Dystopia

By Serena Redgrave and Tatiana Allegra

The year is 2209. Earth has been destroyed by nuclear war and the only inhabitable piece of land left on the entire planet is a place that the survivors call Utopia.

The rich live in Utopia and are ruled by the cruel and corrupt President Ravens, while the poor have been banished to the barely habitable land bordering Utopia which they call Dystopia. The Dystopians have been given alphanumeric codes instead of names and have been forced to become the Utopians' slaves and surrogates as well as a source of donors whose organs can be harvested on demand to prolong their lives. Nano-chip implants are used to match Utopians with their perfect Dystopian donor.

The harvesting has been going on for as long as the Dystopians can remember, and every family has lost a loved one. When G486 was a child the Utopian soldiers came for his older brother, and now as a young man they have come for him as well. With the help of his three friends G manages to evade capture, but how long can he escape his grim fate? They cannot keep running and hiding forever. If they're going to save his life they need to make a stand, and they'll need help...

Celeste Ravens is a young high-ranking Utopian soldier. Despite being the President's daughter, neither she nor her comrades knows anything at all about the harvesting or has any idea what they have been extracting their Dystopian targets for. When she's captured by G and his friends during what was supposed to have been just a routine extraction mission, she ends up getting a lot more than she bargained for...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Serena Redgrave
• Release date: Aug 29, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005197537

Book preview

Year: 2183

Planet: Earth, but not as you know it

Population: 2000

Towards the end of the twenty-first century human greed and lust for power finally led to a nuclear war which resulted in a nuclear holocaust that destroyed the entire planet and wiped out the vast majority of its population.

All over the world the small number of survivors– the old and the young, the weak and the strong– gradually gathered together and travelled their ruined planet in search of a new home. After many years of struggle and hardship, death and despair, they finally found it in a small stretch of land at the heart of a remote and uninhabited island.

They named this place Utopia.

The size of a small town, Utopia was surrounded by a dense and uninhabitable wasteland that seemed to go on forever before finally meeting what remained of the ocean which connected the island to the rest of the devastated planet. Although not a paradise, as the name they had given it would suggest, Utopia was the least affected and most habitable piece of land left on the entire earth.

To their immense good fortune, the survivors discovered that Utopia was also the only surviving area of a fully-stocked and fully-functional state-of-the-art modern city that the world’s billionaires had secretly created on the island as a safe haven for themselves, their families and their servants to retreat to in the event of an apocalypse. However, although not unexpected, the nuclear holocaust had happened so suddenly that none of the island’s creators had had a chance to escape to it and only one of those founding families were among the survivors who eventually claimed it.

The brave and honourable soldier who had led the survivors in their quest was made King of Utopia, and he formed a government consisting of twelve other men and women to help him rule. During his reign and those of his descendants, for many decades the Utopians lived happily, peacefully and prosperously as one big community.

But it was not to last.

Eventually many of the rich Utopians began to look down at their poorer fellow Utopians and thought themselves so much better and more deserving in comparison that they grew to resent having to share Utopia with them. They blamed the reigning monarchs for their situation and believed that the government would be much more sympathetic to their plight. At the same time, the government was no longer content with merely advising and assisting the King and Queen and sought to overthrow them so that they could seize power for themselves. As the descendant of Utopia’s sole surviving founding family, Prime Minster Ravens in particular felt that he should be the one ruling the island, and he encouraged the imminent coup so that he could finally reclaim what he saw as his family’s birthright. Inevitably Utopia erupted into civil war and after many months of brutal fighting, the anti-monarchists finally succeeded in defeating the monarchists.

Shortly after their victory Prime Minster Ravens declared himself President of Utopia, and then he and his triumphant government exiled the King and Queen and their young son into the wastelands surrounding Utopia where they were never to be seen or heard from again.

Next, every family whose total combined assets were below the amount specified by the government was evicted from Utopia and banished to the small stretch of unoccupied, barely habitable land that bordered Utopia on the west and was half its size. There, the poor were forced to make new homes for themselves in whatever ruins they could find with what little belongings they owned and had managed to bring with them.

They named this place Dystopia.

As soon as the poor were gone, the Utopians built a wall around Utopia to keep the Dystopians out. Thus officially and physically separating Utopia and Dystopia and further isolating the Dystopians, who now had no choice but to become the Utopians’ slaves and surrogates in exchange for the meagre weekly rations that they so desperately needed to survive.

As a result, every Dystopian over the age of sixteen was assigned a job in Utopia that best suited their individual skills so that the Utopians themselves would no longer need to perform any form of manual labour. In addition, all female Dystopians between the ages of twenty and forty who weren’t currently pregnant became a pool of potential surrogates for any Utopian women who wanted to have children without ruining their careers or their figures by carrying their child themselves. Any Dystopians below the age of sixteen were to be educated by their families, but in their families’ own time. To further dehumanise them, like a barcode on a product every Dystopian was given a four-digit alphanumeric code in place of the names that they once had or would have been given.

After a decade of suffering, things soon got even worse for the Dystopians.

A personal tragedy eventually led President Ravens to also see all Dystopians of any age as a source of donors for sick Utopians who became in need of replacement organs, blood, tissue and any other body parts. As a result, Nano-chips were implanted into the bodies of both Utopians and Dystopians alike and used to match Utopians who became in need of new organs with their perfect Dystopian donor.

For the last two decades these unfortunate Dystopian donors have been extracted from their homes in the middle of the night and taken back to Utopia to be harvested of the desired organ as well as anything else that may be of future use. None of them were ever seen or heard from again…

Prologue

Somewhere in Dystopia.

G486 wasn’t sure what it was that had woken him that night. All he knew was that he had suddenly and inexplicably jumped awake in the very dead of night to hear the distant sounds of what appeared to be a small army of helicopters. A small army of helicopters that seemed to be drawing ever closer to the decrepit ruins of a bungalow that he and his family called home.

His heart pounding with terror and his stomach churning with anxiety, both of which he didn’t yet understand the cause of, the five-year-old had a horrible feeling that something bad was about to happen…

He turned his head on his pillow and glanced through the moonlit darkness over to the mattress which lay on the cold stone floor to the left of his own to see that his older brother A739 was still sound asleep and lost in pleasant dreams. The blond-haired eight-year-old was snuggled up cosily beneath his blanket with his youthful face so incredibly peaceful that it was as if he didn’t have a care in the world and was completely oblivious to the fast-approaching helicopters that were heading their way growing louder and louder and louder.

Sitting up, G486 looked around the complete and utter dump of a bedroom that he and his brother had shared all their young lives, its four bare brick walls all so covered with gaping holes and deep cracks that it was a miracle any of them were even still standing and its ceiling missing over half of its plaster.

Their parents had hung up rags to cover the empty space in the far wall where a window had once been, and the moonlight that was streaming in through the fabrics’ innumerable holes illuminated a tiny room that was completely empty other than the boys’ mattresses which lay side-by-side together in the opposite corner. The tattered mattresses that they slept on were ripped and torn with stuffing coming out of them, the pillows that they lay their sleepy heads on were so hard and lumpy that they may as well have been bags of sand, and the blankets that were supposed to keep them warm were worn down, threadbare and covered with holes which let in the cold night air. At the foot of their beds the boys each had a small duffel bag containing all of the clothes that they owned, and everything in their bedroom was coated with a fine layer of dirt and dust.

G846 threw back his blanket and was just about to get up and go over to the window to take a look outside when he heard two sets of frantic footsteps racing across the hallway just outside their bedroom towards the joke that was their bedroom door.

Moments later their bedroom door was suddenly thrown open and both of their parents burst inside, their mother hurrying over to G486 and hastily sweeping him up into her arms while their father rushed over to A739 and quickly shook him awake. Stealing him from his sweet dreams and dragging him back to a harsh reality that was about to become all the crueller.

What? What’s going on? A739 asked their father with a sleepy yawn, barely able to keep his hazel eyes open.

There’s no time to explain! their dad cried in reply as he picked his son up and set him on his feet before taking A739’s little hand in his own, shouting to be heard over the whirring of the helicopters’ blades which were now so near that they were almost deafening.

Now that they were ready, the family was suddenly on the move. Their mother carrying G486 in her arms and their father pulling A739 along beside him as they together made a mad dash over to the boys’ bedroom door and then along their bungalow’s darkened hallway.

Mummy, what’s wrong? Where are we going? G486 asked his mother worriedly, the tears that were streaming down his parents’ faces as they ran causing the bad feeling that he had about all of this to increase one hundredfold.

We need to get somewhere safe! his mother cried in reply as they hurried into their living room, shouting to be heard over the sounds of the helicopters landing on the other side of the room’s front wall which separated them from all of the soldiers who were now disembarking to charge towards their bungalow’s front door. The helicopters’ rapidly rotating blades caused the rags that covered the room’s only window to flutter wildly and then fly off altogether, and in their absence the living room was suddenly flooded with a blinding white light.

Once they’d reached the back of the living room, their parents finally came to a stop.

G486’s mother set him down next to his brother and his father finally let go of A739’s hand to help his wife throw aside the rug and uncover the trap door that they had constructed out of part of their living room’s floorboards.

As the boys watched, their parents worked frantically to open the trap door that led down into the secret underground room that they had created underneath their bungalow in preparation for such an emergency but had hoped that they would never have to use.

Just as they got the trap door open, a deafening crash suddenly erupted from the hallway just outside as their front door was kicked open and then several sets of heavy booted footsteps stormed into their bungalow heading for their living room.

Ready at last to lower the boys into the secret room, G486’s mother gathered him into her arms and just as their father reached for A739, the boy was suddenly snatched from him by one of the five soldiers who had come for the eight-year-old tonight.

NO! Leave him alone! their father bellowed in anguish and outrage as he started after the soldier who had slung his punching, kicking and thrashing son over his armoured shoulder and then begun carrying him away to the door.

Before he could reach them, one of the other four soldiers suddenly whacked him away so forcefully that he was thrown across the opening to the secret room that they had failed to get their eldest son inside in time and slammed into the back wall of the living room behind it.

Their target acquired, the other four soldiers turned and marched after the one who was carrying A739. The young boy sobbing, screaming and struggling against his captor’s iron grip trying desperately to break free and return to his family.

Give him back! He’s just a little boy! G486’s mother pleaded as she quickly set him back down onto the living room floor and then chased after the soldier who was abducting her son and now almost to the door. He’s only eight years old! You can’t do this! she wailed.

Just like her husband before her, before she could reach them another soldier suddenly swatted her aside so violently that she was thrown to the floor.

The soldier carrying A739 stepped through the living room door and out into the hallway followed closely afterwards by his four comrades.

Leave my brother alone! G486 sobbed as he chased after the soldiers across the living room and along the darkened hallway towards the bungalow’s front door.

Once he’d reached them he dodged and weaved his way through the soldiers’ formation until at last he was hurrying along behind the one that had hold of his brother.

Give my brother back! G486 cried. Reaching up even as a shrieking, wriggling and stretching A739 reached down from over the soldier’s armoured shoulder, the two brothers trying desperately to grasp one another’s outstretched hands.

G486 leapt into the air and just as his hand and his brother’s were finally about to make contact, one of the other four soldiers caught G486 from behind and then passed him to the soldier behind him. Pulling the two brothers apart and forever out of reach of one another.

The second soldier set G486 gently down to one side on the hallway floor and then the five of them marched out through the bungalow’s open front door and over to re-join their pilot in the first of the three military helicopters that were waiting just outside for their successful return with A739. The other two identical helicopters were each filled with five more soldiers who were there as back-up as well as a pilot, and the engines of all three helicopters had been left running so that their extraction mission could be completed as swiftly as possible.

When G486’s parents both suddenly raced past him in the hallway over to the front door trying desperately to catch up to the soldiers and save their son, G486 hurried after them. Determined to do whatever he could to help get his older brother back from the kidnappers.

But they were too late.

By the time G486 and his parents reached the front door of their bungalow all three helicopters had already taken off and were heading back to Utopia, their mission accomplished. Leaving them unable to do anything but watch helplessly from the doorway and cry their hearts out in grief and despair as A739 was flown forever away from them, never to return. His little hands and beloved face pressed desperately up against the lead helicopter’s window as he wept and cried out for the family that he had been torn from, not even knowing where he was being taken or why.

G486 didn’t know it at the time, but this was the last time he would ever see his older brother because within hours of A739’s extraction all of his organs were removed for harvesting to prolong the lives of the rich and the powerful Utopians who were all so much more important and deserving than he was.

Even though he was only five years old, it could have just as easily been G486 who had been taken tonight.

Who knows, maybe one day it would be…

Chapter 1

18 years later.

Year 2201. Somewhere in Dystopia.

Deep in thought and deeply troubled, Captain Celeste Ravens sat in a pensive silence as the Alpha Team’s helicopter flew them all to Dystopia that evening for yet another routine extraction mission followed by the two identical military helicopters carrying the Beta and Delta Teams who were their back-up. Beside her sat Colonel Sloane and directly opposite her sat Lieutenant-Colonel Kevin Brody with two of the other three members of their team seated on either side of him, the five of them all wearing full suits of black body armour with their helmets resting on their laps.

Despite being President Ravens’ daughter, Celeste had never been content to just spend all day lounging around and being pampered like a princess, nor did she have any interest in politics. Instead her heart had always lain in defending the realm, protecting its inhabitants and preserving her people’s way of life.

And she was very good at it.

She’d spent years working her way up through the ranks but despite her title and all of her many achievements, she was still the President’s daughter and so her paranoid father insisted on her having a protector at all times. A protector named Lieutenant-Colonel Kevin Brody, who her father had hand-picked to be her bodyguard as soon as she’d turned eight years old and was also the General’s son.

Brody had been with her for as long as she could remember and was like an older brother, another father and a best friend all rolled into one. The one person she had always been able to count on who had always been there for her without fail. He’d been protecting her for almost her entire life, so she’d never known what it was like to be alone or lonely and had always felt safe and secure no matter where she was or what she was doing. However, Celeste was now a grown woman of twenty-two years old as well as a highly-decorated and experienced soldier herself, so it was both annoying and embarrassing to still have her bodyguard/babysitter accompany her on every mission!

In the red-gold light of the setting sun, Brody grinned at her. Her thirty-eight year old bodyguard six and a half feet tall and powerfully built with a mane of thick shoulder-length sandy brown hair that was tied back into a ponytail, sea-green eyes, dark tanned skin, a strong jawline and a defined cleft in his chin.

Celeste sighed, knowing that this latest extraction mission was going to be no different than any of the others before it.

A little while later, unable to stand the endless stream of questions that were going around and around and around inside her head any longer, she finally turned to the Colonel in the hope of finally getting some answers.

Why are we doing this? What’s the purpose of all of these Dystopian extractions? she asked her superior officer curiously. Why do so many teams have to be sent out for each mission? And why do we all need to be so heavily armed?

We’ve been through this Celeste, the bald and burly Colonel Sloane replied with a weary sigh. I don’t know, I don’t care and I’m not paid to do either. I just do as I’m told and don’t ask any questions, and so should you.

But haven’t you ever wondered why we’re asked to extract all of these Dystopians in the first place? Celeste persisted. "Or why we’re never asked to return them home afterwards? And why do they always put up such a fight? The Dystopians we extract are always screaming and crying as if we’re taking them to their deaths, and their families are always doing the same as if they’ll never see them again! Who is this G486? What’s he needed for in Utopia? What can he and all of the other Dystopians before him have possibly done to warrant an extraction by not one but three of our teams?"

If all of this is troubling you so much, then why don’t you just take it up with your father when we get back? the Colonel suggested irritably.

I’ve tried, Celeste muttered unhappily, certain that her father was withholding information from her, but he never answers any of my questions either.

* * *

Damn it! This is the fourth time you’ve won this week! Z009 cried as he threw down his hand of cards and finally admitted defeat. Over six feet tall and muscular with chin-length brown hair and piercing blue eyes, Z was the tough, no-nonsense leader of their little group who was always moody. He worked as one of Utopia’s engineers and was always collecting various gadgets and bits of machinery as well as any tools and equipment that he could get his hands on.

Z reluctantly pushed his huge pile of ‘chips’ across the dirty, dusty, tattered rag of a blanket that they were all sitting on over to G486 was sat opposite him and had just won.

Well done G! R890 congratulated his victorious friend with a bright smile from where he sat on the right. You must be really good at this game! The shortest of the group at under six feet tall and a little on the chubby side with curly ginger hair and hazel eyes, R was far too nice for his own good almost to the point of being a total push-over. He worked as a sous-chef at one of Utopia’s fanciest restaurants and was always pinching random pieces of cutlery and crockery as well as any food, drink and booze that he could get his hands on for their Friday night gatherings.

"Either that, or he’s just really good at cheating," B567 said with a smirk from where he sat on the left. The tallest of the gang at almost six and a half feet tall and thin with short black hair and brown eyes, B was the clown of their little group who was always cracking jokes or playing pranks on the others. He worked as a domestic cleaner in the mega-mansion of one of Utopia’s Governors and was forever pocketing any completely random object that he came across which he thought could aid him in his pranks or be used to play one of the hundreds of new games that he was constantly coming up with for them to play as well as all kinds of magazines– most of which were pornographic.

Maybe you guys just really suck! G486 replied with a grin as he gleefully added Z’s huge pile of ‘chips’ to his own to form one enormous mountain of winnings. The same height and build as Z but with wavy shoulder-length blond hair and green eyes, G was the cleverest and most well-read member of their group and thus the brains behind all of their endeavours, as well as the voice of reason. All his life G had been fascinated with the way the earth had been before the nuclear disaster that had destroyed it thanks to all of the stories that his parents had told him and his brother as a child and so was always collecting whatever cultural relics from their planet’s past that he could get his hands on from the buildings that he visited in his job as one of Utopia’s architects.

On the outskirts of Dystopia was an enormous abandoned junkyard and at the heart of that junkyard, hidden amongst the rusted remains of broken down cars, trucks, motorbikes and all kinds of other forms of transportation and machinery was the massive wreckage of a single train carriage. Its exterior dirty, rusty and severely dented from the accident that had caused it to be dumped here in the first place with all of its windows either broken or missing and one of its two sets of double doors completely blocked by all of the junk that it was nestled against.

The friends had first discovered the train carriage over a decade ago when they’d been playing in and exploring the junkyard as children, and from that day forth they had claimed it as their clubhouse. In doing so, they’d removed all of the seats from the centre of the carriage’s interior and dumped them at the back of it to create a large seating area for themselves on the floor and had used all of its remaining seats and the spaces between them to store all of the things that they had either found on Dystopia or had stolen from their workplaces in Utopia over the years. As a result, the four young men were now sitting there surrounded by several huge chaotic piles of junk which formed their treasure trove.

After a long and gruelling week in their respective places of work, every Friday night the four childhood friends would hang out in their train carriage clubhouse consuming whatever R had managed to acquire for their gathering that week and playing whatever games B could think of using various pieces from their collection. Tonight’s game was poker, and they were playing it with an extremely tatty pack of cards whose individual cards all came from several different decks and chips in the form of pebbles, bottle caps and any other small bits and bobs from their treasure trove. This week they had really lucked out because R had managed to acquire a big bottle of wine which they were passing around their circle as well as a huge pack of tasty crisps for them all to share.

In the absence of any electricity, their clubhouse was lit only by the flickering golden glow of the huge cuboid candle that they’d set at the centre of their circle.

Their merriment was cut short when the young men suddenly heard the distinctive and unmistakable sounds of a small army of helicopters flying by high overhead. The exact same set of ominous rumbles that G had heard eighteen years ago on the night that his older brother A739 had been taken away from him forever and which the four of them had all heard many times in the almost two decades that passed since then.

Their smiles faded, all of them knowing exactly what that noise meant: yet another unfortunate Dystopian had been selected for harvesting.

They all jumped quickly to their feet and hurried over to their clubhouse’s nearest window, yanked off the big sheet of ragged material that they had hung up to cover the empty space where its glass had once been and peered up at the skies back in the direction of Dystopia. Sure enough, three military helicopters formed a set of ugly black silhouettes against the beautiful colours of the sunset as they flew like angels of death towards the innocent town that stretched along the horizon.

I wonder which poor soul those monsters have come for this time, Z muttered angrily.

Beside him B solemnly removed the blue baseball cap that he’d been wearing backwards on his head and held it against his chest in a display of sorrow.

"G, isn’t that your house they’re heading for?" R asked his friend with concern from where he stood between B and G.

At that the four men studied the helicopters’ path more closely, hoping desperately that this wasn’t true, and G’s eyes filled with alarm when he realised that his friend was indeed correct.

Shit! G cried in horror and then turned and raced for the doorway.

Where are you going? R called after him as G hastily pushed aside the huge slab of wood that was resting against the outside of the empty space where the train carriage’s double doors had once been and then rushed outside into the darkened junkyard beyond.

Come back! B cried as the three friends watched him dash back towards the town after the helicopters.

His heart in his throat, G ran as fast as his strong legs could carry him through the endless maze of the junkyard and then out of it and through the silent darkening streets of Dystopia to his house. The entire time the young man painfully aware that the helicopters not only had a head start but also a huge advantage and trying desperately to beat them to his home so that he could help or hide his parents.

His breathing ragged and his lungs burning, G constantly pushed himself to go faster and faster and even faster still. An endless stream of panicked thoughts racing around and around inside his head as he wondered which of his parents the Utopians were after, whether he would be able to get there in time to stop them and if he even could.

Not again. Not again. Not again. Please not again.

As G rapidly rounded the corner to his house in the distance he saw a group of five heavily armed soldiers filing out of his front door followed by his parents, who both then stood in the doorway together watching them leave looking incredibly relieved.

At the sight of all of the soldiers returning to the first of the three helicopters that were sitting waiting outside his house, G slowed his pace in confusion. Glad to see that they were leaving but wondering why they’d come here in the first place if not for his parents–

Just at that moment all five helmeted-heads suddenly looked over in his direction and when they realised who he was, they immediately came to a halt.

G’s mother and father followed the direction of the soldiers’ gazes and upon seeing that their son had now come home, their relief turned to horror and their eyes filled with alarm.

There he is! shouted the burly soldier who was at the head of their group, and in unison the five of them all turned to face G who had been their target for extraction all along.

G skidded to a halt in shock, realising now that it was not his mother or his father who had been selected for harvesting tonight but him!

And that in racing to his parents rescue, he’d delivered himself right to them.

Run, G! his mother cried.

And that’s exactly what he did.

Chapter 2

Freeze! shouted the burly soldier who was at the head of their group and clearly its leader.

Oh shit! G muttered, and then he did the exact opposite by turning around and running away back the way he’d come.

In response the head soldier bellowed the order "get him!" to his comrades and four of them took off running after their fleeing target while