Level 28

By Jack Cross

By the year 3010, fallout from successive wars has made the planet's surface unlivable. Humanoids live underground like termites and a final conflict threatens all life.Those in the Western Alliance bunker have vastly increased their lifespan but reduced their population to 50 because they regard humans as intrinsically destructive.
The privileged 300+ years-old elders in this gerontocracy have been preserved at the physical age of eighty. They are maintained by robots and a eugenically streamed, short-lifespan humanoid underclass. To curb veniality further, they are obliged to live by three stringent edicts distilled from the behaviour of social insects—Conformity, Rigour and Utility.
Mark5 is a sub-class Sex Cadet streamed to service women elders and he'll do anything to survive as he navigates his way through the carnage and collapsing infrastructure of earth's final brutal civilization. This bizarre dramatization of the fag end of civilization is stylish, clever and unpredictable.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Buzzword Books
• Release date: Oct 10, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463037003

Jack Cross

Jack Cross is a professional author with several published books to his credit as well as numerous short stories. His passion is science fiction.

Book preview

LEVEL 28

BY JACK CROSS

Copyright 2018 Jack Cross

The author asserts his moral rights in the work.

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Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author

Published as an eBook by Buzzword Books Australia 2018

This edition published by Buzzword Books at Smashwords 2018

Buzzword Books

P.O Box 7, Cammeray 2062

Australia

buzzwordbooks.com

Contents:

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

'The institution of slavery is not unique to human societies. No fewer than 35 species of ants... depend on slave labour for their existence. The techniques by which they raid other ant colonies to strengthen their labour force rank among the most sophisticated behaviour patterns found anywhere in the insect world. Most of the slave-making ant species are so specialized as raiders that they starve to death if they are deprived of their slaves (and end with) a degeneration so advanced that (they) can no longer even conduct raids.'

Edward O. Wilson, 'Slavery in Ants', Life at the Edge,

Scientific American.

'Contemporary culture requires automatons. People are undoubtedly losing their acquired habits of independence and turning into automatons, into parts of machines. Man is becoming a willing slave. He no longer needs chains. He begins to grow fond of his slavery, to be proud of it. And this is the most terrible thing that can happen to a man.'

G.I. Gurdjieff, quoted from In Search of the Miraculous,

Routledge & Kegan Paul

31ST CENTURY — YEAR-SLOT 3010.

CHAPTER 1.

The Sex Corps Training Hall had twelve dedicated rows. In each a naked teenager, physically perfect with programmed genetics, was being streamed to satisfy a particular perversion.

The motto on the infowall referred to the sexual deviations of the elders: De gustibus non est disputandum (There is no accounting for taste.)

They didn't mind.

Chip-controlled sub-class humanoids were programmed not to mind.

His own stream, Geronto F, trained him to crave fem elders over eighty.

As he finished his reps, his coach Mech ordered him to the next station. He ambled, sweating and pumped, to the hologram booth.

It showed a fem elder on a bed, wearing a tank top and cling pants. She looked evocatively at him then began to strip.

He'd seen her before. They must have loaded an old file.

To his right, in row Fellatio G, Vita2 practised her deep swallowing. Like all girl recruits, her ovaries had been fried.

To his left, Tom3, in Catamite E, straddled the bolster with the adjustable dildo. As he lowered himself, he winced and Mark5 suppressed a grin. (A smile meant a month-slot off one's span. To laugh was a capital offence.)

His Mech swivelled on its metal ball castors, extended its shock prod. 'Mark5! Eyes front!'

He looked dutifully back to the hologram.

No point in getting zapped.

The now-naked fem knelt facing him — a thin crone with flaccid dugs. She lifted them forward as if wanting them autographed then licked two fingers and touched herself between her legs. Then with lugubrious coquetry, she flopped on her side to show her arse.

He liked her as much this second time and wondered if she were a Hubot. The latest versions were deceptive — designed with lifelike physical flaws.

One of the Mech's six camera-eyes lowered to check his reaction.

He said, 'I've seen her before.'

The machine clicked. 'Duplication confirm.'

'Dup? Why?'

'Not estab.'

Mechs were info-regged — never told you much.

After the session, they deployed to abluts. He shared a turntable with Vita2 and eyed her body as they revolved in the jets. She was tall, stunning, conceited and eager to inform on anyone.

She simpered at the grey concrete walls, the mist glistening on her flesh. 'They're watching us. I feel it. The elders admiring... selecting us.'

It wasn't Safespeak. She reeked of obedience, her compliance enhanced by Zyzonkan. Zonk, as they called it, was supposed to increase sex response but seemed to induce a daze that made the whole Corps dutiful. The stuff did not affect him but, for safety, he acted the part.

They walked past the drying vents to the kit room where their uniforms reformed around them. The newer recruits rode the easy-slider back to barracks. He and the other seniors stayed. They were eighteen and near graduation. Their mind chips told them they had four mins to get to the lecture.

The infowall was screening a familiar vid. They'd seen it a hundred times but passively watched it again. It showed a schematic head with a chip lodged near the centre of the brain.

'…and your chip,' the audio crooned, 'has multiple uses. As well as pre-alerts, data storage, cataloguing, cross-refs, mem and comms, it can deliver agonizing brain pain and has a small charge for capital offences.'

The schematic chip exploded in the schematic brain. The schematic eyes blew out and hung down the schematic cheeks.

It switched to a a cadet dashing along a corridor. A time code danced at the base of the frame. 'Cadet unit John23 is two mins late for his lecture. Infringement Three. Capital offence.'

It cut to a close-up for the detonation.

The force of it blew out his left eye. His brain spattered the wall.

It had looked bad the first time he saw it, but now struck him as droll. He checked his safe-face expression. (Humour did not Conform.)

The pre-alert repeated in their mind chips. They had two mins to be seated in the Social Conditioning Campus lecture hall.

Pitho, their tutor in Ethics and Conduct, stood behind the lectern. She contained no organic matter so had no need to sit. She resembled a fifty-year-old academic. Faded uniform and frizzed hair — thin in patches because Maint hadn't bothered to renew it. Despite her ramshackle exterior, her software upgrades were impressive. Nothing got past her. She could reduce a dissident to meatpaste.

As they settled on the tiered benches, two girls whispered together. Pitho opened her mouth and mimicked an alarm bell. They covered their ears for protection until she stopped the din.

Silence again, except for the aircon's ceaseless drone.

She said, 'Now I have your attention, you may recite the creed.'

The troop abruptly stood and chanted the familiar words:

Whosoever shall survive, it is needful that he know these facts:

Historical democ, that promised individual freedom

Led to the consumerist myth of progress on a finite planet.

Peak pop. destruction of infrastructure, famine, water wars, pandemics.

Abandonment of solar system colonies.

Consump of last vertebrates, cannibalism, global wars.

Culminating in Nuke 4, seismic shift, the Northern Hem dead zone.

Thus, we units now affirm

That human failings are intractable and destructive.

And that abominations such Religion, Art, Philosophy and Hope must be abolished by CONFORMITY — UTILITY — RIGOUR.

Not three Precepts but one that redresses all human flaws.

In the name of gerontocracy and Alliance Freedom.

Amen

CONFORMITY — UTILITY — RIGOUR

The hallowed words appeared on the infowall over a waving Free Alliance flag shot from low angle against a pristine sky. The symbolism was lost on them. They had yet to feel wind or see a sky. The Palladium was far below ground to shield them from rads. But the colourful flag invoked awe, as did the blue beyond. Because, from their parthenogenesis till that moment, everything had been battlewagon grey.

Grey were the rough-rendered walls.

Grey were the endless, featureless tunnels with their sighing reticulated air — with their light fittings so far apart that they barely relieved the gloom.

Grey were their plates, benches, bed covers, uniforms.

Grey were their thoughts and dreams.

Pitho brushed a hair from one eye and began the tutorial:

'As human flaws have destroyed the planet, we now have the Three Guiding Precepts of Entitlement Utilitarianism which...' She surveyed her dutiful audience. 'Continue... Vita2?'

The Nordic goddess rose and parroted what she had been taught, '...avoid organic irregs and preclude further devastation.'

'Does any unit here disagree with V2's statement?'

No hands showed.

'Good. We move on. Today-slot, you'll see an example of judgment, which as you know, is no longer... what?'

'Adversarial,' V2 obediently said.

'Correct! And you will participate in a verdict, which relies on... Think! What do 31st Century judgements rely on?'

Gundi2 from Dominatrix B said, 'Plus-minus scores refined by definitions.'

'Yes. And definitions are a concern. Consider concepts such as freedom, justice, or the common good. What is good? Respond.'

The effeminate Tom3 said shyly, 'Self-interest?'

'Exactly, T3. Perceptive.'

The lad flushed with delight.

'And self-interest is based on... what? Think!'

No one spoke.

'On fear. Good is an individual construct reinforcing the self-defence called ego. Bad is something that goes against individual good. Understood?'

The girl from Femme J raised her hand. 'Bu... but, dear Conditioner,' her voice shook with nerves, 'what if one unit's good is b... bad for others?'

'So, if your elder whips or cuts you or penetrates you with her fist or other painfully oversized object, will you condemn her or passively submit?'

'Submit.'

'As you've been trained to.’

'But I've heard of an elder who... vi... violates five-year-old girls until they rupture, bleed and die. Proving that what is good for one unit is not always good for another. So w... wouldn't it be a greater good to stop him raping children in the first place?'

'No. Group support negates Palladium class distinctions and scores triple minus.'

'So there's nothing... bad?' The girl looked unconvinced.

'Objectively, no. Consider Rigour. Generally this means severity, which implies indiff to pity. Obviously, savagery in war is essential and we condone brutality for pleasure...'

'Why?' Gundi2 again.

'Because of its Utility. When you lash your slaves, don't they enjoy it?'

'Yes, because it's a perversion of their sex drive. But to sadistically torture and kill...'

'...is a further perversion of the sex drive. The pleasure of elders Conforms. And, in this case, has Utility and Rigour. See your course notes on Survival of the Cruellest. Rigour implies severity. You look unsatisfied, girl.'

'I am.'

'Am am am am am am am am am am...' the Hubot repeated staccato.

Had her circuits fused? They gawked at her, dismayed.

Her circuit-breaker cut in and the repetitions stopped. 'Remem your mission statement, which is...'

The students chanted in unison, 'To fulfil the tastes of the elders.'

'Which tells you what?'

They looked uncertain.

'Think, you gerontophilic dim-wits! What?'

No one spoke.

'It implies that sub-class organic units are eugenned as amenities for elders. And if that involves brutalizing scores of five-year-old girls, it Conforms. Pleasure Conforms. But whose pleasure? Conformity stipulates that classes are unequal. So the pleasure of elder units Conforms, despite the pain of sub-classes that serve them.'

Mark5 wanted to pick his nose but fingers in nostrils did not Conform because nasal mucosa was permeable and transferred disease to the system.

She lifted a finger. The infowall switched to a list of violations with their scores.

TRESPASS.... C- U- R+

THEFT.... C- U+ R-

TARDINESS... C- U- R-

ART... C- U- R+

RELIGIOUS BELIEF... C- U- R-

SEDITION... C- U- R-

HOMICIDE... C+ U+ R+

INFORMING... C+ U+ R+

LITTERING… C- U- R-

'You'll notice curious things here. For example, Tardiness or unpunctuality scores minus for all three Precepts. I'll relay this list to your mind chips. Does anyone not understand?'

No one spoke.

'So Tardiness and Littering are as appalling as Religion and even worse than committing Art — which, at least, gets a plus for determined application. Note that Murderers and Informers have the most positive score. They Conform, have Utility and Rigour. So the three rules give us what? Come on, you dozy lot! Someone? Speak!'

No one dared.

She pointed to a girl. 'Una1? You've said nothing for four lectures. Curious, for one clever with her tongue. And your systolic has just jumped from 135 to 170. 'You're anxious — which doesn't Conform. The three Precepts give us wha... wha... what?'

The girl from Cunnilingus H stammered, 'Instant judgement, dear Conditioner.'

'Correct. Instant deterrence, prevention, retribution and reform — making it the most efficient punitive system devised. We'll now see how it works in practice.'

She gestured to the floor in front of her. Part of it dissolved and a transparent cylinder rose through it. Imprisoned inside was a creature they knew. W30, a W-class worker from the wrecking bay — a sluggish, base-level drudge who shifted obsolete machine parts to the hoppers.

He looked around, dazed.

Pitho said, 'Welcome, W30, to mind-grind central. I think you know those here.'

He did. But not in their smart uniforms. He knew them as wreckers in soiled fatigues — because each Corps had ancillary tasks and theirs was Disassembly. They spent 4hursday and 5riday wrecking obsolete drones and robots, helped by him and the other sterile, tongueless, brain-dead shifters in his team.

'W30,' Pitho told them, 'has found something he liked and has kept it. Show them!'

The squat figure reached into a pocket of his filthy boiler suit. He held the coveted object forward — the gold-plated core of a logic-override adapter from a Mech.

Pitho asked, 'Why on earth do you want that? You can't use it for anything.'

The base-classer's crude features crumpled and he snivelled.

'Is it because it's shiny?'

He nodded, shamefaced, and wiped his nose with a three-fingered hand.

'So unit W30 stole something shiny,' she told them, 'simply because it shines. It's not worth much but it's still classified as theft. In other words, C minus, U plus. R minus. It's C minus because the act doesn't Conform. It's U plus, because, to him at least, it has Utility. Why? It makes him happy. And it's R minus because no Rigour was required. At least, not in this case. He simply found it on the floor and picked it up. Verdict?' She looked up at the tiered rows. 'Anyone? Come on. Think! Think!'

Gundi2 raised her hand. 'Not a capital offense, because of U plus. The two minuses reduce his span by two thirds.'

'Correct. The specified lifespan of W-class is twenty-two years. As W30 is now fifteen, his residual span will be reduced by four years.' She turned to the creature. 'Don't snivel. It's all right. You can keep it. It's yours for the next three years.'

The relieved trog clutched the adapter to his chest. The full implication had eluded him.

Mark5 was impressed at the clever way she had dealt with him.

The cylinder sank back through the floor, which solidified again, and she moved back behind her lectern. 'Questions? And as you're just day-slots from graduation, these may be general if you wish.'

Gundi2 spoke again. 'Who monitors W30s span?'

'W-class spans are monitored by Euth Division, Supply Sector.'

'Not Conditioning Sector?' She looked perplexed. 'Why Supply?'

'Irrelevant.'

'And how will he die?'

'Not conducive to edification.'

Mark5 wondered why the girl with the sleek muscles was talking so much. Because not to participate was noticed? Because it was prudent to ask a question? Eugenics had provided her with a fine Germanic brain so perhaps she'd seen something he'd missed.

U1 opened her wide, attractive mouth and spoke again. 'Excuse me, dear Teacher...'

'I'm not your teacher. That word's a degraded construct. I'm your Conditioner. What am I?'

'My Conditioner.'

'And what, in your opinion, is the purpose of conditioning? Or, to address its communicative aspect, propaganda?'

'To deceive?' the girl ventured.

'Correct. Because, without deception, ideology perverts practicality — a maxim not immediately apparent. I'll load it to your mind chips for you to ponder during downtime. So! U1. Your question was...? Continue.'

'Why do we have to learn so much when we're just commissioned to pleasure elders?'

'There's a reason.'

'May we know it?'

'Not now. But some units will find out later.'

The pretty girl frowned. 'May I ask a further question, dear Conditioner?'

'Don't ask if you can ask a question. It contravenes Rigour. Just ask.'

The girl flushed. 'Why are we only taught History, Conduct and Sexuality? Why not Coding, Resources...?'

'One: Your span's too short to include those disciplines. Two: We covered this matter in History of Communication. To recap: Universal knowledge and communication destroys central control. And effective streaming implies knowledge specialization. Example: an organic in Supply has no need to study Deviance and Sexual Anaesthesia.'

Gundi2 spoke again. 'So why do we have to learn so much stuff that doesn't concern the sexual act? And, if we have to, for some reason, why not tell us things we want to know?'

'Such as?'

'Why elders avoid cosmetic enhancement? And how we die?'

Pitho inclined her head at the girl, as if examining a new species. 'You're smart, G2. And verging on dissidence — which has a double minus score and leads to sedition with triple minus. So I'd watch that, if you don't want to compromise your span.' There was no emotion in her caution. Hubots did not feel. She looked around. 'Any more separatist comments?'

No one dared raise an issue.

Then Sam7, the crude bull dyke from Les L chipped in. 'I've got one.'

'Speak.'

'How come M5, U1 and G2 have dents in the centre of their bellies when the rest of us don't?'

Pitho took a moment to answer. 'Parthenogenesis glitch. Anyone else?'

No hand went up.

'So! That's all we have time for this period. Tomorrow-slot's topic is The Sagacity of Inequality — the greatest good for the fewest number. Check your case notes.' She surveyed their eager, compliant faces, then intoned, 'De Gustibus!' on her thrilling base note.

The cadets repeated it in unison then filed out to the rhythmic monotone that served as the Corps anthem.

Mossads — mosquito-sized surveillance drones — hovered around the Seniors Mess. They made hardly any sound and were difficult to spot. The cadets, now in loose-sleeved matching gowns with automatic waist clasps, ate their dinner of processed worms, mushrooms and insect sal.

The harsh day-slot lighting had switched to night-slot glow, making the grey walls even gloomier. Walls that shape-shifted to form large relief letters that extolled the edicts of Conformity:

The elders are supreme. All that exists is their property.

All that elders decree, even if iniquitous, is law.

Sub-class organics will do all for the welfare of elders.

Mark5 took his food tube to a vacant table and wondered which unit would join him. He hoped it wouldn't be V2 because she'd see sedition in any remark and oblige him to Safespeak everything he said.

Instead, Gundi2 sat beside him. Another prob. She was too forthright.

She said, 'Hi, and banged her tube down. 'Curried worms. I like worms.'

He said, 'Worms are yum.' A text-book Safespeak remark.

'What did you think of the lecture?'

'Some lecture!' Another non-committal gem. His eyes were drawn back to the distracting the wall:

Only elders may have possessions and opinions.

Only elders have the right to privacy.

Shirk work and be minced.

Harm an elder and be minced alive.

She squinted around for Mossads. They seemed free of them for the moment. She dropped her voice to a whisper. 'Did you hear what Pitho said to U1? About deception? Remem? She told us she's programmed to lie! So we should question everything she teaches us. Because, the whole thing could be lies, don't you see?'

Despite his face-safe blank expression, the separatist comment shocked him. Perhaps he wasn't the only cadet impervious to Zonk.

The Mossads registered her whisper and three flew into eavesdropping range. She glanced at him directly, still determined to non-conform. She pressed her food-tube plunger button with her left hand — although all recruits were right-handed. He knew what that meant and reluctantly moved his left arm under the table.

She slipped a finger up his sleeve and gave his wrist two hard taps.

The code was simp once you memorised the number of each letter. P, for instance, was one hard, six soft. E was five soft. It was a slow, crude way to send a message but hidden from inquisitive drones.

Her message was: PIPE. 5RI.

She wanted him to meet her on 5riday inside the service pipe she was wrecking.

He didn't nod. They would have picked it up

CHAPTER 2

The wrecking bay was cavernous and dark. Obsolete and damaged machinery clattered from chutes at the sides, piling junk so high it was impossible to walk to a wall. The overhead lights were too dim for detailed work so each boiler-suited wrecker wore a helmet torch.

Mark5 fitted the shears attachment to the handset. Cutting up obsolete Hubots was complex. You first had to strip the self-healing polymer skin, which resisted and tried to reform unless you held it back with clamps.

This collapsed figure in front of him was a battered H4—ex Combat Sector, Armaments—a brutal looking male with broken nose and powerful hands. The unit had no back to its head because its classified components were pre-junked but still had a talking reflex. '...Wongs ready to... fifteen frozen...'

He began the cut from the crutch, exposing the constrictor muscles of the stomach—another adaptive polymer that shrank when current was applied. He'd learned a lot about these bots simply by cutting them up.

'...Wongs ready to... fifteen frozen...'

'Wongs ready to what?'

'...fifteen frozen...'

'Frozen where?'

'Ivan bunker...'

'Ivan what?'

'Bu... un-unker bbbbbbb.'

He clamped the skin back to the diaphragm. 'What's a bunker?'

'...unker bbbbbbb.'

He didn't understand or need to. He knew that some Ivans and Wongs had survived the war and seismic shift but such knowledge lacked Utility because it was not his concern. Where and what it meant was a problem for Combat