Beyond the Grid: The Runners Series - Book 1

By Alec R. Zeelie

In a world ruled by the Elms family, Cassie and her sister Gusta are lower Grade workers in Driven City. In all the cities, everything from where which workers work, live, to what which workers are allowed to eat depends on the workers' Grades and the ruling family's laws. When Gusta and her secret lover Coleson leave Driven City, Cassie and her friend Axton leave everything behind and venture out into the unknown outside to search for them. How will they survive all the unknown and hidden dangers on the outside? Why does Cassie keep seeing fire?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alec R. Zeelie
• Release date: Dec 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393161332

Book preview

Cover Art by: Andreea Elena Vraciu

CHAPTER I

1

Cassie was busy working hard like she did each and every day of the week. She was but one of more than two hundred cleaners who worked the same shift as she did in Driven City's cleaning sector. Just like everyone else, she wore pale green coveralls with the Elms family's logo printed on the back. Everyone wore their Grade cards on a thin chain around their necks. She had just finished cleaning another one of the thirty cars that were in her work area. She turned around to look at the time on the large digital clock on the wall to see if her shift was almost finished. As she turned back, she paused and stared at the other nineteen cleaners who worked with her in her area. There were men and women of many different races – some young, some old – all of them were Grade H citizens just like Cassie. Just like her, they also had shaven heads. All of them kept on smiling as they worked.

Soldiers – or Elms Cops as some people referred to them – constantly patrolled every street, every Grade residential area and every work area to look for anyone who broke the laws of the Elms family. A Elms Cop came walking up along the row of cars that were being cleaned. Cassie saw him and quickly pretended as if she was busy cleaning the car which she had just finished cleaning. One of the other cleaners just finished cleaning one of the cars. He was fifty-something and anyone who looked at him could tell that he had problems with his back. With unbearable pain in his lower back which caused a faint numb feeling in his left leg, the cleaner leaned against the metal table at his workstation which had all of his cleaning equipment on it. The Elms Cop spotted the cleaner who was taking a rest, stared at him for a brief moment, took a small oval-shaped device out of his pocket and walked straight up to the cleaner. The cleaner looked up at the Elms Cop as he stopped in front of him. The fake smile vanished from the cleaner's face as he looked at the Elms Cop – who was dressed in a dark blue uniform and was armed with a big assault rifle. The Elms Cop held out his gloved hand and said, Sir, laziness in the workplace. That's a violation of law sixty-eight E, paragraph twelve of the Elms family labor laws. You are hereby fined twenty Hobart.

Angry about being fined, the cleaner considered arguing with the Elms Cop, but he knew that doing so would only result in him being fined more money and that he would probably be forced to spend two or three nights in one of the reconditioning cells. He took his Grade card off from around his neck and handed it to the Elms Cop who then inserted half of the card into the oval-shaped device, punched in a code on the keypad on the side of the device, held one end of the device – which had a small microphone in it – close to his mouth and said, Twenty Hobart. He waited for the device to making three beeping noises before he took the card out and handed it back to the cleaner.

Even though Cassie appeared to be busy working, she was keeping an eye on what was going on and listening to every word.

The cleaner was so angry that he struggled for a few seconds to get that fake smile back on his face. The Elms Cop put the device back in his pocket and as he continued walking along the row of cars, he said, Laziness is an enemy of the Elms family and your co-workers. You will never earn a higher Grade and work your way up the grid if you're lazy.

The angry cleaner turned around and continued working.

When the Elms Cop reached Cassie's workstation, a dim orange light flashed five times as the loud hooter signaled that the shift was over. Cassie remained silent and kept the fake smile on her face as she walked past the Elms Cop, but when he looked at her, merely the look she had in her eyes screamed out silent insults in bold capital letters. Just by seeing that look in her eyes, he knew she thought he was a schmuck for giving the other cleaner a fine.

Cassie and all the cleaners from her work area and all the other work areas in their sector were making their way in single file along the marked path along the wall to the pay-booths. She looked at the large pictures of the Elms family that were on every wall in every work area, and her fake smile briefly turned into a angry frown.

2

Anew day was dawning outside. The sunlight started to light up Driven City. Next to the large building Cassie worked in, was a very large parking lot filled with cars and scooters. There were more than twenty pay-booths in a row on one side of the parking lot. All of the workers had their Grade cards in hand as they waited in lines to withdraw their payment for the day's work.

Cassie was close to the front of one of these lines. She looked at the workers in the lines to her right. None of the workers waiting in line said a single word to each other. She heard the sound of a man clearing his throat. She looked to her left and smiled, but this wasn't a fake smile. She was smiling because she saw Axton standing a short distance behind her in the first line on her left. 

Axton was a lifelong friend of Cassie's. They had grown up together in Driven City, had gone to the same school and had developed an unbreakable bond. The only other person with whom Cassie shared such a strong bond was her sister.

Cassie didn't want anyone in the lines to notice that she and Axton were trying to communicate with each other. He looked at her, winked, turn and looked at the three-story office building on the other side of the parking lot, turned and looked back at her. She pretended as she nodded her head and winked back at him.

Five minutes later, Cassie finally reached the front of the line and stepped into the pay-booth. It looked almost like an old phone booth only bigger. As soon as she was inside it, she looked at her Grade card briefly: there was a picture of her on the card with her first name and long code next to it. No-one had a last name anymore. The only thing everyone had as a last name, thanks to the Elms family's laws, was a unique code which was a mix of twenty-seven characters and numbers. Her Grade was printed on the back of the card along with her physical address. She inserted the half of her Grade card which had the data chip in it into the slot beneath the screen inside the pay-booth. Instead of having to punch in a pin number like we do with our credit cards, a number of red lights began flickering and shining on Cassie's face. She struggled a bit to keep her eyes open but she knew that the light from the scanners had to shine in her eyes as well. The pay-booth was verifying that it was indeed the owner of the Grade card who was working with it. When the red lights stopped shining on her, a red grid appeared on the screen. Each of the seven horizontal line on the grid represented a Grade (level) of society – Grade H up to Grade B. Grade H was the line at the very bottom of the grid. Workers, like Cassie, with low paying jobs in the industrial and farming cities fell under this Grade. If people worked very hard for a number of years and obeyed the laws, they could apply for an upgrade.

The green dot at the bottom of the grid on the screen showed Cassie where she was on the grid. The number 120 flashed briefly in green underneath the grid on the screen before an electronic voice said, One hundred and twenty Hobart has been paid into your account.

The currency they used was called Hobart – named after the head of the ruling family: Hobart Elms.

Cassie took her Grade card out of the slot and stepped out of the pay-booth. As she started making her way to the office building on the other side of the parking lot, she walked past Axton and winked at him. 

3

Cassie had been waiting for a little more than ten minutes on top of the office building. She stood partially hidden behind the large satellite dish on the roof and stared into the distance. She could see a large part of the north side of the city grid. Rows and rows of city blocks with the streets in between which formed the city grid. Each and every city block on the north side was basically a factory. Virtually the entire city was one big manufacturing plant. At the different assembly plants in the large city, the workers manufactured all the parts and assembled cars, trucks, scooters, jets, etc.

She turned and stared at the west side of the city which were rows and rows of what looked like apartment buildings.

She turned and stared at the east side of the city which looked almost exactly the same as the view of the north side. The only difference was the clock tower which stuck out like a sore thumb on the far left side. The sight of the clock tower brought back memories for Cassie because it was the clock tower of the only school in Driven City. Since the Elms family gained control of everything, schools were used to take away people's individuality and free will from a young age. For all the people who lived and worked in Grade H to Grade B of society, if a man and woman started a relationship with each other, they first had to undergo psychological evaluation together to see if they were compatible enough to be bound by law (to be married). If it was suspected that the man or woman's state of mind might cause him or her to be disobedient and break the Elms laws, then they were denied permission to be bound by law. And if they were lucky enough to gain official permission from the Leader of their city to be bound by law, they were then forced to undergo a number of medical tests together to determined if they would be granted official permission to have only two children together. When children were born, the parents were only granted the chance to raise the children until the children's fifth birthday. Once a child turned five, the child would be taken to another city – never to see their parents again – and taken in by that city's school. If that child had a younger brother or sister, the younger sibling was then reunited with the child as soon as the younger sibling turned five.

In the thirteen years that children had to live and learn only in the school, all that they were taught in the first six years were basics: reading, writing, basic math, etc. The seven years which followed were used to only teach the children the glorified history of the Elms family, basic working skills which the average Grade H level workers had to have, and they were taught to obey, obey, obey...

Cassie heard footsteps on the stairs of the fire escape on the back of the building. She turned around and saw Axton as he reached the top of the fire escape. He held one hand behind his back as he approached her.

What took you so long? Cassie asked as she playfully pretended to be angry. Axton smiled as he walked up to her and revealed what he was hiding behind his back. It was a small sealed transparent  plastic bag with two cheese, chicken and mayo sandwiches in it. Cassie stared at the sandwiches and judging by the expression on her face, she looked like a very hungry person who was staring at a table filled with food.

You're always complaining about how bad the Grade H food is, so I got you this from our cafeteria, Axton said as he handed the sandwiches to her.

Grade G workers had a cafeteria whereas Grade H workers weren't allowed in any of the cafeterias of any of the Grades above theirs. The only form of food a Grade H worker got at the workplace for lunch was a six inch long sachet filled with a barely edible greenish brown pulp which some of them fittingly called slop.

Cassie couldn't stop thanking him for the sandwiches. Just like people from different Grades couldn't be in a relationship with each other, have children together, or even live together, so too people from lower Grades weren't allowed to consume food from the higher Grades because according to the Elms laws, they weren't worthy to eat food that was above their Grade. They had to work harder and conform completely to the ruling family's laws in order to work their way up the grid, to earn a so-called better life.

I have good news, Axton said as he stared at Cassie who started eating one of the sandwiches. I was called into my superior's office yesterday and guess who wanted to see me.

Cassie was too busy enjoying one of the sandwiches to speak so she just shrugged her shoulders.

Leader Virginia came to see me

What?...Why? was all Cassie managed to say because she almost choked on the last bite of her sandwich. Leader Virginia was in charge of managing Driven City and just like every other Leader of all the other cities and farms, she answered directly to the Elms family.

Axton opened his mouth to speak but paused and just stared at Cassie. He seemed happy about something, but just looking at Cassie made it seem as if his happiness turned to sadness in the blink of an eye.

I'm going to be upgraded next month on the seventeenth. On your birthday, he said as he put his hands on her hips. Cassie was at a loss for words. On the one hand she was happy for him. To be upgraded on society's grid meant that he would be given a better job, better pay, better food, better home, better everything. But that also meant that there was a possibility that they would see each other even less.

I... I'm so happy for you, Cassie said as she put on a brave face and tried hard to keep smiling. But her beautiful smile slowly vanished off of her face when her bottom lip began to quiver and a single teardrop streamed like a never-ending river of pure sadness down her face.

Hey now. Don't cry, he whispered as he pulled her closer. I don't know how but we're still gonna see each other now and then... Somehow we'll –

No we won't, Cassie said as she hugged him and cried. We've been friends forever and now... now we're never going to see each other again.

That's not true. I would never...

Cassie pulled her head back and looked Axton in the eye – her cheeks were covered in tears.

Thanks to all the laws and rules, you're going to be taken away from me...just like Gusta.

What?

Gusta and Coleson have been seeing each other in secret for... I can't remember for how long, but he was also a Grade above her, Cassie sobbed. They've been gone for three days already and I can't stop worrying about her because I don't know what's out there. She could be...

Cassie hugged Axton tighter as she pressed her face against his chest and cried. Axton didn't know what to say. He had only heard of Runners in the past. He had never before known anyone who knew someone who became a Runner. According to the laws, anyone had the freedom to leave the city and go out into what the law called the dead lands, but if anyone left whichever city they were living and working in, that person was then classified as a Runner: someone who runs away from their duties to the ruling family and the sector they work in. If Runners returned to a city, they were allowed back in, but before they could rejoin the workforce and be a part of society again, they were locked in a reconditioning cell for a full two months of reconditioning torture: being bound to a chair eighteen hours every day, being subjected to electric shock therapy and forced to watch a number of Elms videos over and over again. In these videos, each member of the Elms family talks about all of their laws and that anyone who disobeys their laws is an enemy of the family and thus an enemy of the people. They also talk about how – to be a part of society – people must work hard, never question authority, and obey.

Axton gently touched the back of her head as he tried to comfort her. She looked up at him and thanked him for listening her and comforting her. For a brief moment, just the look in his eyes and the soft calming sound of his voice as he whispered, Your sister was brave to leave the city, and if things get too rough for her out there, hopefully she'll come back, made Cassie feel a little bit better. Cassie pulled Axton a little bit closer because she wanted