Inner City Read online

  Callen woke to find himself alone in his garden of plastic ferns. He had no idea how long he’d been asleep and he felt every aspect of having just woken up to a greater degree than usual. He staggered to his feet and looked at his watch. The last lectures had ended almost an hour ago. He began to walk towards the station, each step having its own beginning, middle and end. It would prove a slow journey.

  By the time he’d boarded a carriage and sat watching the flickering images through the window, he was sure his body was rid of the drug’s affect. He sat reading the name of his station, not registering what it meant. The carriage pulled out as he gazed at nothing out the window. Only then did he realise his attention had wandered and he’d missed his stop. He got off the carriage at the next platform and travelled the twenty five minute walk to his own neighbourhood. The walk was a blessing in disguise. His mother greeted him as he walked in the door. She shouted details of dinner, which wasn’t far away. Callen moved silently upstairs to his room. He lay on his bed and fell asleep. A heartbeat later, his father shook him awake. Dinner waited. Callen was quieter than usual as he ate and he tried to answer all the questions sent his way by his parents. It wasn’t an easy task and only once was he aware that his answer made no sense what-so-ever. The end of dinner came and Callen excused himself to head to his room. He dragged his clothes off his body and slumped into bed. He fell asleep straight away, for once, without a thought of anything entering his mind.

  The next day Callen woke and was ready to roll over and go back to sleep, when he remembered what he’d been told of the radical Professor. He wasn’t a philosophy major, but as an enrolled student he was able to sit in on any lecture, no one would really care. Suddenly his mind was alert and alive with possibilities about what he’d encounter. He couldn’t wait to get the day underway.

  At college he went to the timetable viewer and checked the day’s lectures. First year philosophy fell in the first rotation - the perfect place for Callen to drop in and experience the Professor first hand. Callen entered the building and took a seat. The hall quickly filled and with much rustling and chatter still emanating from the students, the man Callen had heard so much about, Professor Klim, strode to the rostrum. His preamble was brief and he called for ideas from the students. No-one volunteered anything. Professor Klim was unimpressed and changed from delivering a lecture to challenging people directly.

  “Your ideas won’t get you into trouble in here. But unless you get involved and place those ideas on the table, I’m afraid we’re going to be in for a very uninteresting year.”

  There was silence as Professor Klim looked over the lecture theatre.

  “Let me kick you off,” he continued. “In Chapter Three I examine what is known by the term, monetary fund, also known as ‘bailing out’. This was a system of support invoked in the late Twentieth and Twenty-First centuries, where the most advanced nations propped up less developed countries in terms of productivity and economic viability. By doing this, it was hoped the world economy would remain stable. This was known as ‘Lifeboat Economics’. Eventually, it was felt this practice would result in the lifeboat nations being swamped and dragged under, alongside the nations they were trying to save. This provoked the ‘lending twelve’, or richest twelve countries to adopt the ‘Lifeboat Principle’. Countries were graded for wealth and potential, and this grade determined who would remain in the lifeboats and who would be left to sink to the bottom of the economic ocean.

  What followed for those countries left out, was war, famine and other major Malthusian checks to population. Then, just short of two hundred years ago, a second level lifeboat principle was invoked, suitably called, ‘The Lifeboat Precedent’, where major cities within the surviving advanced nations could no longer support struggling and overpopulated rural centres. With the advent of synthetic and genetically altered food substitutes, rural areas were no longer as important an asset. The critical factor to survival became a regulated population with controlled negative population growth. The solution: a city with monastic regulations, ensuring the survival of our advanced civilisation. Do we all follow these basic turning points in the history of our modern cities?”

  A mummer of understanding trickled its way amongst the students.

  “Then let me put forward a new idea into your very empty heads,” said the Professor enjoying his role as chief agitator.

  “The Lifeboat Precedent was put in place almost two hundred years ago. So why can’t we, now that the Outlocked have reduced their numbers through poor management and aggression, reclaim their land as our own and expand the city?”

  The question hung about the students who were genuinely intrigued by the idea. One young girl tentatively put forward that the Outlocked would attack any who ventured onto their land. The Professor agreed, but then pointed out the city could easily produce weapons that would nullify any Outlocked from attacking with ‘one of their sharpened sticks’. Another student argued that the land was useless, arid and polluted. It was nothing more than a tip, to be used up and filled with the emissions of the city. Again the Professor agreed, before countering that the city also had the technology to turn the land from arid plains into fertile productive fields. The suggestions continued for some time. Whatever was suggested, the Professor had an answer for. It seemed as far as he was concerned, there was no conceivable reason why they shouldn’t invade and take what they wanted from outside the city’s walls.

  With his argument won, the Professor changed his tone.

  “Why?” he asked, “Would we fall into making the same historic mistakes of the past?”

  Callen sat listening as Professor Klim made a final argument that scuttled everything he’d earlier proposed.

  “The city has all the resources it needs and its population is at peace and reducing. Why would we upset the equilibrium of this by being greedy, a mistake made through history and finally overcome by our more civilised leaders?”

  The mood in the hall relaxed, as the argument fell into keeping with what the students expected to hear. Callen couldn’t believe a discussion that held so much promise had fallen away to nothing.

  “Maybe they don’t want us there,” he called out during a suitable silence. Professor Klim’s head snapped up from his electronic panelled lectern. Students suddenly turned to look at Callen. There was a moment’s silence before the Professor asked him to expand the very provocative thought.

  Callen looked nervous.

  “Come on, you’ve said the first interesting thing I’ve heard all day. Don’t let me down now.”

  “How can we be certain we shut them out? Maybe they locked us in?”

  Laughter let up from the other students and Professor Klim even enjoyed the suggestion, which was clearly being treated as a joke.

  “You think every great thinker of the modern age has propagated some kind of giant conspiracy against us, do you?” he was mocking the suggestion. The other students enjoyed what they considered light relief. Callen was a long way from seeing anything funny about his remark. Professor Klim continued in his patronising tone.

  “Outlocked are Outlocked. They kill with prehistoric weapons and know nothing of being civilised. Anyone who’s ever seen an Outlocked face to face wouldn’t suppose them to be anything more, even in my class,” he said, staring directly at Callen with quite a serious glare.

  “Have you seen one face to face?” Callen asked, causing other students to sit in stunned silence. The exchange had clearly crossed the line from a silly diversion to a serious attack on conventional thinking. Klim brought his finger to his chin and began to tapping it as he considered how to answer the question. He’d been after participation from a class that had shown little interest. Now he was receiving more interest than he cared to handle and all in front of a large group of students, with the viewer cam, high on the back wall, cabling the discussion to those watching live from their homes.

  “No,” he said. “Why would anyone ever think of leaving the city?” />
  Callen shook his head in disbelief at the Professor’s gal at teaching what he didn’t know. He rose from his seat and began to walk from the lecture hall in disgust.

  “We’re not finished yet,” Professor Klim yelled after him.

  Callen didn’t hesitate as he left. The door shut behind him and Klim was left to restore what order he could to the students.

  “Who was that boy?” he asked, “What was his name?”

  “He’s not in this class, sir,” came the response.

  Professor Klim took a moment to gather himself and began to sort through some of his notes. He began the class again, this time, not so eager to have the students participate any more than they had to.

  Callen chose a secluded plastic bench to sit and have something to eat. He was annoyed at himself for saying anything in Professor Klim’s class. It hadn’t turned out to be the liberating experience he was hoping for. It certainly didn’t help him deal with any of the questions he’d been tossing around in his head since the age of seven. All it had done was strengthen his resolve to take a path he’d been considering for almost a full year. As he ate his Vitarol from its tube, he didn’t notice Professor Klim approaching.

  “I’d like to speak to you,” Klim said as he casually sat beside Callen. “Have you ever come face to face with an Outlocked?”

  Callen didn’t know what to say. It was likely the Professor was testing him, only to report him if he said the wrong thing.

  “Of course not,” he said. “They have laws against that sort of thing.”

  Klim nodded, got to his feet without saying another word and walked away. Callen sat watching him go. He couldn’t decide if he’d passed up the best opportunity he’d ever had to discuss his unresolved issues, or narrowly avoided serious trouble with the law.

  Chapter 7.

  Two uneventful months passed and Callen endured a monotonous routine of university and social commitments. His year of study dragged on and to anyone noting his progress, the time could only ever have been described as ordinary. Only He knew it was anything else.

  Late one night, his parents visited his room for a chat, a chat that would only cause Callen more grief as he tried to settle his plans and build up the nerve to carry them out. He had almost completed his first year at university and his parents were very aware of how hard he was working. Given the end of the year was fast approaching, they offered him, as a reward for his year’s study, an all expenses paid holiday to a sister city on the beach. Annie and Raegher were well placed to purchase such a gift and had Callen not had alternative plans he would have been thrilled by the offer. Instead he gave a good performance of being thrilled, without committing himself to anything. He was about to put his parents through enough torment without leaving them out of pocket along the way. Annie and Raegher left Callen’s room, satisfied their gesture had been well received by their studious son. The moment they left the room Callen physically winced. He decided to abandon his plans. His life would be far easier if he simply enjoyed a beach city holiday and concentrated on his studies for next year. His plans were ludicrous after all. Had he revealed them to his parents, he would have been scheduled for counselling on the spot.

  A further week of studies and the mind numbing futility that went along with it changed his mind again. His secret plans were reinstated and he took stock of what he’d need to carry them out. In his room, he packed a backpack with odds and ends, lighters, food, rope, binoculars, a torch, paper and pens and various other items he thought may be useful. Everything he collected was hard to come by, but given he’d decided on his chosen course of action almost a year ago, they were all items he’d managed to collect over time. His year at university had a week to run, followed by a series of exams, one for each subject. He couldn’t wait for it all to be over so he could put his plan into action.

  The exam system reduced every student to that of a home student. Exams were issued by viewer screen and a copy was recorded on the home vision recorder. After screening the exam, any call made from a student’s house during the allotted time, either from a home or mobile viewer, was scanned and recorded. Any calls made by students to gain any help whatsoever, resulted in failure. Any student not issuing a completed exam response at the allotted time, via a viewer scan, resulted in failure. Any household housing more than one student sitting the same exam received an electronic monitor, placed to view the students in question. Any irregularities of any kind involving any student resulted in failure. There were no appeals.

  Callen sat his exams without incident. Annie and Raegher tiptoed around the house for the eight days that Callen’s six exams covered. Come the end of the exam period a relieved Callen celebrated, first with his parents and then with his friends. They partied long and hard at a specially organised, monitored and regulated celebration. At two in the morning the celebrations ended and the students were escorted home.

  The very top students would have two weeks off and those who regularly finished within this group, like Callen, had long been encouraged to plan their break by optimistic parents certain the high academic results of the past would be repeated. The vast majority of students would receive no such break and would be required to commence bridging courses immediately.

  It would be a long and nervous few days for students waiting on results to be published; results that would determine far more than the relatively simple question of who would or wouldn’t qualify for a fortnight’s holiday. They would also determine changes in enrolments from one year to another. The top percentage of students from the previous year would be allowed to attend the university for the following year. All others would be relegated to home studies.

  For once in his life Callen wasn’t worried about waiting for the exam results. He had something far more important planned and he was now only days away from carrying it out.

  Annie and Raegher were positive Callen would do well enough to qualify for a break and they were concerned he’d yet to make any holiday bookings. If he waited much longer there would be no booking space for him anywhere and he’d have to rely on cancellations from students not reaching the required ‘holiday grades’. Callen wasn’t sure how he should handle this pressure from his parents. He didn’t want to tip his hand and alert them to his plans, nor did he want to forfeit the booking deposit on a holiday he had no intention of taking. He continued to stall for time.

  At breakfast Callen told his parents he was on his way to a travel office to organise his trip. His parents thought he’d be far better off using the viewer screen to do the job, but Callen told them he wasn’t completely sure where he’d be heading and felt personal service would suit him best. Annie and Raegher were just happy he was finally doing something about his break. Callen felt awful and fought the desire to say something meaningful. He didn’t want to be overly dramatic, but he knew this may be the last time they saw each other for some time, possibly forever. Callen had decided to go through with retracing the path he’d taken as a seven year old and seek out the tunnel below the carriages that gave him access to the world of the Outlocked.

  On his return, all those years before, he’d been told he’d dreamt the whole experience, but his stitched wounds made a mockery of that suggestion. Even when the city counsellors produced a registered doctor who claimed to have performed the work, Callen failed to be swayed. He’d seen stitches from a city doctor before and they were perfect, leaving only the finest of scars. While his stitches served their purpose, he could see the knot used to tie them off and they left faint white marks, as if an insect had walked the wounds and left footprints on either side of the scar.

  Callen had decided he had to know the truth about what happened to him on that journey - and he could think of only one way to find out.

  He’d never betrayed anyone like he was about to betray his parents. He knew what he was doing showed little concern for them; something that was certainly not representative of how he felt towards them. The second half of his life, spent with h
is second set of parents, had been as good as any child could ever expect. He’d quickly learned to rely on Annie and Raegher and for a long time he’d thought of them with all the love and respect that any child feels for any parent. He slapped his father on the shoulder and kissed his mother goodbye as he left them at the breakfast table. He made a quick recognisance of the lounge room to make sure he was alone before taking the fully laden backpack from within the cupboard closest to the front door. With one final goodbye, issued to no-one in particular, Callen left the house. Even he had no idea how long it would be before he returned.

  Sitting on the same station he’d sat on as a Seven year old, with the intention of retracing his own juvenile steps, brought all the memories and emotions of the experience flooding back. Callen thought this odd, he travelled to and from this station on his way to university almost every day and never felt as close to that far away experience as he did right now.

  He sat quietly waiting for the crowds to disperse. It was a long wait and only served to build the tension he already felt about what he was doing. Finally, the time had arrived to slip off the platform and begin his journey. An old woman sat rummaging through a paper parcel to one end of the platform and a man in his eighties flicked through a paper at her side. The end closest to the tunnel, the end that Callen intended to use to descend to the tracks, was clear. He walked slowly to it, as if passing time with a mindless wander. He turned to check on the line of sight those on the platform had of him. Both were still occupied with their own personal endeavours. Callen dropped to the station floor, his legs hanging over the edge of the platform. He then dropped to the tracks below.