This is the 17th chapter of a novel being published in serial form in the Daily Sceptic. It’s a dystopian satire about the emergence of a social credit system in the UK in the near future. Read previous chapters here.
He walked to his cubby hole at Reception, checking, as he did daily, for mail. There was an envelope, intricately decorated with flowers and butterflies; his name, handwritten. Libby. He smiled. Picking it up he opened it, careful not to damage its contents.
Inside, a typewritten letter. The typewriter. Her seventh birthday present. If he’d known then the use to which it would have been put…
Stopping such thoughts, he focused on the letter.
Dear Dada,
I am missing you an awful lot. Mum is being a bit of a brat. Poppy says its because she got stressed and to stop bugging her but I WISH you were here too. But I know your exams are important so it is ok you are not.
Last weekend there was a fare. Is that how you spell it? I miss asking you spelling questions and I miss playing Scrabble and Mum says she’s too busy and Poppy never wants to and I try playing with Ted but he can’t even spell him or boy and its really boring.
Anyway. At the fare we saw Sasha from scool she was having a picnic party but I wasn’t invited because I don’t have the speshal glasses and only the kids with the speshal glasses were but that’s ok because I think they are stupid even though its only me and Jemma and Isobel in our class who dont have them. And Henry but he doesn’t count because hes a boy.
Tonight we saw something very wierd. It was this. Out the back window, the one by Teds room you know what I mean there was an amazing light in sky. It had pink and red and a bit purple and it made the hole sky look on fire.
Mum said it was the northern light which are these magical things near the North Pole where penguins live and I had a lot of other questions like do we get the north lights on other planets and can you see the north lights from portugal and do you think we might go to portugal again because it was very nice there and when you have done your exams do you think we might go on holiday. But Mum said she was too busy to think about that now and got all bossy with me for asking questions at bedtime and I wish you were here so I could ask you questions instead.
I know you always say it will be ok, I just wish you were here.
I have to go now.
Byyyyyyeeeeeee.
PS I forgot. At the fare there were solgers and Ted was playing machine guns and pranked Poppy and Mum got cross and now Ted says he wants to be a solger.
And then, scrawled, in warm, curling, deliberate, still just about little girl handwriting that made his heart bleed from its seams, “LIBBY XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX”, alongside a picture of a cat looking sad, with a speech bubble saying “Please come home”.
He read the letter again. Holding it, caressing it, kissing it.
How much he missed them.
He walked out onto his deck and looked out at the raised, slatted walkways.
His eyes followed the waterways of the camp.
There was a beauty in them, pathways stilted above what had been the canals and rivers of the fenlands, encased by high, silver reeds, slivering against the morning breeze. He could almost convince himself he was ‘just’ in nature. But, then, his eye would catch the glint of the almost imperceptible Perspex bordering the pathways, then he’d look to the waterways, wider than he could jump, and their glassed walls higher than he could reach and with a cold, maiming consciousness he’d remember that, far from being a wonder of nature, the criss-crossed canals glinting in the morning sun were a cruel simulacrum, glistening guardrails gating any possibility of leaving.
“How deep do you reckon those are?” Jacqueline-call-me-Jacky had whispered to him on the first day’s tour, back before an automated voice from somewhere aside them had immediately bleated out “GUESTS ARE REMINDED THAT SILENCE IS ADVISED” and the awful realisation had dawned: that every independent thought, every illicit movement, every seditiously suggestive raise of the eyebrow, twitch of the mouth, turn of the head was tracked, recorded, reported: banked by the pernicious, omnipresent, omni-knowing Perspex.
“Modern technology,” the guide said, smiling. “It picks up everything. Isn’t it wonderful?” and then, seeing the alarm on their faces, “Don’t worry folks, it’s just to encourage mutual respect and reflection. No, Sir, you don’t have to be silent but of course we will take all behaviour into account in assessing your socialability score.”
He stared, expressionless, at the Perspex, imagining a world in which it wasn’t there. A photo flashed before him. A lifetime ago, cycling round the waterways of the fen, trailed by Libby – young enough to be on her toddler bike. He stopped thinking. Some thoughts were too painful to bear.
His fingers traced the letter. He would give anything to hear its owner’s voice, now; he’d give anything to hear all – any – of their voices.
It was a cruel irony that in an overbearingly digitised camp environment –lights that turned on and off to demand, doors that used voice instruction technology, and, of course, Jefferson, their ‘personalised’ comically impersonal AI butler – the one piece of technology that would have been invaluable, his battered old Nokia phone, had been confiscated on arrival.
“It’s for your own good, Sir, so that you can concentrate on your learnings. Oh no, Sir, you can write. There’s notepaper in every room. There’s no problem about writing. This isn’t a gulag! Just hand in what you want sending at Reception.”
His eye followed a butterfly flicking over the edge of his deck, its wings a vibrant colour pop against the grey-brown of the floor. A butterfly, a butterfly freer than me you shall fly. Words involuntarily wafted into the corner of his mind.
It was day 22 of his ‘21’ day stay. Three weeks; that’s what the first letter had said. Three weeks and he’d be out — all he needed to do was to pass the National Harmony Exam at the end. “A formality,” the coach had said.
He’d failed, and now, it was Day 22.
Yesterday, he’d seen Byron and Jacqueline-call-me-Jacky leave. He’d stood outside his bungalow and watched as they were ushered, suitcases and what looked like a branded goody bag, into the mini golf buggy, smiles beaming across their faces, presumably going home. He’d waved goodbye and had been surprised to realise he felt a not insignificant sense of loss. They were the closest he’d come to ‘friends’ these three weeks, well, in so far as a friendship could be formed without words and through silent nods and the most subtle of eye movements.
They’d got out. So why hadn’t he?
As far as he knew he’d played the exam to the best of his ability. Answering all questions in the way they needed to be answered. Deviating not at all, not even in thought. But that hadn’t been enough. Even for him, not one to become easily ungrounded, it was a dizzyingly terrifying thought.
The butterfly landed on his wrist. It paused for a second, then flickered its wings and took flight.
His mind turned to Ella. He worried about her. She didn’t have the option of not working. But juggling the treadmill of continuous cases with the three kids and the worry she must be feeling – that would be hard at the best of times.
Traipsing back inside, he picked up his laptop. Out of habit he thought about opening the file with the half-written spreadsheet of countries. Their chance for a better life. Perhaps, even, their chance to live.
But then, he thought better of it. It was too risky, too likely to be tracked. Besides, his eyes flitting, resentfully, to the search button on the corner of the keyboard, it was not like he could help. “No, Sir, we don’t have the internet or WIFI. It’s to allow you to focus and refresh. For your own good, Sir. Just think of it like a yoga retreat.”
Never had the imperative to leave been greater. Never had he been so handicapped.
Oh Ella, why didn’t we talk more about it?
He thought back to the list in his spreadsheet. Amsterdam. America. The Canadian Territories. They were the best bets, the remaining outposts of freedom.
America was impossible, entry visas ceased years back. Amsterdam had a crazily long wait list. The Canadian Territories, though. That was – well. Who knew if it would be possible. But it wasn’t impossible. Not yet, anyway.
He needed to get a message through to Ella.
He walked over to the notepaper lying on the desk, sat down, and, Libby’s message still pressed to his chest, started to write.
Look out for chapter 17 next week.
Molly Kingsley is a freelance journalist, lawyer and founder of parent campaign group UsForThem.
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