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

  “Your duties are not complete, Mr. Moore,” the judge called from the podium. “You have one final task.”

  “I didn’t––”

  The judge held up a hand to silence him.

  “Presently, Five will be moving the cadaver to the fluid processor in the lower levels, but after that the witness stand will need disinfecting.”

  Addison stared in sheer disbelief.

  Two smiled helpfully.

  “Mop and bucket in the waiting room cupboard,” he beamed. “There’s a good chap.”

  This time it was Addison’s turn to weep.

  The next day the levellers resurrected, tried and executed three more people. The day after it was four. The third a brisk half-dozen.

  Addison was present each and every time, silent other than when he was called upon to answer arcane questions about 20th and 21st century life – name this figure, explain that custom, clarify this policy. And afterwards, hyperventilating, he would step down to scrub bodily fluids and scorch marks off the floor until it was time to start all over again.

  Addison understood now, grasped his place in things. From his perfunctory title of ‘court interpreter’ to the laughably analogue mop bucket, it was all spectacle. He was a patsy, a prop, something the levellers used to make it look like they were doing things by the book. But they didn’t want justice, they wanted retribution. Kept compliant by the device in his neck and the ever-present threat of heat death, Addison was how the levellers justified their brutality. One to excuse, one to explain, one to accuse, one to proclaim: it was a joke, a clever motto to conceal a cruel methodology. And Addison was at the centre of it, stitching it all together. He was the levellers’ token nod to due process, something to point to as evidence of their legitimacy when handing down their guilty verdicts.

  And they always handed down guilty verdicts.

  They executed a financier for his role in bankrolling million-ton carbon projects. They executed a shipping magnate for pouring megatons of pollution into the world’s oceans. They executed a sultan for building a desert city of ten million people where no city had any right to be. They executed a media baron and three of his heirs for a half-century smear campaign against environmentalists. They executed oil executive after oil executive after oil executive.

  The surprising thing however wasn’t the savagery, but the tedium. The first execution was horrific but by the tenth, the twentieth, Addison began dissociating. As the days stretched on, time got fuzzy around the edges. He would wake, interpret, clean and repeat, until events felt as if they were happening behind a thick smothering veil. He even stopped dreaming, which at first seemed a blessing (no more pursuing tides) but ultimately served to make his waking moments more dreamlike. Even the thudding in the walls faded, receding with Addison’s sense of self.

  For truth was, he was not himself.

  He wasn’t Addison Moore, not really. He may have that man’s memories, an approximation of his body, but he was just a copy, a counterfeit. And this was good. It absolved him of responsibility: for how could he be responsible for his actions if he wasn’t truly himself? It excused both his complicity and his need to feel empathy for the defendants. In the end, their suffering wasn’t real because they weren’t.

  They were just clones.

  Still, the executions were grim. Some returnees cried, some begged, many shouted, as if they could scream their way to exoneration. But at the moment of death everyone became the same. Alone, terrified, feebly human, the defendants were reduced to mere equals, whatever privilege they may have once enjoyed boiling away in a gust of superheated viscera.

  Occasionally, rarely, people became violent. During the trial of a Chinese urban planner, a man whose nine-city megalopolis emitted more carbon than any conurbation in history, Four’s pistol malfunctioned. Seizing his moment, the defendant – wide-eyed and snarling – made it halfway up the judge’s bench before the drone intervened. It was a startling moment, exhilarating, and Addison started fantasising the man going for him instead. He could picture it clearly: knuckles meeting skin, bone splintering, blood spattering. It was vivid, violent and it shocked Addison how much he wanted it. Because if it did, at least then he’d know he could still feel something.

  At least then he’d know he was truly alive.

  Not long after this incident, the levellers came to visit Addison in person. It was evening, the day’s trials were complete and the grey-white light in the institute was dimming. He was preparing for another dreamless night in his cellsuite, when the door slid open to reveal Judge One flanked by the drone.

  “What did I do wrong?” Addison blurted.

  The levellers had taught him to assume guilt before innocence, and One being here himself was a bad sign.

  “Have I done something?” he repeated.

  “We are expanding your duties,” the judge announced. “We are spending too long dealing with outbursts and tangential episodes. The escapade with Mr. Xi cost us precious time as well as overtaxing our drone. We need to be more efficient.”

  “But I’m just doing what you told me!”

  “And now you will do more.”

  “Of course,” Addison mumbled. “Sorry.”

  “You will begin tomorrow,” One continued. “When the apex light begins to shine, report to the vision room. You are to adopt a more pastoral role, welcoming returnees, acclimatising them, making them perform better in court.”

  “Perform better?”

  “Precisely.”

  “You mean be better lambs to the slaughter?”

  It was a dangerous thing to say. Insubordinate, reckless, but it gave Addison a dark stab of satisfaction. Maybe this would all end right here.

  “See to it, Mr. Moore,” One snapped, nostrils flaring. “Fail us and you know the cost.”

  As he turned to leave, the drone shot forwards. It was a feint, pure intimidation tactics, but Addison yelped and leapt back. He tripped over himself, falling painfully onto the floor. The judge looked down at him from the doorway, his face a mixture of pity and disgust. The drone lingered a moment, just long enough to make its point, then it hovered away. As the door sealed Addison let out a choked sigh. One way or another, he realised, this place was going to be the death of him.

  * * *

  Addison’s first patient was Caroline Hathersley.

  She was not adjusting well.

  “I don’t understand!” the returnee wailed, writhing on the floor below the vision chair. “What could I have done! What could I possibly have done?”

  Addison didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t had much time to prepare for her arrival, but faced with this bawling, naked, oil-stained woman, he wished he’d put more thought into it.

  “It’s going to be okay,” he soothed, draping her in the metallic sheet. “It’ll all be okay.”

  “It told me I was to be tried,” Caroline replied, wide-eyed. “Like in actual court.”

  “The chair did?”

  “Those images. That voice.”

  “Don’t mind that just now.”

  “But, court!”

  At a loss for what to say, Addison picked up a tablet the levellers had issued him and scanned Caroline’s bio for something that might help.

  The device was linked to the institute’s archives and displayed historical records on the returnees. Most notable were the two ages: levelling and true death. Five had explained this was because many samples had been taken long before the subject actually died. A person may have lived to a ripe old age, but if their sample was taken in their youth, that’s the age their levelled clone would be. It was just how it worked.

  According to the tablet, Addison’s new ward was Caroline Florence Hathersley, levelling age 21, true death 87, formerly of Cheshire, Britain. There was even a picture, but it was heavily posed, more suited to social media than a tribunal. Addison couldn’t find an occupation, which was strange as all the other returnees had been high-flyers. Most defendants had been CEOs, politicians,
financiers and the like, but Caroline’s field was resolutely blank.

  “I don’t understand!” the woman repeated, echoing the same line all returnees did. “Why me?”

  She’s just a clone, Addison reminded himself.

  “It’s okay,” he said, helping her to her feet. “Let’s get you to your room. There’ll be clothes there, food too. You can rest up. Everything will be clear tomorrow.”

  Her eyes were huge, dark pools. Had he been that way inclined, Addison would have found her quite beautiful, but as she pressed against him, shivering under the blanket, he felt a sudden repulsion. Death clung to the woman like a wraith.

  Just a clone.

  “Will it be bad?” Caroline murmured. “Tomorrow?”

  “Not at all,” he lied, guiding her towards the door. “It’ll be very… efficient.”

  “Good,” she replied distantly. “That’s good.”

  Caroline’s cellsuite was identical to Addison’s, save for a few folded items of clothing the levellers had laid out (they seemed to have some way of fabricating items from the returnee’s time). He guided her to the bed where she collapsed immediately, embracing oblivion. Standing a moment, looking down at this poor doomed girl, he wondered what she could possibly have done in just twenty-one years to justify such a fate. But then, on the heels of that thought came another: just a clone.

  He tucked the covers tighter around her and sealed the door behind him.

  Caroline’s trial was held the next day, and within five minutes Addison was worried.

  She was not being very compliant.

  “Say that again!” the returnee cried from the witness stand. “A tally? What the hell is that?”

  Overnight, a transformation had taken place. Yesterday, Caroline had been ghostly and frail, but this morning she was resplendent. Her hair was sleek and shiny, her make-up immaculate (how had the levellers sourced make-up?), and she was dressed in the same outfit from her profile, a garish riot of colour in the otherwise dreary courtroom. At first, Addison wondered why they had permitted this – she looked more like a Hollywood starlet than a criminal – but then he realised it was all part of the show. They were giving her just enough rope to hang herself.

  “Your carbon tally, Miss. Hathersley,” Two smiled, irrepressible as ever. “The sum total of carbon you generated in your life, measured in carbon dioxide equivalents or ‘CO2e.’”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “Every action has a carbon value associated with it,” he explained, speaking as if to a child. “A vehicular journey will produce several kilograms for example, an aircraft trip many tons. In your era, citizens were ascribed a number, a running tally updated as they progressed through life. Your final tally was amongst the highest we’ve seen.”

  “No idea what you mean.”

  “We have it on file. Would you like to see?”

  “Not really.”

  “It’s quite simple,” Two continued. “The bigger a person’s carbon footprint, the bigger their tally. The CEO of an oil company will have a huge one, an algae farmer less so.”

  “But I was just a model!” Caroline protested.

  “What is ‘model?’” Two frowned, looking to Addison.

  But Caroline was still speaking.

  “I was an influencer,” she explained, eyes darting around the court. “As in, people followed me and other people gave me stuff because of it.”

  “Please elaborate.”

  “It was small things at first. Gifts, clothes, jewellery. But then they started flying me places. Lots of places. Ads and promos and whatnot. But it was all normal. There were loads of us. Everyone did it.”

  Two seemed energised by the response.

  “So by your own admission, your role was to influence others to do as you did?”

  “There was a bit more to it.”

  “But this was the primary objective?”

  “I mean, I guess...”

  “And this didn’t trouble you? Exerting influence over people’s behaviour?”

  “Why would it? I didn’t make anyone do anything!”

  Two leant forward, sensing blood.

  “Miss. Hathersley, let me put it plainly. In your lifetime you accrued a carbon tally in excess of five hundred times the global average, mostly accrued through egregious international travel and the associated manufacturing costs of the products you promoted. But worse than that, you actively promoted such a lifestyle to others. You influenced other people to live the same unsustainable lifestyle as yourself.”

  “So?”

  “How many people followed your example? How many did you influence who went on to influence others? On and on, a chain of people propagating an unsustainable, unconscionable lifestyle? Add their tally to yours and you are perhaps one of the greatest emitters in history.”

  Addison had to marvel. The circular logic of their argument was insidious. It reminded him of Stalin’s Russia or Mao’s China, where guilt was simply about allegiance. You could live an entirely lawful life, but if you weren’t on the right side of some arbitrary line come crunch time, that was that. Law didn’t matter, only zeal. Transgress, even after the fact, and the chain of events would be swift: you’d get a firing squad, your family a bill for the bullet, and your executors would insist this had been the rule from the start. And now, poor Caroline didn’t even realise she was in the crosshairs.

  “You admit then your lifestyle was overconsumptive?” Two pressed, going for the kill.

  “No more than others,” she replied.

  “Admit it! You were edacious, voracious, a glutton!”

  “Posting online?” she cried. “Going on trips? Getting gifts? That’s just how people lived!”

  “Not everyone, Miss. Hathersley. Many, yes, too many, but not everyone. Instead, you chose a lifestyle that directly and indirectly generated millions of tons of carbon, hastening global collapse.”

  “But it was just normal!” she pleaded. “Why are you singling me out? Why not the corporations? Why not the politicians? I was just one person!”

  “So you do admit it!”

  “What’s to admit?” Caroline replied, throwing her hands up. “There was nothing illegal about it!”

  Her panicked eyes locked on Addison’s.

  “Tell them!” she cried, the penny finally dropping. “They don’t know. Tell them this was just how people lived. You can’t blame me, everyone did it!”

  Addison bowed his head, saying nothing.

  Just a clone.

  “Judge,” Two announced, his smile giving way to a lurking savagery. “With the witness confessing, I see no need to continue. Things were different then, or that’s just how it was are neither valid nor moral arguments. Wrong is wrong in any century. The prosecution rests.”

  Caroline let out a choked sob. “Tell them!”

  “Defence?” the judge called.

  Five stood dutifully to deliver his one line.

  “The defence has nothing to add at this time.”

  “Please!” Caroline cried, shaking. “Please!”

  Addison couldn’t meet her eyes.

  Just a clone just a clone just a clone.

  Caroline died in agony, like the rest.

  * * *

  In the days that followed, Addison became the performer Five had always wanted him to be. The levellers were trying more and more returnees, up to nearly ten a day, and after his poor showing with Caroline he knew he had to try harder. So to keep people compliant during trials, he came up with a simple strategy: he began to lie.

  It was surprisingly easy. Addison told the returnees whatever they wanted to hear, creating an entire performance around keeping them happy and compliant. He shouldn’t have been surprised: acting wasn’t just a career to him, he’d been performing ever since his parents’ bungalow. He’d kept them happy and compliant for years – acting, performing, lying (and truly, what was an actor if not a professional liar?) – before they finally found him out. This was different, bu
t not that different.

  And yet, even Addison was taken aback by how naturally the lies came, how dextrous he became with mistruth. Each lie was different, tailored to the returnee. Different people reacted to the chair in different ways, some accepting, some denying, so he adjusted accordingly. To the weak, the overwhelmed, he would feed simple platitudes: telling them it was all going to be okay, soothing them with kind, mollifying words. With the clever, the suspicious, he would play co-conspirator: intimating things were not quite as they seemed. He would say “play along, just don’t let on,” then let them walk into the trap thinking they were a step ahead. To the angry, the incensed – men in all but the rarest of instances – he would play to their egos and sense of exceptionalism. “I’m sure this is all one big misunderstanding,” he would say, plastering on a subservient smile. “A man such as yourself? Inconceivable! Have a word with the judge. He’s your sort. Just do it at the end...” By the time anyone realised, it was much too late.

  Sometimes he felt guilty, complicit, but he quickly buried those feelings. After a small feat of mental gymnastics – they aren’t real, they’re just clones – he always felt clearer-headed. In fact, so clear-headed did he become that Addison began noticing things.

  He noticed how the levellers became fatigued as trials went on, as Five had in the levelling room. He noticed how they flinched at the thudding in the walls, how they disappeared into the upper levels at night, and how there were gaps in their knowledge. They knew a great deal about history, but almost nothing about day-to-day life in the past: Two not knowing what a model was for example, or the time Addison had to explain that a ‘shop’ used to be a real, physical place. The levellers had seemed almost appalled.

  But the most interesting thing he noticed was the returnees. As trials progressed, Addison noticed a certain dropping off in calibre. At first it had been CEOs, captains of industry, big fish, but now they were increasingly normal. The new defendant’s sins were working for companies, not owning them, and the adjunct crime of ‘inaction’ was cited more frequently.