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

  Hais opened his mouth for his next response, but there was none. Just an empty big mouth. “Oh, just shut up!” he retorted lamely. He needed to regain the attack. “You won’t be so cocky in love rehabilitation. They do RSE on you every day there.”

  Salom’s gut tightened. The thought took the wind out of her. No! She sat up straight, and said to herself, “I can take it. I can take it. I’m ready for it.”

  Hais wasn’t about to lose the argument. “What about Rebecca?” he gave his evil grin again and they both looked at Rebecca and Jan, and then back at each other again.

  Her fear was now replaced with revulsion. Salom’s face contorted, “You disgust m —”

  The words were barely out of her mouth when she received a backhanded smack from Hais to her mouth. He had her timing down to a “T”, and was ready to give himself the opportunity to show her who was boss.

  Jan jumped, startled. He had seen Hais hit Salom before, but the tension of the moment, and the words he just heard made his reaction more exaggerated.

  Salom cried out when he hit her, and she held her face in her hands, now weeping.

  Hais looked disgusted, picked up his hat, and left for the bars. The door slammed behind him.

  Salom had taken a seat in the kitchen, where she was silently sobbing. Rebecca, distracted for only a moment, was back to her knitting.

  Jan was replaying the words he had heard — especially the words about what would happen to Rebecca. If that electric thing is going to happen to Rebecca, then it’s going to happen to me, too — and Mama. Jan wanted to know more. “Let’s go ask your mom what she knows about love habit-shun school,” he said to Rebecca.

  Rebecca was still just sitting and knitting. She seemed oblivious to everything, including Jan now. She did not answer.

  So he asked again, and Rebecca ignored him again. When he asked a third time, she stopped knitting, and looked at him very seriously — announcing, “I don’t want to talk about it.” Rebecca started knitting again for a few seconds, then stopped and looked at Jan again, “I don’t want to think about it.” Then she went back to her knitting, but this time a tear developed in her eye. Then there was another tear — followed by another. She sniffed. She would not look anywhere but her hands.

  Jan suddenly realized that Rebecca knew what was really going to happen in that school that everyone was afraid of.

  He asked Rebecca, “Why were they talking about jail? We’re not going to jail — we’re going to a school, right?”

  Rebecca would not answer. She pursed her lips, and kept right on knitting.

  Jan was getting frustrated. “Rebecca, look at me!” he yelled. She would not look.

  He glanced over at Rebecca’s mom. She was still sitting at the kitchen table — just sitting, staring at her hands.

  He tried again. “Rebecca, don’t you want to know? Let’s ask your mama.”

  He received no response from Rebecca.

  Jan was afraid, and became angry. He was still anxious from the recent drama, and now he was full of questions and getting no answers.

  “I’m leaving!” he said, loudly and angrily. He stormed out of the house, almost raging.

  Jan was halfway to his house when Rebecca came out of her house, slamming the door behind her. He turned and stopped as she ran up to him.

  “I’ll tell you,” Rebecca said, catching her breath and displaying a very grave expression on her young face.

  They went around behind Jan’s house. His house had a risen façade. It was not actually functional, but it looked fancy, a little like an aboveground house. Usually, when Jan was behind his house he would make it a point to look up into the sky, because nobody could see him there. He often wondered why they were not allowed to do it.

  “Why can’t we look up in the sky?” he would ask his dad, and Griswolt would have to tell him the same story again, “The Temple of the NOV has decreed that for God to bless us, we must submit to his judgment of us as deeply inferior sinners. According to the Temple, it is arrogant for us to look up into the heavens, God’s home, and therefore, a sin. It is contempt of God. If we do not commit this sin, we will be blessed as a people. The nations we destroyed committed this sin, and look, where are they now?”

  When they were behind the cream yellow façade, Rebecca stalled. She sat down, and picked at the clean, rounded, yellow-orange decorative gravel that was there.

  Jan was in no mood — “Well, tell me! What’s going to happen to us?” Jan asked. “You said you would tell me!”

  Rebecca just wanted to be with him, and not her mom — or her dad. She looked at him and said, “I hear my mom and dad arguing about it all the time. I’m sick of it.” She looked down and shook her head. “There’s nothing anybody can do. They are going to take us away from everybody.” She started sobbing. “They are going to put us in jail, and put electricity in us, and hurt us until we forget everything.” Rebecca was shaking now, uncontrollably. She stopped talking, and slowly looked up at Jan, still sobbing, shivering — searching for a reaction. Anything.

  Jan could not imagine it. His stomach sank into a tight ball, and he retorted, “I don’t believe you! What are you talking about? Nobody is going to hurt us! You’re lying!” The more he talked, and the more he saw the look on her face, the more his fear climbed. The reality of it was becoming too “real”.

  Denial was the only option. Jan abandoned his friend, leaving Rebecca sitting there sobbing. He ran around the front of his house, terrified, as fast as his feet could take him, and on through his front door. “Mama — she’ll know!” he said to himself with resolve, tight lips and stony gaze.

  Martha had been home from her job in the mineral processing plant for a little over fifteen minutes. In that short time she had taken off her light-blue ela leather jacket, kicked off her boots, and was relaxing with her eyes closed on the easy chair in the living room. After a long hard day at work, she would find herself feeling like she was sinking materially through the chair, like melting. It felt good, and was “recharging” for her. She was almost “there” when Jan came inside, slamming the door loudly enough to make Martha’s face twitch and wince.

  Martha thought to herself, I’m going to have to talk to Jan about th —

  “Mama! There you are! Jan was out of breath and shaking.

  Martha, startled by his appearance, sat forward. “What’s the matter, baby? Come here.” She reached out her arms and motioned for him to come and sit on her lap.

  Jan came across the room and said, “I don’t want to. I just want to hold your hand, OK?”

  Martha was becoming more concerned than curious now. She leaned forward from her chair, and held his hand. “What’s wrong?” she asked with a worried look on her face.

  Jan looked up at her. He had “the look”.

  This is going to be bad, Martha thought to herself, but still not sure where this was going. She looked into his troubled eyes. “What’s wrong, Jan? Tell me.”

  He straightened up, and blurted it out, “Tell me about love re-hapshun school! Tell me!”

  Martha pulled away slightly. Love-rehabilitation school. They must have been talking about it over Salom’s house. She sighed — I’m really not ready for this now. Truth was, she had been putting it out of her mind of late. She had to — it just made a day so miserable when she thought about it. She studied Jan. It looks like he’s ready. Martha gave another sigh. I’d better let him start with what he knows. “What did you hear about love-rehabilitation school?”

  Jan didn’t wait — he knew exactly what he wanted to ask. “Do they shock us with electricity?”

  It was the last question Martha wanted to hear. She blinked, startled, and shook her head. She wanted to lie. She really wanted to lie. I am. I’m going to lie to him. I just can’t — can’t face this.

  Jan was insistent. “Will they shock us like they did in daycare?”

  The NOV required that all children be subjected to “Sublethal Electrocution”, (“SE”,) once
, by the time they were four years old. “The fear of God” was the rationale. They used a collar device on the neck, which networked with ankle and wrist electrical bracelets. It produced a twentythousand volt shock, at a low enough amperage that would not kill. That was not the only thing it did, though. It was able to produce a five-inch “field” around the collar wearer. This outer field would draw the electricity, as if the outer field were grounded. Thus, arcs would develop in the body, and their blue sparks would exit through the skin to the field around the body. This produced skin and scale wounds. Some of these would squirt blood and bleed profusely if the arc exit point were near a larger blood vessel. While the engineering of the SE system would have been easier had they used direct current, they opted for alternating current instead, because it produced tremendous tetanic spasming of muscles, and the most agony. When in prison, the collars were programmed for “Random Sublethal Electrocution” (RSE.) The number of electrocutions per day or week could be programmed into the collar. Animal studies had shown that random shocks were the quickest way to producing temporary insanity. Love retreated from consciousness in this state. Other variables such as amplitude, pulse width, and frequency were easily programmed into the unit as well.

  Jan was still waiting for an answer, but he was bright enough to know that his mother’s delay in answering meant only one thing: It’s true, he thought to himself. He did not want to accept it. I can run away with Rebecca! He thought. Yep, that’s what I’m gonna do. “I’m running away!” he said defiantly.

  Martha just looked at him. “My God, if we only could run away!” she said, shaking her head and now rubbing her hands together nervously.

  There were rumors in LERN that high-level members were planning a mass escape into the wildlands. They did not yet have the vaccines for those areas. The NOV could barely keep up with the vaccines in their own national territories. The hundred-year self-replicating viral poison did not mutate away after the hundred years were up, as was supposed to happen. The NOV had released it in order to kill all other D’otians on the planet. Because of it, they had wiped out the other three entire race/nations. For one hundred years now, the NOV was the only nation still in existence on D’ot. The process of producing the vaccine involved hundreds of specially guided mutations of yama cells. It took almost twenty years of a steady string of controlled mutations in order to produce the vaccines. This was to the NOV’s great advantage. All other nations were caught off guard, and there was no way for them to have the time to produce their own vaccines. The NOV had proven their “superiority”, for the final time.

  “Yes Mama, let’s all run away!” Jan said, so excited at the answer to this terrible problem they were facing. He started jumping up and down, clapping his hands.

  Martha was heartbroken, looking at him. I have to tell him. “Jan, we can’t run away. I would love to, but there is no place we could hide for long. The bad police would find us, and then it would all be over.”

  She abruptly had a flash of inspiration, and her expression changed, trying to cheer him up in any way possible, “We can get through this, Jan. Everyone you see that is older than you has made it through, and you can too! Then, we will run away someday! I know people who are planning that right now!”

  Martha studied Jan, to see if he was buying it, and continued, “So, you see, you just have to hang in there, and you’ll get through it — then we will all be able to leave someday and be happy!”

  Jan smiled. Then the smile faded. “But we still have to get shocked?”

  Martha just sat there, not wanting to say it again, when Griswolt arrived home from work, and was coming through the kitchen. Martha gave Jan the look he knew all too well, “No more of this, we’ll talk later.”

  Jan protested, “But I want to know more! I want to —” Martha pinched his shoulder, cutting him off — a sure sign to shut up.

  Griswolt walked in, saw the exchange, and asked, “He wants to know more about what?”

  Martha looked up at Griswolt, and replied, “He’s asking about lovedeprogramming school. I don’t want to talk about it right now.”

  It was certainly a subject that Griswolt was loath to walk in on, especially after a long day at work. He just grunted, and went back to the bedroom to change out of his uniform.

  Martha was relieved Griswolt had dropped the subject so easily. It would be all too easy for Jan to let something slip about the scope of his understanding of love, and that could make Griswolt suspicious. He was a solid NOV party member, climbing professionally and socially. Any hint of Martha’s participation in the LERN would have likely sent him straight to the police. Anything less was suicide, and an ugly one at that, compliments of DeathBT.

  Martha whispered, “We will talk after dinner,” and sent Jan off to his room. She then went into the kitchen to prepare the leg of splint she had bought on the way home from work. The yama bread was still fresh, and she always had a seasoned yama-extract tea brewed for after dinner as well.

  Dinner was pleasant, and delicious, according to Griswolt. He even gave Martha an NOV appropriate term of endearment, “I approve of you,” after dinner. She returned the compliment, with her cheeks feeling warm under her scales. He gave her a look that said that they would be staying up a little later than usual.

  Afterwards, they were relaxing in the living room listening to the radio. Griswolt always needed to check the news, even though it was mostly NOV lies. “Well, I have to know what people are lying about don’t I?” Griswolt would answer Martha when she brought up the obvious agenda and bias of the “news”. He would go on, “If everybody believes the lies, then they become our reality. It gives me something to anchor to politically, whether true or not.”

  After a little while, Martha said, “I’m going down to Jan’s room to clean up. Do you need anything?”

  Griswolt was concentrating on the latest story of a big LERN bust, and just waved her away as if to say, “Don’t bother me now.”

  Martha went downstairs to Jan’s room. It was a well-lit room, larger than a child really needed. His numerous posters cheered the room, all very colorful. They were taped to the same light-green painted walls as upstairs. Jan had created most of them a while ago when he was in daycare. She went over to him, as he was busy drawing a picture of a yeta.

  The yeta was the “king of the wildlands”. A full-grown yeta would stand over ten feet tall when upright. They traveled in packs of two or three, occasionally more. It looked like a big skinny tack, but could walk upright on its muscular hind legs, and it had two front arms that sported strong claws that could grip its prey as it tore into them with its massive jaws and teeth. These were a real prize for both amateur hunters and professional NOV Hunters, but were only found deep into the wildlands. To hunt there, hunters had to wear special masks and environmental hunting suits to avoid the lingering mutations of the hundred-year poison in those areas.

  She sat down on the bed beside Jan. He had been quietly working on his drawing, and had calmed down. She took a breath, steadied her voice, and gently asked, “Are you ready to hear what is going to happen?”

  Jan did not stop drawing, and didn‘t look up either. He shrugged his shoulders. “Yes, I guess so.” He already knew.

  “If you can fool them, they will only shock children once a week. That’s just four times…and they also turn down the electricity for you.”

  “They said that at day care, and it still hurt, really bad.” Jan stopped drawing, still looking at the picture.

  Martha felt it welling up. Don’t cry! It’s the last thing you need right now! She bit her lip. She did not know exactly what to say next, when Jan piped up.

  “Why, Mama? Why do they have to do this to us?” He looked up at her. “Why?”

  Oh no! She couldn’t stop it. The tears came streaming forth from her eyes, rolling off her face onto the bed. She took one of Jan’s leathercloth undershirts lying on the bed and dabbed her eyes with it. “They want to remove our love. They destroy love
,” she choked it out, barely able to speak the words, sniffing her tears, and gulping her breaths. Martha, get a grip! You can’t even talk? “They can, and will make me forget that I ever loved you — and you, too.”

  Jan was scared, but not as frightened as he could be because he truly could not understand. He looked at her, confused. “I love you, Mama. How could I forget that?”

  Martha looked at him, with such dear and gentle affection, still sniffing, and then realized the truth. She thought, the only way to explain this is for me to tell you that they will make you hate me, and me hate you. They will smother your love and repress it with terror, hate and rage, and you will be reborn in the alien womb of the torture rooms.

  He has to be prepared. How do I say it? OK, here goes. She started to tell him, and opened her mouth to start, but the words would not come out. I can’t tell him. “What can I do?” she wailed aloud.

  Jan stood waiting for an answer. So did Martha.

  A thought came to Martha. A thought came that lifted her soul for a moment, and she remembered what she had said before — he doesn’t need to prepare, but you do. That’s it! She thought. I need to prepare! As long as I have things set up here at home, I will remember love for the both of us after it’s through, when we are back home together again. Then I’ll help Jan to remember! She felt some relief. “You won’t forget that you love me, sweetie. Mama will make sure of that — and I will always love you.”

  Martha cradled his small chin in her hand with a tenderness Jan had not felt in a while. He looked up at her and smiled, and then he climbed up on her lap, and whispered in her ear, “I’ll always love you, Mama.”

  Five more months passed. It was not spoken of in those months, at least not often, or deeply. Before they knew it, the time had passed.

  Both Jan and Rebecca’s birthdays were in this quarter, and the date had been set for the next starting class, which was tomorrow. Both of them would be going with their mothers to love-deprogramming school. Martha greatly desired to have a nice last evening together before they were all to disappear for four weeks into the bowels of this beast within the NOV. For now, she had invited Salom and Rebecca to join her family to celebrate Jan and Rebecca’s fifth birthdays together.