Dystopic Order

Gerry opened his eyes, blinking in the unnatural white light. The harsh smell of bleach filled the room, lacing each laboured breath with a chemical bite.

"Gerry, Gerry! Are you awake? Gerry, it was a dream. It was all a dream. The revolt, the outside, the explosion. None of it actually happened. Gerry? It was a dream, Gerry."

Gerry groaned. Pain ricocheted across his ribs. There was no way he was dreaming that. "What are you talking about Marty? It wasn't a dream. How could we have dreamt it? That doesn't make any sense." He tried to roll over and look at his kid brother but the pain that stabbed his side felt like the blade Georgia had used was still in there. "Oh, damn it," he gasped. "Where is Georgia? I need to thank her for her handy work." He tried to laugh but only managed a single chuckle before the pain was too much.

"Who? George? Ha, ha. You must have smacked your head pretty hard when you fell, mate. We don't know anyone called George."

"Georg-A," Gerry corrected. "You're acting weird. You know it's Georgia. Where is she?" Gerry turned his head towards Marty. His brother was propped up on one elbow facing him. His wide, toothy grin out of place against his two black eyes, busted lip and obviously broken nose.

"No, no. You must have dreamt her up too." His board smile, forced and manic, matched his wild eyes. "We don't know any girls and we haven't been outside of the compound. We got into an argument, remember? We both stumbled and fell down the stairs. You remember, right Gerry?" His eyes kept flicking to the corner of the room where a camera was following their every move. "Gerry? You remember, now, right?"

Gerry looked at the camera. It was pointing directly at him, he could hear the whirring of the lens as it zoomed and focused. He slowly moved his head to look back at his brother.

"You remember, Gerry, don't you? We just dreamt that we left the institute. Both of us. Weird, isn't it? Strange that we had such similar dreams. But, that's what they were. Just dreams, Gerry. We both know that no-one can survive on the outside. No-one. The air is too polluted and toxic. The radiation alone would kill us if we stepped outside these walls. These safe and strong walls. These walls protect us, right Gerry?"

"Yeah, you're right Marty. These walls protect us. No-one would survive on the outside.” Gerry lay back on his pillow and stared at the ceiling. "It sure was a nice dream, though, Marty. The warmth of the sun on my skin and crunch of an actual apple. I mean, if you're gonna have a dream, I'm sure glad it was that one."

"I wouldn't know," Marty replied, putting his head on his own pillow but not taking his eyes off his brother. He couldn't say what he really thought. Marty knew that they would be listening, taking notes on every detail. They were sure to get punished for what they did. They would probably even lose their lives. The question was, who was going to die with them. "I can hardly remember the dream anymore, Gerry. But I do know I didn't see any people. It was just you and me. Just the two of us."

"Yeah, just you and me, buddy. Like always." When Gerry closed his eyes he could see her as if she were standing right in front of him. Georgia wasn't from The Institute. Her family had lived on the outside since the fallout.

When the military had first set up The Institute, it was to try to grow cleaner food to support a dwindling population. The free people had offered up grain and seeds to get the hydro-farm started. They sent their children to work in the warehouses, tending to the plants and learning the process of stripping the radiation. The clean, filtered air made them strong. One afternoon in June, as the sun set beyond a blood red sky, the daughters of the free people returned to their homes, but the boys did not.

Confusion turned to anger as the military set up a perimeter and locked the iron gates, shutting out the free people. It took a week for the people to protest the lock down. Two weeks before they stormed The Institute. They demanded to know why their sons were being held prisoner and why the food supply had been stopped. It was there, at the gates of The Institute, that the guards opened fire. A third of the adult population of free people did not see the next sunrise. Hundreds more perished from hunger. Two months after The Induction the military issued the remaining free people food rations laced with poison.

That was 15 years ago. Gerry and Marty had been at The Institute ever since. They were told their parents had offered them up voluntarily. After the initial nuclear battle that levelled the Earth, a war had broken out among the survivors. People had fended for themselves and survival became a lethal sport. The boys were told that the same thing happened again, only this time the militia used toxic weapons and chemical bombs to destroy the land and poison the air, killing the free people in the aftermath of the fallout. Only those in the Institute had survived.

At first the boys had believed the stories. No-one thought that the Military would make up such horror. But eventually, some of the older boys started to ask questions. The word LIE was floated on whispers and guards gloated about their triumphs. Word spread of the great massacre. The boys became restless and uncompliant. Rumours began to circulate about a revolt. That is when kids started to go missing. The ones who complained the loudest, the boys who incited fear and panic and those who encouraged rebellion and defiance were taken to the Reaffirming barracks and never returned.

Gerry and Marty had played the game. They had eaten the grey slop they were issued three times a day. They trained when they were commanded, slept when they were told, worked when they were ordered to. They had kept their eyes down and their ears open. Finally, the day came when whispers floated to them about a revolution, a rescue, a desperate attempt at a jailbreak. The lone guard would leave the door to one of the bunkers unlocked so that the free people, who had been in hiding, could sneak in and overturn the military force once and for all.

The plan had been perfect. The execution was flawless. The boys were ready and when the surveillance feed was cut, they all knew what to do. They made it out before the cameras came back online and were almost at the tree-line beyond The Institute walls before the floodlights lit up the night. The shower of bullets sounded like drums, beating away as lives fell all around. Those who survived were rushed to safety, squirrelled into underground tunnels, flooded with the truth, and finally, for the handful of lucky ones, reunited with waiting family.

Not Gerry and Marty. That was not an option for them. Their parents had been among the first to knock on the Institute door, and among the first to stain the ground crimson.

The boys had sat silently in the tunnel, staring at the sea of hopeful faces as their hearts hit a new low. It was there that Gerry had seen her for the first time. Georgia's blonde hair and blue eyes had struck him so hard he felt like he couldn't breathe. Only a moment later her hand was taking his and leading him through the crowd. He felt like he inhaled for the first time, like air was something new to him.

Two months of freedom went by in a blur. Every new location, each secret hideout, ambushed within hours of their arrival. The militants were never more than one step behind them. "I don't understand it," Georgia said to Gerry one night, as she brushed his sweaty hair from his brow and nestled her head on his chest. "It's like they are tracking you, or something."

"I don't know how they could. They would need some sort of device they could locate, and then, I don't know, maybe implant it surgically but I don't know when they would have done that," Gerry said sitting up and reaching for the lantern. "I don't remember any procedure but I guess it would make sense." He waved the light over his bare torso, looking for a scar or mark, something to indicate a device had been inserted.

"What's that?" Georgia said, running her finger across a small scar under Gerry's rib. "Wait, I can feel a bump. Gerry, maybe this is it."

"Then get it out, quick!"

"I'm not going to just cut you open. We can go and find a medic or something."

"If it is what we think it is, we don't have time. Get a knife, Georgia. I trust you. Do it."

Gerry gritted his teeth as the blade went in.

"I can't get it," she winced. I thought it was just under the surface, but it's too far in."

"Then dig it out. Push the knife in and dig the son-of-a-bitch out." He felt the blade go deeper and the warmth of the blood as it spurted. Georgia's hand slipped and the knife pierced through the muscle, puncturing Gerry's lung. He tried not to scream as his head swooned.

"Holy shit, I got it." Georgia handed him the bullet shaped capsule and he rolled the bloodied tracker around in his hand.

"We have to get Marty's too," he said vaguely but his words were silenced by her lips.

"I love you Gerry. We're never going to part, are we?"

"No, my love. Not if I can help it." He ran his fingers through her hair and kissed her naked skin. The gold chain around her neck was cool against his lips and he followed it down her breast, kissing the locket.

"Come on, we don't know how much time we have left. If we are going to be together forever, we had better hurry. We need to give this to someone who can turn it off and see if Marty has one inside him as well." Gerry winced as he rose from the bed. He pulled on some pants as Georgia got dressed. They walked into the common area, his bloodied ribs drawing attention straight away.

"We found how they're tracking us," he called as he slipped his hand around Georgia's waist. "Well, Georgia found it, eventually. Where's my little brother? He might have one too."

The explosion took them all by surprise. Gerry was knocked to the floor. His ears were ringing and he couldn't see in the dust cloud that engulfed them. "Georgia, Georgia!" he called through the dark.

"I'm here, Gerry. I'm right here." He found her arm and pulled her to him, wrapping his arms around her and kissing her. His fingers searched feverishly over her skin but she wasn't bleeding.

"I'm scared, Gerry," she murmured in his ear. "Don't let me go."

"I'm not going anywhere, babe. I've got you." A sudden boot in his back sent him flying. Another in his ribs wracked a crushing pain through his chest. A barrage of assaults forced the wind right out of him and he lay on the floor gasping for breath. A final whack on the side of his head and everything went black.

Now, as Gerry lay on his bed, his ribs ached and his open wound oozed from where Georgia had removed his tracking device. "It was all a dream, Marty," he said, as he clenched his fist around Georgia's gold locket. "None of it really happened. It was all just a dream."

#dystopia #control