The Cull

PART TWO

  In a dark room in an art-deco building, on the south bank of the River Thames, two men spoke to each other.

  "Do you think he knows?'' asked the elder of the two.

  "It's difficult to say. We've been through all his things and there's nothing there to indicate that he knows. He's been working here for a year and he's been closely monitored. We've inspected his house twice and we haven't been able to discover anything. He is, however, planning on leaving London on Saturday. We found some train ticket receipts but not the actual ticket. Perhaps that's why he ran. Perhaps he was afraid we were going to do something to stop him," replied the younger man. His name was Oberon.

  "Did you see him there?" asked the elder.

  "No, we were in for a few seconds before we were accosted. They were strong and I suspect they had been following us since we started checking out his place. We were ambushed, we weren't prepared for them. I managed to get away after an intense struggle but Amaron was struck twice in the head," replied Oberon.

  "Well, we can send the police there but I doubt that would stop it escalating into a full blown civil insurrection and that would attract too much attention. In that case, if he does know, he would have an open platform to inform everyone of our plan. We will have to send one of our own to negotiate with them, to see what they want,'' said the elder.

  "Okay, I'll request someone to be sent to you. In the meantime, I'll make sure everything is going as planned," spoke the young man.

  The elder of the two was a middle-aged man with blond hair and blue eyes. He concealed his expressions under a weathered face. Amaron's partner, Oberon, squirmed in his chair as he was questioned by the elder. Nonetheless, Oberon continued to methodically answer. Amaron was missing in action and had to be retrieved.

  The elder of the two went by the name of Dawood Rockwell, a man of very distinguished lineage. The Rockwells were a very powerful family. Over the course of over two hundred years, they had successfully managed to take over control of the government and install puppets to effect policies to further their own agenda.

  Over the course of time, the Rockwells had their fingers in every facet of society, ranging from science to education. They were the people with the money that scientists went to in order to fund their research. The discovery of DNA was the product of funding that had been provided by the Rockwells. The discovery of DNA changed everything for the Rockwells. They began to invest heavily in eugenics, resulting in the first ever genetically-modified humans. These genetically enhanced humans were subsequently called Pro-gens. A new progeny had been created and Dawood Rockswell was the godfather and his DNA was used as the basis for the hybrids.

  Within twenty years, Dawood's DNA helped bring about the existence of a population that were distinct from the rest of the world. Pro-gens were programmed since the day they were born to effect plans that would oppress and depopulate Re-gens and the time to act had come, to bring the global population under the control of Pro-gens.

  Everything was set in place: Battersea Power Station would be the only building to survive the attack which would obliterate London's landscape. Dawood's legion of Pro-gens had infiltrated all areas of society: media, the intelligence services, the government and the army. Dawood had already developed an official line in response to the bomb. Dawood's puppet government, made up of mainly Pro-gens, would blame Re-gens and they would find a Re-gen to pin it on. Rest assured, Re-gens were going to be the new enemy.

  The world had not known another enemy since the terrorist attacks in New York on September the 11th 2001. The impact of that event made most populations in non-Muslim countries completely vilify and exclude Muslims from mainstream society. From the time when discrimination was institutionalised it had been successfully fought until it arose in a post-9/11 world. Muslims were the new enemy and a new far-right movement sprung up, which was completely sanctioned by the mainstream press.

  However, it took some ten years after the Iraq Invasion of 2004 before the British public started to awaken to the possibility that they had been lied to and manipulated. They began questioning everything they had been fed by the media and their government. The official 'war on terror' line stopped being effective after the global awakenings of the 2010s - it was a time when people realised that their civil liberties had been eroded over the previous decade under the pretext of the 'war on terror'. When the general public realised that they too had been surveilled under the cloak of the 'war on terror' they became angry. They wanted answers. The public took to the streets to protest but they were quickly jailed under laws which had been passed under their noses whilst they lay asleep, manipulated and lied to by their government and media.

  As more and more people began awakening to the deception, the Rockwells sponsored anti-Islamic groups to further their aims. The elite needed to keep Muslims as the perceived threat in order to further their own agenda. Their plan, however, backfired as it led to the birth of anti-Islamic terrorist cells. Mosques were blown up throughout the country, killing scores of men, women and children. In a dramatic twist of fate, the anti-Islamic groups themselves become the perceived threat and they were subsequently hunted down and their members were jailed or placed on watch-lists. Thus, a new enemy had to be created and it was the perfect time to do so.

  The Re-gens had to be controlled as they could not control themselves; they had to be managed as they could not manage themselves. Such was the generally accepted view of Pro-gens.

  Dawood made a call to request a messenger whom he could send to Priory Estate and negotiate with the captors of Amaron. Dawood needed someone disposable and Dawood had plenty of those. Dawood was the creator of one per cent of England's population, over which he had complete control. Dawood took and Dawood gave. Dawood had to retrieve Amaron - it was too risky to leave him there. Dawood wanted the plan to run smoothly.

  .

  After London was wiped out, Dawood planned to install a government which would enslave Re-gens in newly constructed camps. It was a long-term strategy and there was too much at stake for any glitches. Battersea Power Station would be the new centre of global power, headed by Dawood Rockswell. The world would behold the new hub of power, shielded by negative electrons. This was the plan and nothing was going to stop it from happening.

  Dawood was seated in his long leather armchair in the computer room - Abe's old storage room. He scanned the images on all the screens and his blood pumped in the anticipation of gaining control of the country. The footsteps from the messenger he had sent for echoed the rhythm of his heartbeat, slowing down at the door when the messenger knocked. Dawood was eager to thwart any threat to his plan.

  "Come in," commanded Dawood, dogmatically.

  The nervous entrant walked with a feigned confidence towards Dawood and awaited instruction to be seated. He waited. Dawood was instantly annoyed with the person Oberon had sent.

  "I'm looking for someone who can do a job for me."

  "Yes, sir."

  "I see on your resume that you spent five years serving in North Korea and you came back last year?"

  "Yes, sir. I was seconded from Iran. I ran the P1 unit in Iran first. I was there for a year before I was posted to North Korea.''

  "Okay. This is what I want you to do. You have to go to an estate in East London and find out where our man is, find out who is holding him, find out what they want and, if you can, bring him back."

  "That can be accomplished, sir."

  "On your own?''

  "Yes, sir."

  "Okay, well, we have no time to waste. You will have a driver drop you off and pick you up but, before you go, you have to wear these."

  "Yes, sir."

  "These contact lenses have a video transmitter. We'll be able to see and hear what's going on. Just in case we need to send for reinforcements."

  The new recruit eagerly inserted the contact lenses and, after looking at Dawood, the monitors flashed up with images of Dawood's face. The hatred in Dawood's eyes struck through t
he monitors; the blue flashed up like the deep oceans that held so much power and mystery. Dawood's messenger stood in front of him, ready to dive into the task that had been laid before him, as if he had been baptized in the almighty waters of a higher force.

  The driver sat in a black car with tinted windows. The car was impeccably polished and it had been designed by one of the progeny. This type of vehicle was only sold to Pro-gens. Therefore, they were visibly distinct. The clean and curvy lines and the simplistic design were indeed a nod to the 1920s. It was in fact the Bugatti Atlantic, a car which was first produced over a hundred years earlier. It had a black body, the back of which resembled the body of a spider. The elongated front encased the heart of the vehicle with ventilation grills on either side of the chassis. It had giant arches over either side of each front wheel that resembled an apostrophe rotated at 45 degrees. The car imposed itself on the landscape, outside of the building which was its cousin from the same era.

  The Bugatti had been brought back to life by a connoisseur of a future age. Towards it walked Dawood's agent, who stepped into the plush interior of red suede and black leather. The driver and his passenger sped off into the night.

  They took the A205 ring road that circled anti-clockwise past Clapham, Dulwich, Catford, Eltham and onwards towards Woolwich ferry services. There awaited a ferry. The ferry was empty bar the ferryman. On crept the car, with a stoic silence that respected the stillness of the night. The driver and passenger spoke very little, aside from planning their task:

  "So, I will drop you outside Priory Court where I will wait for your return. The car will be covered in an invisible cloak which will reflect the surroundings so, when you come back out, just head for the exact same position where I parked. When I see you come out, I'll switch on the headlights so you'll know," said the driver.

  "Thanks. I don't think I'll be in there long,'' answered the agent, confidently.

  The driver looked at Dawood's agent and grimaced. They got out of the car and stood by the side of the ferry. London's night-lights formed dots in varying patterns on the landscape. They looked like ciphers that had been formed by varying degrees of space. The driver and the agent took in the sight in an unspoken moment, capturing the landscape before it would be reconstructed after the 13th of December in 2033.

  "We should get back in. We're nearing the other side," said the driver.

  The ferry halted by the pier road and the car offloaded. The road snaked up, anti-clockwise, up towards the northeast corner of London's ring road. Passing all the areas that had been economically subdued, the car travelled anti-clockwise on London's orbital; the walled ring road that contained London's population. They passed Beckton, Barking and Ilford, all home to London's Re-gen population. Nearing Wanstead, the landscape changed. Gone were the carbuncles on the landscape that housed the masses, to reveal detached houses with sprawling drives that trailed to their gates.

  They turned left after the slip road that took them off the ring road and into Wanstead Flats. Wanstead Flats was the area where the rich lived in their suburban exclusion and where their estates were protected by the police and where nobody dared walked at night for fear of being picked up by the police and having their DNA taken and stored on a national database. The Pro-gens enjoyed the privileges that were paid for by the taxes that were siphoned off from Re-gens. The smarter Re-gens didn't opt into the system; they formed their own. Most Re-gens were inculcated into the system since the day they were born. It was a conditioning which began in the schools and supported through every aspect of their life. If they followed every step and stayed out of trouble, they would not be harassed. They would not be arrested, their DNA would not be stored and they would not be fined.

  Though they were all surveilled, those that didn't come under the radar of the authorities were left alone. They would not be detained without charge and their liberties would not be taken away. All they had to do was comply and bow down to the system. All they had to do was work for their money and pay their taxes for the benefit of Pro-gens. They had to pay extortionate travel fare, extortionate rent and extortionate food and clothing prices. What little was left was used to pay off debts. London had swollen with the influx of economic migrants from all over the UK and the rest of the world, an increase of some thirty million since the Great Economic Collapse of 2020.

  Those in rural areas had the opportunity to grow their own food but the continual disruption in the weather system made that increasingly difficult. The southern coast of England was the hotspot, the favoured destination for those trying to escape the matrix of control and oppression in London. Sporadic bouts of civil unrest were all too common in most of England's cities. The cities were self governing, each with their own systems of control. Under the surface, England returned to the feudalism of pre-industrialised Britain. Abe's only hope lay in going to live with Ophelia in Devon where they could work the land together. Abe's date of departure was five days away.

  The Pro-gens drove their chariot to bring an end to Abe's life and to retrieve one of their own; Amaron. They weaved through the leafy streets of Wanstead, past the big houses and the parks where the rich Pro-gens walked with their children and dogs under the protection of the police. They enjoyed an easy life on the back of the bittersweet surrender of London's Re-gens. The Bugatti cut through the din of the night, into Walthamstow, where the night transformed itself into an alternate world.

  The car pulled up at the traffic lights and the two men surveyed the world around them, through the tinted windows. A red car pulled up beside them, the windows of which were rolled down. The driver of the red car eyed the Bugatti; his wanton expression to drive that black behemoth reflected back on him from the windows and the shimmering chassis of the Bugatti. The lights turned green and the off shot the Bugatti like a black jaguar pouncing into the night. The driver of the Bugatti pressed a switch on the control panel in his car and green lights flashed in a row on the traffic lights on the road ahead, clearing his path. The driver of the red car dialled a number on his phone and notified J of what he had just seen. The Bugatti sped through Hoe Street, the street that pulsed through the heart of Walthamstow. A few minutes later, the Bugatti pulled up outside its destination under an invisible cloak and out stepped the agent. Dressed in the colours of the night, the agent hurried into the courtyard of Priory Court Estate. In his haste, he was pounced upon and hustled to the ground. Armed with assault weapons and their force, the assailants made the agent submit to their will:

  "Who are you here for?"

  "To speak to your commander,'' responded the agent.

  "He means J," translated the other assailant.

  The agent was swiftly led up to the eleventh floor and dragged into Abe's apartment to join the rest of the group.

  .

  Dawood was sat in his control room, anxiously awaiting something to appear on his computer screen. He saw his agent being taken to the ground and a hood placed over his head but he didn't hear anything apart from the muffled sound of heavy accents. Although he knew that Abe wouldn't be able to be taken seriously by any media outlet should Abe decide to talk, Dawood had to make sure that the conspiracy theorists would not get wind of anything. The last time they did, Dawood's plan had to be set back. That was just before the Great Economic Collapse of 2020. The internet had been ablaze with conspiracy theories and anti-elitist groups had sprung up around the world. The anti-elitist groups and whistleblowers had galvanised into movements called Occupy, Anonymous and Wikileaks and gained rapid power and support. The Great Economic Collapse was therefore hastened to control the population before major governments around the world were attacked.

  Dawood responded by collapsing the financial systems, beginning with Greece then spreading all over the EU. The Great Economic Collapse ensured that millions would starve but the plan backfired as new methods of exchange sprung up all over Europe and the Americas: time banks; bartering and lets systems empowered the masses to survive. Re-gens ensured that, in
the interim, the population would survive the economic holocaust. Order was restored by the ruling classes. They installed new currencies and all other forms of exchange propagated by Re-gens were outlawed - though not eradicated.

  Dawood sat patiently by the monitors in the darkness of the computer room in Battersea Power Station, his face lit from the light of the screens. Some minutes after his agent was dragged with a hood over his head, Dawood could hear a thud. The monitors picked up the reverb and Dawood leaner over the desk in anticipation. Dawood listened intently, waiting for something. Then, some garbled sounds came through. Dawood waited. The hood was removed some moments later and some images flashed up on the computer screen which revealed to Dawood a tiny apartment full of several men, two of whom Dawood instantly recognised - Abe and Amaron.

  "Who sent you?'' began the interrogator. It was J.

  "My employer. I came here to find out what you want from my colleagues and why you attacked us. We don't understand what this is all about."

  "Nice try. Shall we try again?" J's puffer-fish- shaped face flashed up on the screen, for Dawood's entertainment.

  The agent was repeatedly beaten, first by J then J's soldiers. They beat him for ten minutes.

  "Okay, this is the last time I'm going to ask you and I want you to tell us the truth. Otherwise, we're going to see if it's really true that you lot are a bunch of reptilians underneath that pearly white skin. We might have to conduct ourselves a little alien autopsy and put it on the internet. What's your employer's name?", continued J with his interrogation.

  "Pro-gen Industries. I came here for my colleagues. We want to know what you want in return for their release. We are prepared to offer a very generous reward, almost unlimited cash. All we want is our colleagues back," responded the agent.

  "Your colleagues?"

  "Yeah, Abe and Amaron."

  J walked to Abe and pointed a gun to Abe's temple:

  "Is this true? Are you one of them?"

  "Yeah, I am one of them. Of course I am. I live in this shithole and I make just enough money to feed myself. I have to put up with being spat at on the estate and broken into every month, only to find out that really it's the Pro-gens who've been breaking in and going through my things. Yes, the game is up. I am indeed one of them." Abe resorted to sarcasm in a bid to gain some leverage.

  J walked over to the interloper and, with the gun in his hand, slammed it into the agent's face. The agent fell silent to the floor, without any grunt of pain. J's soldier walked over to the agent and checked the pulse on his neck.

  "He's out but alive. If you wanna know what I think, you should finish them all off," opined J's soldier.

  "No, not until I find out what this is all about," asserted J.

  Dawood sank into his chair, exhausted with the spectacle. The computer screens before him blacked out when his agent closed his eyes after falling unconscious. Though the video transmission ceased, Dawood picked up the audio:

  "This is what I'm going to do. I'm going to give you one more chance to live but just in case you think I'm not being serious, I'm going to demonstrate to you how we intend on killing you... unless you tell us why you lot came here," asserted J to Amaron, as he squeezed Amaron's neck.

  As he finished from threatening Amaron, J took a knife from a sleeve on his belt and boldly walked towards the agent on the floor. J pierced the flesh of the man, down the side of his cheek. The agent did not react from the slicing, the cut of which ran from the eye down to the jaw. J watched for a reaction from Amaron, who stared on with a look of horror. J knew, deep down, that this game was futile but he had to assert his power, just like Dawood had to assert his. Just like Dawood, J had to keep order. The blood began to trickle onto the floor. J looked down and saw, beneath the gash, a dark spot. J poked his finger in to separate the sheath of flesh and, peering closer, he saw what he thought he felt on the surface of his finger: rigid and scaly flesh. J drew breath and shouted for a piece of cloth. After it was immediately brought to him, J dabbed it against the flesh to reveal a glint of what seemed a dark green colour.

  "Oi, flick the lights on. Help me bring him under the light," shouted J.

  After dragging him under the light and after some more prodding, J drew a deep breath. There, before him, lay evidence to what had been whispered and what had been doing the rounds on in the internet for decades. There lay evidence that the Pro-gens indeed were not built in the same way as J and his fellow men. There lay waste to everything that every Re-gen hoped for - a just society - which was never going to be realised. J gulped as he struggled to understand the complexity of what that meant for him and for what he was now involved in: he was out of his depth. He was faced with something a lot greater than the sum of all this parts; beings he thought never he would encounter, made up of dark-green scaly flesh and covered in a sheath of human-like skin. He exhaled to speak:

  "Abe, come here."

  Abe walked over, tentatively. Throughout his working life at Battersea Power Station, Abe was always struck by the Pro-gen's ability to send an unnerving sensation all over his body. Whenever Abe passed them in the corridor he always felt an unease that could only be described as being in the presence of evil. It was a feeling that Abe always had and he always told himself that he was being too sensitive. Abe always told himself that he was just imagining it, that the feeling he had came from his own sense of his own inferiority; that he himself must toughen up.

  Abe approached the agent that lay on the floor, crouching down beside J. Abe looked at J and said:

  "Oh my god. What the fuck is that?"

  J looked at Abe and replied: "Well, whatever it is, let's just say that they're not one of us."

  "Cut him up a little more,'' asked Abe as he returned the gaze and finished with "please?''

  Amaron began shaking and rocking on the chair where he was tied up, under layers of rope. J looked at his soldiers and two went over to restrain Amaron. J's blood rushed and the adrenaline soared; he began to feel a growing sense of power over possibly killing two Pro-gens and sharing their death with the world, over the internet. J's head swelled from the rush of blood, his veins swelling out at the side of his temples.

  "Do you realise what we've got here?" exclaimed J in a fit of ecstasy.

  "What are we going to do?" asked Abe.

  J pulled open the cover of one of the pockets on his shoulder strap. He pressed the encased device and it shone a light over the comatose agent. He pressed again and he spoke on speakerphone:

  "Hey, I just sent you a picture. What do you think?"

  "Oh my ..." responded the voice on the other end.

  "Yeah, listen - I want you to make it viral on all the outlets. Get in touch with the news channels as well. See how far you can take it. This shit is big. But I want you to use a proxy server, somewhere in Siberia to stop us from being tracked. Ring me back once you get something started."

  The phone rang off. J pressed his knife against the agent's cheek, where it had been opened. He looked at the gash, then at Amaron.

  "Are you sure you don't want to co-operate?" asked J, teasingly.

  Amaron began shaking violently as J's soldiers tried once more to restrain him. Meanwhile, J continued with the inspection; further teasing apart the skin. The translucent skin revealed more of the green scaly flesh. J's heart pumped faster, to the beat of Amaron, who stomped the chair in a frenzied protest of what was being revealed. J snapped and sent more photos as he investigated further.

  Meanwhile, Amaron's muzzle was removed and he began to talk:

  "Okay, what you see is true. We aren't like you but if you kill me what do you think will happen to you? Do you think that we will allow you and your kind to go unpunished? You don't know what you're dealing with and you don't know what this will start.''

  J didn't respond aside from sending a look of contempt to Amaron. J lifted up the head of the unconscious agent and pierced the flesh further from ear to ear. Out spilled the tarry liquid, the colour of wh
ich was formed from the charcoal green and flesh red. The blood came from two sources; the masque of skin and the reptilian flesh.

  Meanwhile, in the computer suite, Dawood heard everything. He clenched his fist and struck the desk as his plans came crashing down. He wasn't in the business of loosing and he was not going to let those dirty little Re-gens reveal hidden secrets to the world. Dawood got on the phone to his friend Murdoch.

  "Murdoch, this is Dawood. I have some rats who've managed to capture two of my men. They've killed one and taken pictures and sent them all over the internet. They're rather incriminating. They will also try and get them sold to the media. I want a complete media blackout. Nobody is going to cover it, do you understand? If anyone even mentions it on the channels or in the newspapers, make sure they are brought to me. Am I clear?"

  "Yes, Dawood, of course. I will make sure this is all buried,'' replied Murdoch and signed off.

  "Assemble a team to cover the internet. Get them to write a virus which will track the source,'' Dawood shouted another order to his staff on the phone.

  Dawood's influence ran through the highest echelons of education, government, media and the military. Dawood was the eye at the top of the pyramid.

  Over on the other side of London, in a tiny apartment in one of East London's forgotten estates, lay the fate of the nation. A shockwave was about to hit the world and Priory Court Estate was at its epicentre. It would become the place where the truth would finally be revealed and J will lead a nation to revolt against the evil system which kept his people down.

  "Abe, come here. We need to hatch a plan," summoned J.

  "Listen, I just want to get out of here and go away...," Abe protested.

  "No, you listen to me. You're not going anywhere," asserted J with increasing aggression.

  "I don't want any part of this," insisted Abe.

  "It's too late for that. Here's what you're going to do. You're going to wear a balaclava and we're going to make a video tape. We're going to send it to your employers. I'll write down everything you're going to say. This time they're going to pay for what they've done to us for years."

  .

  J was a very formidable man and very few argued against him. When he was 5, he witnessed his mother being killed by his stepfather. By the age of 11, he was fending for himself on the streets of Walthamstow. He was the leader of a small gang of six street urchins by the age of thirteen. It was around that time when J saw his first ever Bugatti. It rode through his neighbourhood and it took his breath away. It pulled up at the kerb one day and opened its door and in stepped J. Where it took him was to a murky underworld which was under the control of the most powerful people in Britain and, indeed, the world.

  What J witnessed that day shook him to the very core. He had scrambled to escape their grasp, escaping through a little window in one of the rooms in the basement of St.Paul's Cathedral, before he too became part of their ritual sacrifice. After that day, almost 10 years ago, J became invincible on the streets of East London and J ruled his estates with the help of a very powerful force. After fleeing the people whom he met that day, J managed to re-connect with them from afar. He met with one of their representatives. He negotiated the terms under which he would control his area. The powers-that-be backed off and let him run areas of East London. Walthamstow become a no-go area for the authorities by design, not by will. J, at the age of 23, had become a kingpin. However, the same force whom he had bartered with was now heading his way and was sure to leave a path of destruction. J's game would be up. Given the dilemma he was under, he would have to use Abe to negotiate for him. J's only hope was that nobody found out the secret to his own power, that he too was implicated by making deals with the Pro-gens. If the secret came out J would loose everything, including his life.

  Abe stood next to Amaron, pointing a gun to his head. Wearing a balaclava, Abe read from a script that had been prepared by J:

  "This is a message to the Pro-gens. We have one of your people with us. Our message is simple. Pay up what we want or we will reveal to the world what really is going on with Pro-gens."

  The camera panned to the seemingly lifeless body of the dissected agent, minus the mask that had been his face. The lens zoomed in on the reptilian face. J knew exactly how to work the camera for maximum effect. J motioned the cameraman to pan back to Abe and Amaron. Abe continued reading:

  "This message will last until Friday. It is now Wednesday. You have two days to deliver three kilograms of gold, in tola tablets. If you want this one alive and if you don't want your dirty little secret to come out you will give us what we're asking for."

  The cameraman stopped filming and J walked over to Amaron:

  "Now, you ugly thing. You're going to give me the number of your boss and we're going to wire this little production through."

  Amaron gave J the number. J rang a member of his crew again:

  "I want you to send the video to this number - 063441777 - and I want you to send it from the same proxy server. Ring me back when you get a response."

  The voice at the other end confirmed J's request.

  .

  The message travelled through the ether and arrived at the its destination. It flashed up on Dawood's computer screen and he tapped it to activate the message. The message was merely a repetition of what Dawood had already heard through his unconscious agent but, this time, it came with a visual. Dawood sat back in his chair and tapped on the screen to close the message.

  Dawood's response was going to be carefully considered and calculated. If indeed he did hand over the gold, he would have to deal with the fact that somewhere out there was a video of rather incriminating evidence against the Pro-gen population. Dawood's game would also be up. Despite the media blackout, the internet would be ablaze with it.

  Dawood had to think of out-smarting his opponents. His initial thought was to do the deal on one condition: that they handed over the tapes, Amaron and the agent. However, he thought, doing that would reveal his weaknesses. He could send in a team but that would raise the alarm even further amongst London's Re-gens. He needed the population to be contained and ignorant and to remain fearful and weak. If anything got out, they would wake up and Dawood couldn't risk another tide of awakenings. Dawood decided that he was going to deliver the gold at the eleventh hour which would buy him time to assemble an elite squad.

  Another day drew to a close in London; unaware of the danger that lurked in the shadows, unaware of its fate. A red and purple mist hovered over London, the colour of which was formed from the red tint of the setting sun merging into the night sky. Somewhere in the landscape, under the fog, events unfolded, plots were formed, words were fought and deeds were done. Only the ether knew what was hidden away from the rest of the world.

  Another night clocked forward to the chime of guns, cars and sirens. The day-workers, those who were fortunate enough to hold a job that paid a living wage, went to sleep. The night-workers, those who were born at the bottom rung of society, set to work. Most cities in England now operated in a similar manner. The only hope that Re-gens had came in the form of subsistence living in the countryside, away from urban enslavement. It was the only hope that Abe had, should he survive the next few days. His people lived under a cloud of lies, oppression and alienation but Abe was destined for green pastures - if he could get to the end of the week.