It's a Strange, Strange World We Live In, Master Jack

I slipped through the street hugging the shadows trying to remain invisible to the Public Enforcers. Navigating the Under City in quick dart and sudden stops I looked for the entry to the Upper City. It changed every day in order to keep the destitute, the unwanted and Untouchables out of the Upper City.

I am an Untouchable with a single touch I can know everything about a person in a world where people lived hidden lives. They hid their faces behind ornate masks and their lives behind computer structured interchanges they never knew the person they interacted with, only the overseer held that information. The safety of lives in the Upper City kept within the hands of the Imperator the total and absolute ruler of Pyreina.

Pyreina is its name now but once it was called by a different name, once it held its own sovereignty. Then came the colonisation, an armada of armed star ships that swept in with violence and took over. They had raped their world to point of destruction, then came in ships to own and to enslave my world. They didn’t know of the Knowing, the Touch of Unity. Many died in the War of Establishment and the death sweeps purged those born after the war.

I was part of an underground movement of native Silenian. From birth I was taught the skills the usurpers attempted to wipe out. I was their cat’s paw, their tool. As I slid around the corner I saw out of the edge of my eye the shimmer that indicated a gate to the Upper City. Warily I checked around for Enforcers. The two Enforcers were young, keen and alert. I needed a distraction. From the opposite side of the gate a uproar arose: yelling and the high pitch of a Blazer being fired. The two guards took off towards the sound and I ran and flung myself through the gate.

Pain ripped through me. The gate was designed to immobilise Silenian’s with shocks, linked to the differences in our physiology. Through immersion I had been tempered to overcome the shock, to remain on my feet and able to move. When I came through the gate I kept moving. I had to get away from it as soon as possible. When the Enforcers returned they would know a Silenian had gone through the gate and a physiology recognition grid would be set up. I needed to make some changes to myself.

I went to a cache we had and retrieved clothing and the mask, the essential item to pass in the Upper City. Once I placed the mask on I created an effigy I made changes to my physiology to become the enemy, the oppressor. As I moved off through the city, I noticed the increase of the Enforcers on the streets. I was confident of my effigy but better to be safe and get to our contact as soon as I could.

I entered the high rise core centre and took the lift to the gaming room. No matter how many times I came here I felt anger. The gaming room sounds benign but it was an obscenity. Silenian slaves fought to a bloody death against Pyrean machines for a rapacious crowd. My contact was the owner, known as Master Jack. He was an abomination to the Pyreans a half breed; as if it was his fault his mother was raped and he was the result. As a half breed he did not wear a mask, his face was bared to the world as a stigma. He was an enigma to me. I knew he hated the Pyreans but in perpetrating this obscenity harmed the Silenians. I saw him by the betting table. The betting was no on whether a Silenian would survive but on the length they could last against the machines.

Master Jack hadn’t yet seen me as I moved up behind him. He was taking a bet he reached across to get a disk and his hand brushed against mine. In that instant I felt every curdled emotion, every slur received, every harm done. I felt his anger, his self loathing, his desire to strike back at his enemies and both Pyrean and Silenian’s were his enemies. Both sides of his heritage had rejected him. That was why he ran this establishment. His eyes connected with mine I could see his rejection of me. He knew I was an Untouchable and what that meant. He had felt the touch of our hands. He waved over one of his employees and he grabbed my arm protected from touch by the fabric.

He pulled me into his office. I could see the violence in him. We had met before when he had supplied information for the resistance. Looking into his eyes I said.

“It’s a strange, strange world we live in, Master Jack. To change this world we need to go beyond this moment. I wish you no harm and nothing has changed since we last saw one another. Do you need me to say that nothing will change?”

I could see his curdled desire to strike out in violence. I had seen his vulnerabilities, I had seen his shame and I had seen his desire.

He turned away and snatched up a transmitter. Looking at me in challenge he held it out. I took the transmitter and pressed it against a disk hidden under my skin. The information he had gathered was transmitted to my receiver disc.

The muscles on his face worked as he swallowed the knowledge of my Knowing. I turned and walked to the door I turned my head, caught his eyes.

“It’s a strange, strange world we live in, Master Jack.”

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