Levelling a Novella: a dark mind-bending sci-fi horror

  – Chapter 1 –

  Trial & Error

  The clock was ticking out of time.

  Not fast, not slow, just out.

  Sat on the waiting room’s lumpy grey couch, Addison stared up at it in growing frustration. The clock’s design was strange enough – an artsy half-analogue, half-digital contraption – but it wasn’t the strange spiral digits flickering across its dark face that bothered him. It was the damned off-beat ticking.

  Addison was at his audition. Still at his audition. Still waiting for the corporate bigwigs next door to call him in. The room was spartan – four grey walls, two ugly sofas, one resolutely closed door – and without so much as a magazine to entertain him, time had begun to slacken and unspool. His commute here already had the texture of distant memory, the past hour was a blur and each irregular tick of the clock was like water torture, marking the passage of time without actually measuring it.

  “Eyes on the prize,” Addison muttered, glancing at the door. “Can’t be long now.”

  He caught his reflection in the clock’s polished casing and grimaced. His skin was pale, his dark hair unruly. Even his eyes, normally so bright and blue, seemed oddly sunken. Not an ideal first impression.

  “Eyes on the prize,” Addison repeated, less confidently.

  The stuttering hands ticked on.

  When the casting call had first arrived, Addison had been thrilled. The brief had been a little cryptic – corporate ad, improv skills essential, script on audition – but the pay was ridiculous, ten times normal, enough to escape his grotty flatshare and return to acting full time. Work had been very thin of late, but an old role in a legal drama (non-speaking, but the bigwigs needn’t know) made this at least promising. He’d sent over his acting reel in a flurry of excitement, but now all he felt was despair.

  “Right,” he said, jumping up to try the door. “Hello? Is anyone––”

  The clock chimed loudly. At the same time, the door below hissed open and Addison came face-to-face with a strange man. He was thin, bookish and for some reason entirely grey. Grey clothes, grey eyes, even his skin was an unhealthy pallor. Most bizarre was his face, which for a second was entirely expressionless. Then, as if someone had flicked a switch, the man broke into a broad smile and his pale features lit up in delight. Addison took an involuntary step back.

  “Mr. Addison!” the man beamed. “Welcome, welcome!”

  “It’s Moore,” Addison replied, taken aback by the sudden transformation. “Addison Moore.”

  The man’s voice was high and tremulous, eager to please.

  “Of course!”

  “I’m here for the audition?”

  “Of course, of course!” the man repeated, consulting a sleek tablet. “Just a few questions. How are you feeling?”

  “Feeling? Like, am I nervous?”

  “Physically!”

  “Fine. Why?”

  “Any nausea? Dizziness? Headaches?”

  “No.”

  “Hallucinations?”

  “No!”

  “Then we are ready!” he beamed, disappearing back through the door. “Please, follow!”

  Hovering on the threshold, a peculiar sensation washed over Addison. He was suddenly disconnected, watching himself from a distance, and for a second he couldn’t remember where he’d been before the waiting room. Then, quickly as it came, the sensation passed. He shook his head and glared up at the still-ticking clock. It really had done a number on him.

  Steeling himself, he summoned a memory that always fired him up. His father’s face, puce, hurling abuse from the bungalow doorstep as Addison fled for the city. And his mother, her face a pale oval at the window, ashamed of the pair of them. Addison took a deep breath, made a token attempt to flatten down his mop, then stepped through.

  Inside, the audition room was in shadow save for an illuminated table behind which a trio of figures were sat. The smiling man had taken a seat between what Addison assumed were his colleagues, a man and a woman. All three were wearing the same grey clothes.

  “Hello everyone,” he began, pulling out his own chair. “I’m Ad––”

  “We are aware,” the woman interrupted.

  “Has the audition started?” he asked, ignoring the frosty welcome. “Is this being filmed?”

  “You are under observation.”

  The woman was cold-eyed and sharp-featured, her grey hair cut into a functional bob. She was also scowling, her demeanour worlds apart from her smiling colleague. Staring at them, Addison was reminded of the old sock and buskin masks, those ancient Greek symbols of comedy and tragedy: one grinning, one grimacing. The contrast was unsettling.

  The smiling man cleared his throat.

  “Welcome again!” he beamed. “I am Two. These are my associates, Four and Five. We are to be acting with you. We are levellers!”

  Addison stared a moment.

  “Two, Four, Five,” he repeated, realising it was going to be one of those auditions. “So am I Three?”

  “Alas, no. You are no leveller.”

  “Right. So, tell me about the role! Do you need me to do a reading?”

  The actor calling himself Two glanced at his colleagues.

  “Mr. Moore,” he began, smiling even wider. “On behalf of our employers, we are delighted to announce you have the part!”

  Addison blinked.

  “Without auditioning?” he blurted, before kicking himself. “I mean, thank you!”

  “No need for a reading, you are the perfect candidate! Exemplary credentials, strong improvisational skills, experience in a legal setting.”

  Addison kept a very straight face.

  “I also note you are a linguistics postgraduate?”

  “A masters,” he frowned. “Before I went full-time. It wasn’t on my application, how’d you find out?”

  “Our vetting is most thorough,” Two smiled. “But this is excellent! Linguistics is relevant to the concept.”

  “Which is...?”

  The trio exchanged another look.

  “Imagine,” Two began, spreading his hands theatrically. “The planet is dead, killed by the climate crisis and the wars it precipitated. However, survivors develop a way to retrieve people from the past.”

  “Like time travel?” Addison replied, suddenly enthused. “My roommate was in a sci-fi short about––”

  “How childish,” Four scoffed.

  Addison was taken aback. Hostility was radiating from the woman in waves.

  “It’d help to know this stuff,” he said, shifting in his seat. “My character’s origin, motivation, it’s good for improv. Like, these people from the past, the um...”

  “Returnees.”

  “Returnees, right. Are they repopulating the planet?”

  “Oh, they are not being brought back to be saved,” she laughed. “They are being brought back to stand trial for causing the crisis in the first place.”

  There was a long silence. When it became clear Addison wasn’t going to reply, Two ploughed on.

  “They are on trial for the crime of terracide!”

  “What-icide?”

  “Terracide. Killing the earth. Five and I are acting as defence and prosecution, Four is security and you will meet One soon. You are to be our interpreter.”

  “This is quite unusual,” Addison replied, feeling more than a little lost. “Are you sure I cant have a script?”

  “Our employers know what they are doing, Mr. Moore. It would not be this way without good cause.”

  “But why an interpreter?”

  The actor playing Five leant forward. He loo
ked much the same as his colleagues, thin, grey and off, but there was a sadness around his eyes that made him friendlier, more sympathetic somehow.

  “As an actor,” Five began, smiling kindly, “you know communication entails so much more than speech. Body language, slang, cultural references: these things shift over time. What if in the future people advance so much they no longer understand those from the past? After all, you would not understand someone from medieval times, nor they you.”

  “But if everyone’s so advanced,” Addison replied, trying to follow along. “How can I understand them?”

  “Well observed,” Five said. “The script dictates you have a special device. It was added in make-up, remember? Your neck...?”

  Addison hesitated, then his fingers curled around something at the base of his skull. Cold, metallic, and very firmly attached.

  Where had that come from?

  “But I wasn’t in make–”

  “It is settled!” Two cried, so loudly Addison flinched. “You have the part! We will act, you will improvise. The trial will begin presently!”

  Without so much as a backwards glance, Two leapt up and scurried out of the room. Four shot Addison an odd look, then headed after her colleague. In the silence that followed Addison turned to Five in pure bewilderment.

  “Forgive my associates,” the grey man said, standing. “They are under great stress.”

  “Is that why this is so cloak and dagger?”

  “There is good reason.”

  “And we’re filming right now? Right here?”

  “Is that a problem?”

  “It’s not the way things usually go.”

  “I appreciate this is unusual, Addison, but you have the part. Isn’t that what you wanted? Is there somewhere else you need to be?”

  Addison conjured up an image of his tiny room in the mouldy flat he shared with four other jobbing actors.

  “Happy to help,” he replied. “Let’s go!”

  “Splendid! My advice is to just play along. That is literally an actor’s job description, is it not?”

  Five had him there.

  Addison shrugged helplessly.

  “Now if you’ll follow me,” Five smiled, gesturing to the door. “Your trial awaits.”

  * * *

  The set was breathtaking.

  “How much did you spend?” Addison whispered.

  The futuristic court was enormous. Made from a semi-translucent, misty-grey stone, its vaulted ceiling sloped high overhead. The floor stretched away to a vast wall where a winged judge’s bench stood, resplendent and imposing. There were podiums for prosecution and defence, a witness stand, and rows of stone benches fanning back to an ornate pair of double doors. The only thing missing was the jurors’ box.

  “Is this office an old court?” Addison asked, feeling suddenly uneasy.

  “Your mark,” Five replied, pointing to a chair beside the judge’s bench.

  “Where’s the crew?”

  There were sleek-looking cameras positioned all around, but only Addison, Two and Five were on set. Four was nowhere to be seen.

  “The judge will come soon. That is your cue.”

  “Can I speak to the director?”

  “Alas, no.”

  “Who can I speak to?”

  “I’m sorry,” Five said, glancing away. “I must prepare.”

  As Five headed off to the defence table, Addison’s sense of unease deepened. Something was off here: the actors, the set, the speedy audition: it didn’t add up. He was beginning to suspect this wasn’t activism but advertising, some corporate attack ad portraying environmentalists as vindictive maniacs. It would explain the secrecy, few in the acting world would consent to a role like this. The thought of Addison’s peers seeing him in such a piece made his stomach churn. He’d be blacklisted for months. Question was, how badly did he need the money? Addison squirmed, his pride wrestling with his pragmatism, then he jumped up.

  “Actually,” he began. “I have a few more que––”

  A loud voice rang through the court.

  “All rise!”

  Addison’s heart plummeted.

  He was too late.

  At their tables, Two and Five turned to face the back. Addison froze, expecting extras and cameramen to start filing in, but instead a lone man strode through the double doors. He was tall, thin, with long white hair swept back from a high forehead. Dressed in a more elaborate version of the levellers’ clothing, he strode down the aisle like a sergeant inspecting his troops. Ascending to the judge’s podium, he cleared his throat and began to speak.

  “I am Judge One,” he announced, in a high, clear voice. “This Court of Levelling is now in session.”

  Banging a gavel, the judge’s eyes met Addison’s. A sudden pain stabbed into his head, and for the briefest of instances the judge’s face seemed to flicker.

  Perhaps it was a trick of the lighting, someone in the rafters realigning a spotlight, but for a second Addison thought he saw several expressions superimposed over One’s face, flickering like the spiral icons on the waiting room clock. The stabbing intensified and Addison grimaced in pain. Unbidden, his fingers grasped for whatever was affixed to his neck. Something shifted, the pain vanished and when he glanced back up the judge’s face was entirely normal.

  “Four,” One was saying, acting like filming was already underway. “Our defendant?”

  A back door banged open. There was a crackle of electricity, a cry of pain, then a man was stumbling out into court. He was followed by Four, who in turn was followed by something impossible.

  “My god,” Addison whispered, the judge’s face forgotten.

  It was a drone. Horned, accented in red and black and encased in overlapping plates of metallic armour, it looked more like an insect than a machine: a praying mantis hovering in mid-air. As two dots of electric blue flared at its pincers, some kind of taser, Addison realised it was the most detailed prop he’d ever seen.

  “Please!” cried the man playing the defendant. “Stop this!”

  Short, squat and with slicked-back hair emphasising a widow’s peak, he was dressed expensively: a three-piece suit, tie and pocket square. His eyes glittered with tears and Addison felt a glimmer of professional respect. The man was already acting circles around the others.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t know!” he cried.

  “Four...?” One said, almost lazily.

  The grey woman unholstered a prop pistol hanging from her belt, took aim and fired. There was a loud crack, and the defendant’s limbs stiffened. Four made a show of tapping a button and on cue the man was moving. Legs jerking like a marionette, he came down onto the floor and into the witness box where he sat down with a thunk. Addison almost applauded, the shock on the man’s face was award-worthy.

  “For the benefit of our civilian assistant,” Judge One continued, nodding to Addison. “This is our defendant, a returnee from your time.”

  “My time,” Addison repeated, realising he had no choice but to play along. “Got it.”

  “Sir,” the judge declared, addressing the defendant. “You have been in the vision chair, you understand your predicament, you know both when and where you are. Now, please confirm you are indeed Oliver Ross, former CEO of the Rossco commodity trading and mining conglomerate?”

  “I’m the current chairman,” Ross stammered. “Or I was… I’m sorry, I’m getting confused––”

  “Would you also confirm,” the judge interrupted. “That Rossco dealt in metals, minerals, crude oil, coal and natural gas, as well as a latter-day divestment into cryptocommodities and digital wealth management?”

  The man nodded slowly. The judge gestured to Two.

  “Prosecution?”

  Two stood, consulting his tablet.

  “The charges are as follows!” he began, in his jarringly affable manner. “That in the course of your career you committed terracide via the adjunct crimes of ecocide, toxicide, deforestation, illegal waste disposal, fr
aud, forgery, bribery, criminal conspiracy, forced displacement, torture, slavery, war profiteering and genocide. Mr. Ross, how do you plead?”

  There was a long pause.

  “Genocide?” the man breathed. “You can’t be serious?”

  “Your plea, Mr. Ross?” Two repeated.

  “I didn’t do this. I didn’t do anything!”

  “For the record, a plea of not guilty has been entered. I will now present historical accounts to substantiate each charge.”

  Digital screens flickered on all over the courtroom. On walls, tables, benches, every available blank space, blue-white projections appeared: company documents, watermarked images, photographs and social media posts. As Addison’s eyes lingered on a photo of a woman face-down on a desert road, a bloodied headscarf draped over her body, he frowned. This was all getting rather involved for a corporate advert.

  “That was thrown out!” Ross said, eyeing the picture. “Quashed!”

  “This is not evidence to dispute, Mr. Ross,” Two replied. “These are facts verified for centuries. We ask merely for an acknowledgement you see them.”

  “I don’t––”

  Four raised her pistol.

  “I see,” Ross replied hastily. “I do not acknowledge.”

  “Your confirmation is acknowledgment enough,” Two replied. “The prosecution rests.”

  Addison blinked.

  Everything was happening too fast.

  “Thank you, prosecution,” Judge One continued, apparently satisfied. “Defence?”

  Five rose to his full height, readying his speech.

  “The defence has nothing to add at this time,” he said, and immediately sat back down.

  A prickling sensation swept up Addison’s spine.

  “No!” Ross shouted. “You can’t do this!”

  “Do not make us use the compulsion pistol again.”

  “No!” the man repeated, suddenly manic. “What happened to innocent until proven guilty? What happened to the statute of limitations?”

  “Ancient, long-abandoned concepts. You are being tried ex post facto.”

  “Ex post what?”

  “After the fact. As is our custom.”

  “Why me, then?” Ross cried. “Why not Bezos, or Musk or any of that lot. They had more! They did worse!”