Chapter 17

I ran my hand over my clean-shaven face, having gratefully accepted the return of my laser knife. The iPhone had also survived the journey intact.

"Beats a safety razor any day of the week," I'd observed as I performed my ablutions. Several men watched with awe, having never seen this particular piece of citadel technology before. I offered it to one of them and he used it to remove several days of stubbly growth.

I sat before a panel of five, their sceptical looks turning more amenable as I answered their questions with ease. Only Vanessa remained unfazed, glancing at me from time to time with abject hostility. I'd just finished providing a detailed account of my stay at the citadel, leaving nothing out.

"You slept with a Guardian's partner?" one man queried.

"And impregnated her?" another asked.

"I really liked Nella," I replied. "I just never imagined any of the consequences."

Vanessa snorted and stood up. "I'm tired. I'm going to go and lie down." She picked up a pair of crude crutches and hobbled away.

"You must excuse my daughter," Grant mused. "She gets quite irritable after being cooped up in that suit for days at a time."

There were several stifled mumbles of concurrence; apparently, I wasn't the only person to find her attitude slightly caustic.

"How have you managed to survive all this time?" I enquired.

"It's been hard at times," Grant admitted. "Resources are stretched incredibly thin. We grow what we can; we steal from the citadel, and improvise the rest."

He opened a bottle of red wine and distributed the contents between us, into tall stemmed glasses. I sniffed the bouquet and took an experimental sip. The flavour exploded on my palate, and I closed my eyes to savour the incredible after taste.

"Chateaux Baron Philippe de Rosthchild, 2004," Grant announced, "I'm not sure whether it was a good year."

"It's aged marvellously," I replied. "I don't believe I've ever tasted anything quite so delicious."

"We recently discovered several cases in the cellar of a nearby hotel. I'm glad that you find it acceptable."

I chuckled as I sipped the two hundred year old Bordeaux, probably now valued at thousands of pounds a bottle, if there was ever a market for it.

"How many of you are there?" I asked.

"About a hundred people live here at any one time, but many more are scattered throughout the surrounding countryside. We're in contact with about a thousand people all told. There are small communities in each of the ancient cities but communication with them is difficult at the best of times."

"I can't believe why nobody mentioned your existence to me."

"The High Council keeps the knowledge confined to their higher echelons. We represent a serious threat to their ordained order."

"But surely some compromise could be reached between the two of you."

"They know they'd never survive the transition. Once people realise there's something beyond the citadel, there'd be one almighty exodus."

"What about the other citadels?"

"The same probably applies. The citadels isolate themselves to contain their populations, at the same time trying to eliminate any opposition. Nowhere was it more keenly felt than in Switzerland."

"Switzerland?"

"Nearly a quarter of the population survived the Calamity. The Ancient government of the time had mandated that every home should be equipped with a concrete shelter and stocked with food to last for several weeks. We understand it was a hangover from fear of nuclear holocaust that was prevalent in that era."

"I remember reading about it," I replied.

"There are three citadels in each of the major regions, more than in any other neighbouring country," Grant revealed. "And yet the suburbs of Geneva, Basel and Zurich teemed with people that would be deemed ineligible to be housed in the newly constructed settlements. Over the next few years, millions starved until only the chosen few survived."

"That's horrible," I decried. "Who sanctioned such genocide?"

"There was a multi-national group of people that became known as the Founders."

"I've heard of them."

"Their identity was a closely guarded secret, but in the years following the Calamity, they came to wield incredible political power. They espoused an agenda of ultra-conservatism that led directly to the closeted society that exists in the citadels today."

"It does seem rather severe," I agreed.

"They started out with the best of intentions, dismantling the capitalist dog-eat-dog civilisation that had all but collapsed in the wake of the Calamity. Soon however, their growing power led them to decree more and more extreme measures that served to outlaw all but what they considered the most necessary traits of humankind."

"Sex obviously wasn't one of them," I observed.

"Sex was reserved for the purposes of procreation only, and when alternatives were discovered, even those were systematically discouraged. They also proscribed alcohol, any form of hallucinogenic drug, sport ... the list went on and on.

"They were elitist fanatics that sought to reduce life to a single-minded purpose of serving the greater good of the community, without deriving anything in the way of personal pleasure, apart from that sanctioned by the hierarchy."

"I can see why many opposed it."

"They were clever," Grant explained. "They promised so much in the aftermath of the destruction brought about by the Calamity. People followed along until it was too late to turn back. Their agenda spread like a cancer. The few that realised and opposed it were marginalised and exiled to the cities, where it was hoped that they would eventually wither and die.

"The citizens of the citadel soon forgot about us and so we struggle along, much like the unfortunate outcasts in the villages, banished to the outer fringes of society, whilst those in favour wallow in the lap of luxury. We continue to work behind the scenes to undermine the lies and duplicity, but the High Council continues to maintain the upper hand for the time being. We are few in number and our priority is still primarily one of survival. One day, we will prevail and all the citadels will crumble."

"Wow," I gasped. "Quite a speech."

"Unfortunately that's all it is: words. We're no closer to achieving our goal than we were decades ago. We manage though, keeping under the citadel's radar to prevent them causing us undue harm. Small farms raise enough pigs and chickens to maintain a relatively varied diet. If it wasn't for the lack of staples, we wouldn't have to leech off the villages."

"I don't understand."

"None of strains of cereal survived the Calamity. The citadel engineered a replacement but ensured that it cannot be bred."

"Their chief scientist said that they were scared that fertile seed would spread uncontrollably around the countryside," I replied

"Correction: fertile seed would end up in our hands, and we'd become totally self-sufficient."

I shook my head in disgust.

"Don't worry," Grant opined. "They'll get their comeuppance eventually. It's just a shame that people have to suffer in the interim. We don't like stealing from the villages, but we have little choice. It's them or us. At least they can go grovelling to the citadel to replace their losses."

I settled into my new home, much as I had adapted to the citadel, and then the village after that. Unlike the previous two environments, the atmosphere was much less restrained. The men competed for the attentions of the women, and the females were only too happy to provide.

Within the first week, I had several kind offers of intimacy, but refrained for fear of breaking some unspoken rule. The result labelled me as being non-conformist and somewhat aloof, but I bided my time before making a selection.

Several teased me about my abstinence, even going so far as to suggest that I was gay, but I took their comments in my stride. My eyes always followed Vanessa whenever she was in my proximity and this drew even more mirth from those around me.

"Nobody gets past first base with the Iron Maiden," one jested, referring to her icy demeanour and also an oblique reference to the armoured suit that she wore. Everybody watched their words whenever she was within earshot, not wishing to draw the attention of her acerbic tongue.

Days passed in an alcoholic blur. It was considered perfectly acceptable practice to overindulge when no urgent jobs needed doing. I helped work on restoring the car, and even adopted the role of driving instructor, teaching road safety and basic vehicle control.

The first sign of danger appeared when I'd accompanied two young men, Peter and Jeremy, to the top of the multi-storey car park. We looked down over the town, taking in the tranquillity that had never been possible when it was a bustling centre of activity.

"Get down," Peter hissed. I fell to the ground without hesitation.

The whine of the flyer's motors became gradually louder as the citadel craft made multiple passes over the neighbourhood. We hid under the rusting hulk of a delivery van until we felt confident that the threat had passed. It was during this nail-biting time that the pair revealed that they were lovers. Whilst strenuously denying any homosexual tendencies myself, I explored the details of their relationship and was surprised to discover that they encountered no prejudice from the others.

It was generally accepted that that was the way they were, and nobody made comment about it, one way or the other. It was gratifying to see that, in some ways, one group of mankind was finally becoming much more tolerant, even if there were still others that considered such relationships a travesty.

I remembered Tamar's sanctimonious condemnation of Nella and Teel's involvement with one another, and my inner seething at his derisive bigotry.

The other surprise during my first few weeks was witnessing the gentle side of the Trog temperament. The younger children of the community played with them like pets, pulling them this way and that. The animals went along with everything like a faithful Labrador, and it shamed me that I ever formed the impression that these strange creatures were in any way as vicious as their reputation.

"Where did they come from?" I asked Grant.

I was a frequent visitor to his quarters, ostensibly to discuss some pressing issue but we both came to understand that I coveted his stock of fine wine, and maybe his daughter. Vanessa was as uncooperative as ever, but the wine was always forthcoming.

"They first appeared about a hundred years ago. We're not exactly sure of their origins. One theory is that they are descended from primates that escaped from various zoos around the country; another is that they are some form of random mutation, perhaps the result of fallout from the nuclear exchange that followed the Calamity. Their population is generally confined to the northern regions of the country, but some filter south when foraging for food. We take them in and give them what little we can spare. In return, they play with the children and perform a number of menial jobs.

"They are highly evolved, surprisingly intelligent and very loyal to those that treat them well. I regret the casualties they've endured in helping us, but I think they realise that it in the long run, our actions benefit them as well as us."

"The death of a Trog is not seen as important as the death of a human," I replied.

"As much as it pains me to say it, I have to agree with that assessment. As things stand, letting the Trogs raid the villages maintains the fiction that the citadel and its settlements are the only bastion of mankind. If our people started showing up, I think the citadel would likely step up its efforts to locate and eradicate us. I don't want to tempt fate."

"There must be some other way to achieve the same result. It seems a tad barbaric to use them as cannon fodder for the Guardians."

"I concur, and if you can come up with a viable alternative, I'd be more than willing to consider it. We've been over this time and again. The grain must be replenished, either as harvested produce or seed stock. The only viable source is the villages."

"Why not the citadel itself?"

"I'm not sure that I follow."

"Their cultivation troughs feed twenty thousand inhabitants, and still leave enough over to supply their outposts."

"We've considered this. It's inherently very risky, and even if we could manage it, we could probably only pull it off once. Where's the sense of risking everything for the sake of one coup, that would probably draw who knows what in the way of reprisals?"

"Some of the seed in the citadel could be replanted. If you got hold of that, you'd be self-sufficient forever."

"But how would we ever locate it? I'm sure they don't just leave it lying around with a big sign to identify it."

"Probably not," I conceded, "but it is worth considering."

"If you can think of a way to make it workable, I'll give you my full support, and even provide a couple of people to assist."

I pondered the matter for several days but could think of no way to guarantee success. I figured that the best that I could hope to achieve was to perhaps contact Sarek, and try to elicit his assistance. The project subsequently foundered, and was laid to rest, only to be revived when Vanessa returned from a raid, months later.

The Guardians had prepared an ambush and wiped out her entire contingent of Trogs. Thirty eviscerated animals now littered the outskirts of the village that they'd raided for the fruits of the spring harvest. They'd tactfully refrained from engaging the Silver Demon, having realised that by targeting the Trogs, the whole purpose of the raid was rendered moot. Despite its superior strength, the suit was only capable of transporting two or three bags of seed at most.

The pitiful bounty with which she'd returned with was small compensation for the loss of life that had occurred.

"They've gotten wise," Grant acknowledged days later. "I feared this might happen, sooner or later."

"What now?" I asked.

"I'm not sure to be honest. We could raid the citadel but that would only buy us a little more time. Come summertime, we'll still have to come up with an alternative strategy."

"Let me lead an expedition," I urged. "I know a few people in the citadel. They may be willing to help. There's even a Guardian that owes me for his life."

Grant sighed. "Think about what you're suggesting, and what it could possibly achieve. I'm not saying no, but there has to be a realistic chance of success before we commit resources."

I gave it my utmost thought but could come up with no better a solution than to sneak in and hope for the best.

"Under normal circumstances, I'd never sanction this plan in a million years," Grant confessed, "but the truth is that nobody has any better ideas at the moment. I'll give you half a dozen Trogs..."

"No," I replied vociferously. "I'll not sacrifice any more of them. Besides, they'll draw too much attention to themselves. I'll do this alone."

"I admire your courage, but this is not negotiable. I insist you take Vanessa. The suit will provide a degree of protection for you."

I grudgingly conceded the point. By the end of the day, two more volunteers had presented themselves, Peter and Jeremy.

"We sit around all day, achieving very little," Peter admitted. "It's time we had a little excitement."