The Society (A Broken World Book 1) (4 page)

He looked down at his terminal and then nodded once as though acknowledging an order. A second later he'd levered his bulk up out of his chair and I was scrambling to my feet so as to show the proper respect to a Citizen-Administrator.

It was unprecedented. I'd never seen him standing. Every other time we'd met I'd been ushered into his office while he was seated, and then dismissed without him ever seeing me to the door.

I thought for sure that I'd offended him. I hurried to the door, hoping to get out of the office before he worked himself up to yelling at me, but he barked for me to hold my position. A second later the door opened and a slim, muscular man walked into the room.

"That will be all, Beck. Leave us—I'll let you know when you can have your office back."

I started to drop to my knees, but the new arrival grabbed my arm, easily supporting my weight.

"There's no need for any of that. The last thing you should be doing is kneeling before me."

"Mr. Citizen-President, I don't understand. Whatever I did wrong, please let me assure you that I will correct the failing immediately. I never meant to let down our people."

"Skye, you've got everything backwards. I'm not here because you've committed some kind of capital offense. I'm here because you are a very unique individual. Out of the two thousand young people born in your year, only two of you have demonstrated such a high level of loyalty to our Society."

"I've only done what was asked of me, sir. Surely there are dozens—hundreds even—of others who have done just as well as I have…"

"No, I'm afraid there aren't. I'm not just talking about the starvation-level rations or the extensive physical conditioning. I've got dozens of people in the military doing that specifically because they want access to the benefits given only to our brave armed forces personnel. I'm not even talking about your steadfast refusal to ask when you'll get a chance to earn your franchise, Skye.

"Out of everyone else born at the same time as you, there are only two of you who've done all of that and also refused to go into the zones that have been deemed less than socially desirable. A dozen trips into the blue zones would have been hardly remarkable given the predilections of your peers. Even those slated to join the military are allowed unrestricted access to zones that are much more habit-forming than that, but your competition has ventured out of the green cordon only once, and you've never strayed even a single time."

"I still don't understand, sir. The Citizen-Administrator was just telling me that the social desirability index was a relic."

"It was a test, Skye. Everything that's happened to you since you were born has been a test. You knew you were being tested back before you were released from the juvenile housing, but there was no way for you to know for sure that your tests went on for another five years after that. This was a test to see just how loyal to our people you are, and you succeeded magnificently. I've looked back through the archives from before my election and the last time someone passed the tests with such perfection was nearly three decades ago."

For a brief moment I almost asked what my reward was going to be. Surely after everything I'd done so far—after passing all of his tests—the Citizen-President was going to reward me with something magnificent. The temptation was nearly overpowering, but at the last second I heard the words in my head again—just like I'd heard them so often in my memories.

Never ask for a reward. Just keep serving—sacrifice will lead to the reward you seek.

"How can I serve, Citizen-President?"

"No thought for yourself? No request that I fast-track you to receiving your franchise?"

"Only if it is what's best for our Society, sir. I'm loyal to the ideals we were founded on."

He smiled, and I knew that I'd just passed another test.

"You're a strong young woman, Skye—stronger than almost anyone else I've ever met. Let's go infuse the same inner strength into the rest of your body."

Chapter 3

The Society Presidential Administration Building
Six months earlier

The next hour was a blur of preparations. The Citizen-President escorted me out of the Citizen-Administrator's office and deeper into the administration building than I'd ever been before.

It was common knowledge that the most important parts of the administration building were buried underground, but I'd had no clue just how far underground they were. A quartet of military guardsmen followed us from the office we'd just left to an elevator hidden behind a locked metal door that was more than a foot thick.

The elevator was just big enough for the six of us, and it required two different keys and the Citizen-President's thumbprint before it would move. When it did start moving, it did so with a shocking speed that left my stomach back at the ground floor. The panel in front of me only showed twelve floors, but that was misleading because we were moving for almost a minute before the first of the buttons lit up to signal that we'd arrived.

We'd just dropped down a shaft that was hundreds of feet deep, and there were still more floors even further down.

"We can't be too careful, Skye. The truth is that most of our population isn't ready to know just how hard we have to work to keep everyone safe. The core of our belief system is that the inhabitants of the cities out there beyond the energy barrier need to be given a chance to correct their ways. They need to be given time to develop and accept the sublime perfection of our system of living—the system that their ancestors rejected so long ago."

I nodded. That was something every child born into the Society learned at the same time they learned colors and how to count to five. None of us were capable of understanding at that age, but memorization of the precepts meant that they became a part of us—understanding always followed with time.

"All men and women have an inalienable right to pursue the highest version of themselves they can imagine." I said. "Society's obligation is to support each member in that pursuit. The gift of the best of each of us back to society will result in plenty for all. That gift must always be outstretched to those who have not yet started to believe."

The Citizen-President nodded like a proud father at my recitation of the first precept. "Very good, Skye. I've dedicated my life to that ideal, to becoming the best version of myself I can be—just like every president since the Destroyer betrayed the Founder and snatched the promise of immortality away from us. The truth, though, is that the cities beyond the barrier are much more dangerous than most of our people realize."

I shook my head—in astonishment rather than denial. "I thought that their technology was still centuries behind ours. We should tell everyone, sir. Knowledge of the full scope of what we are up against would inspire tens of thousands of people to reach higher, to find the better version of themselves that has been just out of their grasp."

"I wish that were the case, Skye. I would be lying if I said that I hadn't considered doing exactly that. The unfortunate reality though is that far too many of our people pay only lip service to the ideals found within the precepts. Even if that weren't the case, the addition of stress has been proven to reduce people's ability to realize the best version of themselves. I have a depressingly large section of the storage on my computer terminal filled with the results of research studies that prove that particular fact over and over again."

He paused as though inviting comment, but I was already feeling like I'd overstepped my bounds.

"As for your other concern, Skye, it's true that the general technology base of the cities beyond the barrier is tragically primitive, but it never pays to underestimate the ability of humankind to turn even relatively simple inventions to terrible ends. The little technological progress that has been realized over the last few decades has been disproportionately focused on developing new ways for people to kill each other."

"I understand, sir. The cities are still a threat, but one which we are honor-bound not to wipe off of the face of the planet. How can I help?"

That earned me another proud, almost paternal, smile. "We have a number of different methods for gathering information about the activities of the various petty warlords in each of the major cities—everything from electronic and radio surveillance to semi-autonomous mobile listening devices that we've maneuvered into place over the course of years. Up until now, that has always allowed my predecessors to head off any developing technology that could cause us problems."

"That's not the case anymore?"

"No, Skye, I'm afraid not. We're getting reports of a new warlord rising to power in the city inside of Sector One. He's begun the construction of a device—one that has the potential to destroy everything our ancestors spent such unimaginable effort building."

"What kind of device are we talking about, sir?"

"It's a power source—one that will serve as a foundational technology for a whole host of weapons that will be more than capable of penetrating the barrier and killing us from hundreds of miles away. My first instinct was to call in airstrikes and make sure that we destroyed the prototype Brennan is constructing, but unfortunately our best efforts have not been equal to locating the precise position of the generator."

"Meaning that we can't blow it up—not without destroying the entire city."

"Correct, and given that this new warlord has constructed a jammer capable of interfering with the signals from our normal micro drones, I can't use our normal methods of tracking it down. What I'm about to ask you is unprecedented, Skye.

"In the entire history of our people this has never been done before, but our Society needs you to go undercover inside of that city and locate the device that Brennan is building. We need you to be our eyes and ears inside his headquarters—we'll send you in with a special transmitter capable of piercing the jamming—so that we can make sure the device is never used against us. It's a mission more dangerous than even the ones undertaken by our brave military men and women, but you won't go in unprepared. We have enough time to train you before you'll need to leave—all indications are that Brennan's device is still months away from completion."

An overwhelming fear of the unknown surged through me for two full seconds—seconds that felt like an eternity—and then the fear retreated back inside me, chased away by the mantra I'd heard since childhood.

"Will I have to kill him, sir?"

The Citizen-President pursed his lips for several seconds before shaking his head. "I don't believe so. The construction of the device requires very rare, very specialized components that he'll never find again. The destruction of the prototype should be sufficient to make sure that the integrity of the barrier is never threatened.

"If I'm wrong though, you'll be doing the world a service—these warlords are all the same. You won't feel bad about killing a man like that. Please know that I wouldn't ask you to undertake such a dangerous venture if it weren't vitally important."

"Yes, Citizen-President. I understand the dangers, but I'm willing to serve. I stand ready to commence preparations whenever you want me to."

"There is no time like the present, Skye. You still haven't asked about your franchise, but I'm happy to tell you that you'll be preemptively earning the nanite injections right now. I—"

He looked at the guardsmen who'd accompanied us down in the elevator, and pointed back at the door.

"Please wait for us at the elevator. I'm perfectly safe with Skye."

We watched the guards retrace our path and then once the door was closed behind them, the Citizen-President led me through another set of doors.

"As I was saying, undertaking this mission earns you your franchise as a full citizen inside our Society, but you actually won't receive the standard set of injections."

"Of course, sir. I'm aware that our military personnel receive a different set of injections to increase their strength and speed. It only makes sense that you'd want to give me every possible advantage before sending me out to infiltrate Brennan's organization."

"You're right that I want to send you off with every advantage, but there is a reason that I sent my guards away, Skye. The nanite injections our military receives has always been the best available to anyone in the Society—until now."

My mind was reeling. "We've done it? Our scientists have finally managed to crack the secret to immortality after all of these decades?"

"No, I'm afraid that is still outside of our grasp, stolen by the Destroyer when he sabotaged the research he was pursuing with the Founder, but we have made advances. They are still limited—much more so than I would like—but real advances nonetheless."

He opened a glass refrigeration cabinet and pulled out a handful of syringes—three were full of clear liquid in various shades of light green, the others full of a gray metallic fluid.

"These nanites are incredibly expensive to produce—several orders of magnitude more costly than even the military nanite pack—but they will drastically increase your odds of survival. These will slow the aging process by an additional ten percent over the military nanites—twenty percent over what the general franchised citizen receives. You'll gain more than double your current strength levels, with corresponding increases to your speed and reaction times."

He stared at the syringes with the metallic liquid in them for several seconds before continuing. "This is the next step in the evolution of mankind, Skye, but it's imperative that you never mention this to anyone. If all goes well, I'm told that we might be able to ramp up production over the next two generations to the point where all of our military forces can be equipped with the same variant you're going to receive, but you must understand that word of this can't get out."

"Of course not, sir. There would be riots in the street. Even the most self-actualized person is going to want a shot at an improved nanite pack with those kinds of benefits. Even once you explain that they are too expensive for use by the general populace, there are people who will start demanding military injections."