The Vorkian [a dystopian novella]: The 2250 Saga Read online

  Table of Contents

  Part One

  Part Two

  The 2250 Saga

  ©Nirina Stone 2016

  Edited by Laura Kingsley

  Cover by Shardel (selfpubbookcovers)

  Synopsis

  The year is 2250. The nation, Apex.

  And Mazz is a regular fellah with a regular job, living a quiet life in Citizen City.

  That is, until he is compelled to head to a secret facility far from his home, where he learns that he will be trained to be a Death Doctor. Where he will live, for the rest of his life, as a Vorkian.

  But how short will Mazz’s life be in this new, deadly job?

  Take a quick journey with Mazz, to understand just what it takes, and everything you must give up, to become a Vorkian in Apex.

  This is a short story of about 15k words and is set in the world of The 2250 Saga.

  It is a stand-alone novella and can be enjoyed any time before Book III.

  For Books I and II of the series, click here. To hear about the release of Book III (the grand finale!) in end 2016, join my my exclusive Readers-only List here..

  Dedication

  For my readers. Thank you for giving this new author a chance, and for encouraging me to continue publishing.

  Part One

  My life before all this death business was swell.

  I mean sure, Recyclables Science isn’t the fanciest job in the world. It’s dirty, noisy, sometimes painful. It’s a lonely job, a thankless job.

  No one wants to be around the garbage man. It’s hard to find real friends or dates when you’re the garbage man. You can’t talk about what you do without people scrunching up their noses. You’re better off silent in the dark, hidden from their judging eyes.

  Then there’s the stink of rotting meat, dirt, spoilt eggs, all covered under a slimy putrid syrup of weeks-old fruit. That’s the scent I can’t stand the most—fermented fruit.

  It seeps in, the moment you start this job, and swirls around with your blood and other fluids as if it’s always been a natural part of you. It lodges in your nose, taking over other scents that try to get through. It glues to your clothes and skin, no matter how hard you scrub or how many times a day you take a hot steam with industrial soaps. That would be three, for me.

  At least with this job, you don’t have to put on a uniform. I wear the same stinky clothes every day and when they rip, I incinerate them and buy new ones. I’m the poorest-looking rich man around.

  Even then, everything you smell is garbage. The food you eat ends up tasting of garbage.

  That’s my reality, my life for the last several years.

  It wasn’t always like this. I was a labourer, and I had a family once. I try to forget their faces, but the only way I can is by staying busy at my job. They were everything once. Now this is everything.

  It’s a decent living. I wake up early; I sign in to work. It doesn’t take much brains to work it and I can listen to music as loud as I want.

  My teammates are awesome too, considering they’re a bunch of quiet bots. They do their part. They don’t get in my way, and they never complain. They work fast and make my life easy. They rarely break down and if they do, new bots come in and take over. No hassles, no delays.

  The days are long. Once I sign out though, that’s it. I collect my credits, and I’m done for the day. Then I can go do whatever I please. I go back to my small round home in the ground and can stare at the brown dirt walls the rest of the day if I want, because I live alone.

  Alone is fine though it can get too quiet, and too much quiet makes me want to talk to them though I know they can’t hear me. Still, I talked to them a lot at first. When I heard them speak back, well I knew I was in trouble. That’s when I decided to stay busy all the time, keep my life from getting too quiet.

  Now, I have access to all the best virtual 3D games and shows, thanks to my mate, Dez. My home is never too quiet. Dude knows where to find the best shows, including the banned ones. I don’t ask him where he gets them.

  It’s entertainment, and it’s free. Sometimes it’s dirty. Not the garbage kind of dirty, either—the good kind of dirty.

  From time to time, he hooks me up with pleasurebots too. They don’t care about smells. They’re not much to talk to, but they’re good at their jobs, (Ha! Jobs.) and they don’t judge.

  Usually, it’s enough to keep me from thinking too much. When it’s not enough, I lose myself in virtual mixed martial arts games just to feel a different kind of pain because physical pain is better than the pain which stews in my gut, radiates to the tips of my fingers, and makes me want to die.

  The wife always said I had a face far too pretty to be beaten up. I reckon she was biased coz true love does wonders—it renders you blind they say, and I reckon she was as blind as a broken bot. I try not to think of her as I get myself beaten over and over in the games.

  Then I sleep a deep, sound sleep, until it’s time to wake up early the next morning. It’s exhausting work—the best kind.

  I can’t really complain about my life. Who needs a real date anyway, the human kind? It’s not like I want to find another wife and settle down with more little rugrats. I already had that—it was great, but a fellah can’t be lucky twice.

  Besides, I tell myself it would cost everything I have just to keep them alive, the rugrats. Not to mention having to wait to be eligible for them. All the waiting and work I’d need to do.

  Just to what? Have them taken away to the factories too?

  Far more credits than I have, more than I’d be able to make.

  Besides, I try to forget how great my daughter Lillian was and remember other rugrats I’ve seen are noisy, needy. Short and dumb to boot. No thanks.

  As long as I keep myself busy, keep working, keep moving, I don’t have time to mull over how things were before.

  My life is good. Satisfying. Maybe not for others, but at least I’m surviving.

  So, waking up to a sudden urge to visit an address on the Southern end of Citizen City? Unexpected, and not very welcome either. If there’s one thing I don’t want, it’s change. Change hasn’t ever worked out well for me. So what in the heck is that about? Did I have a dream? Why in the world would I want to go there?

  I sneer at the clock. It’s a quarter after two in the morning. Great. I’m supposed to wake up and go to work in two hours.

  Closing my eyes again, I will my brain to shut up, my sleep to come back. Instead, I crawl out of bed and make my way to the steamer, bringing along a big hot cuppa joe.

  I’m suddenly more awake and more aware of my surroundings than ever before. Maybe I’ll light up a stub of jane and watch a show until it’s time to go to work. My desire to sleep escaped me long ago, anyway.

  After the steam and joe, I get dressed automatically and, before I know it, I’m already out the door.

  I stand at the edge of my home, staring at the entrance to the metal veda which carried me up to the surface. How did I get here already?

  It’s still black as death out there—not the usual Apex greys of daylight. It can’t be past three am yet. Where am I heading?

  When I start walking, I realize it’s not the way to work, anyway. I’m heading to the South end of Citizen City after all. It’s quiet as I shuffle over the dirt ground, past large crater-entries to other people’s homes. My eyes adjust to the dark and, from this distance, I can barely make out the mountain range in front of the Recyclables Centre.

  Okay. Well, I suppose I might as well keep going. What else am I doing? I could show up early to work, but none of the bots will be fully charged and ready to move. It would
be a boring, long wait.

  I walk for a while until I reach the entrance for the address I’ve never been to or ever heard of, before today.

  The entrance opens and I walk down stone steps until I reach open veda doors at the bottom. I walk in and watch as the doors shut closed and the compartment pulls me further down than any veda I’ve entered before. In fact, it’s been heading down for a good half hour before it finally comes to a stop and the doors open to let me out.

  I stare out past the doors and see a room of others like me. By like me, I mean there are a dozen or more fellahs, about the same six foot height, close to the same build, and all looking as lost as I feel. I focus on one fellah with typical dark eyes of Citizen City, with olive skin, and a blank expression. The only real difference between us is he’s chinless. He’s slumped forward like he walked here in his sleep. It’s possible. Maybe I did too.

  The men stand in small groups of two or three, and their convos halt as they watch me enter the space. I stand just outside the doors and watch them right back.

  The waiting room is stark, empty, but for the fellahs. Cream walls and a white ceiling, unlike most other rooms around Citizen City. In fact, if I didn’t know better, I’d think this was somewhere in Prospo City. It’s too clean. Too white.

  Not a place for a garbage man.

  When no one says anything, I walk deeper into the room and look around. There isn’t a chair to sit on or anything to lean against. Just standing space.

  “What is this place?” I ask.

  One guy jeers at me. “Well that’s the billion credits question, isn’t it?” he says. His voice is pitched far too high for a fellah, and sounds as though he’s talking out his nose. He’s the same chinless fellah I noticed earlier, but his dark eyes shine unnaturally under the lights in here.

  Okay, Smartass. I turn away from him and run my hand around the outer walls, checking for a door, anything. But it’s only this place, these people, and the now closed doors to the veda. I walk up to them and search for a button to take me back to the surface.

  Whatever this place is, I decide I’d rather not be here. I turn back to the vedas but there’s no button or scanner. When I ask the veda doors to open, they don’t budge.

  Smartass says, “Coz none of us thought to do that, eh?”

  I turn back around to face him. The others watch me as well.

  Then Smartass says, “Hooeee, but you really stink, buddy.”

  “Sorry,” I say before I can stop myself. “It’s just my job.”

  I can already read on their faces that they know I’m a Recyclables man, and they’ve decided I’m inferior.

  Eh. I’m used to it.

  Narrowing my eyes, I wonder if this is one of those places I’ve only heard about but never visited—one of those fighting pits Dez told me about. They’re illegal. Organizers would be in massive trouble if they’re ever caught. They’re never caught though.

  Dez says he reckons it’s coz the Organizers are also some of the people that would do the catching. Dez is a paranoid type—though he may not be wrong. How would I know?

  All I know is, I’m not interested. I’ve never wanted to visit those pits—something about people fighting to death with their hands and teeth as weapons makes me cringe. Spectators throw random weapons into the pit too, to make it more “interesting.”

  It’s all too raw and unnatural for me. I’d rather stick to my 3D games, thanks. They feel almost as real—but all I need to do is say “Reset” and everything starts from the beginning again.

  No real deaths, no real fighting. Just a trick of the eye. Just acting.

  “It’s not a fight pit if that’s what you’re thinking,” Smartass says. I narrow my eyes some more.

  Why is he talking to me? Why have the others not said a word?

  When the veda doors open, I jump out of the way, backing up until I’m aware of the wall of men behind me. My pulse hammers in my ears, drowning out any noise they make. At least Smartass is rendered quiet for a moment.

  What steps out of the veda is not at all what I’d expect, though I’m not sure what I expected, anyway.

  Dressed in a tight, shimmery green dress is an hourglass figure a foot taller than us. The dress is a few shades darker than the eyes, shining at us from under a thick fringe of red hair. The rest of the hair is chopped short at the chin. There’s no movement in it. It sits still, resembling an upside down bucket.

  She’s the most remarkable woman I’ve ever laid eyes on. Not beautiful or pretty, or all that sexy, really. Still, she wouldn’t go unnoticed. She’s simply stunning.

  I stop breathing in the same way an animal is too scared to move when its natural predator is close. Her skin is porcelain, her lips a dark shade of blood, and I’m scared. Yep, she’s stunning, the same way death can stun.

  Her eyes sweep over our group and she raises one side of her mouth in a half smile.

  “Hmm,” she says. Her voice is deep, gentle, slightly husky. “Gentlemen,” she says, “welcome to your initiation.”

  Initiation? I hear whispers and coughs as the guys behind me react in the same way I have.

  “Initiation for what?” pipes up Smartass. Her eyes land on him and he shuts his mouth so fast, I hear his teeth snap together.

  “Why,” she says, her smile only reaching her cheeks. “Sales and Marketing of course.”

  Her voice rolls over us like liquid gold, the huskiness promising things over and above what her body tells us.

  Oh. Sales and Marketing. I’ve heard of this place too, but thought it was as much an old hens’ tale as the fight pits. I’ve heard it’s a specialized training center, not for the weak at heart, only for the—

  “You’re to be our next generation of Vorkians,” she says, confirming my thoughts.

  The word pops a picture into my head—lanky men in colourful bowties and dark suits, stalking the streets of Apex with smiles permanently etched on their faces.

  I’ve never met a Vorkian, never had the desire to come across one though I’ve heard plenty about them. Well, except the one time after I lost my family, but that time doesn’t count. I didn’t go through with calling one.

  A Death Doctor called by clients to end their lives, for which he receives a hefty commission. Now I’m to train to become one? Why would they want me? A simple garbage man?

  I turn around to the other guys. We all eye each other, the questions on their faces matching my confusion.

  “Follow me,” she says, and she takes several long curvy strides to the far side of the room. At first I wonder why she’s walking up to a block of white wall, until she pushes a hand against the wall and it opens outwards with a light click. Huh.

  The first group of men walk behind her and I start to follow too.

  That’s when Smartass grabs me by the arm and says, “This seem like a good idea to you, mate?”

  I think not. Still, I shake his hand off. “Don’t touch me,” I growl. “And I’m not your mate.”

  I don’t know where the hostility comes from—I’m not usually an angry guy. This fellah just got on my nerves from the start. So I turn away from him and follow the line of men heading out the fake door.

  We walk in a line, through a narrow tunnel. She stops every so often, telling three to five guys to enter a room until we come to the last one.

  Then she ushers the rest of us—me and four other guys, including Smartass—through another room.

  “Welcome,” she says, shutting the door behind us.

  The room is a smaller copy of the first one we were in, but quieter somehow. Ominous.

  Until Smartass starts talking again. “Reckon she’s into me.”

  He turns to make his way around the room. “So, I’m Shen.” He takes each of our hands and offers a firm shake until we offer our names up.

  He grips my hand until I finally say my name. “Mazz,” I mutter, pulling my hand back.

  “Look I’m sorry,” he says, “for saying you stank.” When I don�
��t answer, he says, “I’m an idiot. Especially when I’m nervous. You know?”

  Well, at least he admits he’s an idiot. I answer him with a nod though I’m still annoyed.

  “What do you think will happen now?” Shen says.

  “No clue, guy. Your best guess is as good as my worst.”

  I picture myself as a Vorkian—dressed in a dark suit and bow tie, and my shoulders slump. Though I’ve never met one, the very idea of them give me the heebie jeebies. How did I end up in this place?

  “I hear they grin all the time,” Shen says, “because they’re injected with a chem that hurts them if they stop smiling.”

  There’s a lot I’ve heard about the Vorkians, too. I hope at least some of it is untrue.

  One of the other guys, Chang I think, says, “Vorkian, huh? I hear they’re almost as rich as the Prospo. I hear they live in the best parts of Prospo City.”

  That’s what Dez has told me, too.

  “Can’t be too bad,” Shen says, “if we’re gonna be loaded.”

  Rich. Living in Prospo City. This could just be the type of promotion for a smelly garbage man like me.

  Except, I don’t know if I actually want the job entailed.

  I can’t imagine sitting in front of a person, then going through the act of killing them. Even if they pay me for it. Even if it’s what they want most in this world.

  I’ve never killed a living thing in my life, except insects when I was a kid, as kids do. That’s hardly the same thing, is it?

  Sometimes, my garbage truckbot would scoop up or run over the occasional stray cat or dog. There are so many of those pests around Apex, they’re a nuisance to us more than anything. So I think nothing of it.

  One time, I saved one of them from certain death. It was a shaggy mutt of a thing with a broken leg. The little bastard ran off the first chance he got, and I haven’t seen him since. Maybe another truckbot got him? Dumb as rugrats, those dogs.

  But—people? Could I kill another person? No. Not even Shen, I think, as I try to block out his nasally voice. Maybe I would take the lives of the people who killed my family, but that’s neither here nor there.