THE KING OF DETROIT (An Original Dystopian Sci-Fi Novel – Episode 3)
The King of Detroit saga continues. In Episode 3 we learn about the protagonist's background, and how he ended up in his current situation.
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My name is Adam Reese. I live in Detroit. Some call it Motor City. Others call it Motown. I call it home. Whatever you call it, it's been home to my family and me our entire lives. It's where I was born and raised, where I went to school, and where I worked. I used to work at a vehicle assembly plant for Ford Motor Company just down the road in Dearborn. Drivetrain installation was my specialty, but I could easily fill in when other areas were in a pinch. I was good at my job, and I enjoyed my work. All of that was before Yellowstone, of course.
These days, my job, if you can call it that, is hunting for fresh meat. I'm not picky, either. Rabbit, snake, squirrel, rat, groundhog…all are fair game. Hey, meat is meat when you're hungry, which is pretty much all the time. And besides, you can make nearly any animal taste great if you know how to prepare it. On a rare occasion, I bag a deer. We eat a little better for a few days, but we also give some of the meat to our neighbors and use it to trade for supplies. It's hard to watch those around you starve, and besides, the meat doesn't keep for very long anyway. May as well let others in on the bounty.
I live with my mother and my younger sister, Sarah. We take care of each other. Dad died years ago of liver disease. He loved his alcohol a little too much. Loved it to death, he did. Perhaps it's just as well that he punched out early and missed all of the Yellowstone fun.
Mom stays home most days and takes care of the home as best she can. She hasn't been in good health lately and can't do much else. Sarah collects wood from around the neighborhood for cooking and for heat. It's a bigger job than you might think. The Detroit winters are bitter cold and anything that burns is in big demand. People have actually killed and been killed over quality firewood.
We were preppers. That's how we survived Yellowstone. But we were prepping for something very different…an economic collapse, perhaps an EMP explosion. We never imagined anything like Yellowstone would ever happen, nor did anyone else.
When the sky darkened and it started raining ash, we shut ourselves in our home and lived off the rations and water we had stored in the basement. I wish I could tell you that we didn't have to fend off anyone trying to take our food, but we did. We did what anyone would do in our situation, I think…we shot them. We had to. It was either that or let them take our food, water, and our ability to survive. I always dragged the bodies far away from the house and buried them. Thankfully, no one in my house has ever tasted human flesh. It probably doesn't hurt that my hunting skills aren't too shabby, either.
Detroit really doesn't look too much different now than it did before Yellowstone. The city had been mismanaged for decades and fallen into disrepair. Many people gave up on the city and just left, some of them abandoning their homes. It looks as run-down now as it has in years past. The look of despair on people's faces is the same, too. And then, there's the wall.
Detroit's king, King Darius, erected a large wall around the city to keep the favored in and everyone else out, including my family and me. No one is really sure who this Darius guy is or where he came from. He could have been anybody…a used car salesman, a mailman, the guy who bags your groceries. He's probably just a guy who sensed an absence of leadership after Yellowstone and inserted himself in the position. Can't blame him, I guess. I probably would've done the same if I had the opportunity.
I've never been able to make any sense out of the wall. It all seems so random and meaningless. Those who live within the wall seem to be there for no other reason than they just happened to be living there when it was built. It's the same for those living outside the wall. The only thing that makes any sense to me is that it was a way for King Darius to consolidate power. I suppose it's just easier to rule over a certain number of people who are contained within a wall than it is to rule over those who live far outside the city limits. But that doesn't mean we don't hear from them or that they leave us alone. No. Just the opposite, in fact.
They call us “outsiders” even though we don't live too far outside of the city limits. They consider anyone living outside of the wall an outsider, and we have a symbiotic relationship of sorts, if you can call it that, with those who live on the inside. The city provides outsiders who live close by with fresh water and electricity. The water in the local rivers and streams is drinkable enough these days, I suppose, but few of us dare risk it. The animals seem to survive well enough on it. The earth has a remarkable way of cleansing itself that involves nothing more than the passage of time. Take a polluted river, for instance. If you stop polluting it, the river will eventually cleanse itself. Still, it's comforting to have a source of water that you know is clean.
Electricity is generated from a series of small traveling wave reactors that were installed a few years ago. These new reactors were built to withstand a lot of punishment, so they were unaffected by Yellowstone. They are highly efficient, too. The new design allows them to operate for decades without refueling. They are beautifully engineered self-contained units. Their turbines keep spinning day after day, completely oblivious as to how the world outside their reinforced concrete casings has changed. In addition to powering lights, radios, and other necessities, much of the electricity produced by these reactors is diverted to power the large water distillation plants that clean the water and make it safe for drinking.
In exchange for electricity and fresh water, each family is responsible for providing a tribute to the king once a week in the form of a small game animal. A rabbit, groundhog, duck, or a large bird such as a crane is usually sufficient. A tribute of a deer is good for a whole month. If a family is unable to provide a tribute, regardless of the reason, the punishment is death.
Actually, the punishment for most things is death. Murder, theft, assault, pissing off the wrong person, it doesn't matter. It's a one-size-fits-all solution to all of our misdemeanors, and the Detroit sentries that patrol the streets act as judge, jury, and executioner. You don't get to have an attorney present. There are no appeals. There isn't even really a trial. The verdict is whatever the sentries decide it is. It's swift justice, if you can call it justice at all. The best thing to do is to keep your head down, mind your own business, and avoid sentries at all costs. But it's not always so easy.
It's not always possible to avoid the sentries that patrol our neighborhoods because you can't always see them. It's those damned suits they wear that make them invisible. The eggheads at MIT invented the technology and the defense contractors perfected it. The Applied Dynamic Technologies Infantry Mark III is the latest and greatest model. I'm fairly certain it's what the sentries in Detroit are using these days. I think they got them from the old National Guard bases.
The Mark I suit was the prototype. Only a handful of those were made for testing and to market to the military. The Mark II suit was the first to go into production. It had light torso armor and good, but not great, invisibility. With the invisibility engaged, the wearer could still be seen while moving around. The faster he moved, the more visible he became.
The Mark III suit has most of the same features as its predecessor except with improved invisibility. It's still not perfect though. When engaged, a wearer achieves complete invisibility while standing still. Even the rifle he is holding becomes invisible. But when he moves around, you can see a bit of a blur, kind of like a distortion of sorts. It's as though you are looking at something and then it becomes blurry, as if you need glasses.
The Mark III suit also comes with a full face helmet. You would think that such a design would inhibit a person's vision and hearing, but in reality, it's just the opposite. Those helmets have remarkable heads-up displays that give the wearer quite a bit of information about his surroundings. The wearer powers the entire suit, too. There are no heavy batteries to carry. The suit captures the wearer's kinetic and thermal energy for what amounts to an unlimited power source. I don't even pretend to understand how any of it works. I'm just a simple car guy.
At least I used to be a car guy. Things are different now, very different. And I doubt they will ever be even remotely like they were before. My job no longer has anything to do with cars.
My full-time job now is survival.
All images sourced from Pixabay.