Distopian future nearer than you think

The city was a tough place to grow up, for thirty year's following the disease outbreak in the slum's the police like military had ruled the city with an iron fist on behalf of the right wing government who had grabbed permanent power by suspending democracy, two city's now existed one for the rich elite and the other for everyone else but no matter how bad it got, how oppressive the shoot on sight curfew or the violent stop and search's and regular police beating's of the downtrodden citizen's of the lower city there were still worse places in the city, places you did not go where even the police feared to walk even in there kevlar body armor with there gun's, pepper spray and taser's.

Anna was waiting in the very heart of one of the most dangerous place's, here near the slum's was where the disease outbreak had began but despite what the resistance knew the population were like sheep and too frightened to stand up with any rioting or demonstrations put down with lethal force by the police death squad's.

But slowly and surely the resistance had gained member's, the secret police had spies everywhere but the resistance had it's own cell's and each cell knew nothing about the other's taking it's order's from an area organizer who would pass order's down to them from the hidden hirarchy and who or where he or she got there order's from no one knew.

The leader of the resistance called himself Spartacus and though no one had seen him for decade's or even knew if he was actually still alive he had once broken into the city closed intranet system telling people of the experiment's the government had performed on innocent citizen's simply because they were too poor and the ruling elite who regarded all the citizen's as slaves had marked them as surplus stock for experimentation.

They had began with propeganda circulated through the city's media and by making the poor poorer so that they would work for next to nothing just to survive, then they began saying there were too many old people who could no longer work and that these old people cost the city too much, that it was overcrowded and then it had become dangerous simply for a person to get old, if you had a cold and went to see the doctor you would be lucky to live as the medic's had been secretly given order's to terminate the useless member's of the slave population, of course they extended this to the sick and the disabled as well and all the while as the poor got ever poorer and worked themselves to death the rich got ever more rich.

Something had to give and the Rebellion of 17 nearly 30 years ago now was when it had, but the agency's had been prepared, the police who had been supposedly there to protect the population but who had in reality for over a decade before this been retrained and armed with lethal weaponry, hollow nosed projectiles in there gun's meant that each bullet was almost guaranteed to be lethal as it would make the maximum damage and so more people could be killed with less bullet's, they had also been given armored vehicles designed to drive over the crowds mowing them down destroying any protests ruthlessly and quickly with even there supposedly non lethal weapons actually intended to incapacitate the crowd's before they came in for the kill.

When it had come It had been a massacre with thousand's killed as peaceful protests had come under lethal fire and this had sparked more riot's that were then were used as propeganda to justify rolling out the armored cars everywhere to both terrorize and suppress followed by mass arrests of anyone who they thought might put up a fight, the vehicles had then been used to mow the protestor's down in cold blood without any discrimination anywhere that protests attemped to gather and pubic gathering was banned with a permit need to make a protest so as to keep the slaves in line.

The wealthy right wing member's of the government had called the protestor's terrorist's and extremist's and had shown sample's of those the protestor's had supposedly murdered in the right wing dominated privately owned media but of course most of them had been murdered by the police hit squads for propeganda reason's and the protestor's framed while the thousand's who suffered among the masses recieved no coverage.

By the time the people had woken up it was too late, armed drones patrolled day and night using camera recognition and shoot to kill, no warning's, no arguing with them, the emergencey powers taken by the right wing government had placed the city under a permanent state of martial law.

Still the resistance grew and they had gotten organized as they merged together and unified seperate resistance group's.
They knew they could not compete technologically, they could barely hide at all but they grew and built up there stockpile's of weapon's waiting for the right time, former soldier's among there number had provided training while they had operative's inside the lower level's of the government and even the police who passed them intelligence.

As Anna waited she saw a shadow move, it was him her contact and his face was covered as always but she recognized his distinct limp as he walked over.

She remembered how she had been recruited so long ago, the police had come to there home because her father was behind on the rent after losing his job and with no where to go he had refused to leave the home he and his wife had shared for over a decade, the flat used to be owned by the city council and was provided for poor working family's and the unemployed but when the right winger's had taken over they had sold all the city property to private sector landlord company's and then the rent's had gone up so much most of the family's could no longer afford it even if they had job's, the government had then stopped subsidizing the poor and unemployed housing and her father with no job had been unable to keep up with payment's like so many other's.

She had been too little to understand why her father looked so sad all the time or why her mother was always crying, why she was always hungry, when the police came he had tried to barricade the door but they had broken it in and shot her father in the head because he had brandished a chair at them, her mother had ran over screaming and they had shot her too.

As they had stormed the flat one of the officers had grabbed little Anna by her hair and roughly stuck her under his arm carrying her out but she had bitten him hard on the unprotected part of his arm drawing blood and he had then thrown the little girl to the ground before hitting her with his batton again and again.

When she came too she found herself in a cold place with grey concrete wall's and there was a strange woman accross from her in dirty clothing rocking back and forth looking at the floor as she sat on the side of a bare mattressless bed frame her eye's wide mumbing incoherantly under her breath.

Little Anna's face was bandaged and so where her hand's, this was the jail as they did not pay for children's detention ever since the right winger's had said there was no money for it but instead had simply thrown her into the adult prison like anyone else they had no use for and the warder's had put the little girl in a room with a mentally ill woman who may once have been sane before whatever they had done to her.

Anna had been traumatized and terrified, all she wanted was her mommy and daddy to tuck her into bed and read her a story like they used to but she was here and they were gone.

Later when her wound's had partially healed she had been moved to a government educational brainwashing center for the orphans and children of criminal parent's, growing up there had been hell but the scar's on her face were a badge of honour as far as the other kid's were concerned when she told them one of the police who murdered her parent's had given them to her and the older kid's had taken to protecting her.

Once they were old enough they were kicked out onto the street's with no where to go and Anna had fallen foul of the worst that can walk the street's, being hardened by what she had already survived she had also survived that and had grown stronger managing not to starve to death or find herself back in the forced labour camp that was prison, it had been during this time that she had been recruited as a courier by the resistance her street wise survivability had not gone unnoticed.


"Any problem's on the way here" the masked man asked her.
"No, only the usual groping stop and search but I hid it were they never think to look, where I always do", she then reached into a nasty looking scar on her side that had been made when she had been knifed there by another person driven to desperation who thought she might have some money for food on her and the wound had been quarterized with another knife heated over a flame by a street doctor, that was what they called those who knew how to patch you up but it had left a hollowed out scar in her side, the wound had a narrow appearance and looked just like a narrow scar on the outside when the two sides where not pried apart but was more like a pouch of nerveless scar tissue that led into her side, it was sometime's painful if she reached too far in but she pushed her hand into the scar wincing and pulled the small packet out passing it to the contact, he then passed her another in return and she slid it into the old knife wound where the other had been hidden, there was no pain on the outside just the inside hurt as all the never's were dead in the scar tissue.

Some who had seen her do this had vomited, she had lost a kidney in the attack and had been lucky to survive.

She kept to the shadow's, not much use when the drone's used infra red to look for body heat but it was a short run to the sewer and she slipped down into the stinking tunnel's then found the hidden entrance to the old metro system behind a curved board shaped to blend with the sewer pipe, from there she made her way back to where she had entered beyond the quarantine blockade, she would have to wait for mid day now before climbing out of the manhole as the curfew was not something she wanted to run, it would not only endanger her but the other's as well so she waited.