‹ Prequel: Martyr's Run

Storms in Utopia

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Simeon

The nightmares were back again.

To be honest, I should have really been expecting them by now. I had had them every night since leaving the Run. But it never ceased to scare me when I switched the light off and closed my eyes and gave myself over to the demons that feasted on my fear.

I was running. I was always running. Whatever obstacles each individual nightmare contained, I was always running. And it was always white.

Jake was beside me and somehow I knew that we didn’t have much time left. The minutes were counting down. And then the Maze was plunged into darkness, flickering like a thunderstorm so that I was confused and lost. Jake was screaming my name, but I couldn’t see him. I ran towards him, only to be enveloped by icy cold hands. As I screamed and fought, more hands closed in around me; hands that seemed to be made of the darkness. And accompanying the hands were eerie, sinister blue eyes—pale, glowing, vacant, empty. And when the lights flashed back on, I was staring into Jake’s face; Jake, with those soulless, drawn eyes, colder than ice. And there was a long, thick scar in his head where the surgeons had cut into his brain and removed the part that gave him imagination. And I was surrounded by them; Operation victims, and Jake was a victim too, because at the last moment, I had run, and I had saved myself, and I had condemned him. And the hands were getting tighter and tighter and the pale eyes were getting closer and closer and then I couldn’t breathe and the lights went out, and the last thing I saw were those little pools of luminous blue coming at me through the darkness...

I woke, my heart racing. Glancing around me in the dark room, I fumbled clumsily for the digital bedside clock, almost knocking it on the floor in my fear, to see that it wasn’t three am yet. So I still had several more hours to endure.

The light from the clock bathed the room in an eerie, pale blue glow, but I realised a moment too late that the connotations to those empty eyes from my nightmare were too strong, and I had to stifle a scream. In the other bed, Jake was asleep, lying on his side so that he faced the far wall, his chest rising and falling evenly. Did he get nightmares too? I found it hard to imagine that he did. He was such a rational, logical person. And yet, in the darkness, even the most rational mind could become the pawn of fear.

People were right when they said that those who entered Martyr’s Run were never the same again. I had hoped dearly that they were wrong, but now I was seeing all too clearly the lasting effects that monster could have on a person.

Casper

Sonja had instructed everyone, in her delightfully pleasant manner, to bring ideas to the following day’s meeting. She had been no more specific than that.

Thankfully, I had a lot of ideas. Regardless of whether I had initially been given ‘permission’ to start a revolution or not, my mind still wandered, drifting towards the subject whenever I had nothing else to think about. In my head, I had some very detailed plans about how to go about inciting a rebellion.

In practice, though, of course the meeting didn’t work as I had hoped it to.

‘We just need to recruit as many people as we can,’ I was explaining when Sonja decided to cut me off.

‘Yes, yes,’ she said dismissively, ‘I think we’ve already established that. What I’m asking is how?’

‘Well if you’d have let me finish, I would’ve got to that,’ I muttered bitterly.

‘Any more suggestions?’ She surveyed the group with her eyes, and I was moments away from exploding. If Amy hadn’t gently placed her hand on top of mine and gave me a look of ‘don’t do it,’ I probably would have done.

‘You could listen to Casper,’ Arjan suggested quietly. It was a brave move, and one that I hadn’t expected him to make, but I was grateful nonetheless. And Sonja seemed to value Arjan enough not to murder him for something like that.

‘So you’re ganging up on me too?’ she accused him.

‘No—‘

‘You’re all as bad as each other,’ she murmured in disbelief. ‘You really are. Alright then, say what you want to say, Casper.’

I was confused, to say the least. But I decided to follow Arjan’s lead, as he was the only person who had a vague idea of how to deal with someone like Sonja. When he did not react, I continued.

‘We start with the base; tell them what we’re doing. If you want to announce it in your leader candidacy speech, then do that,’ I said, addressing Sonja, even though she clearly didn’t want to listen. ‘Once we have a following here, we then get those people to spread the message to other bases. Ideally, we get people to travel to all the other bases in Germany, explaining the plan and asking people to back us, but if necessary, we can send messages to the other bases. We get their leaders on board; that way, the other Dreamers are more likely to follow. We start off by targeting people we’re close to—for instance, I know one of Linzy’s best friends is at the Paris base, so it would make sense for her to go and see them.
‘Meanwhile, we target the public. Like you guys have already done, we find out the names of ex-Dreamers, semi-Dreamers, unofficial rebels...whatever they call themselves, and contact them in any way possible. We should prepare a few speeches and possibly even posters and other propaganda media to counteract that of the government, but we would need to give it out in secret, and give it out to people who are actually likely to listen to us. That way, we might actually stand a chance of bringing in some new people.’

When I had finished, everyone was silent for a moment. It felt awkward at first, but when I saw the surprise on Simeon’s face and the smile on Amy’s, I knew I had done something right for once.

‘Right,’ Sonja eventually said curtly. ‘Very well then. Who wants to be in charge of recruitment?’

‘I think Casper should do it,’ Arjan suggested.

‘Who’s good with words?’ Sonja continued, pretending to ignore him, as she so often did. ‘Who’s good at persuading people?’

‘Casper is,’ Amy offered.

‘Oh whatever,’ she said. ‘Casper, you take recruitment and propaganda. Amy, you help him—see that he doesn’t fuck up completely.’

‘Thanks,’ I said sarcastically.

‘Sure?’ said Amy, pulling an awkward face.

For a moment, the group paused, no one quite knowing what to say. The silence yearned emptily, searching for some guidance.

Finally, after making some scribbled notes on her notepad and sorting her hair out, Sonja came back.

‘Whilst we’re on the subject of jobs, I’d like to say that Jake’s our scientist.’

‘Scientist?’ he asked a little warily.

‘Doctor, chemist...anything we need you for,’ she told him.

‘Oh. Okay.’ In fairness, he couldn’t really argue with that.

‘And can anyone here speak French?’

There was another moment of silence, in which everyone tried to second-guess what Sonja could possibly be planning.

‘Well?’

‘I can,’ Arjan said, volunteering himself bravely.

‘We may not need you to, but there’s a chance we’ll need you in on our business deals,’ Sonja said.

He looked confused. We were all confused.

She huffed, as though we should all understand what she was talking about.

‘You’ve heard of the French businessman, Henri Thuiland?’ she prompted. ‘You know, head of one of the world’s biggest computer companies?’

‘I’ve heard of him,’ Arjan eventually confirmed.

‘He’s a Dreamer.’

It was a fact I already knew, but it seemed to take Arjan, Amy, Simeon and Jake by surprise.

‘Seriously?’ Arjan asked. ‘But he’s, you know, famous.’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘But he supplies us with computers and cameras and all kinds of technology. Meetings are arranged with him every four-to-six months so we can get some new equipment. Normally, the French Dreamers go to the actual meetings, and then send supplies out to the rest of the main European bases, but if we’re leading a revolution, we might want our own representative.’

‘Me?’ Arjan asked, daunted by the size of the task he was facing.

‘If Emilie joins our rebellion, you probably won’t need to go,’ Sonja explained. ‘She’s French, so she goes to all these meetings all the time. Whether you were training to be a government translator or not, she’s probably better at the language than you.’

‘True,’ Arjan admitted.

‘But if she doesn’t join us, we might need our own representative,’ Sonja finished. ‘Now, what about Slovenian? Anyone speak Slovenian?’

Naturally, no one volunteered themselves for this one.

‘Well, Arjan, you speak German,’ she continued, dropping Arjan in the deep end once again, ‘and that’s the second choice of language when dealing with the Slovenians. So, if any deals need to be made with Goran Jansa—‘

‘Who the hell is Goran Jansa?’ I asked, despite myself.

‘Weapons dealer,’ she said with a shrug. ‘Supplies most of the European Dreamers with guns.’

‘Back in England, we scavenged our own weapons,’ I said, allowing the slightest hint of smugness to seep into my voice. ‘It wasn’t so easy to sneak a car full of guns across the English Channel.’

‘Anyway,’ Sonja continued curtly, ‘we do deals with him every few months, too. He’s a Dreamer as well. He has this massive factory out in the forest in Slovenia where he makes all kinds of guns, and he sells them to just about every government and army in southern Europe. With a bit of extra production, he can also spare some for the Dreamers across Europe.’

‘How the hell did a Dreamer end up supplying weapons for the government?’ Simeon asked, and I could see how he was suspicious.

‘Two years after the Revolution,’ Sonja explained, ‘he finished university and was sent to work in the weapons industry after showing good skills in business and accountancy. As it was so soon after the Revolution, governments needed to sort out some new suppliers, but Jansa was already leading a double life, and so began supplying Dreamers. Initially, whilst he was just a junior accountant, the supplies were limited, but as he worked his way up to manager, they became considerably more abundant.
‘As for Thuiland, well he’s been supplying the Dreamers with computers for more than a decade. He first met the Dreamers whilst he was still assistant manager for the business, and, as dangerous as it seemed, the Dreamers figured it would be more useful to keep him in his position. Two years ago, he became manager, and since then, supplying us with top range computing equipment has become pretty easy.’

‘Wow,’ was all Simeon said. ‘No wonder things are so good over here. I thought it was only in America that we had computers provided for us. Weapons though...well, they were another matter.’

‘The suppliers have been our lifeline,’ said Sonja sincerely. ‘Without them, we would have fallen into hard times. So, anyway, that’s why you,’ she looked at Arjan, ‘might have to do some deals with them.’

He looked uncomfortable, but replied ‘sure.’

‘And that leaves you, Simeon,’ Sonja said, deliberating. ‘I’ll put you in charge of the Soulless.’

He shrugged lightly. ‘Sounds good.’

‘And Carl is our information hub,’ she said. ‘If you want to know something, go to him. And if your computer breaks, he’ll fix it for you too.’

Today was improving; I almost found myself chuckling at Sonja’s last comment. I caught myself at the last moment, though, and wiped the smile off of my face.

‘Is that everything?’ Jake asked.

She shrugged. ‘Probably. We’ll have another meeting when we actually get something done. See you around.’
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