2216

Zola Freed finds herself in a new world that has changed drastically in her absence away from civilization. Society has gradually become threatened by political lies and no one can decipher the truth.

2216

By Denise J. Steller

 

     It was a hot and sunny afternoon in August. We sat in silence powering through the dusty countryside in a scrap car with wild abandon. Zola Freed, her eyes glued to the passing landscape, slowly felt the need to open the window and feel the wind on her face one last time before she arrived at the approaching train station.

     The air smelt of salt and filled her nostrils with a thin layer of dust. After a moment of basking in the pure sun, Zola shut the window in the same moment her Uncle Jax felt the fine dust enter the moving vehicle.

     “You know how bad the air is out there. Keep that window shut,” he called back to her over the noise of the loud, bumbling engine.

     Zola stared warmly at the back of his head for a moment and smiled.

     “I’m really going to miss you Uncle. Why can’t you come for a visit?”

     Jax wiped his brow and looked around at the barren, yellow land with dying gum trees and speckles of green dispersed far off in the horizon. After momentary contemplation, he put the car on auto drive then gave Zola a fond stare through the rear view mirror.

     “I told you, Oxland isn’t a city for me. I couldn’t last a day there, especially now.”

     He turned back to the rough road in front of him to supervise the vehicle’s drive.

     Zola glanced indifferently at her uncle, wondering what he meant by this comment and decided not to interpret his tone with anything personally towards her. She returned to her window watching, trying desperately to see a frilled-neck lizard that still roamed these parts.

     “I know you don’t believe me, but please understand that Oxland is different now.”

     Annoyed with his answer, she rolled her eyes, hoping he would change his mind.

     “Fine,” she said shutting down the subject without attitude.

     In the front passenger seat there laid an Oxland City newspaper folded in half with the headline reading, ‘Fifth Surprise Attack’ with a picture of a partially ruined street.

     “You should get caught up with what’s happening. Read this,” he said to Zola as he tossed the newspaper in the backseat beside her. She picked it up slowly and it unfolded in her hands to reveal the bottom of a horrific picture featuring dead bodies scattered around a city street with smoke in the air and a crying child in the foreground. She was mesmerised by the child’s face, his expression of sadness and deep intensity taking the attention away from the rest of the photo. Zola read the caption. The world was at war.  

     Zola sat up in the backseat with the realization that her uncle was right. There was something going on that she had been sheltered to until now. Her yearlong work placement was so remote that it had been extended an extra year because of the lack of personnel to finish the project. Zola was gifted, had finished school early and was fully trained with a top tier in-field archaeology placement through her archaeologist uncle. She was ready for her bright future. What she didn’t know was how quickly war had begun within two years of being away and how drastically life had changed for her family and the outside world.

     The newspaper she held was the first one she’d seen since she left Oxland and the news stories seemed made up like a false reality that didn’t make sense.

     “What is this?” she asked her uncle. Convinced that this was one of his playful, yet tricky mind games to make her laugh, she tossed the newspaper back in the front passenger seat.

     “We’ve been away for a very long time,” he said to her as he pushed a button to control the dust-covered vehicle. The empty train station parking lot, which was more like a gravel site, was in the middle of dry desert sand.

     The train station had seen better days. The white brick building bore a dilapidated sign over the double door entrance with the date of 2066. The station was exactly one hundred and fifty years old and Zola considered it a historical attraction.

     As the car came to a stop, Zola and her uncle put on protective goggles and lifted their scarves to cover the bottom halves of their face. The doors lifted, exposing the interior of the vehicle that was crafted especially for working on in-field expeditions. They stepped out, taking Zola’s gear, and then the doors automatically began to close as they walked into the dusty wind.

     Only two other passengers waited on the long, cracked concrete platform, one man and one woman, both protected from the elements.

     The train could be seen in the distance, shining in the glaring sun and trekking along smoothly.

     Zola looked at her uncle through the glass eyepieces and she could see his eyes squint with a smile underneath his scarf. He was someone she could trust, someone she looked up to, and someone who would change the outcome of her life for the better. It was almost time to say goodbye, but she secretly didn’t want to leave her favourite uncle, even though she missed the rest of her family.

     It would be a long, lonely train ride to Oxland, her home for seventeen years. She wondered what everyone back home was doing in his or her life. But she especially wanted to know why these attacks were happening. Was there really a war going on?

     She flung her bag over her shoulder and watched the train enter the station. Her uncle stuffed the Oxland newspaper into her large luggage.

     “Reading material,” he said as he leaned in for an embrace. He hugged her tight for longer than she expected.

     “From here on out you will be safe all the way home. If anything should happen, you know how to reach me,” he said firmly.

     “Thanks Uncle Jax. For everything,” Zola said with a smile.

     The train came to a halt and a tall officer in a blue military uniform came out to examine Zola’s ticket. The officer nodded and waved Zola in with one hand to enter before proceeding down the platform.

     She looked at her uncle but couldn’t say the words. He saw her hesitation.

     “Love you, kiddo,” he said warmly. She walked up the train steps and turned.

     “Tell your mum to call me when you arrive,” he called to her.

     Zola nodded as she turned to find her seat. Her bags were light enough to carry and she peered out the window like a child as she settled in. Her uncle was a strong, middle-aged intellectual who had taught her everything he knew about history and more, which is an education that her parents couldn’t give her.

     She held her hand to the window as the train pulled away. Jax waved back in the sun. Her eyes didn’t leave him until he was only a dot on the horizon. She would see the rest of her family in three days time.

 

     The out-of-date entrance door didn’t creak as it usually did when opened, and the hallway smelt of bleach and chemicals, clean and mopped for the first time in years. The walls were freshly painted a blinding white that hurt the eyes. Cameras were hung in each corner angled at every apartment door, and the overhead lights seemed alarmingly brighter somehow. Each door had now been updated with a handprint pad, a security feature that was used with a classic lock and key, which was a technology surprisingly never dismissed from existence.

     Shocked at the hallway’s differences, Zola swallowed hard as she approached her front door after climbing a flight of stairs, looking around at details she remembered from her childhood like the crack in the wall. She hesitated as her shaking hand froze only centimetres in front of the keyhole. Would the key still fit? Would her handprint be needed to enter? Doubts flooded her mind with terrible thoughts of what could have happened to her family in two years.

     After opening the front door and tiptoeing inside, Zola heard her family chatting in the kitchen down the hall, discussing the war effort.

     “How do we approach Zola about the changes and the household rules?” a female asked. Zola listened and peaked from around the corner, feeling like a stranger to something oddly unfamiliar.

      She had never seen her parents look so tired and rough, their voices low with their enthusiasm for life gone, defeated by some unknown force that was perched on their shoulders judging each word.

     Her brother Ash, clean and groomed, turned sixteen last month and suddenly looked like an adult with a foot of growth towering over both parents. Ash wore a grey-blue uniform that displayed a rank of Corporal, which made him look intimidating and authoritative with his stern demeanour.

     All three took a seat at the table with their coffee. Camdyn and Shon were a young couple considering, but looked significantly older now and the lines on their faces appeared more prominent than ever before. They were high school sweethearts. They both wore brown pants and beige button down shirts that appeared faded from use like some factory uniform. It didn’t make sense. They were both tech professionals when Zola left Oxland.

     “I guess we can tell Zola the new rules together then,” Camdyn said gently to Shon with a glimmer of a smile, caressing Shon’s arm.

     “I suppose Ash might want to be there as w"”

     “No.” Ash barked, cutting off Shon abruptly, “That’s not necessary.”

     “What do you mean son?” Shon asked, trying to understand.

     “She’ll be taught during her conditioning when given a security implant.”

     The shock of hearing this scared Zola, opening her eyes wide, unable to blink or speak, she backed away quietly, left her bags by the entrance and quietly shut the door behind her. She tried hard to contain the emotion she felt inside where no cameras would notice. Someone was watching.

     In a matter of seconds she was down the stairs, out the door, and in the street, planning her next move with her mind racing to multiple outcomes, trying to determine the best solution to take before reaching the street corner.

     Kids and parents passed wearing a dreary face, pale and grey, dragging their feet, and exhausted beyond belief like zombies.

     The block of old apartment buildings seemed forgotten, as if the exterior upkeep seemed too much and was left to wither with people still living inside them. Only the insides kept sterile.

     Zola started to sweat with each passing war poster plastered everywhere. Fidgeting and anxious she found her web phone from inside her jacket and backed into the corner of a new bus shelter where no one, including the large street cameras could see her dial.

      “Hi Uncle Jax, it’s me. I’ve arrived. But I need your help. It’s worse than we thought,” Zola stated firmly, watching out for neighbours who might recognize her in the street.

     “What do you mean?”

     “You need to see this place, everything’s changed,” she said while covering her eyes,  “You’re the only one I trust.”

     An angry bearded man’s face appeared in front of a massive explosion in the recruitment poster behind her shoulder that made her flinch. She’d always hated animated posters. Too real.

     “This sounds a bit like history repeating itself. I’ll be in town in three days.”

     Zola swallowed and moved the web phone away from her face, hearing her uncle hang up put her in a daze. Unable to blink, her eyes twitched as she glared at a mysterious man who walked by without seeing her. His dusty brown trench coat flapped loudly in the wind behind him startling her.

      The next three days of waiting for her uncle felt like forever. Witnessing her family’s behaviour was hard to accept; especially the changes within Ash were heartbreaking. His fierce coldness and rigidity contributed to their growing terror of him and the system.

 

     Bright news screens featuring war ads lined the sidewalk towards an active café, catching Zola’s eye. She kept her head down and tried to blend into the miserable crowd before stepping into the entrance way of the café where soldiers with large guns stood drinking coffee and handing out war pins. When taking a pin, she moved between the men, her arm brushing by one of the guns and the grey hard metal felt cold against her skin.   

     Looking at the occupied tables, Zola spotted her uncle sitting near a group from the Youth Brigade, who looked robotic, brainwashed, spoke loudly, and wore the same uniform as her brother. Jax had a coffee, a digital newspaper, and was trying hard to blend in.

     She sat at the only seat available across from her uncle, being nonchalant and wondering if the Youth Brigade members would leave shortly.

     “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize it would be this busy,” she quietly said to Jax.

     “The soldiers at the door have been monitoring the café customers since I’ve arrived,” Jax said without looking up from his newspaper and barely moving his lips as he spoke.

     “It isn’t safe here to talk,” Zola said while one of the uniformed youth gave her an evil glare.

     “Ash is one of them now,” she pointed with her eyes. Jax shook his head disappointedly.

     Zola looked around and saw the soldiers casually supervising the café interior through the entrance windows and talking amongst themselves.

     “You should buy something before they start watching us,” Jax urged.

     “Lets talk at my house. No one’s home,” she whispered at she stood.

     “Fine. I’ll meet you there in an hour,” Jax said, taking a sip of coffee.

     He subtly watched Zola over his newspaper; she took a moment at the café menu screen before turning to exit. Her head was down as she walked out the door, avoiding eye contact with the soldiers outside. The soldiers watched her leave with a threatening stare and her uncle’s brow creased with anger.

 

     Stepping onto the sky train wasn’t always a risk, but now it was full of security. Military guards, cameras, body scanners and uniformed youth were always watching.

     Zola stood with her back to the train door as the train sped through the cityscape. Every now and then, loiterers and scammers would enter the train trying to sell something to passengers with some elaborate story. Most of them were homeless or rebels against the war effort. At one of the stops, a young female rebel stepped on holding a stack of flyers, yelling her negative opinions of war and that the propaganda needed to be stopped.

     “It’s one big conspiracy against society!” the rebel shouted down the train.

     Most people ignored her remarks as she passed, pretending not to see her, looking away with arrogance. Others took the flyer to read it, obviously curious like Zola. The rebel stood in front of her with a sparkle in her big eyes and a firm voice.

     “You must attend the meeting, it’s imperative to hear the truth.”

     Zola quickly nodded as she folded the flyer in half, stuffing it into her pocket before a guard stopped the rebel’s loud government objections. At the next stop, the rebel was gone but her ideas had stayed within Zola’s mind.

 

     Amazed by the neighbourhood developments, Jax scanned the street and decided to wait for Zola inside her building. As he approached the main entrance, an animated poster hanging above the doors caught his attention. There were two children crying in the foreground with a destroyed park in the background and the caption: Only you can help them. Join to stop the horror.

 

     Jax shut the curtains in Zola’s bedroom, brushed his hand along the walls, over a war poster and then underneath the surface of her computer desk.

     “Can we talk safely here? Did you put up this poster? I saw the same one downstairs.”

     “That’s exactly what I’m talking about. Those posters are everywhere,” Zola said firmly, ripping the poster off the wall and throwing it in the trash shoot by the window.

     “I know there’s more to them than people think.”

     She sat at her desk and searched the archaeological image files online for war posters. Jax leaned towards the screen to examine the files.

     “This morning I was able to find some archival footage with my research clearance, and look what I found,” Zola said while expanding some video news files to watch.

     “They’re using false propaganda to scare people into holding city raids. There is no war.”

     “Those are old files. Look at the dates. It starts in 2015 and goes to 2029,” Jax pointed out, shaking his head.

     “I know.”

     Zola opened up another news file called Aftermath of the Balkstan Tragedy and found the exact footage from the poster with crying children, except there were two crying women who were now in the foreground.

     “They’re using footage from the terror war back in history, and no one has noticed.”

     “Yes they have. Look at this flyer.”

     Zola handed him the flyer she got from the rebel.

     “There’s a meeting tonight,” Jax gasped suddenly, looking up at his niece and grabbing her shoulder, “We need to attend.”

     “I know. But I need to tell my family something. I’ve been pretending to be sick at home to avoid my security orientation. Ash will know something’s up.”

     “Leave it to me. I’ll take care of it.”

  

       Zola and Jax walked on the narrow sidewalk that lined a dark and deserted underpass in the outskirts of the city. They continued past some old abandoned buildings, stopping at the entrance of an alleyway with ancient graffiti markings, broken concrete, and full of large potholes.

     “This is it. It should be here, in between these two buildings,” Zola said with curiousity.

     “The street numbers are off. Where is it?”

     “Maybe it’s down the alley?” Jax muttered to himself, walking slowly into the dark, musty unknown. Zola followed.

     After walking for what seemed like forever in the dark, the moonlight shined through tcloud and foggy mist from the sewer, revealing a black unmarked door with no handle. The clear mist smelt of rank rotting garbage, which hit Zola and Jax in the face with an extreme pungency that made Zola almost gag. Jax covered the lower half of his face with his scarf. He took out the flyer to examine it in the moonlight once more before turning to give up. A moment later the door suddenly opened, scaring the wits out of both, and revealing a bright light from inside. When the door was fully opened, Zola and Jax shielded their eyes to the intense light, where they saw a silhouetted man in army green fatigues with broad shoulders and a machine gun held in his muscular arms.

     “You in, or out?” the man said with a deep intimidating voice.

     Unable to speak, Zola grabbed the flyer that her uncle held to show the man. He moved aside to let her in. She nodded as she slowly stepped into the entrance, looking around to see anything that would give her a sign of safety"the pyramid symbol from the flyer. Jax still stood in the blinding light, hesitating and out of Zola’s reach.

     “Zola, wait!” Jax snapped, stepping forward, trying to make out the large image painted roughly on a wall behind the unknown man.

     “It’s okay. This is it. We found it,” she whispered with a sign of relief. Finally letting her guard down for the first time in days felt like an immense weight had lifted. She shut her eyes hard and covered her face with her shaking hands. Jax entered and hugged her tight.

     “It’s okay. You’re okay,” he said reassuringly, not letting her go until she was ready.

     “You both need to step this way now. The meeting’s about to begin.”

     “Thanks,” Jax said to the guard, guiding Zola down the cement hallway with caution.

     The guard brought them down the stairs and into a white clinical room"quite a contrast to the exterior"where photos were taken, eyes scanned, and handprints digitally saved before allowing them into a large underground meeting room. This was once a sophisticated underground bunker from a previous war.

     The underground room was packed with the old, middle-aged, and young who sat patiently. Zola looked around at the faces"a decent range of normal-looking folks from all sorts of backgrounds and who all wanted answers.

     Zola and Jax took a seat next to some elderly citizens near the back as the lights dimmed. A strong female figure took a step forward to the podium and into the spotlight.

     The speaker, a middle-aged woman in a green officer’s uniform, leaned into the microphone.

     “Welcome,” she said with assertiveness, “We’re happy that you’ve all made it here safely. I’m General Proman, head of the Inverse War, or the ‘Rebellion War’ as some like to call it.”

     Everyone looked around at each other with their mouths open, as if this wasn’t possible and they needed some validation from others that they weren’t imagining what they’d just heard. Whispers filled the room.

     “Please turn on your digital interface on the screen provided. This will answer all your questions.”

     Her spotlight dimmed and the screens started roughly at the same time in front of each seat. Everyone’s eyes were fixated on the new information and images that were unknown to the general public. This movement was bigger than anyone even realized. 

     It was about truth. It was about control, power, and corruption of course, like all past wars. But the conflict wasn’t a war; it was controlled mandatory home inspections in certain cities to ingrain fear in people’s minds.

     This new government claimed they were looking for a rebel group called the Sunshine Killers, a historical group that was apparently reborn after the last election two years earlier.  Within a few months, almost everyone believed the government’s lies.

     Back in 2119, the Sunshine Killers would bomb the innocent wearing alien costumes, and for a long time, people actually thought aliens were invading earth, causing a world panic.

     The images for propaganda were from even further back"from 2021. 

     “Victimized women and children from 2021?” shouted a man from across the room startling some.

     Since the government owned all media and news organizations that would cover each story, they could write whatever would make the world think it wasn’t safe and continue on with their ruthless, discriminating hunt. Except the stories were false. And the hunt would never end. It was security with brutality. The Inverse War was the only way out.

     The imagery was overwhelming to some who had to look away. The information was what the new world government didn’t want citizens to know, and this is how they ruled every action in every world state.

     Somehow Zola’s level of clearance for historical archaeological facts somehow covered this information online. Information that was available to her for some odd reason. To everyone else in that room, their eyes were open and it all made sense now.

     As the digital screens automatically turned off and the lights went back to normal, the people in the room were changed forever. Knowledge and hope existed behind their eyes and they held power within them.

     “Everyone here can choose to make a difference in the Inverse War. Those who choose otherwise will be given a chance to come back,” General Proman said firmly, gesturing to a door marked ‘exit.’

     “I want to be a part of this,” Zola whispered to Jax.

     “Everyone who stays will be given their first mission to determine their skill level and involvement within. The only drawback will be keeping this secret from your loved ones, especially those involved in the war effort who have been conditioned. They cannot be trusted. Their minds are now gone,” General Proman said to the group.

     “What does that mean, their minds are now gone?” Zola asked Jax with a concerned face. 

     “Does that mean that Ash is"”

     “Zola, you should leave. Your brother might find out about you,” Jax said with a conflicting worry and sadness from within that his nephew’s mind had been affected.

     “But I want to make a difference. I know I can,” she pleaded to her uncle.

     “Those who wish to leave, please stand up now,” General Proman called out.

     “Doing this is a big risk. I don’t have anyone in my life. I’ll check it out first and let you know after,” Jax said quietly to Zola, taking her arm and guiding her to the exit.

     “You promise?” Zola whispered in their warm embrace.

     “I’ll contact you.”

     All the people by the exit, a total of eight out of about 40 total, stood waiting for the door to be unlocked. Zola looked at the group, then back at Jax disappointedly.

     “Be on Train 11 North, in the second car, between one and two in the afternoon on any weekend and one of us will approach you. That’s if you’ve changed your mind,” General Proman said with warmth.

     “Remember, the images you see aren’t reality,” she continued, “If you check the bottom-right hand corner of any newspaper page, you’ll see a tiny government symbol,” she said pointing to an enlarged photograph of an open eye with sun rays shining up to the sky, which appeared on a digital screen in front of her.

     “This signifies their control. When it disappears, we’ve taken over.”

     A loud unlocking sound echoed through the room and the exit door opened with a guard waiting on the opposite side. Moving over, he let the group through.

     “You’ll exit by the underpass, where there are no cameras and I trust you’ll find your way home,” General Proman called as the group exited the room.

     “That’s it?” Zola asked the guard on her way out.

     “Good luck,” he said with a stern voice and a nod.

     Zola turned one last time to see her uncle’s face before the heavy door shut after her.

     That was the last time she saw her uncle.

 

     Zola kept a journal hidden in her mattress to keep her sanity, even though her mind was foggy most of the time, working day after day in the worst war factory in Oxland. It was her punishment for refusing to take part in the government conditioning as a military archaeologist. Everyone in the factories had been demoted from their previous professional jobs when they didn’t conform to their rules. Then the government brought forth the slogan, Equality to All, on posters and military ads, but the recent slogan that stood out was a quote by Eglantine Jebb, ‘Every war is a war against children,’ striking a chord with Zola wherever she went.

     Unmistakeable misery was everywhere. It didn’t help that her brother was assigned to watch her at home for ‘security’ and every night she had to endure listening to the ridiculous news façade on television with her poor, unsuspecting parents while her brother monitored all conversations.

     On the rough days when almost all hope was lost, she would take out that old flyer from her journal and think of that meeting underground, the unknown future, and her brave Uncle Jax who she missed dearly, then she’d get her strength back.

     Time passed.

     It had been months and she continued waiting patiently for her uncle to make contact. Things would change once she joined him underground. This fact kept her going each day, waiting on the train every Saturday and Sunday afternoon, hoping her uncle would tap her shoulder, delivering the good news about the movement’s progression.

     Zola now sat on the sky train looking like everyone else, staring out the window, watching the buildings pass, day-by-day, except she hid her feelings of hope well.  

     Being a part of something this important that would benefit mankind was all she wanted. But that day never came. Instead, she got something unexpected.

 

     One Sunday afternoon on her regular Train 11 North ride; she sat with her head leaning against the window, paying attention to the glimmers of light from the sun on the metallic insides of the train, when a man tripped near her dropping a newspaper at her feet.

     “You dropped this sir,” she said automatically, picking it up and reaching it over to him. He didn’t take it.

     Walking away quickly, he disappeared off into the next train car through the heavy metal door that slammed behind him. No one else was around to see this, and without hesitation she stood up to see who the man was through the door’s window. He wore a brown trench coat and turned his head for a moment, too quick for her to make out his face with his sunglasses, and then he was gone. Zola hoped it was her uncle trying to give her a sign. She opened up the newspaper and instinctually checked the bottom-right corner of the first page. No government symbol. She checked every page. The symbol was only on the last page.

     A tear came as she read the main headline, ‘Multiple Citizens Missing Without a Trace’ with the date of tomorrow.

     Confused and panic-stricken, Zola suddenly didn’t know what was real and what was fake. Tears streamed down her face. She would keep taking the Train 11 North at the scheduled time just in case.

 

THE END

   

Author's Note

Please ignore the grammar and spelling, this story hasn't been edited yet. Let me know what you think of the plot, characters, dialogue and ideas within the story. Does this story remind you of anything? Does it strike a cord with you in any way? Is there something that it's missing? Your thoughts are greatly appreciated. Thanks