Isabelle Martinier
————-
Chapter 1 – The city of Workers
In the sewers of the city of Lyon in ruins, Tallulah is waking up as her stomach reminds her she has
not eaten since two days. Despite the shrill whistle of the siren, Tallulah did not wake up on time
this morning and she will be late at the farm. Her boss is going to take a pay-day off her wage,
which is already scanty. As Tallulah is less than 15 years old, she is still assigned to a “child labor”:
eight hours a day, she deals with animals breeding and plantations maintenance. The majority of the
farm products goes directly to the City of Lights, as the government is paying the Workers a misery,
who are too poor to buy what they produce.
————-
In three years, she will be considered as an adult and her boss – according to his degree of
appreciation – will give her a job as a worker in the recycling of waste, agriculture, slaughter or power
plants. Given the relationship with the boss, she may end up in recycling or in one of the power
plants, where the life expectancy does not exceed thirty years due to all the toxic products they are
forced to use and the high radioactivity.
————-
Her watch indicates that she is already an hour late. Tallulah grabs her shoulder bag, cram the few
stuffs that belongs to her inside, and rushes out of the sewers. The bright light dazzles her, despite
the dust and clouds from the air pollution. However she does not let her eyes get used to it and goes
to the farm. Far away, she can see the high scintillating wall that separates her from the City of Lights.
The farm is near the wall, and every morning she walks past it, under the harsh look of the militia
guarding it. Miradors, guards, electric field, barbed wire, and of course Rhone and Saone rivers,
everything was set up to make the City of Lights impenetrable. Only a few exceptions can move
between the two areas, but the process is so complex that no one has yet managed to enter by
cheating.
————-
The City of Lights. How much has she dreamed of getting in there? Her mother had been there a few
times before she was finally taken, and she had described a world very different from the one she is
used to. Everything was beautiful, clean, like those real estate advertisements you can sometimes
found in old newspapers. The Lighters themselves seemed more beautiful, despite their almost
identical clothes and their imperturbable faces. She had even seen a tree there. In the City of
Workers it does not existed anymore since the disaster of 2147, and the only plants they can
see are the vegetables and fruits in the farm. The natural land does not let anything grow
because of its high toxicity. So for the plantations, special clay and seeds are given by the
government, to allow them to grow plants.
————-
If her mother had to go to the City of Lights, it was because she was able to procreate. It was by
bringing Tallulah into the world that it was revealed. She had tried to hide her daughter for a long
time, living in the most remote places of the city and forbidding her daughter to move when she was
working in the fields. But the authorities finally discovered her, and when Tallulah was six years old,
her mother was arrested. After some verification tests, she had been definitely enlisted, and never
returned. Few women are able to give birth, so as soon as authorities realize that a woman is
able to do it, she becomes a Procreator. Their duty is to give their ova to the community, or even be
surrogate mother for the Lighters, until their reproductive system is off. There are so few Procreators
that their task is even harder, and they generally end up dying of exhaustion. When her mother was
taken away, one of her friends had supported Tallulah, but when she started working at the age of
seven she stole the little wage she earned. So Tallulah left.
————-
In her group of Workers, Tallulah is one of the only natural children. The majority of the others were
laid down by the authorities to the wall some morning, and then adopted by Workers’ couples. Nobody
knows how babies are chosen to go to the City of the Workers or to the City of the Lighters, but in
order to continue to have an equilibrium (and especially a labor force), the government is giving babies
to both sides.
————-
Tallulah arrives at the farm, which is guarded, like all the production units in the city. Her boss does
not even bother to call her to order, and scratches her day off the board while looking at her with a
smirk. Another pay day that will end in his pocket to fatten him a little more. She no longer has a penny
to buy food at the only food store of the city, which is run by the government. So to eat tonight, Tallulah
will have to go search for an old can in the rubble area. Fortunately, she knows it well because when
her mother was still alive, that is where they were hiding most of the time. But the “Canuts” are also
living there now, and she would better not meet these rebels. The Canuts are Workers who have
refused the separate system, and have abandoned their jobs. To survive, they plunder the plantations,
farms, stores, and sometimes attack the Workers to get their pay or their ration of water. Since most
of them have pulled their chip off their wrist, they can no longer obtain the daily water ration
distributed near the wall, but it allows them to no longer be identifiable and localizable by the
government, and therefore to launch offensives against the wall. So far, none has been successful.
At the end of her work, Tallulah goes to the wall to get her ration of water which she drinks in a tread
(to be sure no one would stole it from her) and goes towards the rubbles. She has to cross the whole
city to reach it, and it was already getting darker as the night falls. All the better, she will be less likely
to be spotted this way, and she still has battery on her solar energy lamp. It was a find of her mother,
which she keeps preciously because it is very expensive in the black market.
————-
It is already 11:30 pm when she arrives in the rubble area. It is dark night, and that sharpens her sense
of hearing. She is about to enter one of the old buildings, when she hears a noise behind her in the
waste collecting area.
————-
Chapter 2 – The city of Lights
The lights gradually turn on in the room, indicating to Louis that in an hour his History of Earth’s lesson
begins. He puts his forefinger on his Analyzer, which detects him a slight magnesium deficiency, and
five minutes later his breakfast was served with a blue little pill. While he is having it, his daily program
is projected: classes from 8 am to 12 am, an hour lunch break, and then back-to-school with the weekly
survival training until 6 pm.
————-
Louis lives on the side of the City of Lights because his parents have passed the tests to enter the area.
They are now working for the government of Lyon, in the voice surveillance department. Every day,
they evaluate the sayings of each Lighters to establish profiling files. Here all movements, words, and
even medical data are recorded permanently. A misstep and the government calls you to order. If too
many missteps are reported, the government assigns you the role of “Cleaner”, that is to say to the
maintenance of the city. They are the only Lighters dedicated to a Workers type of jobs in the City of
Lights, and their residential building is under heavy surveillance.
————-
The seventeen-year-old young man leaves the family apartment and walks to the institute. The first
thing he sees is the imposing wall, which separates the small peninsula of Lyon from the rest of the
city. Only the elites live here, those who has passed the test, now enjoying their life and lacking
nothing, while controlling the city, its resources and people. Nobody knows the exact selection process
of this test, except of course the secret dedicated department. Every year, some of the best workers
are admitted to the test, which analyzes their physical and mental abilities, and establishes the
psychological profile of the candidates. At the end, the Lighters are recruiting only those with the best
profile and who will be the more useful to society. This totally biased system was established in 2155,
during the reconstruction of Lyon a few years after the disaster. Louis was lucky enough to be born on
the good side of this system, as his parents wanted to have a baby.
————-
Louis finally joins his class of a dozen young people, and sits next to his friend Peter. Tonight after the
survival training, they will try again to find an opening to pass on the side of the Workers. For 7 years
now they dream of leaving the city, experiencing what the real freedom is, struggling for survival, and
mostly getting rid of this dreary and barren life. They only have a few months left to pass their final
exam, which will determine where they will work, so they are in a hurry. Given his current results, Louis
could easily join the government, live in the best area of the city, rub shoulders with the greatest, and
be at the origin of political decisions concerning the city… But that does not interest him. This system
does not suit him, and his goal is to get in touch with the Canuts to create a real rebellion and change
the system for a fairer one. The only way is to go to the other side. So at 10pm tonight, Louis and Peter
will meet near the quarters where the Great Politicians live. This is the area where the wall is the less
guarded, as people are not expecting rebellion from Politicians. The two teenagers will have taken care
to demagnetize their chip by a ploy found two years ago. Thus, they will no longer be localizable. Three
days ago, they found a potential passage in the wall, by passing through the waste disposal area. The
escapade is risky, as they need to find a way to block the different automatic rakes and grinding
systems, but they will try to block it with metal bars.
————-
It is 9:50 pm, Louis puts on his technical equipment and his survival bag, disappears discreetly from
the apartment, and ran off in the night directly to the evacuation waste tunnel.