The Raid

Written for a 3000 word short story prompt for; "There’s been a lot of talk lately about where society is headed. This week, write a story or scene set in the near future — anywhere between a few years from now to a century or so — and explore where we might end up."

"Nanny Helen, why do you have that scar on your shoulder?"

Helen gently poked the perfect circle of almost silver skin with her finger.

“I got that when I was about your age,” she said with a warm smile.

“What happened?” asked Emily.

“If you sit down properly, I’ll tell you.”

Emily climbed onto the cushion beside her and crossed her legs.

Helen had a cup of tea in her hand as she stared out of the patio door window. The sun was just beginning to set on the horizon, a golden glow cut through the mist that was settling on the hills beyond the lake, its waters gently lapping at the bank near the back of the cottage. She had been watching the young men on the far side of the water putting the freshly sheared sheep back to pasture.

To Emily, this peaceful existence at Rendlesham Commune, it’s cottages, the large woodlands, the artificial lake, they were the norm. She had no reason to be grateful or impressed. She had never known anything different. Helen listened to the sound of the oak trees around the cottage sway gently in the wind, they had been mere saplings when she arrived over sixty years ago.

"I was eight years old," Helen said at last, turning from the window and sipping from her cup. “I was still living in London then. The city was so big, that you couldn't see the edge of it from any window, no matter how high up you were. We lived in these great Temp Towers. They went up so high that on some days, people lived up in the clouds. Thousands lived in each block.”

“If they lived in a tower, where did they grow the food?"

"They didn't,” said Helen with a laugh. “It came to the door. Little machines brought it, like they still bring bits here, today. They’d come trundling along the corridors, and they’d leave you your rations. Nobody had to work. The City Mind thought of everything for you. It watched you sleep, it knew when you were hungry, when you were ill, it was incredible really.”

********

Helen had lived on the one hundred and twelfth floor of a block that had no name. Her father worked through the Neural Link, monitoring city systems which would have run without human interference regardless. The City Mind rewarded people who volunteered their time to do small jobs with slightly better food and credits that could be spent in the Neuroverse. In reality, it was just an attempt to keep city residents from completely losing their minds.

Her mother spent a few hours a week visiting elderly people in person. Many, not just the elderly, refused to succumb to the temptation of endless, full sensory entertainment. They tended to be put together in the slums at the edge of the city. You’d see gangs of them sometimes on the street below. Always getting into trouble with the authorities. Although, ironically they made up a significant recruitment pool for the Security Services.

Most of the population, drifted through gardens that did not exist, held conversations and ‘relations’ with people who may or may not have been real and played endless virtual reality games. The perfect bread and circus. Every possible sight, sound, touch, smell, taste - all simulated perfectly within your own mind.

As tempting as the Neuroverse had been, slowly but surely, people were losing their humanity. Reduced to pets for AI systems which, whilst they had the people’s best interests at heart, were slowly driving them mad.

The Temp Towers were never meant to be a permanent solution. They were holding pens. Huge, comfortable, humane cells for a population the earth could no longer sustain. Food was grown in large aquaponic warehouses, using the heat of server rooms located underground. Trout and shellfish were the main source of protein, and potatoes the staple. Occasionally there would be some uncommon treats. After the AMOC collapse, it was the most anyone could hope for.

The great cities gave a person everything the old world had promised. A life free from hunger and protection from the now long and frigid winters. But as pleasant as those simple comforts were, it was the Neuroverse that people really wanted. A paradise of your own choosing. The monotony of a world without purpose, relieved by infinite experiences.

Helen had been born into that world. Every friend she had had, every class she attended, was through the Neural Link. Any and all experiences, save for bedtime, meals and the gymnasium, occurred in that virtual space.

Decades after the Temp Towers had first been built, the climate slowly begun to stabilise and the soil, long ravished by intensive agriculture slowly began to heal. The AMOC began to show signs of movement, albeit slowly, and word of an alliance between the City Minds and the remaining few ultra-wealthy individuals began to circulate. Rumours of mega-projects out in the wilderness. People, accustomed as they were to their pitiful existence, began to worry. Everyone across the Neuroverse was talking about it.

Accounts of vehicles taking families from the Temp Towers in the dead of night filled the population with dread. Word about these events spread, and no matter how hard the algorithm tried to suppress it, one word was on everyone’s mind; genocide. And yet, confined as they were to the great cities, there was little most could do.

One night Helen was laying in bed asleep when she was awoken to the sound of boots stomping through their living area. She heard her mother’s scream, as a sliver of light switched on abruptly and shone through the gap in her bedroom door. The Security Services were here. Dressed all in black, helmets on, balaclavas hiding their faces. Each one of them brandishing rifles.

“Wake up and form a line outside!” one of the men shouted. He was the only one with a luminous orange band on his epaulettes, so Helen thought he must be the leader. “You're not being harmed. Please, just do as you are asked.”

Helen came to the threshold of her bedroom and watched with wide eyes in her little blue nightie as her mum and dad were pushed out into the outside corridor.

The leader looked up at Helen, and for a moment, their eyes locked. She screamed. A bloodcurdling sound of pure terror before she ran back into her room and crawled desperately under her bed.

One of the officers followed her, grabbed her foot and pulled her free with one arm as she wriggled frantically.

“Let go, Mummy, help!”

The officer picked her up and held her tight to stop her kicking before carrying her to the corridor. Her father tried in vain to comfort her but she could tell from the look in his eyes that they were just as scared as she was. There were other families out here in the corridor now, all in their night clothes, all as scared as they were.

Once out on the street level, Helen looked about at the security vehicles gathered around the base of the towers, their bright blue flashing lights obnoxious and disorientating. Families were being led, sobbing and fearful, along the road, a string of officers marshalling the crowd in a particular direction.

A few blocks away was a number of white coaches with blacked out windows. Helen’s mum cried loudly when she first saw them. Helen looked up at her father, his face stoic, but his body language rigid and on edge. Nobody in the crowd seemed willing or able to resist the armed men around them.

A loud shouting began to emanate from somewhere up ahead, beyond the parked coaches. The officers appeared to become agitated.

“Stop, here!” shouted the leader. “Lean up against this wall.”

The families did as they were told, taking refuge along the pillars and the overhanging ledge of a Temp Tower above them.

Helen heard a number of voices shouting for everyone to get back before it happened; an ear rupturing explosion. The street briefly lit up in a bright orange fireball as one of the coaches was blown apart. Small pieces of debris skidded across the road. Helen’s dad held her close, desperately shielding her. Then the battle commenced.

A group of fifty or so unarmed men made their way down the street towards the line of security officers who had now moved ahead of the civilians. One of the men threw a bottle which smashed into a ball of flame, briefly setting fire to one of the officers.

Within seconds, the sound of gunfire rippled through the air, the sound echoing off of the grid of tall buildings that surrounded them. Helen held her hands over her ears and squeezed her eyes shut as she struggled to comprehend the warzone she had just woken up to. When her eyes did open however, she was surprised to see no dead people laying in the street. No blood. The men were running back the way they had come. One of the officers aimed his weapon and fired again and Helen watched as the rounds appeared to bounce off their target. One particularly portly fellow who lagged behind his comrades flinched as he was hit in the back, but wasn't fazed.

“They're rubber bullets...” her dad said, a small amount of relief coming through in his voice.

Then there was a squealing of tyres behind them. A van that looked to be at least eighty years old, wheel arches covered in rust and panels dented all over, skidded to a halt and the side door slid opened. Inside of it, three men were operating some sort of home made weapon. A large ballista fashioned from what looked like old car suspension springs and a hand crank.

They fired a single bolt, perhaps three foot long which struck one of the security officers directly in the visor of his helmet, sending him down with a sickening thud. The back of his head impacted the concrete and a pool of blood slowly collected around the base of his neck. He clutched at his head, still alive and conscious as his fellow officers barked commands and tried to drag him back out of the road.

The sight of the violence was too much. Across the street on a small patch of grass was a bush. The perfect hiding place. She slipped her father’s grip and ran across the road just as the officers were raising their weapons to return fire at the assailants.

Bang!

She felt an immediate, excruciating pain strike her left shoulder. Caught in the crossfire, even a rubber bullet at this close distance caused her to lose her footing and go scraping across the road.

A second bolt was fired by the van, this one ineffective, before it wheelspun away, followed by a number of security drones.

Helen cried out in agony, her skin split open almost to the bone, a dark patch of crimson quickly growing through the thin fabric of her nightie. Then nothing. A darkness took her, the stress of the night too much for her young mind to comprehend.

The following day was a chaotic bustle that Helen largely blotted out but the next thing she knew, she was laying in hospital, her mother by her side. Her father had been taken, her mother said. Out to something they called the Communes. Nobody had quite explained what they were, but Helen noted the slightly more positive note in her mother's voice.

A few hours later, Helen and her mother were bundled into the back of a Security Service's car. The checkpoint waved them through and the colossal east gate opened onto what was once the A12. The dual carriageway now mostly confined to a single trackway going both directions due to the encroachment of vegetation onto the roads. This was the story pretty much everywhere. Agricultural fields, that went fallow, now in a dishevelled state of hollies, brambles and young saplings as the earth finally showed signs of healing. It was beautiful.

The Security Officer didn't say much on the way. Helen got the impression that he didn't come out of the city very often and was probably just enjoying a rare excursion.

“What's that!” cried Helen suddenly, almost jumping out of her seat. Four great machines, box like and painted in a cautionary yellow, walking slowly on two legs in the distance.

“Oh, those?” said the officer. “They're demolition bots. They tear down the old towns and villages. Well, the buildings that aren't of a historical significance, anyway.”

Helen watched, enchanted as great giants lumbered behind a wall of trees on the hillside.

“Why are they tearing down the old towns?” asked Helen's mother.

“We don't need them anymore.”

The car pulled in through the guarded gate of a fenced compound. Helen's mother squeezed her hand as the person in the guardhouse checked their documents. Then the car set off again down a single track lane, thick vegetation on either side. Then there was a sign.

Welcome to Rendlesham Commune.

The lane opened out into a large, empty carpark and a welcome centre across the way. Their driver said goodbye and the Helen and her mother approached the timber building.

Helen's father came out to greet them, alongside an elderly looking gentleman with a white beard. The three embraced one another, glad to be back together. Glad, if anything, to see that they were all alive and well.

The bearded gentleman introduced himself as Lord Clarke. He had a warm face, and was well dressed in a suit and bow-tie. He welcomed the new arrivals briefly as a small driverless car pulled up to the front of the building.

“Since you missed orientation yesterday, shall we give you the tour?” he said, extending a hand to the opened door of the vehicle.

The little car trundled down a single lane flanked by cosy, weatherboarded cottages built between young woodland trees. Foxgloves and Dog Rose grew in patches beside the road and already, there were children playing and cycling around.

“So we don't often drive around the commune,” Clarke said, “when residents finally get given access to vehicles, they will remain in the car park. Only the services use these lanes. Otherwise everyone cycles or walks.”

At the centre of the commune, was what he called the village hub, a large structure three or four stories tall, surrounded by a number of smaller local shops providing essential goods and services.

“In the hub,” he explained, “there are gyms, a cinema, equipment libraries, repair cafes. You name it. And the shops outside cater for basic meat and vegetables. You'll be given ration cards.”

Beside the hub, was a large lake. The banks closest to the hub had been covered in sand to create an artificial beach, where families were already having picnics. Around the edge, Helen noted the cottages that banked on to it, and the fields at the far end with some creatures roaming free on the low hillside.

“What are they!?” asked Helen excitedly.

“Those? They are sheep,” said Clarke. “I don't suppose you've ever seen any real animals in your life, have you. We have lots of wildlife here, too."

“You have real meat?” asked Helen's mother.

“We do. Most of the residents here work full-time growing food. We use a combination of agroforestry and permaculture. We still get grain deliveries for bread and potatoes, but we are mostly self-sufficient.

“And the Neuroverse?” mother asked, tentatively.

“Banned.”

“Why?”

“Long story short, because after the population collapse and the Temp Towers, humanity is going extinct. The comfort of living in towers, wired up to every conceivable pleasure, was killing us. Hence why we have had to essentially force residents to live in these communes. Manual labour and close knit communities gives people well needed purpose."

"So why were we snatched"?

"Because when we tried voluntary resettlement, people couldn't handle it and wanted to go back. So we stopped explaining or giving a choice. We have to be cruel to be kind. People love it once they're settled. It takes around three months, usually."

Helen didn't care about the lack of the Neuroverse or the comforts of the towers. She saw green trees, flowers. Squirrels jumping from tree to tree. Heard birds singing and the drilling of a woodpecker somewhere out of sight. And children playing, who she desperately couldn't wait to join.

"We find the kids adjust much quicker," Clarke said with a smile as he noted the look of excitement on Helen's face.

"But the question everyone always asks when they get here," Clarke said, "is why the secrecy? Why not just tell everyone. And the truth is that not everyone can move out. For some, the behavioural sink has just addled their minds. We have a very accurate algorithm for testing suitability. For those who aren't suitable, they're better off sedated in the towers. They don't reproduce, anyway."

"That sounds barbaric!" said Helen's mother, angrily.

"Early experiments showed moving anyone in just led to violence and depravation. I'm not saying it's perfect..."

*********

"And that's how our family ended up in Rendlesham!" said Nanny Helen, cuddling up next to Emily on the sofa.

Emily smiled as a group of geese pecked at the glass patio door, begging for frozen peas and bread as the sun had finally dipped down below the horizon painting the lake and the sky in a vibrant red.

"Nanny..." said Emily.

"Yes, darling?"

"I'm glad our family ended up here," she said quietly, as though conspiratorially.

"So am I, my lovely. So am I."