Death Shop: With Hope, Anything is Possible — Or Not Read online

  Death Shop

  With Hope, Anything is Possible — Or Not

  George Donnelly

  Cheverer

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Did you Like this Book?

  About the Author

  Also by the Author

  Death Shop

  George Donnelly

  * * *

  Copyright 2015 George Donnelly

  Smashwords Edition

  * * *

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes:

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. But, seriously, please share this book with your friends.

  ISBN: 978-1-941939-04-8

  Death Shop

  Book 1 in the Republic Trust Series

  The Republic Trust is our protector. Form a single file for the daily 500-calorie feed line, courtesy of Xemura Pharma.

  Ailsa Santamaria whores for food on the killing streets of Protectorate 13477 as she struggles to break her daughter Texa's screen addiction. She won't trade control of her mind for a slim chance at a better life. She's not like the others.

  But uplift arrives in Protectorate 13477 nevertheless. Ailsa discovers a way out for her and Texa, but it may not bring the relief she seeks. She thought she had nothing left to lose. That was a lie.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright 2014, 2015 George Donnelly

  * * *

  Cover design by Alexis Art Book Covers, Anna Crosswell

  The author greatly appreciates you taking the time to read his work. Please consider leaving a review wherever you bought the book or telling your friends about it to help spread the word.

  ISBN: 978-1-941939-04-8

  Get 3 free books at GeorgeDonnelly.com.

  To r/DarkFuturology:

  Thanks for the inspiration

  — or should I call it despair. :)

  1

  “This damned thing won’t connect!” Ailsa rapped the palm-sized device on the sidewalk. Her shoulder-length, dirty blond hair spiked out in multiple directions. She brushed it back.

  Texa stared at the giant viewscreen across the street. An advertisement for Xemura Pharma flashed across it. The small girl’s rheumy eyes blanked out. She sat cross-legged on the pockmarked sidewalk next to her mother. Beyond the viewscreen sat the wall. Guardians patrolled its heights with weapons ready.

  “Did you hear me?” Ailsa whispered. She glanced down the street towards the feed line. “Do you have any other ideas? You are a bright little girl. I believe in—”

  “With hope, you can do anything!” Texa whispered the words in unison with the mouth movements of a character onscreen. “Mommy!” She turned to Ailsa. “The audio subscription?”

  Ailsa firmed her mouth. Her eyes tightened. “You know the answer, baby girl.”

  “Why don’t you get us some money?” Texa furrowed her brow at her mother.

  Ailsa looked away. A heaviness grew in her chest and her face burned with shame. She let the handheld device fall to the ground and opened her mouth to take a deep, calming breath. I can fix it. There is still time.

  A little boy with a silver visor over his eyes ran around the corner and palmed the device. Ailsa grabbed his wrist and pulled him towards her.

  “Don’t you dare!” she yelled. “I just put it down, that’s all!” She pulled the device from his hand and buried it in her gut pocket.

  The boy’s visor slipped down his nose. She ripped it off of his face and he screamed.

  “Didn’t your mother teach you not to steal?” Ailsa yelled.

  His face seized up. His eyes were all white. “I didn’t have a mother, lady. Please, put it back. I just got it this morning and I still got a debt. I can see for the first time in seven months. I can’t live without it!”

  She looked at Texa and grinned. Texa shifted her eyes towards her mother but did not look away from the viewscreen across the street.

  She slipped the visor back on the boy’s face and arranged his bangs. He cocked his head to one side and smiled at her. “You didn’t have to do that, you know. It’s worth something.”

  Ailsa shrugged. She turned and stared at her daughter.

  The boy took a seat in front of her. “What’s your name?”

  “What right do you have to my name?” Ailsa asked. “Private information.”

  To her right, the end of the feed line crawled in their direction. Guardians flew in and parked their scooters in the street in front of them.

  Texa growled. She got on all fours and crawled up the block past her mother so she could see the viewscreen again.

  “Are you in the feed line?” asked the boy. “My name’s Henry, by the way.”

  Ailsa stared at him. There was the current again, like a low hum in her brain. She shook it off. “Henry? That’s an old-fashioned one. How did you get a name like that?” She looked up the block at Texa.

  “If you want to eat today, you better get in line,” said Henry. “The Gards are here to close it off, you know.” He stood up and walked towards the end of the line.

  She pursed her lips. “I know how these things work.” She stood up and walked to Texa. She grabbed her arm. “It’s time to go little girl. I have a bad feeling about this.”

  Down the street, Guardians blo
cked access to the feed line with their bodies. A shriek sounded in her ear and she crashed to one knee.

  “This Xemura Feed Line is now closed. Do not attempt to join the queue. Do not move out of line. Everyone currently in line will receive a five-hundred-calorie ration courtesy of Xemura Pharma. Violators are subject to a three-day sustenance suspension. Stay in line. Remain calm. The Republic will care for us.”

  The viewscreen in front of them went all-white. Ailsa noticed out of the corner of her eye that the other viewscreens on the block changed, too. Black letters appeared. “The Republic Trust is our protector!” they said. The Guardians on the wall looked down on them.

  Texa turned to her mother and slapped the sidewalk. “Mom!” she whined. “The viewscreen!”

  Ailsa felt the rage rise in her, too. She exhaled purposefully then smiled at her daughter. “There’s nothing—”

  “Five-hundred calories a day ain’t enough for no man!” The deep, throaty yell came from behind her.

  Ailsa pulled Texa to her feet. Texa refused to put her feet down and run. Ailsa held her against her chest. She ran around the corner. Texa scratched her face.

  “My show’s not over! Take me back! Take me back!” Texa screamed. There was blood under her fingernails.

  Ailsa grabbed Texa’s hands and squeezed them together. Blood trickled from the gashes on the young mother’s face.

  “I’m sorry, baby, but things are about—”

  A rising chorus came from the street behind them. “Our fair share! Our fair share! Our fair share!”

  Ailsa’s neck muscles tensed. Her head arched backwards and a desperate ache spread throughout her back. “Don’t worry, baby girl. We’re almost there. Try to calm down. Do the breathing—”

  “Warning,” said a genderless voice in her ear, “this is now an illegal assembly. Disperse or be terminated.”

  A Guardian scooter zipped past them and stopped in their path. Henry stuck his head out of the front window. “Get on. I can save you!”

  Ailsa stopped dead and scowled at him. What more do I have to lose? Better to try than to die like an animal in the street. She climbed into the backseat and sat Texa next to her. Texa’s tiny body collapsed and her head bounced against the car door.

  “Go!” yelled Ailsa. “Go!” The inside of the scooter stank of sweat and rotten food. There was a small plaque on the rear of the front passenger seat. “Sponsored by Xemura Pharma,” it said.

  Henry jammed his feet into the accelerator pedal and they took off into the sky.

  “We beat it! We got—” started Henry.

  The termination registered in her ear as a piercing but low scream. She grimaced for a brief second then smiled at Texa and caressed her soft, blond hair. “We made it, little one. Just out of range,” she whispered. She let herself feel the exhaustion that tugged at every bone in her body. Now what?

  The scooter dived forward. Ailsa’s chest slammed into the bench wall in front of her. She caught Texa and struggled to expand her lungs.

  “Henry!” she yelled.

  A shiny cobalt skyscraper grew in front of them. She reached forward and pulled Henry’s limp body to one side. His feet came off the pedals. The car leveled off. The building was still in front of them.

  She grabbed the wheel and turned right but the inertia carried them sideways into a deep blue window. A nasty crunch sounded followed by a long screech. Their bodies were thrown hard against the crumpled driver’s side of the vehicle. They began to fall.

  2

  Ailsa fought raw panic to grab the wheel but the rest of her body would not come. The windshield screamed as air fought to pass through its broken lines. The approaching city below beckoned them on. Ahead and below, she spied the next protectorate over and the high wall that separated them. The other protectorate was a crater-filled wasteland of rock, dirt and rusting machines.

  Ailsa looked back at her daughter. Texa was lodged against the back window. Her eyes were closed and her shoulders were rotated inwards. She was silent.

  But we’ve come so far. “With hope, anything is possible.” Texa mouthed the words in Ailsa’s mind’s eye.

  She tensed her arms and pulled her body closer to the oncoming cement. She stiffened her abdomen but her feet fought her.

  Ailsa felt the weakness. This is better. She won’t feel a thing. Ailsa relaxed.

  The scooter slowed and leveled off. Ailsa rolled over into the front seat.

  A shrill siren sounded in her ear. “You have highjacked a Guardian vehicle. Ailsa Santamaria and Texaco Santamaria, you are hereby sentenced to thirty hours of correction. Do not attempt to exit the vehicle. Place your hands on the back of your neck and close your eyes.”

  3

  Ailsa limped out of Protectorate 13477. It was a thick, gray stone building that sprawled across the block. The windows were blackened and the street was empty. Ailsa cradled Texa in her arms. She was still asleep from the post-correction satiators.

  A lone delivery truck carried a light load down the potholed street. Ailsa trundled down the hard steps. She found a viewscreen and sat down across from it on the cold cement.

  “With hope, anything is possible,” she whispered. She sneered. What if there is no hope?

  She jiggled her baby girl. Texa’s eyes were open but there was no spark in them. “Come on, baby, wake up.” She started to sing. “My little girl, oh, my little girl. She is so happy and sweet. I so love her, I so love—”

  Ailsa’s voice choked off. She lost herself in the viewscreen soap opera but held tight onto her little girl. No one can take her from me. Never. The thought echoed in her subconscious.

  4

  Ailsa looked away from the viewscreen. It was dark. Damnit! I lost all day here. She pulled the device from her gut pocket. The Gards hadn’t thought to look for it. Still no signal. That pirate ripped me off.

  The thought of Texa protruded into her mind. Ailsa didn’t want to look down at her but she forced herself. Texa’s eyes blinked. Ailsa caressed her face. “Don’t worry, little one. I will figure a way out of this for us. With hope, anything is possible, right?” I’m hoping, but I don’t know why.

  The corners of Texa’s mouth creased and she licked her lips.

  Ailsa walked blocks to reach their favorite spot near the feed line. Hoverbots scooped up the last of the dead bodies into shiny green dumpsters. Her ear buzzed with the warning to stay back. Hungry men, that’s all they were. And now they were dead, killed like dogs in the street without dignity.

  Ailsa made her way to the short feed line and within an hour found a picnic bench in the cavernous basement of the feeding facility. She sat Texa on the edge of the bench between her legs and stuffed bite-sized chunks of bologna on white bread into the drugged-up child’s mouth.

  A viewscreen came on and Texa popped awake. “Mommy!” she said in a slow, faraway voice, “You paid for the audio. It’s working.”

  A Guardianship spokesperson came onscreen. “Welcome to this Guardian feeding station, brought to you by Xemura Pharma,” the white-helmeted woman said. ”You will find this food nourishing and tasty. Even the little ones love it!” she added in a sing-song voice. Her image morphed into smiling children frolicking on a grassy knoll next to a stream. “This feeding station is made possible—”

  The viewscreen froze. It turned black. White words scrolled across it. “Wait until the end of this message for the keyword,” it said. The sounds echoed in her mind as she both read and heard them.

  “Guardian protectorate number 13477 is hiring three Guardian trainees,” it continued. No one moved. All eyes focused on the viewscreen. There was complete silence.

  “You must be a full citizen in good standing without debt and able-bodied between the ages of fourteen and forty-five. Childcare, education, occupational training for you, a full two-thousand calorie daily feed allowance, clothing and accommodations are included with the position as well as an honorary stipend.”

  The viewscreen showed a map. “To a
pply, proceed to grid 115, street 4, entry 7. The keyword is elixtography. Remember, the Republic will care for us.” The screen went dark and the lights came on.

  Ailsa grabbed Texa and ran for the door.

  “But, Mommy, my sandwich!” yelled Texa. The sandwich hit the floor and was gone under a dozen pair of feet.

  Ailsa grabbed Texa’s head, laid it down on her shoulder and pointed the face inwards. She covered Texa’s eyes with one hand and held the other tight under her buttocks.

  She pushed and she ran.

  5

  There was already a long line at the protectorate. Ailsa grabbed a spot and kept her toes always directly behind the heels of the person in front of her. No one is line-jumping on me.

  Ailsa moved to put Texa down.

  “No!” Texa screamed. “I want up!”

  Please don’t start. Not now. Not when we have this chance. Sure, it’s a slim chance. If you look at it too closely, it’s no chance. But it’s still a chance. And any chance, even no chance, is better than the alternative. She picked Texa back up. “Happy now, little girl?” Please be happy. If we can’t catch this chance, I don’t know what we’ll do.

  Texa nodded, her eyes far away.

  Ailsa’s heart melted. A doubt entered her mind. She tapped the shoulder of the man in front of her. “Is this the line for the trainee position?”

  The man looked back at her, his eyes wide open. “How dare you touch me! How dare you touch me!” He pushed her and she fell back into the people behind her. Several of them fell to the floor like dominoes. Ailsa struggled to get off of them without hurting Texa.

  A helmeted Guardian approached them. “You two, out! Now!” He grabbed the man and Ailsa and dragged them towards the narrow front door.