Chapter I

To compensate for my lame previous post, here's the first short chapter of my incomplete novel Tier 1: Just Devourings written last November for NaNoWriMo. Still pretty good, but may have some errors. Enjoy :)

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“Come on, we’re on a deadline in case you’ve all forgotten!” 

Her shouts could be heard echoing throughout the entire building it seemed, or if it didn’t the phrase was often repeated down the line to others who didn’t hear her (but more than likely it was the first of the two. Marie’s voice could carry across the very country, everyone knew, not just by its loudness but by its words. If one didn’t know who Marie Annabelle was, even in the midst of a deserted wasteland surrounded by water (but then again, where wasn’t it such?), one had to have been a deaf-mute, and even then the act would be impressive. 

It wasn’t necessarily that she was a large female with a booming tone than all could hear and know. In fact, Marie was rather slight compared to most, but you wouldn’t know it by the way she acted and spoke. Most assumed it was her job to be loud, to make herself heard; as the editor of the most popular and most illegal newspaper organization in the country, one had to be dominating and persistent to get something done. Her eyes would shine past her lightly tanned cheeks each time she gleaned some new piece of seemingly crucial evidence to support their claims, or untrue claims about themselves to be heatedly argued. 

The female stomped about, rallying troops, it would seem, throughout the building. There were not so many working units was one would expect in an average “News for the Just” station. Most refused to admit they even read the Irrefutable Press, let alone that they wished to have a risky part in it’s creations. Those that did work diligently in secret each day, however, held enough spirit in their hearts to make up for a thousand of those who would take the secret to their grave. Marie would make up a million. 

“Marie! Mi-…Miss Marie!” came a shaky response, this one barely heard except by the one being addressed. 

“Ya? What’s goin’ on, John? What’s the news?” 

“They just said it on the Network. There’s been another protest, this time on the Tenth City Block, by the old church. They say it’s getting pretty bad. They’ve already begun arresting some of them.” His lips trembled a bit when he spoke, but Marie had grown used to the minor distraction. He was always trying to hide it, ashamed of it, afraid of it even, and although Marie had a penchant for humor at others’ expense, she never once commented on the trifle since they day they had met. 

“Oh, really, now? Well then why are we still here? That’s the good stuff we’ve been waiting for,” she said with that trademark grin. It sloped upwards toward her left eye a bit more than to the right, as if only the left side was truly responsive, and made her eyes shine like polished green ornaments. “Let’s get ‘em out there and see what’s goin’ on then. We haven’t got much time before they’re all removed. Network never tells all. All right…you there! The new guy here. What’s your name again?” 

“Me…?” replied a poorly dressed blonde male standing nearby, attempting to work a primitive printing press and failing rather pitifully, but comically. Marie couldn’t help an amused smirk from creeping to her lopsided lips. 

“Ya, well you’re the only one standing there and the only that’s new, aren’t ya?“ 

“Um…me name’s Eric.“ 

“Well, come on then, Eric, you’re on field duty today. Me and you are going to be best mates, aren’t we? Right, eh? Let’s go, we’re burning what little daylight Gad has left to us.” She started to walk away then thought better of it and turned to him again, clapping his shoulder with a surprisingly strong work-worn hand. “And it‘s ‘my‘, not ‘me.’ Don‘t want to be caught by the Razz, now do we?” With that she grinned and clapped her hands, shouting out orders that chased each other around the open building to all those working steadfastly where they were. “All right! Steven, Gerard, Will, and Jess, let’s go. Everyone else stay here and get it done. These are the last days we’ve got before legislature cracks down completely. You know the drill--grab your flipbooks and pens and let’s head out, quick as the sun’s going down, ya?” 

The small group or reporters had quickly organized themselves into a troop of steady soldiers as the marched through the back way, winding over the watery wreckage just outside. The view from behind was not much of one, truth be told, for even Marie would admit to it. All that could be seen through every window and every eye was water and flotsam that had remained there for a hundred years and would still remain for a hundred more at least. The “coast”, if it could really be called as such, was undefined, always changing and being shaped. Often the station would be flooded on the first floor; most of the most critical pieces of equipment, then, were stored on the top levels, along with the archives of endless collected information from both reporters and civil units. 

After making their way around to the sides of the station, the group slit apart a bit, slowly, then finally took completely different routes, as if they had never met each other. None of them spoke, except Marie (who constantly spoke to herself if no one else was present) and Eric, who traveled closely behind her like a trained and obedient pup. 

“What’re ya doing? You’re supposed to go off on your own. Didn’t you even bother to read how this whole thing works? You go off with them so we don’t draw the eyes of the Razz over here and blow everything to tiny bits and such,” Marie reasoned with an exasperated sigh. 

“Oh…s-…sorry.” Eric paused, looking around helplessly as if to find the cue card pointing to the path he should take. He felt that firm hand on his shoulder once more, pulling him forward against his will. 

“No, no, you’re already here, you’d best stay here. Just come with me. Don’t do anything rash--I’d hope that’s obvious enough, ya? Just stay in line like the other units and don’t talk about anything important until we get there. By then the Razz’ll be plenty preoccupied with the protestors to even notice we’ve come until we make it obvious. Keep the odds in our favor.” She silences herself, snuggling down into the bulky overcoat she wore obsessively as they passed by a local watchman on his beat. He watched them pass, eying Eric more suspiciously than he did Marie, until she passed him the little bag of tokens; instantly, the watchman forgot the woman even existed. 

The streets were relatively empty here, mostly for the logical reasoning that it was dangerously close to the ocean-front. There was a different set of debris here almost every day and night as the water reached up a merciless hand and grasped all in its path, pulling it into its depths like an insatiable and silent beast in the darkness of the freezing nights and replacing it with a new set that it had to let go in exchange for its meal. The buildings that lined the sidewalks could be hardly told apart from the building Marie and their troop had adopted as their headquarters--all tall, long masses, all ten stories reaching dismally into the ever-gray skies of constant twilight, all with broken windows and flood-lines tattooing their sides with green and black layers and ripping of the little paint that remained upon the walls. As far as the eye could see, nothing but lifeless gray and pools of black and the occasional fast-moving black ghost that wisped otherwise unseen through the deserted alleys. 
“We’ve got about twelve blocks, I’d think, before we start meeting up with the others, and then we need to file in with the units. Just keep a good eye out. If you see anyone suspicious, anyone watching, you just tap me on the shoulder and don’t look at them--whatever you do, never look directly at them. That’s how they know. You better at least know that. Know that and you won’t get caught. Listen to me and you won’t get caught.” Eric simply nodded, drawing in a breath as he focused on some obscured point directly ahead of him, making sure his footsteps matched Marie’s beside him as they tapped dully on the softened sidewalks. 

Eric knew more about the world than he led to believe. It’s why he was here in the first place. Despite his constant nervousness, his steady silence, his unsure steps, Eric knew very well that to meet the eyes of an officer was an unwritten application for removal from the Just. They would come knocking on doors or beating them down to him find him, “Just to talk,” they’d say, “Just to get things straightened out. No need to struggle.” But they always would struggle. They could take away a human’s rights, but a human’s mind. It was one thing Eric held on to throughout his life, held true to in the years to come when the other concepts fizzled and died like glowing embers dowsed by the ocean’s icy grip. As long as he kept himself low on their standards and didn’t make a sound, he could still do some good in other ways and no one would have to know. The Press was another way, he knew, and perhaps more effective than any words he could say to the civil masses. 

The twelve blocks seemed to extend forever into the faded light of the day. They had been traveling on foot for nearly fifteen minutes before they had infiltrated the more unfamiliar territory of First City Blockade. At one point, this area was blocked by guards at all times, brutal men with canes and rusty guns on their hips all standing neatly in a row like folded shirts in a drawer, packed neatly together in an unyielding viscous mass. Now, though, these men had been called in to preside over more important issues and territories, perhaps even at the protest site far off down on the Tenth. 

The city itself was nothing more than a massive grid that stretched over a not insubstantial island of rubble. Each Block consisted of four perfect squares separated by narrow streets which in turn each contained eight perfectly square buildings connected in the center by a series of pathways and in their function. Official Blocks, such as the Courts of Block Eighteen, were allotted a larger portion, aligned with other Official Blocks in a long column of like-edifices towering above all others, running for miles across the island-city from water’s edge to water’s edge. If one could see the city from above, it would look very much like the cascade of stadium seating in the Courts--columns of massive concrete shading the minute cubes far below on the very tip of the landmass where it meets the water and soon afterwards disappears into its depths. 

Eric’s thoughts had wandered greatly in the long spaces when he was alone and silent, as he felt now. He could picture the protest in his mind--the hands thrusting in unison into the air like a salute against the government, the voices carrying over to some other street, distracting units from their daily walk to work or to the tramway or to their boxed white homes, the disruption of time itself as units ran across the street against the migration of thoughtless (or perhaps just actless) puppets manipulated by the government’s reigns, the black bags that could make a unit disappear without a sound from the face of the dying planet. It was these kinds of protest that Eric was against, in truth--not because of their purpose, but because of their tactics. Would anyone hear a single voice amid the throng of shouting beings crowded about the newly formed blockade and the immobile bodies of the guards that held them back? If one did, would he listen? Would he even understand? Perhaps, when he heard the solemn protest of some deep and long oppressed tone, would Bagger (as many called him in secret) come forth like a black viper, striking in the midst of them all to snatch up one poor soul to be forgotten. Then back to position, keep holding fast, hear another, snatch another, never shoot or even speak to clear a name. Just get rid of the problem, and everything can go back to normal. 

“Eric? Hey…! Let’s go, this way,” Marie said, shoving a firm elbow into his side and awakening him from his thoughts. They had already arrived at the Ninth City Block, and now had to be very careful indeed. Every step would be crucial from now on as they squared their shoulders and prepared to file in with the Just on their persistent travels toward nothing, and already he could hear the voices.