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  THE BOOK OF LEVI

  Copyright © 2016 Mark Clark

  All rights reserved.

  Published by Lamplight Productions 2016

  Sydney, NSW, Australia

  No parts of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Under no circumstances may any part of this book be photocopied for resale.

  This is a work of fiction. Any similarity between the characters and situations within its pages and places or persons, living or dead, is unintentional and co-incidental.

  Cover Photography from Shutterstock.com

  PROLOGUE

  CORPORATE CITY – 2171

  EXT.PRESIDENT’S PENTHOUSE.DAY

  Clouds swirl around the top of a skyscraper.

  Through the shifting cloud, people can be seen moving inside.

  INT.PRESIDENT’S PENTHOUSE.DAY

  Several adults talk and laugh at a social gathering.

  A LITTLE GIRL of about ten and a LITTLE BOY of about six play together on the floor.

  A YOUNG MAN in his late teens watches them play.

  The little girl chases after a runaway ball. It lands at the young man’s feet.

  YOUNG MAN

  Those are pretty ribbons you have in your hair.

  The little girl smiles sweetly.

  The young man stares at her as he hands the ball back.

  FADE OUT

  FADE IN

  CORPORATE CITY - 2191

  The city looms upon the horizon. The afternoon sun is setting in the west. The buildings are punctuated by its golden, dying rays. Clouds hang pendulously above the city. Centrepoint Tower can be seen intermittently through the drifting low-level cloud.

  In the foreground sits a vast, empty wasteland.

  ANGLE ON to the head of Centrepoint Tower.

  DISSOLVE

  INT.CENTREPOINT TOWER.DAY

  The room is alive with elegantly dressed women and men in suits. They are served canapés by white-suited waiters.

  There are perhaps fifty guests. Among them is ELIZABETH DAWSON, a particularly attractive woman of about thirty. She is stately, impeccably dressed, olive-skinned, has long, swirling dark hair and piercing blue-green eyes. She is admiring the view and is herself being admired by a host of men who appear overly attentive to her every word.

  Aside, stands DAMIEN HILL. He is in his mid-twenties. He is tall, lean, handsome and relaxed in his movements like a man who takes no nonsense and is handy in a stoush. His hair is short and blond. His features are strong and rugged. He is not conventionally handsome but he is striking. He possesses an easy going Australian country charm. He has a peculiar animal magnetism. A group of women flutter about him.

  Surreptitiously, he looks in Elizabeth’s direction.

  She too, though thronged by admirers, has noticed him.

  She pulls a WAITER aside. She motions towards Damien.

  ELIZABETH

  Who is that young man?

  WAITER

  That is Damien Hill, miss, of Hill Enterprises.

  ELIZABETH

  Give him this.

  She hands the waiter a business card. He nods and departs.

  She is about to return to her group of admirers when a man in his late-twenties approaches her.

  This is LESLIE WOODFORD. He is fair-skinned and plain featured. His eyes are large and brown like a puppy dog’s and he is losing his hair prematurely. He is modestly dressed and his clothes hang off him, hinting at his skinny body beneath.

  LESLIE

  Excuse me, President Dawson?

  She waits.

  LESLIE (CONT.)

  My name is Leslie Woodford. I’m one of your consuls for the next six years.

  He shakes her hand.

  The other men gathered around her look condescendingly at him.

  LESLIE (CONT.)

  It’s wonderful to meet you.

  ELIZABETH

  Thank you.

  Leslie hesitates, aware of the eyes trained upon him.

  LESLIE (CONT.)

  I’m looking forward to working with you and Consul Brand. I already have some ideas, some scientific notions and inventions . . .

  One of the young men interrupts rudely.

  YOUNG MAN

  Elizabeth, finish your story.

  The other young men take up the chorus.

  ELIZABETH

  We’ll talk later, consul.

  She turns back to her admirers.

  Leslie smiles, nods obsequiously and moves away.

  He notices a young man who has just turned from the bar. Leslie approaches him.

  This is NICHOLAS BRAND. He is in his forties. He is well-dressed, slightly overweight, relatively short, and has a rounded and affable face. When he smiles his eyes almost disappear into the creases surrounding them.

  LESLIE

  Excuse me, Mister Brand, I’m . . .

  NICHOLAS

  Leslie Woodford. Congratulations on your appointment. Call me Nick.

  The men smile and shake hands.

  ANGLE ON to Damien in the foreground. The waiter has just handed him Elizabeth’s card. He looks over the lip of his champagne glass towards Elizabeth, who has caught eyes with him but just as suddenly turns away, flicks back her great, dark hair and laughs at some clever comment with her bright, white teeth gleaming mischievously. Men are swarmed around her like locusts to honey.

  Her laughter amplifies in reverb and tumbles away. The camera flows with its recession down the long, thin shaft of the tower and shatters into the streets below.

  EXT.CITY STREET.AFTERNOON

  A woman and small child suckling from her breast sit in the shadow of the tower. The woman is dressed in rags. A cold wind whips around her. She pulls her child in closer.

  Beside her, her husband stands upon a soap box. He is red-headed, bearded and bedraggled. His teeth are rotted, he is unwashed and his hair is a matted mess. He is cold but he speaks passionately.

  A group of similarly bedraggled spectators have gathered and are listening to him, in spite of the cold spits of rain which have begun to fall upon them.

  MAN ON SOAP BOX

  So while we work and suffer deprivation, the rich live above us in their skyscrapers. They never have to work. They never have to suffer. But look at us. We’ve got no power.

  (points to the tower above)

  They call this a democracy? Rubbish! Rubbish, I say! Two new consuls have been appointed this very day. Where do they come from? The scrapers. Who do they really represent?

  (waving an admonishing finger towards the crowd)

  Not us down here, fellow Corporate City-Siders. Not us.

  A voice is thrown up from the crowd.

  VOICE

  One of the two is a thinker. He’ll fight for us.

  MAN ON SOAP BOX

  Don’t be so naïve. The rich let one of the smart ones get elected every so often to keep us quiet. Look at the facts – there’s only been two in the last sixty years and what did they achieve for us? Nothing. The rest are all scraper dwellers. You’ll see comrades, he’ll fall into line just like the others. Look around you. Does this look like a fair world to you?

  The man sweeps his arm along the line of the city street. The camera pans with it.

  Everywhere
is filth and deprivation. Women hunt for food among the gutters. Scraps fly, enraged by the wind. Old men forage in bins for cigarette butts. Others stuff paper into metal bins. They make fires to ward off the growing winter chill.

  Large guards stand menacingly outside of opulent skyscrapers, shooing children swathed in rags away from the foyers.

  One guard steps back under the cover of the building. It begins to rain in earnest.

  Chapter 1

  It was late June. Yet again the heavens had opened. It had rained hard on and off for several weeks now and the weather had been unusually cold. The homeless had been carted away by the truckful. The morgue in Kent Street was busier than usual and the ovens in Lilyfield had been spewing them out to God twenty four hours a day. Not even the incessant rain could dampen that fire.

  Under the latest downpour, Elizabeth, Leslie and Nicholas were herded under umbrellas through the large iron gates of the Oxford Street Barracks and into a large, bare room. A corporal took their coats and a sergeant ushered them into a smaller, more comfortable office further inside the building. Here, a lieutenant welcomed them, showed them through to the seats within, and withdrew.

  The three sat silently for a short while, shaking off imaginary water and settling into their red leather lounge chairs. Leslie stole several furtive glances at Elizabeth but she seemed self-contained and unreceptive to his silent solicitations. She was incredibly stylish and beautiful, he was thinking. Her full-length dress was black and fringed with white around collar and hem. Her olive skin was soft and flawless and above her breasts was visible an ellipse of pearls, settled comfortably beneath her slender neck.

  Leslie cast a glance towards Nicholas, to see whether he had noticed his silent appreciation of Elizabeth. If he had, Nicholas showed no signs of it. He sat passively. Leslie watched him for a moment more. He was short, soft and likeably rotund, rather than hard and stumpy looking. In fact, he cut a stylish figure in his well-cut suit and tie. His face was endearing and welcoming. His eyes were brown and doleful, like a sad child’s. But right now he looked self-satisfied, as a man might well be, having just been elected into high office.

  Leslie looked down at his clothes and was suddenly aware of his own poverty. He dismissed the thought immediately. These were details an inventor need not dwell upon, he assured himself. Vanity is not an attribute worthy of a good mind.

  The three had not long to wait before the door opened and into the room stepped a tall, thin man of middle years. He wore the epaulettes of a two star general and carried a little rider’s crop.

  ‘Sorry I’m late,’ he apologised, shaking everybody’s hand. ‘Damn rain.’

  He offered no further apology and no-one cared to have him qualify. All three were anxious to begin the briefing.

  ‘Well, here we are,’ the general continued, coughing prior to beginning his oration. He nodded to some unseen presence in the wall behind.

  Leslie looked back in time to see a thumbs-up return from an embrasure carved in the rear wall of the room. Presently the lights dimmed and the general, rather theatrically, stepped into the light of the projector before any image was projected. As he spoke, a screen slid into place behind him.

  ‘Congratulations Consuls Brand and Woodford on your election to six year office. Your election is a great honour and with it comes considerable responsibility. Welcome back also, President Dawson, for your second term at the helm of Corporate City. I don’t need to tell you all that the information to which you will now be privy must never be divulged to those outside of office, even after your term is completed. You’ve already sworn an oath to this effect, but I remind you of it now before you see the following presentation.’

  He nodded again to the projectionist and withdrew to one side.

  Elizabeth, Nicholas and Leslie sat, bathed by the flickering glow. Leslie sneaked one last brief glance towards Elizabeth. She had a slight upturning of her lips. Had she noticed him? He nestled back into his seat as the presentation began.

  Revealed upon the screen was an elderly man. He appeared to be somewhere in his eighties. He had little wisps of grey hair about his temples and wore glasses that amplified the brightness of his dark eyes. His neck was flaccid like a tortoise’s, the skin weighed down by gravity and by the passage of the years. His face possessed a boyish, soft appearance. His cheeks, for all the years that were etched upon them, were still rubicund and lustrous. His voice was educated and English, and though it had shrivelled with time to a soft, ghostly shadow of its former self, it was still passionate but considered. It was still the voice of Sir Colin Dunnett.

  ‘The year is 2096,’ he began. I leave this recording to those who would govern this city in future years. It has been nearly twenty two years since the establishment of the new government. Under the presidency of Jeremiah we have had our triumphs and our problems, but the details of this you can read for yourselves in the briefs I have organised for each of you. Suffice to say that it is the wish of the current administration that a triumvirate is to be formed every six years to govern this city and that it should be made up of three persons from diverse social background elected by every adult member of the city’s population. Two consuls are to be elected every six years to support a president, who shall preside for twelve.

  We have now a city of approximately two hundred and seventy thousand people, the majority of whom are relatively poor. We have not, as yet, been able to till the land beyond the outskirts of the city, but hopefully, whenever it is in the future that you are listening, this frustrating abnormalcy of the wasteland soil will have been overcome. Unfortunately, at this time, we can only grow within the city itself and its immediate surrounds. Due to this we cannot, as yet, provide for a growing population. We have therefore, regrettably, been forced to enforce a population cap of two children per couple in an attempt to stabilise population size. With time, this too may change.

  It is envisioned that every so often a recording of this type will be made as a basic guide as to the wishes of your forefathers. It is hoped that putting a human face and voice to our ideals will help guide you through the no doubt torrid years ahead. Perhaps these short snippets will remind you of why we do what we do and remind you that we govern not for our own self interest, but for the good of all citizens. Remember, consuls, that man is somewhere between ape and angel. We must tread the awful and shadowy line between censorship and freedom; between authority and democracy; between the police state and anarchy.’

  The picture dimmed to be replaced by another. This was a grim-faced younger man, perhaps in his fifties. He did not look well. Dark circles were inscribed beneath his eyes and his skin lacked colour. If anything, it was the hue of nicotine-tinged fingers.

  ‘My name is Alfonso Hunt. The year is 2142. I’m afraid that Mister Dunnett’s idea of recording at regular intervals has lapsed badly. For that I apologise. I make this recording without the knowledge of my colleagues. I do so for one reason. I am dying and I wish to go on record for my own reasons.

  As we approach the middle of the century, our city is not prospering as our founding fathers would have wished. There seems to have been a desire by former presidents and some consuls, including the present administration, to allow far too much freedom of the individual within this city. We still have no means of cultivating the wasteland; we still have no knowledge of cities beyond our own border and we still have a population problem. I go on the record as stating that I have been firmly opposed to the relaxing of laws that permit what I see as outrageous freedom when it comes to individual rights, whether this is in relation to religious congregation or family size. Those opposed to me will call me authoritarian but we cannot, repeat cannot allow the individual freedoms currently condoned. Some people are flaunting the law and having as many as six or seven children, without censure. Religious cults are forming and some have adopted ridiculous philosophical positions, some even suggesting that the Earth was formed as recently as the twenty first century, in spite of copious evi
dence to the contrary. Furthermore, other splinter and lobby groups have formed. The judicial system, which had gained respect under former administrations, has faltered now under the scepticism of the young, infected as they are by the beliefs of their foolish parents. We need a stronger police presence to quell the masses. People should have rights, but their rights should end where other people’s rights begin.’

  This vision too died to black. A third face appeared upon the screen. Here was a Slavic face - strong and uncompromising. She was in her sixties. Her eyes were blue and bright and she smiled through the camera towards some certain truth.

  ‘The year is 2177. My name is President Sorensen. It has taken nearly one hundred years for this city to see the folly of its ways. We must break the bonds of human stupidity and grow our population as God wills it. Man has no right to interfere with the will of God. We must grow our population in accordance with natural laws. If we grow too many, many will die. This is God’s will. All the suffering we do, we do for him, our saviour.’

  This face was supplanted by a last. Here was a small, dark-haired man with a crooked nose and a strangled voice.

  ‘The year is 2180. As you can see after listening to the last speaker, we’re in a mess. The population’s hittin’ the half million mark and we can’t feed ‘em. We haven’t had a scientist worth a damn since Dunnett and those we have had haven’t been elected to office due to back-room deals and political manoeuvring. In fact the original idea of each member of the triumvirate coming from various levels of society has been railroaded by those who have acquired money during the course of the last century. We still can’t grow food in the wasteland and we have absolutely no idea if there are any other cities in the world. So, please, if you’re listenin’, you’re a consul and you can help - for God’s sake read the information you’re given and bring back some sanity to this city.’