Dystopyum (The D-ot Hexalogy Book 1) Read online

  A feeling of helplessness would not do. Martha stiffened up, and was ready to fight. “What’s this about?” Martha demanded.

  The primary interrogator had a seat opposite Martha. “One of your neighbors has identified you as a LERN member, and has given us good reason to believe her intimate knowledge of your activities,” the interrogator said.

  Martha realized her worst fear — the fear that Salom would talk. “Salom? Are you talking about Salom?”

  “Yes,” the interrogator replied. “Your neighbor failed lovedeprogramming school. She has stated that you are a LERN member.”

  What am I going to do? Martha was not revealing the chill running down her spine, or the fear that gripped her guts. “That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard,” Martha retorted. “I hate love-lovers!” she said with disgust.

  The interrogator looked at her, in a bored way. “You all lie. I’ve never seen one that didn’t.” He sighed, shaking his head. “I don’t have the time. We have a simple, quick way to get to the truth. Hold still.”

  He made a nodding gesture to his assistant, and the latter proceeded to attach the wires from the device on the table to Martha’s forehead and wrists.

  Martha looked at the device and wires with obvious distrust, and the assistant ordered, “Don’t move.” The assistant appeared to be making adjustments to the device, and finally looked at the interrogator, and said, “She’s ready.”

  The interrogator took a handful of photos out of his briefcase. “These are photos of your son’s “lessons” while in love-deprogramming school. I want you to look at each one closely.”

  One by one, he held them each one in front of Martha’s face, long enough to get a reading. As he did so, he kept a keen eye on the display of the device sitting on the table.

  Oh my God, Martha thought. He’s going to try to make me cry. I won’t! She sat stoically, cold as ice, as the pictures were shown. It’s just the past — it’s just the past. Focus, Martha, focus!

  The interrogator stopped. “That’s it,” he said. He glanced at his assistant giving him a look. Then he said to Martha, “The machine doesn’t lie.” He looked back at the assistant, and said, “Go get a guard, and bring him here.” The assistant departed. The interrogator had been through this enough times. There was always trouble when he gave the news. Still, he could have a little fun before the guard arrived. She didn’t look like that much trouble. He looked at Martha, and said, “I am sorry, but you have failed. You will be sentenced to DeathBT for the crime of love.”

  Martha did not hear any words past the “I am sorry —” She jumped up from the chair, tearing the wires from her arms and head. “No! You’re all wrong!” she shouted. She started pacing back and forth in the small room like a wild caged animal. What can I do — how can I escape? She desperately searched for any means of escape. She looked at him, just sitting there, on the other side of the table. He was leaning forward, hands on the table, poised in an alert posture. Is he enjoying this?

  Her fear switched to rage. Be smart, do it right. Martha took a breath, marched up to him, and in an instant, she pulled a dagger she usually had hidden in her belt and nailed the startled interrogator’s right hand to the table with it.

  “There!” Martha screamed, “Is that the love you want to see, mother fucker?” Snarling, she backed away from the table.

  The interrogator shrieked, and pulled the knife out using his left hand, just as the guard was entering the room with the assistant.

  The large guard was outraged at the scene and immediately grabbed Martha from behind. The interrogator was already making his way around the table to get at Martha. When he reached her, he punched her in the stomach with full force, causing her cry out and double over in pain. When the guard held her back up for another go, the interrogator instead stared at her blazing eyes glaring back at him. He paused a moment, as she was catching her breath from the first blow. He stalled.

  “Let her go,” the interrogator said, still gazing into Martha’s incensed glare.

  What? thought Martha.

  “What?” both the guard and the assistant said in disbelieving unison.

  The interrogator tilted his head to the side, and then he looked down at his wounded hand, supporting it with the other. He looked at the guard and his assistant. They were still waiting for a reason. He then shrugged his shoulders, sighed, and said, “She gave a good answer.” He turned his attention back to Martha, and reiterated, “Good answer.”

  Martha was simply stunned now. She was still catching her breath.

  “Can I keep that?” the interrogator asked, pointing his good hand to the bloody knife lying on the table.

  Martha, still in shock, looked at him and stammered, “Yes — of course.”

  The assistant led Martha back out of the building, and Martha left for home. It was nighttime now, and she took a bus. It was a small bus that only had two contisses pulling it.

  On the way, she fell into a deep depression. She found herself openly staring at the people around her. There’s no end to this. Why does it have to be so bad? I can’t stand it — I can’t stand these people on this bus. They are all so miserable looking, and why not? We’re living in hell here. My son... his world...they are doomed to this horror.

  Then she remembered her only hope. The escape. Yes. It’s coming and I will be there! We will leave with them. She felt a little better pondering the great escape LERN had been planning. Details were sketchy because they were on a “need to know” basis. All she had heard was that LERN was working to infiltrate the NOV’s sole vaccine producing laboratory in order to escape into the wildlands.

  There had been a primary laboratory for eighty years, with a second, backup lab in Justilant. After the primary one became contaminated beyond repair, they only had the backup lab to rely on. Plans had been made for a new one, but with the economy the way it was, and the anticipated dissolution of the one-hundred year poison, the investment did not seem to be a priority.

  The wildlands made up most of the planet. Just the thought of freedom lifted Martha’s spirits. How long? How long? The vaccines were very difficult to develop, thus their great potential when withheld by enemies. She did not understand the process, but she knew that it took twenty years from start to finish in order to produce a batch of vaccine from the beginning. She sighed again, leaning her head back for the ride home.

  By the time Martha arrived at home, it was rather late, and Griswolt was there. When she came in, he was in the living room with Jan.

  Martha had fallen. She really did not want to talk to anybody, and said nothing when she had come inside. She simply went straight back to the bedroom to change her clothes. Then she took a shower, which was unusual in the evening.

  Griswolt could hear her taking the shower. She had come home unusually late. He got up, and went to the bathroom to investigate. Opening the door, he asked, “Where were you tonight?”

  “Just leave me alone, I’ll tell you when I’m ready,” Martha coldly said from the shower.

  Griswolt felt challenged. She had been getting better, but this was wrong. He had to make a stand. He raised his voice, “Tell me now, I want to know!”

  Martha was in no mood. “I said get out!” she screamed.

  Griswolt was taken aback by her caustic response. “I’m really getting tired of this,” he said under his breath. He backed out of the bathroom, and walked down the hall, muttering, “She’s pushing it too far. This up and down crap is starting to get old.” He grumbled his way back to the living room to continue with a book he had started.

  Jan was on the floor, reading. The homework load this year was demanding.

  Griswolt looked at Jan, thinking. Martha had been cold to Griswolt since coming back from love-deprogramming school — but with Jan it was different. It was obvious that Martha and Jan were getting along very well. Griswolt had a flash of resentment. He missed the “old Martha”. Only Jan was privy to that side of her now. Maybe I’ll send Jan to
see what’s going on with her.

  Griswolt said to Jan, “After your mama gets out of the shower, would you go and ask her about her day today? Can you find out why she was late coming home?”

  Jan looked up, and said “OK. I thought she was going to be coming out here pretty soon.”

  Griswolt took a furtive glance in the direction of their bedroom, (which he still was not permitted to sleep in,) and said, “No, I don’t think she’s in a hurry to do that. She won’t talk to me, and I need to know why she came home so late.”

  Griswolt had recently begun to entertain his own thoughts of escape. I am going to start looking for another place to live tomorrow. I may as well be ready, I certainly can’t put up with this forever. It’s as if she’s back to where she was a month ago. I’m sick of it. He looked at Jan, and leaned over and rubbed the gold striped crest on Jan’s head. Those kids are going to start giving you a rough time over this crest of yours, he thought in sympathy. “You need to go to self-defense school,” Griswolt said.

  Jan looked up at him with his big innocent eyes. Griswolt gave a sigh. I can’t leave. You’re gonna need me around, son. Then he thought — maybe I can take you with me.

  After Martha went back into the bedroom, Griswolt waited a short while, and sent Jan to the bedroom to check on her.

  In a half hour or so, Jan came back. He plunked down on the big chair, and looked at the awaiting Griswolt. “She’s sad,” he said.

  “Of course she’s sad, she’s always that way now,” Griswolt grunted.

  “No, it’s worse now,” Jan said. “She wasn’t even friendly to me.” Jan knew how differently Martha treated him compared to Griswolt. He didn’t know why she was so cruel to his dad now, but she obviously was. “I don’t think you should bother her tonight,” Jan opined.

  Who is this kid to give me advice? Griswolt thought. “I’m going to get to the bottom of this! I want her to come out and tell me what her problem is,” he said to Jan, with feigned authority.

  They both stayed in the living room for another hour. Martha was still in the bedroom. Griswolt worked up the nerve to go back to the bedroom to pursue his quest for an answer. He opened the door, and Martha was lying on the bed on her back, eyes closed. “What’s the matter with you tonight?” Griswolt asked, upon entering the room.

  Martha took a deep breath, and gave a long sigh. “It’s just — everything.” She sighed again. “I really don’t want to talk about it now — maybe tomorrow.” You’re the last one I want to be around right now. She sighed again. My God, I was seconds away from being convicted of committing love. Then she realized — thank you for saving me. Her next impression was — how can stabbing someone in the hand be saving? She paused in her thoughts. Thank you, anyway, just in case.

  “You were gone all day and night, you’re acting like this, and you’re not telling me anything!” Griswolt said roughly.

  Martha was startled by his voice yanking her from her thoughts. In spite of that, she was finding herself a little calmer now. Just tell him, she told herself.

  She opened her eyes, lifted her head up from the pillow, and glared at Griswolt. “I was almost convicted of being a LERN member today,” she blurted out, “OK? Leave me alone, I’m so sick of all this! Just leave me alone.”

  Griswolt was aghast. “You? In LERN? Where would they get a crazy idea like th —” Then he remembered Salom. She was capable of saying anything, just to stop the torture for a while. “Was it Salom?”

  Martha gave a thought of Salom going through her own hell, and started sobbing, saying, “Yes — yes, it was Salom.” After a few more sobs, while Griswolt was formulating his next question, Martha continued, “It’s over now anyway, they let me go.”

  Griswolt was relieved. His breathing loosened. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that —”

  “Yes, had to!” Martha yelled, sitting up. “I had to go through it because I have to live here with the insane, evil NOV!”

  Griswolt bristled at such words. It bordered on criminal language against the state. “You’re upset because of today, don’t talk like that. Give it time,” he responded.

  “Just get out!” Martha screamed, throwing a pillow at him. “I told you to leave me alone!”

  Griswolt, having his curiosity satisfied, went back to the living room where Jan had fallen asleep. He carried Jan downstairs and tucked him into bed. Then he went back up to his place on the sofa for the night.

  The next morning came, and Jan woke and went upstairs to find his mother in the kitchen, preparing some breakfast for the three of them. She had called in to her job to tell them she would not be coming in. They understood, considering. They were just happy that she wasn’t taken away forever.

  “Good morning, Mama,” Jan said, as he hopped up onto a chair at the kitchen table.

  “Good morning, Jan,” Martha replied. “I want you to have a raw egg with your toast every morning now. We need to get more weight back on you.”

  “Yuk!” Jan said. Raw eggs were too strong tasting and slimy. Worse yet, they reminded him of the names that they were calling him in school now. “Egghead,” he said aloud.

  “What?” Martha asked.

  “Oh, nothing,” Jan replied. The kids in school had been saying that his crest looked like a broken egg. Rebecca likes my crest, though. Jan smiled, thinking about her.

  Griswolt came into the room. He was showered and dressed for work. He had smelled breakfast earlier as it was cooking, and was looking forward to eating before leaving for the day. “Mmmm. That smells good!” he said as he leaned over Martha’s shoulder to take a look.

  “A little space please!” Martha barked.

  Griswolt grumbled, and said, “I hope you’re making some for me!” He started to glance at a report he had in his hand. He was still a bit groggy, having not slept well.

  Jan was observing as Martha’s pleasant demeanor changed with the introduction of Griswolt’s presence. It was as if she hated him now. He realized that it was her dragon. Her dragon rises whenever Dad comes near.

  Even though she had already intended to make Griswolt’s breakfast, Martha sighed as if he were asking for some heavy task, and asked, “How many?”

  “How many?” Griswolt asked, yawning and still rubbing some of the sleep out of his eyes.

  “How many eggs, you idiot!” Martha snapped.

  Griswolt, startled and angered by her attitude first thing in the morning, shot back, “Fuck this!” He departed the kitchen with impulsive resentment, and left for work without saying anything else.

  When she heard the door slam, Martha turned the stove off and just stood there, both hands on the stove, holding up her slumping body. “I don’t know,” she said. “I try — but I can’t.”

  Jan was sitting there, soaking this all in. He felt badly that his mama was always angry with his dad. He wanted to help, but wasn’t sure how. “What can’t you do, Mama?” he asked.

  When Martha turned her head towards Jan, he could not help but see the deeply unhappy look in her eyes. “I can’t stand your father, and I don’t know why. I want to be nice to him. He has been so good to me.” She paused. “To us.” Martha looked away, and was thinking aloud now. She said, “I wanted this morning to be pleasant. Why is it, as soon as he appeared, I got angry? Now he’s gone, and that angry person in me is gone. But I know that when he comes back, that other person in me will come back. I don’t know how to make it stop.”

  It’s her dragon. Jan just blurted it out, “It’s the dragon.”

  Martha’s expression changed as if someone had splashed cold water in her face. “What — where did you hear about the dragon?” She had scripture that mentioned the dragon, but there was not much to go on. The NOV preached the black dragon, but it was just superstitious propaganda.

  “Daddy raises your dragon,” Jan said, matter-of-factly.

  Martha was now in no little shock. “How do you know about the dragon?” she asked again.

  “I don’t know,
I just do,” Jan replied, then continuing, “The school raised my dragon, but I looked at it, and it went back down.” He nodded reassuringly, “You’ll feel better when you do.” He did not know how else to say it. He didn’t want to talk about the Guide for some reason, so he just left it at that. He never told anyone, not even Rebecca, about the Guide. There was no good way to describe him.

  Martha just stared at Jan, a little spooked. What an unusual kid, she thought. For some reason, she became frightened at the thought of the dragon, and resented Jan for bringing it up. “Mind your own business. You don’t know anything about this. Finish up your breakfast, you still need to get dressed for school,” she said.

  Jan obliged, and in short time was off to school. Martha was left with the day all to herself. She started it by taking her morning shower. Afterwards, she inspected the new scales coming in where the burns had been before. She was still taking antibiotics for the infections that were always looking for an entrance.

  Martha had been to a few LERN meetings since school, and was given helpful new copies of other writings as a recovery gift. She retrieved her expanding collection and went into the living room to study them. She poured over them, looking for references to the dragon. All she could find there was that the dragon was the same for everyone, yet different. Most were Aletian translations of Platac scriptures, and this was one of them —

  “…the dragon, for it has lifted the vilest portions of the hidden realm to the light of life that it may become the life. The great dragon desires life, but has no awareness of light…”

  Martha put the scriptures down, and stared at the opposite wall. “I don’t understand,” she said to herself. “Jan said that Griswolt raised my dragon.” She thought about it. “I have this dragon?” she asked herself. She took a frustrated breath. “Jan’s just a child. He was talking nonsense this morning. I need to ask Jen the next time I see her.” Jen was a LERN member that had a wealth of ancient literature, along with copious access to others with scriptures of their own.