Prometheus Dystopian Trilogy Box Set

Chapter 1-2

Still, my body gave up at some point, and I saw flickering images of fire in front of my eyes, images of yelling people. My nightmares were projected by my subconscious. Those flames relentlessly flashed before my eyes, and I started hyperventilating. Where was my car? I ran towards it, opened the trunk, threw the bag inside and grabbed a bottle of water, sensed how the cool drops streamed down my throat, how my breath slowly became steadier.

This was when everything broke down. It all came back to me again, the horror, the blood, those images of the dying that flooded Trafalgar Square. I yelled as loud as I could, yelled into the open where nobody was to hear me. My hands shook from the stress, my muscles tensed, my fists clenched. I sat down and buried my head inside my palms.

This will be over soon, I told myself. The situation is nearly under control.

My mind steadied. The horrors in Trafalgar Square subsided. Worker places barriers in bright colors. The dust cloud fell and revealed the destruction in its wholeness: a mixture of blood, water, stone, splinters, and bronze from the lions that once majestically decorated this place. The war was fought in the hospitals now, where I should have been headed long ago.

I threw the empty bottle into the trunk, closing it.

Something touched my back. A piece of metal, spreading its cold past my bloody t-shirt to my shivering skin. My instincts knew before my mind realized it: It was a weapon.

Rahab had been tossing and turning for hours. It was freezing cold.

Finally, she opened her eyes when Caleb woke up. His warming presence left her as he got out of the stone bed that she had softened with straw and fur. Rahab heard him getting ready for the field work and the hunt, and she started watching his muscular body. Who was this stranger sharing her bed? She tried to recall the shimmering in his pale gray eyes when they first met, but the shimmer has waned, like the foggy mountains. Even now, as she observed him, he never even looked back. Rahab made a move, sat up straight, her back turned towards him, and let her feet swing down from the bed, hoping he would notice her, acknowledge her at least. Nothing. He just stopped for a moment, eyeing the wall, breathing out. She sensed his disappointment from the other end of the bed. Everything had changed since that terrible day. He took his shotgun and went out into the early dark morning.

Rahab threw a look into the dirty broken mirror they should have sold months ago. Her long brown hair got thinner, as did her body, tired of putting up with those stretches of hunger. Her bare feet touched the wood plank floor, and she impulsively pulled them back from the cold. It smelled of musty earth and cattle. The wind sung a burdensome song that echoed through the drafty windows. The moon shone from the outside, giving shape to the furnishings in this tiny hut Caleb and Rahab had built over seven years ago. She got up, clothing herself in a simple, rugged long coat, pants, wool socks, and worn leather boots. She had to hurry before the moment would pass. Picking up a pile of wood from the cutting stump, she lit the fireplace in the middle of the house filled with ash and blackened wood chunks from the night before. The flames came gradually, crackling through the silence. All else froze in perfect silence, except for the soft snoring of Samuel who was sound asleep in the far corner. The sky got brighter by the second. Rahab pulled a shotgun from her hiding place amongst the straw, a hunting weapon she secretly acquired from a merchant years ago. It was much better than Caleb’s, so she made sure he never knew of it. Nobody knew, except for Samuel. Hunting was not considered a woman’s business in Area Three. She pushed the creaky front door open and left the broken remains of what they called a house behind. Her feet led her through wild paths, the grass still fresh from the morning dew.

A whole new world spread before her, the sky now orange from the sun that didn’t pass the horizon yet, the huge shadows of the mountains covering the lands. It would be a rare sunny day. She walked on, knowing she had to get the right view and might miss the spectacle any moment. It was a steep way up, but she was used to walking on this path. Her breath got heavier, her eyes observed nature awakening with the first rays, and her sorrows yearned to vanish with the darkness.

And there she was, on top of a hill, right when the sun started to spread upon the horizon, illuminating the far end of the lakes spreading before her in all directions. The beauty took her breath away again—the calm and majestic peace at the end of the horizon. This was her favorite moment, and it used to remind Rahab of what lay beyond the hardships she had to endure for being separated from the Inner Cities. Usually, it would give her a hope that she could not explain with plain reason. She closed her eyes and let the sun warm her face, the wind blow through her hair, waiting for this hope. But it never came. Too dark was the shadow that hung over her now, the shadow of this terrible decision.

Rahab looked down at her right hand—a little iron ring on the fourth finger, a careless scar at the back of the hand. She knew it was time to face the day soon. The decision had seemed inevitable back then, necessary. But now, it felt like pure pain.

What have we done?

Rahab breathed deeply as tears streamed down her face.

What have we done…

She wiped them away, took the shotgun and directed her thoughts on the hunt ahead.

The cold metal of a weapon touched my bloody back. But something appeared off about it. Panic spread inside my guts paired with the cold of the metal. A deep male voice spoke: “Stay silent.” It was a mere whisper. “Now, slowly turn around.”

I obeyed, panic in my throat, unable to utter a single word.

The barrel of an old shotgun stared at me, one that I only knew from movies of the nineties and early two-thousands. Did those bullets still get produced? Its owner was a wardrobe-shaped man with a massive brown beard that hung in his face like a sponge. His brown eyes narrowed as he watched me carefully. Unlike his two companions, he stood his ground firmly, holding the weapon as if an extension of his arm. The two boys next to him could not be older than eighteen, dressed in rags. One of them clumsily held a smaller shotgun that looked even older. The dirt and stench covering all of their bodies testified to a long and tiring journey. They were muscular, but only the bearded man sent a shiver down my spine.

My lenses scanned their faces. No face recognition. Refugees.

“Listen,” I started, “Whatever you need, food…”

“Be quiet,” the wardrobe-shaped man said, and pressed the barrel against my shirt. I gasped. “The keys,” he muttered.

Okay, they wanted the car. This could be over in a second. I gave him the key without hesitation.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

Why would he want to know?

“Adama.”

The two boys sunk into an inaudible whisper. He, on the other hand, showed no reaction, just eyed me from head to toe yet again.

“You drive,” he said, and pushed my body with the gun towards the driver’s seat. While I sat down, he mounted the passenger seat, pointing the gun at my side. The boys sat in the back. The electrical engine started without a sound. We drove.

Quiet covered us. Where did they take me? And why?

The man in the passenger seat would only mutter directions from time to time.

“Left. Right.” Every time he said it, he pressed the metal of the barrel into my skin, like a bee stinging my ego.

My anger rose, my nerves tense like steel ropes. Those refugees could be the suicide-bomber’s companions, using me to escape. I despised everything they represented. My mind began to make plans of how to escape, how to kill them. I refused to be intimidated, but the guns took the better of my illustrious plans. As long as two of them were pointed at me, what choice did I have?

Soon, we left the city center of London and drove through the suburbs. They aimed for the border. Like a hammer, my heart pounded against my chest. No, not to the Outer Areas. Not this terrible place of chaos. But it made sense, autopilot would not take them beyond the border, and they needed a chip to pass it. My chip. I involuntarily glanced at the back of my right hand, where it was implanted. As long as we were on this side of the border, they would keep me alive. A chip was useless once the owner died. But how did they plan to smuggle themselves behind this construction of digital ones and zeros?

London grew more colorful out here in the suburbs. The houses became smaller, retail shops decorated the streets, and big advertising screens fought for attention. The suburbs were a place full of local artists and students, with painted garbage cans and strangely clothed figures inventing their own fashion trends, where the housing was cheaper and time pressure was lower. Gas stations still stood, and one heard the hum of an old petrol car here and there compared to the soundless electric cars populating the strict environmental area in the city centre. There was the crackle of bikes and skateboards. The clubs hid in musty cellars and behind graffiti walls, shabby, rebellious, and even more excessive. This reminded me of my time in Oxford Medical School, a suburb that held the charm of centuries long gone. It always gave me a sense of nostalgia, but the dread that held me now only evoked the impression that the colorful streets mocked me.

I diverted my attention to the news displayed on my lenses to stop my hands from shaking, if just for a split of a second, ignoring the traffic. The media was filled with the attack on Trafalgar Square, which seemed to have ignited yet another debate about the flood of refugees who entered the cities from the Outer Areas. Nearly a year ago, the law of allowing only children to enter the border was passed, but did not seem to have affected security. Discussions about whether even children were brainwashed to commit suicide attacks spread all across the net.

“Hey!” a loud cry tore me from my musings, I blinked and saw that I almost crashed into an oncoming car, steering the wheel back into my lane instinctively. The bearded man cursed and pressed the cold steel of the weapon against my side. M muscles tensed with the sensation.

“You’re nearly done,” he said, in what appeared a menacing tone. I’m nearly redundant, he meant.

Soon, houses became rarer, and then vanished, replaced by the industrial area where huge farms, corporate buildings, and factories of all kinds marked the landscape. The atmosphere grew even grimmer as the mighty border emerged from afar. Had we been driving for so long already? Steel pillars rose over hundred meters above the ground, marking the end of the Global Union. They were situated at the Birmingham Suburb and formed an invisible wall of ones and zeros governed by a computer. The programming would scan genetic codes and only allow living things to pass with an RFID chip, blocking the rest with a shock, like a wall that comprised electrical impulses.