The Wars of Zegandaria by Atanas Marinov, Atanas Marinov, Atanas Marinov, Atanas Marinov (find a book to read .txt) 📕

As president of that club, her duties included organizing civic engagement gatherings for some of the students. Becky did these things mainly because she was of the opinion that it would improve her people skills, and in doing so she was contributing to socially important causes. But her ulterior motive was to use this modest ‘post’ and the opportunities it offered to open the way for new adventures and challenges. She didn't want to retire like everyone else who was hustling like idiots at the interron fuel refinery on Maerx Street, the Urus Onx interplanetary spaceport that was outside the entire conurbation, or the plexoniarx mines some thirty-five zegandarian miles northeast of Imgradon. She was looking for any possible way to 'get out', she was a smart girl and as such it was well within her capabilities to do so. There was simply no time to waste. Every second was precious and precious.

Once through the plaza, she pulled into one of the side blocks of the main boulevard connecting the central part of the city and the tower dotted with Riandan terraflyers who tapped the entire agglomeration around the clock in the name of the democratic values of the polis. Eavesdropping was even recommended to the citizens themselves, and there was a special price list with small cash rewards for anyone who slandered their neighbor for, for example, throwing their garbage where it didn't belong. In this way, order remained intact. And usually nobody thought of breaking it.

After walking around for a while, a building stood out on her right, which didn't seem to fit in at all with the whole surroundings. On the one hand it was in the central part of town, but it was actually in a well isolated and tucked away area, and on the other it was kind of quaint and old fashioned, out of place as if out of fairy tales. It was the infamous ‘St. Joseph's Clinic’, which housed the social outcasts, the paralyzed, the mentally ill, and also people left to die alone because they were declared ‘hopeless’. It was definitely an abode of suffering and hopelessness, which the citizens of Imgradon quite understandably avoided. It did not, as they put it, ‘make a good advertisement’ for their town. And in their own eyes, they were right to do so, as it was in keeping with the selfish-individualistic values of Imgradon, where personal success was elevated to a pedestal.

Before entering the building, Becky glanced up at the sign and a flash seemed to pierce the sky. A heavy rain had begun to fall, but it was more of an imitation as Governor Elmbaum insisted on the facade and realism of each thing, not caring about the inner substance of it. In the end, it was all 'advertising.' And business.

Even though she was already late for her lectures at the university, she still decided to drop by. Here she'd do a two-week internship, which consisted of swapping hospital electronic patient records. Something rather trivial. But it hadn't gotten any better, as unemployment in the city was significantly high. Thanks to her high grades from university, her own wits, and no small amount of luck, she was here. There was another reason for her zeal, however, and that was the fact that Imgradon's visa policy did not allow any citizen, whoever they were, to leave the confines of the polis without having done the mandatory minimum fifteen days of community service. Completely unpaid. And that was in the ideal case. Under more normal circumstances, the period grew to as much as six months, and in the worst possible scenario, could reach a full year. The ‘Polis Intendancy’ did not look kindly on idlers and invalids, whom it considered utterly useless to society. In other words, even a perfectly healthy and well-educated person who failed to put in the mandatory two weeks until the age of twenty-five was put on a special blacklist and lost any real chance of being hired by anyone. Forever. And that meant starving to death!

Quite a few of the patients of the hospital in question were here for that very reason. Because their brains couldn't contain the reason they had ended up here. Not that this was where they belonged. There was simply nowhere else to house and hide them from the eyes of others.

Becky entered through the rather old-fashioned double-leaf gothic door. But before she did, a thrill of excitement seemed to cut through her stomach. Feeling that the stakes were much higher, so she had no margin for error.

‘You'd think I was pregnant,’ she thought jokingly.

An old lady greeted her at the front desk with a very indefinite smile.

- 'Becky Moringale,' the girl introduced herself with a slight stammer.

The woman looked up from the newspaper she was reading with visible annoyance. Apparently this place was the only place where such things could be seen.

- 'Ah, are you the new addition?,' she added in a drawling and slightly annoyed voice. 'There was no need for you to come today. Pretending to be a freak. But... since you came, I won't be bringing you back.’ she shot her a questioning look, ‘Your desire to survive is obviously strong, since absolutely no one else wanted to intern with us. How ironic, after a few years you find yourself on the top floor of the psych ward.'

Becky listened to the woman's frightening words with a rather undefined, and face hidden behind horn-rimmed glasses and rather well-groomed, albeit false teeth.

- 'You won't have any trouble with me,' Becky said, not wanting to get herself into any unnecessary trouble before it had even started.

- 'I don't doubt it either,' the woman shook her head. 'Youth is like a 'blue spring'. There are so many paths ahead of us, and each one seems true. The trouble is,' she paused briefly, 'they lead nowhere. Well, at least most ...'

Becky didn't blink, but gave the appearance of listening most intently. She knew she shouldn't be distracted; much less let it show.

Starting the day after tomorrow - in the hospital ward on the second floor.

- 'How?,' she barely murmured. 'I was going to sort out the electronic hospital records.'

If it had been anyone else, the old woman would have objected and even gone into a rage. But then she saw before her a pure and good twenty-three-year old girl. Smart and ready to fight. Even if his fight was completely pointless.

- Look what, my girl, you do understand that this city has two faces...

- 'I know,' Becky hastened to reply.

- 'No, you don't,' the woman added sadly. 'I'm here, and every day I hear their screams, their moans, their wheezes. Yesterday, for example, one hung himself from one of the building's synteralial hatches.'

- 'But isn't it gothic? Why are your hatches synteralial?,' she almost hid her indignation.

- 'Because they provide better insulation,' the woman replied calmly. 'Society prefers to pretend it doesn't hear certain things.'

^^^

When she was already in front of the university, the others who had recognized her began to pick up steam. She had been delayed for over a quarter of an hour because of her detention at the clinic.

- 'Where are you getting lost?,' was the question directed from all sides.

- 'We've rung your ultras many times,' Meior looked at her reproachfully, a young man a head taller than her and the only one in the entire class who outclassed her in knowledge.

- ’I don't have an ultraphone. My personal Data Assistant broke,’ she lied.

- Never mind, it's time to voice our clean environment slogan now.

- 'Did you prepare your speech, remember?,' Meior asked her, a little hurried and inspired.

Becky was ready with her speech much earlier, but it all seemed a bit pointless to her. Not because their cause wasn't worth it, but because she knew how Elmbaum dealt with the likes of them. He called them 'vain' and set specific measures in order to neutralize them.

- 'The risk is worth it,' a girl with a ginger goatee named Reona called. 'Let's go.’

Just as they were about to step onto the anti-graffiti steps in front of the campus rectory, they heard the roar of Oronium beepers. Their howl meant 'Alert.'

- 'It's unlikely that Elmbaum has figured out our intentions just from the riandan terrafleters. Those are pretty exabytes of audio. Even artificial intelligence needs time to read and analyze them among the hundreds of thousands of recordings to find some of the 'dangerous' code words,' Becky muttered in frustration.

Suddenly, as if out of nowhere, people began to flee, shouting, ‘A momentary martial law is declared!’ The crowd was coming from the northeastern part of the city. It swept everything like a wave. It looked like a herd of mad cattle that just wanted to survive. In less than a minute they would be upon them and running them over.

The group of 'adventurers' instantly looked around and began frantically searching for some safer place to hide. But there was none.

- 'We could use the curves of one of the buildings to climb up and watch from above,' Reona suggested.

They began to climb and ended up in a side 'terrace' about two meters off the ground. This was just what was called a ‘breathing passage’ between the university building and an auxiliary annex for student practice.

The wave of people was getting bigger and bigger and could almost have flooded half the polys. Everyone was screaming and fighting, trying to get further away from the danger. Suddenly a police cordon set up on the opposite side of the square. An indescribable melee spun out between the two great masses of humanity, which became a bloody massacre.

- 'You cannot enter the quarantine zone. The western part of the city has been sealed off. Stand down or we'll open fire.,' ordered some lieutenant with a hoarse voice and a helmet of reinforced kevlarite.

The crowd didn't hear him and continued its chaotic rush in the forbidden direction.

- 'Get ready. One-two-three. Take off the guards,' the lieutenant in question issued quick orders, 'Fire!'

The fragmentary recoils of the neuroshock rifles silenced some of the men. Even under martial law, no real plasma weapons were used against civilians, and they were deadly. Some of the rear ranks were tripping over the already fallen. There was an indescribable friction.

- 'We can't go back home,' Meior cut in.

- 'I have an idea of a safe place,' cut in Becky. 'St Joseph's Clinic. Nobody's going to head there. At least not right away. Everyone wants to escape to the more central western part of town. All we can do is wait for the mob to break the cordon and run.'

- 'They won't make it. The police will hold them off,' Reona feared.

- 'Will they?,' called Hisoo, a short and stocky, topless boy with glasses.

As if to support his suspicions, the stream began to flood the far outnumbered police units.

- 'Sir, the neuroshock weapon charges are running low!,' some soldier squealed.

- 'This time use the plasma rifles!,' the lieutenant bellowed.

- 'But that's against orders!,' the soldier tried to object.

- 'Go to hell! Act! I take it all on myself...,' muttered the lieutenant.

- 'I can't look,' Reona covered her eyes, but Becky didn't flinch. She was just sort of frozen in shock.

- 'Let's go,' Meior urged them, and they backed into the narrow gap to the other street. 'The clinic