Chapter One: Broken Promise — Part 1

Robert glared at the clock, an outdated piece of trash occupying its artificial nook in an unpainted metal cupboard that hung almost level against a soot-stained plaster and particleboard wall. The wall had never seen a coat of paint. The clock was something truly detestable to Robert. The ticking and the hum of it, the grinding and persistent rhythm, its artificial nature, and every blunt and pointless aspect of its design and function made his skin itch. He had chosen to view the cheap plastic clock as his enemy, as an evil pea-green nemesis that plagued his family for over a century.

Handed down from father to son for six generations, the clock had been there since his birth. Its tiny gears worked incessantly, a cycle as predictable as life itself. Its gears spun without conviction, forcing cogs to turn on their spindles, forcing the hands to rotate about, to work away each day as if the last meant nothing. Robert was certain of only one thing, if he ever got a chance to destroy the very concept of time, he would.

The hands took another turn, Robert’s heart racing against the beat. With every tick of the clock, another part of his soul seemed to slip away. There could be no hope for him; everything he chose to live or die for had been taken from him. The pulse of gears, incessant and demanding, could give no freedom to people, the force of measured time stealing from them any concept of life without external control.

Robert looked at his station marker, which was a rather boring triangle tattooed on the back of his wrist. Broken into three parts, the top triangle was blacked out. He could have no hope of rising into that triangle. The people with that triangle colored up were few and powerful, and he’d seen the dull blue color only rarely, and usually only in passing. The middle trapezoid was a dull, pasty green, like the clock. In his case, it was bare of vertical bar indicating a rank above entry level, or apprentice. His father had only ever gained one bar, his mother, because she was a teacher, two. Robert had never seen a man or woman with the third bar, but he knew that managers in all their forms were supposed to have them. Right now, his thoughts weren’t on his station marker. His thoughts were on the bottom trapezoid, which was currently a dull red. Somehow, despite his current troubles, he had avoided being demoted to the lowest station. If that had happened, his black rank marker would have been crossed in the green, or a new rank marker placed in the red, and the red would have been inked fresh. The color right now, even dull as it was, merely added to his anger.

Whereas Robert knew love, and could even believe in freedom, but those words and their meanings had been crushed out of his father years before Robert’s birth. His father, another victim of time, now hated Robert. Seeing him as the worst possible failure, a stern, strong man with dim, structured thoughts, glared at his only son, his eyes locked onto the nape of Robert’s neck. His father embraced every aspect of time, especially the nagging little aspect that would, ultimately, stop his thoughts completely. His father was a man of conformity, beaten into submission by decades of living in a cruel and mindless system. Proud of his pointless job, Robert’s father hated his son’s grasp of the obvious. Unlike Robert, whose youthful ambition could not be squelched simply because society demanded it, the aging man had no need for the luxuries of either love or freedom.

“I’m glad you’re leaving.” His father said, his voice rasping.

Robert’s inarticulate whispering was as quiet as the clock, the tick of his tongue softer than the pause of the second hand. Robert’s bare feet, planted firmly on a dusty tile floor, was his only interpretable expression. The ground was nearly as sooty as the walls, but there was little that could be done about it. Brooms were a creature comfort Robert’s family couldn’t afford. Mother cleaned with a wet rag when they had water to spare, which wasn’t often, careful not to damage the plaster on the unpainted walls. Robert turned to his father, in time with the clock’s incessant ticking, unable, apparently, to break with the rhythm. His eyes, gray as flint, were defiant. His father’s eyes, usually tamed and submissive, wore wrinkles and bags twisted with contempt and anger.

“Hush boy.” His father said.

“Why should I rot in some labor camp? What have I done to deserve this?” Robert wondered.

His father’s voice trembled with rage. “You taught yourself to read and write. You got caught with that Class Three slut. You are as much of a whore as her.”

“They killed her for loving me. They should have killed me too.” Robert struggled to keep his voice level.

“She’s not dead yet. She’s being reconditioned.”

“Who do you know who has ever come back from the banks?” Robert asked.

Unwilling to consider the truth, his father continued in rage. “Marquette and I aren’t allowed to have another child because of how you turned out.”

“Idiot.” Robert kept his voice too low for his father to hear.

“She went to the Banks, and I hope she rots. I’d think you’d be there too, if they hadn’t found a new world to send you to.” His father’s voice, always level, had become more impassive with each sentence.

Robert raised his voice a notch. “They’re sending me away because I know the truth. The Authority would have us ignorant so we don’t upset their system.”

“I’ll not have you insulting The Authority. They’re smarter than us. They’re better than us.” Father said without a hint of sarcasm.

“Machines could do your job. You aren’t even needed. Such wasted energy. If The Authority really cared about you they’d have terminated your position and trained you to do something useful.” Robert’s voice exploded, his anger getting the better of him.

“Get out.” The old man’s voice caught on the last word.

Robert stepped outside, waiting on the porch. He looked at the concrete between his toes. The ground was dusted with black soot, like everything else around him. He closed his eyes, feeling hopeless. Thoughts of murder ran rampant through his mind. Robert forced his mind to calm; murder would definitely put him in the Banks. There simply was no point of focus, but Robert knew he had to find one. He would rather be dead than go to the Banks, even though Loka would be there. He had read the lists. Nobody ever left the Banks alive. Nobody sent in for social reprogramming ever came out. Loka was being beaten to keep the masses in line. Her daily torture could be tuned in on the television any time of the day; she had become a tool of the system.

Advertise Here