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Chapter 14: Mark of the Beast by Stephen Simpson

 


Lydia slept so deeply, that it felt as if she had just closed her eyes, when Giovanni started the car.

She opened her eyes, to see a clear blue sky and a winter wonderland around her. For a tiny, brief second, she wished everything was okay again, and that she could enjoy the view. That her mum and dad was still with her, and they were still as overprotective over her as they always were. Back in those days, not so long ago, she never had a care in the world because her parents did all her worrying for her.

After a couple of pulling backwards and forwards, Giovanni had managed to turn the Land Rover around, and they were driving back to the main road. At the wooden farm gate, he stopped, and Shaun jumped out again to open and close the gate.

Lydia was amazed to see all the traffic on the road. She turned her head to look at Giovanni.

He shrugged. “I told you, the rest of the world is carrying on without us. They are all barcoded and going about their lives as if nothing had happened. They think they’re safe now.”

Liam said from the back, “But they’re not. It’s just an illusion.”

Shaun agreed, “They’re fast asleep even though they’re awake.”

Mandy repeated what she had heard Shaun say so many times before, “They’re puppets having their strings pulled to perform a dance controlled by a few.”

“Yeah,” Giovanni said as he looked from left to right to find a gap in the vehicles coming from both sides so that he could join the traffic going South. “Eight billion people in this world, and we follow but a few.”

“I’m starving,” Mandy said as she pulled her backpack closer to her. She unzipped her bag and pulled a can of food from the top. They all copied her as they’re stomachs started to rumble at the excitement of eating something.

Lydia pulled two cans from between her feet. One for her and one for Giovanni. She looked at the labels and grimaced when she saw she had a can of mushy peas and a can of red beans. Beggars cannot be choosers, she decided, and pulled the tab on the mushy peas before she held it out for Giovanni to take. She looked around to see if there was anything she could use as a spoon until she saw Giovanni hold the can up to his mouth and drink its thick, gloopy contents. She shrugged, thinking again how beggars really had no choice.

She noticed they were driving back in the direction of Alton Stine, and they were on the same road that she and Liam had walked the night they left home. She wondered where her mum was. Was her mum one of these zombie-robot things now? Would she even recognise her as her daughter when she saw her? Would she take her to the centre to be coded? Would she still want to protect her against all evils?

When they passed the turn off to Alton Stine, she looked at it with a look of sadness on her face. To see her mum again she thought she would have taken the chance to go back home. She glanced over her shoulder to the back of the vehicle and made eye contact with Liam.

He shared her sadness because he felt the same.

There were a lot of cars ahead of them, and less going past in the opposite direction. Even though it was not a major highway, it was the main road from Outpost Colstand to Colony Dinta. Lydia could not believe how people were just going about their daily lives as if nothing was amiss. How could they? Did they even know there were people starving because they did not want to get the barcode? They probably thought it was their own fault and their own choice if they did not want to get the barcode. Those who did not want to get it and wanted to have the freedom of choice had to suffer the consequences for going against the grain of society. If they wanted to live a normal life, go to work, go on an airplane to have a nice holiday, go to school and Uni, and eat, then they would have to comply and get the barcode.

A thought jumped ahead of all the other thoughts in her head. What would the harm be in getting the barcode anyway? Why was she so dead set against it? If she went to the centre now, and let them barcode her, her live would go back to the way it was. Okay, her dad would still be dead, and that would always be sad, but she would be with her mum. She would finish school, and all the things she had planned to do in her future she would still be able to do. Did she really want to be a dissident citizen of Danglen? It was unbelievable how her life had changed so suddenly. The one day she was just a girl with a crush on a boy who hardly knew she existed, and now she was on her way to blow up a building.

They came to a T-junction and turned left onto a dual carriageway.

Shaun blew a long breath over his lips. “Thank God.”

Mandy asked, “For what?”

“I was so stressed that there would be a roadblock on that road we had just left.”

Liam said, “I bet almost everyone is barcoded by now, and they’re not going to worry about the few of us still running about. We’re just a little thorn in their heel. An inconvenience but not troublesome enough to worry about.”

Mandy said, in a rebellious tone, “Yet.”

Lydia wished she could be like Mandy. The girl was only fifteen years old, but she acted stronger and seemed so much braver than Lydia thought she could ever be.

It was almost four o’clock when they reached the outskirts of Colony Dinta. The sun had already set earlier as it always did in the winter months.

Giovanni asked, “Do you want me to drop you off somewhere or do you all want to come with. It’s not far from here?”

There were still a lot of cars on the road, and it looked as if everyone was going on about their business not really concerned about anything else. Lydia was amazed to see how everything seemed so normal. She looked to the side at the car standing next to them at the red traffic light and saw the barcode clear as day on the man’s forehead. Quickly her hand came up to pull her beanie lower so that it covered her forehead. She suggested, “I guess with it being so cold, we can pull our beanies lower on our heads, and everyone seems so busy, maybe they’ll not notice we haven’t been coded.”

Giovanni pulled his beanie lower too and turned in his seat a little to look back. “Any of you want to stay behind?”

“No,” they said.

Shaun added, with a little chuckle, “As Lydia always likes to say, there’s safety in numbers.”

Giovanni pulled away when the light turned green, and not long after he turned into a long road with a long line of terraced houses on both sides.

It looked like the government had forgotten about this little street and the houses were not very well looked after. Lydia felt nervous because this was one of those streets were the police and army would have a higher presence because it looked like a squalid area. It looked like a place where drug dealers would sell their product. A place where people often phoned emergency services to come to their rescue. Without thinking about it, her thumb came up to her mouth and she started chewing on her nail. The time had passed to worry who was there to see her actively pursuing her bad habits. She needed to calm her nerves, and biting her nails helped her to do that.

Giovanni stopped the car in front of a slim, two storey building. The paint was flaking off in long strips as if it got sunburnt at one stage and the dry skin was peeling away. All the front windows were dark.

“Are we all getting out?” Liam asked.

“No. Just me,” Giovanni said as he opened his door. “I won’t be long.”

Liam jumped over the low barrier between the back and the front seats and settled in the driver’s seat. They looked out the side window and watched Giovanni knock at the door. The door opened in such a way that they could not see who was on the other side. Giovanni smiled and stepped over the threshold.

They heard sirens in the distance, and they all crouched down instinctively. They were too scared to talk.

Ten minutes later Giovanni came out of the house again, carrying a big duffel bag. There were two people following him and they were carrying a bag each as well. The back door of the Land Rover was pulled open, and Giovanni pushed his bag in, then turned to take another bag, and then the other, placing them all on top of each other. He stepped aside to let the two strangers climb in the back.

Shaun and Mandy moved up to make space for them. Giovanni said in a soft voice, “This is Natasha and Mark. They’ll be coming with.” He closed the door before anyone could protest.

While he walked to the front, Liam climbed back into the back. He said, “I’m Liam, and this is Shaun and Mandy.” He pointed to each of them as he introduced them.

Natasha and Mark nodded and said, “Nice to meet you.”

Liam continued, “In the front there is Lydia, who always likes to say there’s safety in numbers, so I guess we’re glad you’re here.”

Mark who was tall and lanky, and it looked as if he had folded in onto himself to fit in the back, looked older than Giovanni. His skin was very dark, and the whites of his eyes were bright when Lydia turned in her seat to look at the newcomers. “We’ve heard all about Lydia,” he said.

“What?” Lydia asked, giving Giovanni a dirty look when he climbed in and settled himself in the front seat.

He shrugged. “I told them you know exactly where the data centre is, is all.”

The girl, Natasha, was petite with white, blonde hair hanging straight down her shoulders. “We’ve been dreaming about you Lydia,” she said in a husky voice.

“What?” Lydia said again. “You have? Of me?”

Giovanni started the car. “Direct me,” he said glancing at Lydia.

Lydia shook her head a little. “What’s going on here. What dreams?”

Mandy started to say, “Well, in my dream you’re this warm white light…”

Liam gasped.

Shaun raised his eyebrows and looked at Lydia. He thought it was only him and he was surprised to hear that they had all been having the same dream.

“When? We’ve hardly slept,” Lydia said.

They said as if they were in a chorus, “Last night.”

“This is crazy,” Lydia mumbled. “What do I do in this collective hallucination you’re all having? It’s a joke, right?”

“You guide us,” Natalie said.

Giovanni stopped at the stop sign at the end of the road. “So, come on, guide us.”

Lydia said, looking confused, “We’re going to Acton Rhetta Urson. I don’t know how to get there because I’ve never been in Colony Dinta. I just know that’s where we must go.”

Mark said, “That makes sense. There’s a lot of water in that area for the cooling system for such a large data centre.”

Natasha added, “And, it’s very remote.”


Continue reading Chapter 15/17







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