Inner City Page 5

  “Yes,” came the cold response of someone who had just been interrupted.

  “It’s Callen.”

  “Callen?”

  “Let me in!”

  A camera whirred to life. It swivelled to get Callen in frame. A buzzer sounded and the lock on the front door snapped.

  “Come on up,” came the voice, suddenly sounding softer and more welcoming.

  Callen travelled the lift up to the twenty third story. He walked down the corridor, passed twenty-three fourteen, fifteen and sixteen, until he stood outside his very own door. Twenty-Three Seventeen, One fifty three Grant Street West. A lock on the door opened and Callen’s face lit up in anticipation. A stranger greeted him.

  “Callen, is it?”

  Callen’s face dropped. Where were his mother and father? Why weren’t they home and why was this strange man inside his house? The man ushered Callen in.

  “I was told you may pay me a visit,” he said.

  “Where’s my mum and dad?” Callen asked.

  “Moved away. They had to. It’s the law when you lose a child.”

  Callen froze. This was one aspect of being reassigned he’d not been taught at school and he wondered how many more unwelcome surprises awaited him. He didn’t have to wait long to find out. The door buzzer sounded and the man went to speak into the security panel to the side of the door.

  “Hello,” he said knowing full well who it was.

  “Police.”

  “I’ll buzz you in.”

  The man turned with a guilty look on his face. Callen was staring back in a way that must have made the poor man wish he had not followed the very specific orders he’d been given.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “The police called the day after I moved in. They thought you may come here.”

  Callen said nothing. He quickly ran to every room in the flat. Every room was different. Not one piece of furniture remained that Callen recognised. His previous life had been reduced to the memories he held with him. It was as if his real parents never existed.

  A knock on the door signalled the arrival of the police. The new occupant of the flat opened the door and showed a young woman in uniform into Callen’s old bedroom. The room was now a study, set up to act as a home office, the walls lined with a multitude of reading disks. Callen stood in its centre looking at the unfamiliar furnishings as the policewoman entered. He turned and looked to her with defeated eyes.

  “Callen. Come with me, please” she said, before standing with an outstretched hand in an effort to look compassionate.

  “This is my room. I live here,” Callen said in a weak and pleading voice.

  “It’s not your room. It’s this man’s room and you’re going to have to leave,” she said with a little more authority in her voice.

  “It’s my room and I’ll prove it.” Callen went to the window sill and crouched to find a weak inscription in a shaky juvenile hand, written on its underside. It said, ‘Callen Carrus woz here’.

  “Here, look!” he implored.

  But neither the policewoman nor the new flat owner came forward to look. They knew Callen had belonged to this room, and they knew he belonged no more.

  “Please come with me,” said the officer as she took Callen’s arm.

  Callen began to cry.

  “I just want to see my mummy and daddy.”

  “And they want to see you,” came the officer’s reply as she walked with Callen to the door. Callen knew who the policewoman was talking of. The Helfners were waiting to get their new son back. Callen’s real parents, Leona and Jonathan, were lost to him and he now knew he had no hope of ever tracking them down. From this point on, Callen would regard himself as having two distinct and separate childhoods. And the first day of the second of those was about to begin.

  Chapter 6.

  Annie Helfner came into the kitchen at a trot.

  “He’s coming,” she said to her husband, Raegher, who was standing nearby lighting the very last of the candles on a freshly iced cake. He implored his wife to calm down.

  “Let me enjoy myself,” she snapped over her shoulder before issuing a loud “Shush”. Callen strode through the door to the kitchen. Both Annie and Raegher yelled, ‘Happy birthday!’ in unison. Callen smiled the pathetic smile of a teenager who allows his parents to indulge in birthday ceremonies at great personal embarrassment. He thanked them both. The cake read, ‘Happy 19th B’day, Callen’; the abbreviation due to Annie’s inability to fit any more letters on the surface of the cake.

  Within an hour Callen was expected at university for the day’s first lecture. He was a large athletic boy with blonde hair and piercing blue eyes. His smile and manner projected a confidence beyond his years. In every way he’d grown into a natural leader and was certainly one of the most popular and best known young men in first year at the university. Annie and Raegher were extremely proud of their boy. He was one of a handful who had done well enough at high school to qualify to attend university with all its social and personal contact advantages. The remaining majority of students sat at home learning from lectures delivered through viewers.

  The three had a piece of cake each before Callen grabbed his bag and headed away. Annie and Raegher were left behind feeling somewhat empty. In silence they began to clean the kitchen and return it to its usual pristine state.

  Callen walked the twenty minute journey to the underground carriage system, a journey he’d made every day since graduating high school. On reaching the station he swiped his band over the barcode and the light snapped from red to green. He sat on one of the plastic benches deep in thought - he was nineteen years old. He’d lived longer with his second parents than he’d done with his first. The thought upset him. He hadn’t thought about his first parents for some time.

  He rode the carriage to the college station and joined his classmates in their first lecture. It was a relatively boring beginning to what should have been a milestone day for the young man. The feeling of boredom was something he felt towards his entire life. Callen was resigned to the fact that, without taking extraordinary measures, it was something he couldn’t change. The world of the city was too well planned to allow for the unexpected. He kept these thoughts to himself, even when they grew stronger and redefined themselves in his mind. To make such feelings known would only bring him trouble.

  After their first lecture, Callen and his three best friends, Jenny, Simone and Jay sat enjoying each other’s company on the synthetic grass of the quadrangle. Word had quickly spread about Callen’s birthday and he’d already received five personal message crystals to be delivered in holographic reality when he got to home.

  A very pretty young girl named Alecia came to him and asked for a private word. Callen’s friends teased him, knowing Alecia had been trying to get closer to Callen since he and Jenny split. Alone, Alecia took her personal crystal from around her neck and handed it to him.

  “I’ve taken off the privacy codes,” she said. “Just for your birthday”.

  Callen politely accepted and they both returned to the group. Callen shouldn’t have had a care in the world, but there were many thoughts he had that he felt unable to share with anyone. He often felt no-one really knew him and worried, in this modern world there was little chance anyone ever would. His ex girlfriend, Jenny was a good case in point. They were still good friends and supposedly as close as two young people could be, and yet, they were as good as strangers. He’d once tried to discuss some of the ideas he had on the city and his particular passion the Outlocked world with her, but she’d quickly dismissed his ideas as ridiculous and Callen’s refusal to drop the subject was the reason she eventually decided being together was too much of a commitment. Her mind, like so many others, would only ever contain the information approved by authorities.

  The day came to a monotonous end, as it had on so many days before. Callen walked quietly to the station with his thoughts. Sat in isolation on the crowded carriage and then walked the twenty minutes h
ome. He arrived home on this special day, to find his father pouring over accounts to keep the factory he owned up to quota. His mother was cooking, having completed her day’s routine and the library of programs on the home viewer remained, as they always did, on call should he wish to relax before dinner. Callen didn’t. At least tonight he had something to pass the time. He reached into his pocket as he stood short of entering the kitchen. His hand found the crystals from his friends. He poked his head into the kitchen, kissed his mother hello and explained that he had some work he wanted to get done before dinner. Annie reminded him it was his birthday, so he’d have to make sure he left enough time to indulge his parents on this special night. He promised he would and headed away to his room.

  Callen immediately switched on his computer’s simulator. A holographic image of Simone flickered to life. A sponge like application stretched itself to fill out her features. He could make her any size he wanted and the technology would give her the look and feel of being with him in the room.

  He listened to her chat and wish him happy birthday, before playing all his other messages. Finally he got to Alecia’s crystal and listened to her message – inviting him to undress her. True to her word the privacy settings were off, meaning Callen was free to use her image any way he wished. He couldn’t say no, he was a nineteen year old male after all.

  Across the room his mother’s image flickered to life on his viewer screen.

  “Cal, are you busy?” she asked.

  Callen jumped away from the simulator.

  “I was changing,” he said as he moved into view.

  “Dinner’s ready.”

  His viewer went to black and his mother’s image disappeared. He shook his head in disbelief for having forgotten to bar calls.

  His birthday meal was everything it should be. He told of his day at university. Raegher told of his quotas and how everything at the plant seemed well. Annie talked of her social commitments with her friends, all of whom were determined by falling into the same socio-economic class. After dinner, presents were brought out alongside the remainder of Callen’s cake. He received a new pocket viewer and a number of environment simulations to travel and learn from and a few disks to help with his studies. Callen knew he was a very fortunate young man.

  Another day at university and Callen wandered towards his first lecture with no real enthusiasm.

  “Did you enjoy Alecia’s Crystal?”

  It was Jenny, Callen’s ex girlfriend. Before he could say anything, she grabbed him by the arm and walked him down some plastic circular stairs to a nearby garden.

  “Where are we going?” he asked.

  “You hardly talk to me anymore.”

  “We still hang out together.”

  “But we don’t talk anymore.”

  “Yes we do. And you broke up with me, remember?”

  That annoyed Jenny. She was still regretting her decision to split up given she had strong feelings for Callen. She couldn’t deny she missed him. Before they were lovers they’d been best friends and now she missed confiding in him.

  “I miss how we used to let each other know what’s going on,” she said.

  Callen just shrugged.

  “Whose fault is that,” he said, still hurt by her leaving him.

  “Can’t we try to go back to how it was before we got together?”

  “Are you going to take me seriously about the Outlocked?”

  “Don’t start with that again.”

  “There’s a lot more. I only told you the smallest bit.”

  Jenny stared at him intently, she was intrigued.

  “Like what?”

  Callen wanted to talk to someone openly about the one constant thought in his head, but she’d already shown she wouldn’t tolerate his ideas.

  “Aren’t you sick of everything we have to put up with?” he asked, “The rules, the work, chasing a career. All the pressure they put on us?”

  “There’s not much we can do about it.”

  “What if there’s another way?” he said. “A new way no-one’s ever thought of before.”

  “And you think you can find it?”

  “I’ve been outside the city. When I was seven. When I ran away.”

  Jenny looked at him stunned.

  Callen had started now and he wasn’t about to stop.

  She already knew about his reassignment as a seven year old, but she’d never heard of the excursion into the land of the Outlocked.

  “You don’t think it was just a dream like everyone says?”

  “Maybe, I don’t know for sure. That’s why I’m going to find out. I remember the way out of the city,” he said. “I’m going to try to find it again and see if it really happened.”

  Jenny showed alarm.

  “You’re going to get hurt, or arrested.”

  “Not if I’m right! Why couldn’t I have been stitched up by them and sent home?”

  Jenny knew of the debate Callen had waged with his parents about his ‘magical’ stitches and she suddenly understood why it was so important for his parents to prove which doctor had treated him.

  “Imagine if it was the Outlocked?” Callen enthused. “Do you have any idea what that would mean?”

  “Stop it. You know what those people are like.”

  “From what we’ve been taught. But what if everyone’s wrong about them?”

  “I won’t listen to this. And you promise me you won’t do anything stupid.”

  She glared at him.

  Callen could see how worried Jenny was and he wilted, nodding slowly.

  “Promise?” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Now never talk like that again.”

  Jenny gave him one last look and walked towards the stairs heading away to her lecture. Callen called after her.

  “You won’t say anything to anyone, will you?”

  Jenny paused on the steps and looked back to him.

  “No,” she said as she disappeared up the stairs.

  Callen took a few paces to the plastic bench in amongst the artificial ferns scattered around the garden nearby. He sat alone. The city had a hold of him and it gave him little optimism for his future. He had study to complete for a graded assessment in order to be judged for a career. Once in that career he had to work for twenty to thirty years to qualify for promotion. The alternative was to try and start a company of his own in order to qualify to raise a child. Or, he could always choose a safer path, waiting until he inherited his parents business before starting a family of his own.

  Callen’s mother, Annie, was fifty nine and Raegher was sixty three. Callen was nineteen. With the average life expectancy what it was, he could expect to inherit his family’s company close to his ninetieth birthday. The thought wasn’t one that helped.

  His concentration was taken by an odd smell nearby – was it smoke? From amongst the large artificial ferns some distance away, clouds of smoke rose and expanded. Callen walked into the garden to investigate. Sitting cross legged in a neck to knee black dress was a young girl. She looked up, shielding her eyes from the light.

  She lifted up a rolled joint towards him. Possession of marijuana had been legalised for almost one hundred years. However, in an ironic twist, six months after the legalisation of cannabis, smoking was outlawed for being a serious health risk. Callen was confused. Every child above ten was given a reactive shot.

  A reactive shot blocked the brain senses that allowed synthetically produced chemical substances from stimulating activity. The result being social drugs had no effect. The girl held up her rolled joint. Callen waved the offer away, knowing the act in itself held a risk. If he was to derive nothing from it but the thrill of taking that risk, he’d rather pass. The girl in black stared at Callen with her dark eyes glazed in a fashion that could only mean one thing.

  “It’s real,” she said in a slow drawl. “I grew it from a seed.”

  Callen couldn’t believe what he was hearing. If the dope was nat
ural and not synthetic the reactive shot would have no effect. He slowly reached out and took the joint from the girl’s hand. He took a draw and held the smoke to his lungs. He released and repeated the same, before passing the joint back to the girl in the forest of plastic leaves surrounding them. Callen sat with her. His body tingled and his head grew light. He watched nothing, he thought of nothing and he said nothing meaningful as minutes passed. The joint was offered three more times and each time Callen took it. Each minute collected like a thick paste into a quarter hour and then half hour. Finally students came from the halls and then disappeared just as quickly. The plastic leaves were proving an effective cover as the apathetic ride continued.

  Coming down from their shared joint, Callen began to talk with his new best friend. He wondered where she found a seed to grow anything, let alone real weed. The girl in black was a philosophy major who studied with an unorthodox Professor. He gave her the seed to try in first year when she proved to be an outstanding student. Through careful cultivation, she now had plenty on hand and had spent much of the past four years in partial hibernation. She brought up Callen’s experience outside the city, explaining that she overheard his earlier conversation with Jenny. She explained that her Professor used hypothetical hypothesis to expand thought within his course. Many of these hypotheses concerned the Outlocked. According to her, the Professor had a wild imagination and would often make up scenarios that forced his students to think beyond the boundaries of authorised thoughts. Callen was keen to hear more, but the girl in black was more interested in other matters. She lit up a second joint and quickly drew back before offering it to Callen. Callen’s mind was spinning with the idea of exploring scenarios concerning the world outside the City. It was exactly the sort of thing he needed to free some of the demons that had attached themselves to him when he was only seven years old. He wanted to get up and go and find the professor’s class straight away, but his body wanted to stay where it was. The girl in black was still pushing the second joint his way and try as he might to refuse it, he couldn’t. If the afternoon was to be an exception, it should be a good exception and not a half hearted one.