9 Serialisation of the book 'Uprising' 1st book in the 'Corpalism' series - by Arun D Ellis

The Meeting
Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime.
Aristotle

This week’s meeting was to be held in Tom Dyer’s front room. Terry had been interested to see an almost perfect replica of the debris and rubble that decorated the front of his building piled up outside the Dyer residence. Surprisingly, once inside the front door the impression of decay was replaced with clean functionality. He nodded his approval as he glanced round, following Sandra further down the hall. An aggressive “Who the fuck’s this?” from a dark-haired male about Sandra’s age, stopped him in his tracks. Terry pegged him as the aforementioned Don.

“Don, stop it - he’s my friend,” said Sandra dragging him down the hallway into the kitchen at the same time signaling Terry to stay put.

“Friend?” questioned Don.

“My boyfriend.”

“Boyfriend?” questioned Don, “how come I’ve never heard of him.”

“You don’t know everything about me,” snapped Sandra.

“Don’t mess around,” hissed Don, “you know how dangerous this is. Who is he and where did he come from?”

“He’s my boyfriend,” repeated Sandra.

“Since when?” asked Don.

“Since Monday,” said Sandra.

“Monday?” questioned Don, “What Monday? Not this Monday?”

“Yes!”

“Are you fucking mad?” demanded Don.

“I know what I’m doing,” snapped Sandra.

“Oh yeah,” said Don, “of course you do.”

“Yes I do,” stated Sandra.

“Yeah,” said Don, “like you always know what you’re doing.”

“What’s going on here?” asked Donald,

“Oh you’ll love this, Dad,” said Don, an abbreviated version of his father and not just in name.

“Sod off,” hissed Sandra.

“Leave her be, Don,” said Donald.

Don made to speak and then held back before moving off.

“Come on, Sand, what’s the problem?”

Sandra screwed up her face and pinching her lips with the tips of her fingers said, “I’ve brought a friend along to the meeting, Dad.”

“So I see,” said Donald, “who is he?”

“He’s my boyfriend,” said Sandra.

“Boyfriend since Monday,” hissed Don rejoining the conversation, “Can you believe that? Can you believe that she would bring a complete stranger here….”

“He’s not a complete stranger,” snapped Sandra.

“Well he is to me,” said Don.

Donald put his arm around his son’s shoulders and pulled him back, “leave it to me, son.”

Don shrugged him away and stormed off.

Donald turned to his daughter, “Since this Monday?” he asked.

Sandra pulled a face, “yes, but he’s OK.”

“Really? And you know this? In 3 days?”

“Yes dad,” stated Sandra.

“How?” asked Donald, “and before you give me a quick answer remember there are lives at stake in this Sand, this is very important.”

“I know Dad,” said Sandra, “but he’s honest and he’s one of us.”

“And I say again, how do you know?”

“Well,” began Sandra, “he’s been sent here on penal because of his debts.”

“Penal? He has debts?”

“He used to work for Relocations….” Her father was about to speak and she jumped in, forestalling his echoed “Relocations?” with “but he’s not one of them.”

“Relocations but he’s not one of them,” repeated her father, visibly shocked.

“No Dad, he’s not. He didn’t fit in at all and he was always worried about his job.”

“I’m sure he was,” the dry tone was lost on her.

“Yes, he was” said Sandra, “and he lost his job, was declared bankrupt and deported here.”

Donald rubbed his brow and thought a bit, “Well you’d best leave this to me,” he said, “I’ll find a way of introducing him to the others, but you must know he’ll have to be tested.”

“I know,” said Sandra.

“And the committee will need to see him.”

“I know,” said Sandra.

“Yes,” said Donald, “but does he?”
Sandra pulled a face, “No.”

“Does he know what will happen if they don’t believe him?” asked Donald.

Sandra squirmed, “No.”

∞

Sgt Smith knocked on the Super’s door. “Enter.”

“Sir,” said Smith, “I’m preparing two snatch teams, I’ve checked the footage sir and this one might be tricky…the target appears to be a martial arts expert or something,”

“Really?”

“Yes sir,” continued Sgt Smith, “he was filmed teaching some kids unarmed combat.”

“Then get him in ASAP,” instructed the Super. “… and Sgt…. make sure this one’s clean; I don’t want another cock up like last time.”

∞

“Terry, this is my dad, Donald,” said Sandra, “and this is my brother, Don.”

“Hi,” said Terry extending his hand to first Donald, then to the hostile, would be terrorist brother, “nice to meet you.”

“Welcome to our little discussion group.” said Donald.

Terry smiled. The atmosphere didn’t feel right. He didn’t know what to say; he didn’t want to be here, but here he was.

“Tell you what, Don,” said Donald, “why don’t you take the meeting tonight and I’ll take Terry through to the kitchen for a chat.”

Sandra made to follow but Donald put out his arm to forestall her, indicating she should join the others in the meeting and gestured Terry in front of him.

“How about a nice cup of tea?” said Donald. “How do you take it?”

“Milk no sugar,” said Terry.

“What’s sugar?” joked Donald.

“Yeah,” said Terry, “I didn’t realise things were so scarce up here.”

“Oh yes,” said Donald, “you’ll notice a lot of changes I’m sure.”

“I don’t think anything can faze me after being told I owe £2mil,” Terry informed him.

“£2 mil?” questioned Donald, “that’s a tidy sum.”

“Yeah, well, ” Terry was blasé in front of the older man, “it’s only money.”

“What happened?” asked Donald.

“Oh,” said Terry, “erm…what has Sandra told you already?”

“Not much,” said Donald, “anyway I like to hear things straight from the horse’s mouth so as to speak.” Terry now looked uncomfortable, taking his time to respond. Donald placed the mugs of tea on the table and settled in, “Well? What happened?”

“Okay, what the hell, I used to work for Relocations.” Donald looked startled. “Didn’t Sandra tell you?”

“Relocations?” said Donald, ignoring Terry’s question.

“Yeah,” said Terry, “and yeah, I did send people to places like Boro.” Donald sipped his tea, his silence urging Terry to say more.

When Donald raised his eyebrow Terry started again, “You go to University, you learn what they want you to learn, you get your qualifications and then you get whatever job they select for you; the job they think matches your skills. They selected Relocations for me.”

“Right,” said Donald, his tone non-committal “and how did you find the work?”

“I can’t lie, I didn’t really think about it, you know? About it being people; they just came up on the screens as case numbers.” Donald raised his eyebrow again. It was always his left eyebrow Terry noted; perhaps he didn’t have the same control over his right, anyway it was unnerving. “Oh, I don’t know, it was detached from real life, not in a surreal sort of way, just in a sort of nothing touches you kinda way.” He took another sip of tea, buying time. “Look, it’s all decided for you after Uni; they find you a job, you go there and you do it. It so happened that the job I got given was to relocate known trouble makers to areas of the country where they can be properly monitored and controlled.”

“So that’s what you think we are? Nice work if you can get it,” the comment was wry, though not ungentle.

“Look I know it’s not great,” said Terry, defensive now.

“Yet you kept on doing it.”

“Of course, I had to. Everyone I knew worked for Peter Brookes, okay not necessarily in Relocations; but it was natural that you kept working. Why would you stop?”

“Well if you thought about what you were doing….”

“Relocating known trouble makers and defaulters,” said Terry, “that’s what we were told; relocating people with a genetic defect to areas of the country where their individual needs could be better supported by the system of social care.”

“A genetic defect?” asked Donald. Terry looked surprised at the interruption. “You said people with a genetic defect; I’m not aware of that bit of research.”

“Oh,” said Terry, “well I don’t, erm… a few years ago, maybe 10 or 20, a biologist or someone, I don’t know the actual details but a scientific body in the US discovered the lazy gene…”

“The lazy gene?” questioned Donald.

“Yeah, well that’s not its real name, it’s probably named after the scientists who discovered it or something, anyway, we called it the lazy gene, and I think everyone calls it the lazy gene.”

“The ‘lazy’ gene,” said Donald, with subtle emphasis on the word ‘lazy’.

“Yeah,” said Terry, “It’s like the religion gene.” Donald cocked his head in a silent question. “You haven’t heard of the religion gene either?”

“No, I’ve been out of touch” said Donald, dryly, “what are these genes?”

“Ah,” said Terry, “well the way it works is erm...you know about chromosomes and stuff right?” He was desperate for an affirmative; usually happy with the topic yet now, faced with the lack of basic knowledge of the older man, he was finding the whole thing quite hard.

“Yes,” short and to the point.

“Good,” said Terry, his relief obvious, “well, as you know, they’re the genes that dictate what colour our eyes will be, height etc, and now scientists have discovered that some of our genes are behavioural genes and they give us certain erm…personality predilections I guess.”

“Personality predilections.”

“Yeah, we’ve all got them but in some people they’re more pronounced than in others, so if someone is very deeply religious that’s because they have a very dominant religion gene and if someone isn’t very religious well then, the opposite is true.”

“And the lazy gene?”

“Same thing,” said Terry, “some people are very industrious and work hard and some people are very lazy, depending on their genes. That’s also why some people are fat”

“Why some people are fat...” faintly spoken this time.

“Yeah,” said Terry, “It’s nature’s way of sorting things.” Donald looked blank and Terry ploughed on bravely into the silence. “Okay, basically science has discovered that natural selection isn’t quite as random as at first imagined. Basically nature somehow determines how many fit erm… creatures, animals and people are required for the stability of the species, it also determines how many sick or weak members of the species are required to feed predators and these individuals have what we call the lazy gene, it just means that they have a less than 50% chance of survival in the natural world.”

Sandra chose that moment to stick her head round the door, Donald made eye contact and shook his head slightly and she retired.

“Anyway,” continued Terry, cheerfully “the upshot is that if nature deems that more fat and lazy creatures are required to enable the predators to get an easy catch then more creatures will be born with the propensity to be fat and lazy, making natural selection not quite such a game of roulette as was first thought.”

“More creatures?”

“Yeah,” said Terry, “I know I started by talking about humans but we’re just animals from the animal kingdom, right?” a thought struck him, “… you don’t do God and all that do you? HA! I mean d’you have a dominant religion gene?” Donald gave a slight shake of his head, and Terry continued, “Well basically natural selection decides how many creatures of what type will be born and by that I mean how many fat, intelligent, lazy, religious etc. you get the picture.”

“Oka-a-y” said Donald, skeptically.

“Well,” said Terry, “obviously we’ve moved away from the jungle and the rules of nature no longer apply to us. So as a society we need to weed out those that nature has already deemed fodder for the predators because, well, technically they are useless.”

“I see,” said Donald, finally understanding the way the Government had been spinning this; this social experiment.

“Do you?” asked Terry. “I’ve explained it then?”

“Yes,” said Donald, “yes; you mean society’s way of conducting its own form of selection.”

“Yes,” said Terry, “Well anyway….erm… how did we get onto this?...Oh yeah, relocating people with known gene defects, well that’s it, either disruptive or lazy people who have a negative influence on efficiency are relocated to parts of the country where they can receive better support for their known condition and where they can’t be disruptive to those in society who are trying to get on. It all makes sense really.”

“Of course,” said Donald, “as long as there is such a thing as a lazy gene.”

“Well there is,” said Terry, “I mean it has been proven, every country recognises it and they all have a Relocations department.”

“They do?” questioned Donald.

“Of course,” said Terry, “I mean I know they do because I’ve liaised with a number of them from the EU and the US so I know it’s a condition recognised across the world.”

They both sipped their tea.

“It’s like with kids,” said Terry, “you can tell what a kid is when they’re really young.”

“You can?” questioned Donald.

“Well, some play soldiers, some like to play fight, some like to read, some…”

“Oh yes,” said Donald, “yes I know what you mean”

“Exactly,” said Terry, “well in Relocations you’re removing those people who are a hindrance to society to a community where they can receive better help and support for their condition.”

“And do you still believe that?”

“Well no,” the admission seemed to cost him “For a start they dumped me here and that can’t be right. An’ all that stuff about help and support, well that’s a bloody lie isn’t it... I mean there are people with the lazy gene yes, but they aren’t being sent somewhere where they can be helped, they’re all being dumped into a place like this.”

“Into a ghetto,”

“Well yes,” said Terry, “I guess, yes a ghetto.”

“Right,” having raised it Donald now seemed keen to move off the topic, “but what I’m curious about Terry is how you ended up here. You clearly understand the system and no doubt did a good job where you worked.”

“HA!” said Terry, “apparently not good enough.”

“Is that because you have a more pronounced lazy gene?”

“Probably,” said Terry, acknowledging the dig with a grin “although, if there’s something I’m keen on then I’ll do it for hours. Say Martial Arts, I could do that all day long.”

“Martial arts?” said Donald, “now that’s interesting.”

“Why?”

“Well, we don’t have much for the kids to do around here,” said Donald, “it would be good for them and good for some of the adults I guess.”

“I’ve already been teaching some of the kids,” said Terry.

Donald nodded, taking in the information and they both sipped their tea; it was cold but neither seemed keen to acknowledge it.

“So, how did you end up here?” asked Donald.

Terry grimaced, “well…I don’t know really. Or...well…maybe...well...I guess I do. It wasn’t the lazy gene, and it wasn’t anything to do with conscience either”
The eyebrow did its work again. “I just hated the job you know? It was bloody boring. Every day the same old thing, the same old process, case number blah blah, open file, I.D. check, input indicator…”

“Input indicator?”

“Yeah,” said Terry, “the case files had already been checked over by the system and depending on what point deductions there were…well a case code and colour was allotted.”

“Sorry….checked over by the system?”

“Yeah the comp,” said Terry. Donald looked puzzled. “The computer, the programme, Signus.”
Donald still looked perplexed “the name of the computer programme,”

“Aah …you’ll have to forgive me… I was never any good with computers and now we don’t have them up here, I’ve been glad to forget whatever it was I didn’t know!!”

“No computers?” questioned Terry.

“No computers, no mobiles, nothing like that in Boro.”

“Why not?” asked Terry.

“Censorship.” His voice was flat. “Computers, the internet, Blackberries and mobile phones being used to communicate on the go … all that went years ago”

“Of course,” said Terry, “easier to control the masses.”

“Anyway, you said you were bored?” Donald again changed the subject.

“Oh,” said Terry, “yeah, well all you’re doing all day is typing in a number and confirming colour level alerts. It was really crap, you know?” Donald nodded. “I guess I just couldn’t maintain the required numbers; we had to shift a certain number of cases every day and I kept falling behind. I was late a few times as well. Anyway, they sacked me, cancelled my funding, disconnected my chip, called in all my loans, sold my flat and possessions, hit me with interest and dumped me here.”

“Right,” said Donald, “and what do you do now?”

“Clear up other people’s shit,” said Terry.

“Oh,” said Donald, “is that um…I don’t know …Samaritans or something?”

“No,” said Terry, “Sorry …I meant to say I work for the Department of Sanitation and they’ve given me some of the most disgusting bogs …that is to say toilets, ever to look after.”

Cheers for reading

Arun




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