The Biomass Revolution (The Tisaian Chronicles) (4 page)

Spurious forced a smile at the two Knights and
continued forward until he reached the gates. It took only a few seconds for the laser to scan his identification card, prompting the gate to swing open. He cringed as the metallic entrance whined and creaked.

S
lowly he passed through the stone square surrounding the massive SGS offices on all sides. Leafless trees extended out of the frozen ground, their naked branches reaching towards the gray brick walls of the building.

The office itself was four stories tall and housed about
two hundred workers total. The windows were replaced after a sniper killed a worker a few years back. The glass was removed and in its place, the SGS insignia had been edged into the brick.

The top of the office had a copper dome roof
tinted dark green with age. All four outside walls had been overtaken with massive vines crawling like bloated veins across the brick exterior.

Spurious entered the first floor of the building, relieved to be out of the cold. He took of
f his wool beret and tucked it under his armpit, continuing down the hall lined with cubicles on both sides.

His office was on the third floor
and could be accessed only by stairs. The elevators had been shut down after another law restricting energy use was passed a few years back. The floor was unusually busy and he shuffled through the crowd of employees to his cubicle, quickly peering into Lana’s work station, which still remained empty. She had now been gone for three days straight, and he was beginning to worry.

He took off his thick coat, dressing the back of
the chair. The first part of his day was always the worst, but he found ways to pretend he was not at the office. Sometimes he imagined he was at his apartment listening to his pirated copies of old industrial music by DJs from the early 21st century. Other times he imagined he was reading one of the philosophy or history books from his freshman year in college. Mostly though, he just imagined he wasn’t at the office, and was perhaps strolling through the beautiful State courtyards and admiring the fountains. These modern gardens had been constructed by the State for that very reason, to remind the citizen they lived in a world of relative safety and abundance, much different than the world outside the great walls.

As he settled into his desk
he noticed his blue screen was glowing again. He swiped the message button.

Urgent – Open At Once
.

His heart stopped and a wave of anxiety
rushed over him as he scanned the title of the message once again.

He sat down to examine it closer.
It was from an anonymous source. Typically, messages like these were quarantined by the technology workers, but somehow this one had made it through their constant scans.

Should I open it
?

W
ithout thinking, his index finger clicked on the holographic blue screen. The message instantly appeared.

Spurious: Meet me at the Ale House tonight. Don’t be later than midnight. Come alone.

As soon as it appeared the message was gone. The burning uneasiness rushed through him again, intensifying. His heart began to race, and his breathing became labored.

Spurious tried to calm himself, wiping a bead of sweat from his forehead.
It wasn’t every day he received an urgent message asking him to meet an anonymous person outside of work. He stared blankly at his cubicle wall, his mind beginning to race. Whoever it was from, he had all day to make a decision on whether he would meet them.

Time
: 11:33 p.m. January 23, 2071

Location
: The Ale House. Lunia, Tisaia

A mist rose a few feet above the damp city streets. Spurious placed his gloved hands in the pockets of his coat, wading through the thick fog, and making his way down the brick street.

Against his better judgment
, he decided to meet Paulo and Ing at The Ale House located in the East Village about five blocks east of the Commons Buildings. Spurious was already 30 minutes late, having fallen asleep after coming home from work.

He
took in a large breath and exhaled a puff of visible air into the night, realizing how unusually excited he was. For some reason, he had a burning desire to know who this person was, regardless of what danger was associated with them.

He
stopped to peer into the window of one of his favorite stores. The wood sign hanging above the window read,
The Magician.
Several candles in the windowsill gave off a warm glow, illuminating a shelf full of antiques lined with items from the past.

He had picked up a few trinkets here
—a wooden cross the owner had explained held significant spiritual value and a small handheld device with a tiny apple engraved on the back that read,
iPod.
They were artifacts from the old world, where technology and spirituality were both meant to comfort. But those days were long gone. Religions of the past had all but been forgotten—religion was now the State. God was no longer a being, it was the government.

The East Village was one of the only places left in Tisaia that wasn’t State subsidized. These small businesses consisted of bakeries, taverns, boutique stores, and bars. They were the last of their kind, a haven for the curious State worker who wanted a glimpse into the world as it once was.

Spurious knew the unfortunate truth
—the shop’s days were numbered. With more and more of these businesses forced to close their doors each year as the State passed laws banning their products. It was only a matter of time before they were all closed. Some of them broke health laws while others sold illegal electronic devices that wouldn’t pass energy audits.

Fortunately, t
he State did not have the time or the resources to enforce their laundry list of laws, and while his superiors constantly advised him and his co-workers to stay out of the East Village, most of them never listened.

In the distance
, Spurious could see a line of citizens waiting to enter The Ale House. He cracked a half smile and dug his hands deeper into the warmth of his pockets.

The State has a long way to go from shutting this place down.

He
entered the back of the line and kept his face nuzzled in his collar, inching forward with the mass of citizens. Within minutes he was inside.

“There he is
!” Ing shouted over the noise of the growing crowd. Paulo and Ing had been lucky and found the first wooden table in the bar.

The Ale House was
small for an eatery, consisting of only two floors. The first floor was built with rich cedar, salvaged from before the Biomass Wars. The walls were lined with framed magazine articles and newspaper pages also from the past, long before the
Lunia Post
existed.

The
first floor was reserved for tables and patrons ordering food and ale. The underground floor added to the charm of The Ale House. It was made completely of stone and was used mostly as a dance floor, although there was also a bar downstairs. This area was known as “The Cave” and had a rich history. It was supposedly a hide out for the rebels during the first stages of the ongoing Biomass Revolution. It was said that the first rebel leaders of the Tisaian Democratic Union were betrayed by one of their own and ambushed there not two years ago. The Cave was also rumored to have several underground passages leading into the tunnel system.

Spurious raised his hand to
summon a bar maid and glanced over at Ing. “Sorry I’m late. I fell asleep in my rain room again when I got off work. I just can’t seem to get enough of it lately.”

“
What’s with the naps, man? You sure do sleep a lot,” Ing replied.

Spurious shrugged. “Work has been really stressful lately,” he
said, grabbing a tavern chip from a basket in the middle of the table.

“
It isn’t a big deal. Just seems like when you aren’t at work, you’re sleeping in your rain room.”

“Consider it a hobby of mine,” Spurious
said, laughing.

“Beats what I do after work,” Paulo chipped in. “I’m
always exhausted after I manage to get out of the office. I usually don’t make it past my couch. At least Spurious gets to the rain room.”

Ing rolled his eyes. “When did you guys become so boring?”

“So if we’re so boring, why don’t you explain what you do after work?” Spurious said, irritably. 

Ing took a long swig of his ale. “You know, stuff. I watch the blue screen and come here.”

“Sounds pretty exciting,” Paulo sneered.

“Just in time!” Spurious exclaimed, ignoring Paulo and reaching for a pint of ale the bar maid carried towards their table.

“Thanks,”
he said, rubbing his hands together and grabbing the cold mug. He took a long swig of the ale and then stole a glance over his shoulder to mentally map out the bar. There were a few familiar faces, other State employees he had seen before, but no one out of the ordinary.

He turned hi
s attention back to his friends. “What’s the plan tonight, gentleman?”

“
Actually, we were hoping you could tell us why you invited us here. This isn’t like you. What’s the occasion?” Paulo asked.

Spurious avoided the question.
“Does anyone want to check out The Cave later?”

“My old bones could use some dancing, I suppose,” Paulo
said with a smile.

Spurious laughed
. “I’d love to see that.”

“You know I have been dancing longer than you both have been alive. In my home country of Brazil
, dancing was taught at a young age. Growing up, we were so poor it was one of the only things to do for fun.”

Ing cringed. “Dancing
, fun? If you say so, old man.”

“Ing
, you’re proving you have the mind of a child.” Paulo muttered. “I thought I taught you more than this.”

That’s
Paulo!
Spurious thought, sitting back and watching his old friend emerge.

“I have the mind of a child because I don’t believe in conspiracy theories? Did you stop to think maybe I just don’t care?
Did you think maybe the reason I don’t ask questions is because I don’t want to end up being visited by the Knights?” Ing shot back. 

Spurious frowned and ordered
another pint from a young barmaid. Her face lit up as he dropped a credit on her tray.

“That’s to ke
ep the ale flowing,” he shouted.

A loud beat of electronic music e
xploded out of the entrance to The Cave, drowning out his arguing friends. He wiped away a few beads of sweat forming on his forehead and watched the tavern fill with patrons. One by one he scanned their faces, searching desperately for whoever may have sent him the message.

Slowly
intoxication gripped him and he found himself staring at the bar, admiring the waterfall creeping down the granite.

“You better slow down there
, Spurious. You don’t want to get lost on your way home tonight. I heard the Knights have been snatching State workers up in the middle of the night,” Paulo said with a grin.

Spurious cast
Paulo a quick glare while he took another swig of his ale. A few strands of hair fell down his sweaty forehead, but he quickly brushed them back into place. He knew he should keep his wits, but the anonymous message earlier in the day had brought on a wave of anxiety only ale could relieve.

“Ah, I don’t worry about
that anymore,” he lied.

“Shit, Paulo, why do you have to dampen the night with some of that crap. I just want to stare at some ladies
I’ll never sleep with, get incredibly drunk, fail miserably while asking one of them to dance and finally go home and pass out,” Ing replied. “Is that too much to freaking ask?”

“Come on Paulo, you know just as well as I do those
stories are bull shit and are supposed to keep us out of places like this,” Spurious said.

Paulo’s grin faded and his aged face turned stern. He
rested his mug on the table and looked away from the crowd, staring at his two friends. “Remember our conversation about the new type of Biomass the other day? When I told you that not everything is as it may seem… Well, there is much you two young men don’t know. Much I haven’t told you.” Paulo turned and quickly scanned the crowd to make sure no one was listening.

“Truth is
, when I was written up at work, it wasn’t just because I failed to turn off my lights a few times. My supervisor accused me of spreading negative rhetoric about the State.”

Ing raised an eyebrow. “What kind of rhetoric
?”

“The type that gets you locked up. Luckily
, the case never made it to the Knights. My supervisor dropped it when his boss got involved. It was blackmail. He wanted the position I had been hired for. So he accused me of spreading lies about the State. The truth, however, is more complicated. I had been discussing many theories about the State with another co-worker. This man told me he was getting info from the TDU. He disappeared a couple months ago.” Paulo paused and took a short swig from his mug.