Chapter 2: Mervie

 Mervie laughed herself silly as she headed home, what had Elli been babbling about? She, a Roman goddess? No way! The Romans she knew nothing about and did not care but she did know what a goddess was. It was something that had to do with people being scared about what came after death and making up a story to relieve themselves of that paradoxical burden it gave.

Elli was considered twisted and evil by the government and most of The People did not take him seriously, many of Mervie´s friends would amuse themselves by picking on the little boy, she not being an exception. But however much they bullied and pushed the boy he would always regard them with those wide searching eyes, as if he was looking for something.

Of course, she had nothing to hide; no one had something to hide in The People, except maybe her brother Spence, who had been acting strangely for the last few days. She scolded Elli like everyone else, but all she got was two clear blue eyes and an eerie feeling she was wrong. It was tormenting to even consider that the government would ever as much as lie; Elli is the degenerate in a sea of perfectly happy minds she determined. Still the weariness didn´t seem to leave her and she became aware that someone was watching her from the porch of her house. Mervie froze as she watched a tall slim young man of fifteen swiftly step out of the sparse shadow the apple tree provided upon the porch.

 “Spence?” she swore under her breath, he was the last person she wanted to meet today, and yet there he was. He grinned, as if they shared a secret “Upset you´re not rid of me yet?” he mocked propping from the steps and into the small lawn and gave a sneer at the identical houses lining the streets, “I wonder if the government cloned these houses” he grimly smiled “It’s so boring to see the same thing over and over again!” he pouted, trying to make her laugh like in the old days. She scowled, but luckily the hover bus carrying everyone else was not in sight, yet.

“Very funny Spence, you should be grateful of all the things The People have given us” and mustered all of her self-control and pushed her way through and into the house. She could have wiped that clever smile of his off his lips, she thought, but the People did not believe in fighting. As the door clicked behind her, she heard him murmur “Beware of false knowledge George Bernard Shaw used to say, it is more dangerous than ignorance”. 

………………………………………………………………………………………...

 

Sicilia watched from the tree branches as Spencer Apertumoculus teased his sister. She almost laughed at the girl´s naïveté. Was she too stupid to see that Spence was probably telling the truth? Not cloned houses, but the fact that their world wasn’t what they thought it was.  Those big soft brown eyes reflected the innocent glow that she emitted. Sicilia had been doing some espionage on Spencer´s sister for days but the girl didn´t seem to notice her. But she could not stay long. Soon the officials would notice that she was wearing a blonde wig not to expose her red flaming hair.  Red hair was dead in The People as the government had abolished it years ago. Genetic engineers who dared to resist had long been disposed of. She hit the tree trunk as hard as she dared, the government said they were disposed of, but never specified how exactly enemies to The People were disposed of, but most so called children of The People were too besotted in deciding how to make The People proud to even ask themselves an explosive question such as, why? They were like mice who wanted to believe it wasn´t a cat who was waiting at the other side of the meadow but a guide who could escort them outside if they ever wanted to leave. But the cat would watch their every move and would laugh as he stroked his whiskers, the fools, they will never escape his clutches… No one who escaped made it past the border, they were always caught. Not that they would be missed, these escapees were the few who had seen the secret truth behind The People and anyone who knew was not safe as long as they remained in the cat´s claws. And so the truth remained a highly explosive knowledge. And The People was determined to keep it that way. The Re-teaching machine was only used on “confused” citizens; Death however, was for everyone who knew too much and Spencer would be there if he wasn’t careful. 

Her eye caught a moving hovercam, just inches from her hiding place in the branches. What if she was found? Massimo d´Medici, the genius behind the social system and futuristic brainwashing cult The People had been hunting down everyone who was an outsider, as outsiders had been campaigning for his complete destruction since his election. His massive hunting down of outsiders is a euphemism for mass extermination which could have been considered as genocide barely a few one hundred years ago. But how exactly did Massimo gain power? Chaos was the usual answer. It was a hot topic among the outsiders, what exactly went wrong that made the world as we knew it mutate in the course of a few fatal days?  Most of The People were naïve about what was happening outside and inside their realities. She had coaxed Spencer to escape once, but he would not leave his sister. The walk to Freedom had a price for him, and he didn’t want to pay it. Whatever happened, he had stated to her that night, he would try to defy all odds, Mervie couldn’t possibly be foolish enough not to question a little bit he said. She probably thinks she lives in paradise! Sicilia shook her head at Spence’s foolishness, this Mervie buisness was suicide. The hovercamera had receded and Sicilia locked eyes with Spence “Dashing Sparrow, we have business to discuss”