Nicholas Smith - The Biomass Revolution

Spurious stood on his toes again, listening to the rhetoric spewing out of a loudspeaker mounted to the roof of the truck and into the desperate ears of the commoners. The CRK never recruited in Rohania. At least not that he was aware of. If they needed soldiers then the war with the TDU wasn’t going as well as reported.

Spurious ducked behind a wooden trailer full to the brim with tomatoes, realizing there could be Knights disguised as Rohanians combing the crowd for dissidents and State workers.

And yet he stayed, partly hidden from view, peeking out from the protection of the trailer. His curious eyes followed the young men, who looked desperately in need of work, file into a line one by one.

“Sign up for the world’s last honorable army!” the man from the pickup yelled into his mic. “Good pay. Time off. And food for you and your family,” he continued.

Within minutes Spurious had seen enough to realize Paulo was right. The State was lying to them about more than just the Wastelands. They were lying about the Biomass Revolution.

He turned to head back the way he came, tucking his chin back into his collar and diverting his eyes to the street. Everywhere he walked, he felt the eyes of curious observers burning into his back. And to make things worse he felt the sensation of someone following him. His suspicion intensified when he noticed a scruffy old man clearly on his trail.

Spurious rounded a corner, cocking his head just long enough to catch a glimpse of his follower. He looked to be about 60 years old, with a light grey beard latched to his face like a cobweb. He wore a ragged old blue coat riddled with holes.

At least I know this guy isn’t a CRK agent.

Relieved, he began to plan a route back to his apartment away from his new stalker. An hour passed and Spurious was still making his way quietly through Rohania. He checked the street number and saw he was almost back to the border. When he rounded the next corner he turned to see the same man discreetly hugging the walls of a building.

“Damn, this guy doesn’t give up.”

It was getting late and Spurious knew if he wasn’t back in a few hours Anya would send an alert to the CRK. And the last thing he needed was a visit from a Knight.

Overhead, the distant sun began to disappear in the gray sky. Spurious pulled his chin out of his collar and gazed up at the tint of orange streaked across the horizon. He paused to catch his breath, watching a pair of birds hug the gray cloud line like dolphins catching a wave in the ocean.

He shook his head, mindful not to let a distraction slow him down. At the end of the street he could see the alleyway he used to enter Rohania. He glanced over his shoulder and quickly scanned the street. His follower was nowhere to be seen.

A smile of relief crawled across his face, happy the man had lost interest. He hurried towards the narrow alley, admiring the stone buildings one last time. The aging structures were plagued with vines, their green limbs attaching to metal pipes and loose gutters. Rohania always reminded Spurious of the pictures he had seen of medieval Europe while studying art at the University of Tisaia, a year before they abolished the class. The area was designed to be a ghetto, housing as many people as possible. They were made almost completely of old stone and brick, constructed out of the rubble from the Biomass Wars.

A drop of water from a leaky rooftop plopped into a puddle in front of him. The splash reminded Spurious of how poorly constructed the beautiful buildings were. The aging stone and oblique structures illustrated the division between Lunia and Rohania — the privileged vs. the impoverished.

As he turned down another street, he realized how blind he had become. When had he stopped seeing the truth? He of all people should have known what the city had become, having grown up there. Within a decade the city had fallen into shambles, crumbling one building at a time, the citizens starving while the State workers and Tisaian politicians prospered in Lunia not a mile away. And it was then it struck him—the Biomass Revolution wasn’t just about energy, it was about greed. This was something he chose to ignore in the past. And it wasn’t the only thing he ignored. He had become so complacent he stopped questioning what lay beyond the gates of Tisaia. Paulo was right about everything.

He paused to catch his breath again, confusing thoughts racing through his mind. For a second, he realized how little he really knew of the rest of the world. The only thing he knew about the outside was derived from the images contained in his old textbooks, now nothing more than ash in some landfill. Most people in Tisaia didn’t even think about the Wastelands; let alone what was beyond their border. Their world was Tisaia. And ever since history books were abolished, people had all but forgotten the past, the great Tisaian wall solidifying the small world defining their lives.

Spurious forgot his questions as the view of the barbed wire fence marking the border came into view. Relieved, he headed towards the idle storm drain he had used to enter earlier.

“Rohania is no place for a State worker,” said a voice from the shadows in the alley. Spurious turned, his eyes scanning the darkness.

“Who’s there?” he asked nervously, pulling his hands from his pockets and rolling them into fists. A few moments passed before Spurious entreated again. “I said, who’s there?”

The alley remained still as Spurious waited for a face to emerge and take claim to the words. But silence followed the echo of his voice. Without further hesitation, Spurious rushed back into the alley, his fists raised to a fighting level.

“Over here,” said the same voice again. Spurious turned, looking in all directions, trying to pinpoint the location the voice came from, but to no avail. Whoever was trying to get his attention did not want to be seen.

Another wave of panic gripped him. He knew it was imperative to escape back to the safety of Lunia, but something kept him from leaving. Perhaps it was the fear, or maybe the curiosity or a combination of both. Whatever it was he remained frozen.

“What do you want?” Spurious yelled, his eyes nervously darting across the shadows. In the distance he saw a street lamp flicker, struggling to turn on as night settled in. The light of Rohania was already dim at best, and the alleyway was just minutes away from being consumed by darkness.

He turned to head towards the storm drain. Within seconds his nervous hands reached for the cover of the storm drain he had hidden behind a large wooden crate. A bead of sweat crept down his face as he removed the box and pulled a small knife out of his breast pocket turning again to see if his stalker had emerged. But there was nothing but the constant sound of a leaky gutter and the intermittent glow of the light pole.

His hands shook uncontrollably as he tried to twist the screw out of the drain cover. Twice he dropped the knife as his fingers shook nervously. Anger overtook him as he tried the screw again.

Finally the screw popped out and he pulled the drain cover off; setting it down softly on the brick ground and shooting another fast glance back at the alley to make sure whoever was there wasn’t sneaking up on him.

“You do not need to fear me, young Spurious,” a voice said from the alley. Spurious froze before turning to face the man that had been following him for some time. He looked at him suspiciously, wondering how the old man knew his name.

“Let me begin by introducing myself. I’m Leo, brother of William Smith and son of Dave Smith.”

The names immediately registered. They were old world names. Names his father had mentioned when he was a child, long after the Tisaian government assigned names to all citizens, in order to weed out immigrants.