if they had all been trained like dogs to walk at the same pace and in perfect alignment. Everyone carries a black umbrella. Millions of them bob up and down as their wielders walk to the rhythm of an inaudible beat. In the throngs of the crowd, Beck and Tyler easily stand out. Beck’s quick and well-proportioned strides come in shorter than those around him and Tyler’s long gaits outdistance everyone else"A pair of black flamingos awkwardly making their way through a flock of pink.

It is an unspoken rule that you do not stop to speak to anyone on the street. It is imperative that order be maintained. A quick nod or sideways glances become the only allotted forms of communication in the ever-moving, carefully maintained metropolis.

A metallic groan could be heard from three blocks away as Beck carefully made his way through the streets, glancing around every once in a while to make sure Tyler had not gotten swept up by the unceasing tide of human activity. Looming fifty meters above the street, a long silver bullet train whips along a track, darting left and right amongst the skyscrapers with seemingly impossible agility. The rain smacking the sleek chassis of bullet trains as the rocket past becomes audible once they begin traveling beneath the rail lines. Beck had been onboard these trains only a few times before. The seats were cushioned and comfortable, they reclined as well as contained cup-holders and mini-fridges, and there was a snack stand where the food was delicious but impossibly overpriced. These trains were meant for longer commutes, considering they only take three seconds to travel ten blocks. They were headed for the elaborate subway system that ran beneath the entire city, with multiple levels weaving over and around each other in such an intricate way that it was almost art.

The entrance to the subway system was dingy and covered from top to bottom in centuries-old graffiti that the city had neglect to clean off. Most of it was faded and illegible names and profanities in what must have once been bright neon colors. Vandalism is a felony, invariably punishable by a life sentence in prison.

Below ground, the world became floor-to-ceiling concrete. People stood like the undead on the platforms; coffee in hand and bloodshot eyes. A line had begun at the exact point on the platform where the subway car’s doors would stop and open. Beck gave Tyler a hug and straightened his jacket before parting ways. Tyler got in line for the east-bound tram that would take him directly to the school. Beck squeezed into his own line just as a pudgy man came up behind him, huffing and red faced with the effort of descending the flight of stairs to the underground. Beck could feel the man’s hot breath on the back of his exposed neck and cringed. Suddenly, the quick shuffling of footsteps in Beck’s direction made him turn, but a hand shot out, grabbing his shoulder and keeping him in place. Whoever it was squeezed into the space between Beck and the pudgy man, thankfully ceasing the quick repulsive breaths.

“Don’t say anything,” the man said. “I’m already taking a huge risk.”

The familiar voice clicked in Beck’s mind.

“Steve? Damnit man, what do you think you’re doing here?” Beck hissed.

Steve kept his grip on Beck’s shoulder. “The captain told me that he received new orders to ship out tomorrow morning.” He let the words hang in the air for a moment.

Beck paused for a long time. Long enough for the subway lights to burst out of the tunnel and the great steel behemoth came to a screeching halt. The line shuffled forward hastily and all available seating was quickly taken up, forcing the two men to stand awkwardly at the back of the train trying to keep invisible.

“He told me we had a week,” Beck said at last. “A goddamn week! What the hell does he think I can do by tonight?”

“Look, Beck, under the circumstances, it’s more than we could’ve hoped for and certainly more than we could have asked for. He could’ve turned us down flat, but he didn’t. I think we should. . . .”

The train started moving and a man lost his balance, pushing into Steve.

“Hey, watch it!” Steve growled.

The man took a better grip on the overhead railing and mumbled something under his breath. Steve looked daggers at him, but didn’t move.

“I mean to say we should take who we can, get them onboard and pretend nothing happened. We couldn’t rob the whole damn place even if it was possible. They’d notice right away. Even if only one of them makes it, it would be worth it, right?”

“Beck nodded. “What time is he leaving the harbor?” He asked.

“He told me eight o’clock tonight.”

“Nine would be better.”

“I’ll see what I can do, but no promises.”

The men were silent until the train pulled into the next platform. I’ll meet you behind the service shed then,” Steve said.

“At seven,” Beck agreed.

Only a small portion of the passengers disembarked at the stop, forcing Steven and Beck to fight their way through the crowd. The man who had fallen into Steve trailed behind them. They had just made it past the double doors when the crowd stopped and everything went silent. Beck looked over at Steve, who motioned to the door, but the crowd parted to reveal a group of police officers, clad in black bullet-proof vests and shiny round helmets that concealed their faces. The officers pushed their way through the crowd, approaching Beck and Steve. Beck’s stomach fell as he realized that the officers were there for them, there was no question about it. He shrunk down inside himself, imagining them throwing him into prison, and never seeing Tyler again. They’d give him the death penalty for sure, and take Tyler away to an orphanage. This point made Beck shudder the most. There were no real orphanages in the city. If you were taken to one, you ended up exiled to God-knows where. Beck was in the midst of resigning himself to oblivion when Steve jumped in front of him, threw him aside and made a dead sprint for the exit. He made it halfway when another troupe of officers stormed down the stairs and cut him off. They grabbed him before he had a chance to turn and threw him to the ground.

The officers who didn’t take part in the beating stood in a line between the citizens who did their best to ignore the whole event.

Nobody jumped in to help Steve, including Beck who could do nothing but stare at the black wall and imagine the grizzly scene that was taking place beyond it. The howls of pain soon faded into grunts, and then into mild thumps as the officers continued to beat his unconscious body with their clubs. The clubs were electrified and could be made to give a shock that would knock a man out with a single touch, but they liked the brutality. Crime was fairly scarce in the city, so the officers rarely got the opportunity to use excessive force.

It was silent now. Beck had no idea how long he had been standing there, too horrified to move, waiting for the inevitable hand to grasp the back of his neck and throw him to the ground, an excruciating beating soon to follow. But the attack never came. Instead, a hand tapped him firmly on the shoulder. It was an officer; everyone else had cleared out, including most of the police force and what might remain of Steve.

“You okay, sir?” The officer asked. He didn’t seem concerned, and no matter Beck’s response, the officer would only reply a hasty ‘move along’.

“Yes"Yes, I’m alright.” Beck said as passively as he could muster. He willed his left hand to stop shaking, but when it wouldn’t, he resigned to shoving it into his coat pocket.

Walking up the stairs and back into damp air, Beck’s mind was moving faster than the cars that zoomed past him. Why was it that the officers had not approached him as well as Steve? Steve after all had been on Beck’s private payroll, not the other way around.

The movement of the crowd was particularly stifling after that.

Beck stopped into his usual coffee shop on his way to the lab, stood in line waiting, and only just managed to make himself audible enough for the confused cashier to get him his coffee. He held it in his hand, feeling the warmth of it slip up into his palm and down his wrist, but the rest of his body felt ice cold. His stomach remained in limbo somewhere between his throat and his heart, and it seemed like everyone who passed by gave him a look of suspicion.

By the time he made it to the lobby, the coffee had gone cold. He had not taken a single sip of it. Just past the double doors, hot, dry air hit him and whipped the dampness from his clothes and body.  The rug absorbed every last drop of dirty rain water that fell to it. He ran a shaky hand through his hair, adjusting the part and smoothing the windblown areas.

He didn’t feel at all safer here. Work signified a return to normalcy, but that in itself seemed abnormal. Beck stared at his feet as he walked, taking care to avoid eye contact, feeling uncomfortable as if he were being followed by that troupe of officers from the underground. A stranger in his own domain.

The stark white halls were filled with the flickering tails of lab coats and pale blue scrubs. Thankfully the elevator was empty when the doors slid open and Beck walked in.

“Hold the door!”

A man in a black pinstriped business suit nearly dove between the doors just as they were sliding shut. The man caught his breath and fixed his hair, then looked to Beck as if to thank him, but paused.

“Oh, Doctor Huxley,” he said, clearly perturbed by the sight of Beck standing stock still, full coffee still clenched in his vice-like grip. “It’s been a while.”

Beck nodded quickly, offering only a weak smile of acknowledgement. Arnold Bowler was one of the youngest board members of MedTech laboratories, and was a particularly distasteful man.

“Terrible day isn’t, it?” Bowler said.

“The worst it’s been in a while, sir,” Beck said shakily.

Bowler kept his eyes on the door, his hands folded in front of him, weight distributed to each leg evenly. Perfect posture.

Bowler went silent for a while and Beck was glad of it. The doors slid open and Beck got out, turning as the doors slid shut just in time to see Bowler whip out what looked to be a key and jam it into the elevator panel.

Beck was deep underground now. It had never really bothered him before, but now a sense of claustrophobia gripped him. He found himself jogging to his office, seeing few others on his way. This floor was devoted botanical sciences, and Beck was the head of the department. His office at the end of a long hallway was large and filled with plants of very size, shape, and color. The special lights in the ceiling and the far wall imitated natural sunlight, even emitting weak ultraviolet rays. He closed the door quickly behind him and stood against it for a while, allowing himself to momentarily look as frightened as he felt. He took a few deep breaths, slung his briefcase onto the desk and collapsed into the chair. He realized now that he had been sweating, despite the fairly chilly subterranean facility. He clicked open the briefcase and removed a few papers with nearly illegible handwriting that only Beck could understand; mathematical formulas and diagrams of molecules and plant anatomies.

For the past three years, he had been working on a way to restore and revive human tissue by substituting damaged cells of the human body with self-replicating plant ones.  So far he had been able to create a plant that replicated itself if it was damaged, but the technique for replacing human cells with it still eluded him. On a rack on the counter behind him sat three formulas that remained untested.

Originally there were five, but the first two had been complete and utter failures, and so Beck had been hesitant to test the remaining three on a human subject. A particularly gruesome blood-red flower in the carnivorous plant case had once been a lab rat. On occasion, he could swear he had heard it squeak behind the glass.

Instead of getting right to work like he usually did, Beck sat in his chair, slowly swiveling from left to right, trying to ease a normal thought into his head, but the image of Steve being thrown to the ground kept coming back to him.

To distract himself, he did what he often did when he became bored. He pluck a hair from his scalp and placed it in a glass dish, then removed a drop of soft pink liquid from one of the experimental formulas using an eyedropper, and let the single drop fall gracefully onto the hair.

For a long while, nothing happened. Then, the dark brown hair began to turn green, grow longer and wider and finally sprout roots.

Beck sighed heavily and pushed the dish to the far side of the desk and sat back down. A miracle of science some had called it when he first performed the demonstration. This only angered him though. A hair turning to grass was not the intended effect. Still, they applauded his work and made him head of the department. For three years after that, he had not produced a single successful formula, or anything else for that matter. Usually he spent his time watching over the other botanists of the department.

He had lost interest in science over the years, and spent them slowly degrading into a hollow shell. His first and only human test subject had died upon receiving the formula, and he had never been able to get over it.

The sound of the office door opening awoke him from his daydreaming. A scientist named Andrew Kuch walked in with a giddy smile across his face. Andrew worked in the practical application department, where Beck had previously worked before his promotion.

“The new subjects are in,” Andrew said. “Thought you might want to check them out.” Andrew gave Beck a somewhat sinister wink.

“Sure, I’ll be right there,” Beck said, rising slowly from his chair. Andrew vanished out the door. Beck made to follow him, his mind still submerged in deep thought. His first subject, he recalled. What would Sarah be telling him to do now? He felt slightly ashamed that he couldn’t devise an answer, only her scowl showed up in his head.

If only he could have saved her, he thought. He used his thumb to rotate the gold ring on his finger, thinking that the one that matched it was sitting inside of a matchbox on his nightstand.

 

Author's Note

The first half of this I wrote on my ipod, so feel free to point out grammar errors, but please don't resent me for them. Secondly, most of the names are improvised and may be subject to change later on. Beck's last name 'Huxley' is a nod to Aldous Huxley, author of 'Brave New World'

Reviews

[Allan W]

I may be a bit late in reviewing this - but have only just discovered your writing - hopefully you do not mind the lateness of my review?

'His office at the end of a long hallway was large and filled with plants of very size, shape, and color.'

the word very should read 'every' and being English I would of course spell color as 'colour'.

'He realized now that he had been sweating, despite the fairly chilly subterranean facility'

I thought would read better if it read:

He realized now that he had been sweating, despite the slight chill of the subterranean facility

Other than these observations I thought it was quite excellent. I could easily be reading a Scott Sigler or Dean koontz opening chapter. Very well written. It has enough of a hook to want the reader to know more about the story it eludes to. It has character introduction and some character building of Beck. There is a strong insight into the world of Beck, which seems utopian in structure.

I would definitely buy this book based on the opening chapter!

I am no expert however - so please take my review with a pinch of salt. Hopefully one day I will produce work of similar standing though. Looking forward to reading more now.

[Devanshu Rajput]

greatly done...the essence of a great book...you excellent designed the structure of chapter...lovely piece by you...wanna to read 2nd great chapter...heartouching piece by you...keep writting...

DEVANSHU RAJPUT

[Sujash I. Purna]

As I slowly progressed, I couldn't suppress the feeling that I'm reading a Utopian novel. Orwellian government, Thought Police, many things from George Orwell's 1984 swarmed into my mind as I finished this chapter.

I liked it. And the names were my favourites! Beck and Huxley. I'm a fan of Aldous Huxley and Beck Hansen(he's a music artist though).

Some places seemed to me a little distant and not immersing. You didn't speak of Beck's mind coherently. He was just shocked. He was losing interest in science. But what actually Beck thought when he saw Steve's fate is a bit hushed away. I guess you'll clear it up in the next chapters!

But anyway, it was a great pleasure reading the chapter. I'll be reading the next ones very soon.

[TL Boehm]

WOW what an original idea - I was blown away by that little scene of the hair in the petri dish. Your descriptions are solid and you create a complete atmosphere with this chapter. I am intrigued and found it entertaining. And its nice to be reading you again.

[TC Dunn]

ok first off I just want to say this is truly wonderful. I have nothing to say about your grammar since I tend not to care about it unless it really keeps me from understanding what I'm reading. After all that's what editors are for later on down the line. The only thing that matters to me is an intriguing plot, and you definitely have that here. Have you ever looked at trying to get published or self publishing?
The line, "A stranger in his own domain." struck me. I loved how that was phrased, along with many other of your lines which created such powerful imagery, that I felt I was watching a movie more than reading a book. Great job, and I look forward to reading more of your work.

[PaperLife]

You, are a writer.