Terranovus

The next day it felt as though I had awoken in a different world.

Walking through the streets to start my shift at the Families in Need shelter startled me. Everyone seemed to be walking with an optimistic hop to their step, strangers smiled at me and said hello as I passed and when I accidently bumped into the hot dog stall man he was the one who apologised and wished me a nice day.

As I started my shift, I was surprised to find even the homeless smiling and staff issuing extra portions. It was only as my shift went by and was coming to an end that Clara, a worker who was only a few years older than me, came up to me and slammed a large bucket of slop of the table.

“Why are you looking so down girl?” she demanded.

“I’m not down, I’m normal,” I retorted with disbelief, then muttered, “it’s everyone else who is high off false hope.” Clara grabbed a soup ladle from her apron and whacked it over my head.

“Ouch! What was that for?”

“Cause your head must be broken,” said Clara, “Terranovus girl! Why aren’t you happy and excited like everyone else?”

After I got home last night I did the math. Each district had about 250,000 residents and since there were twelve districts in each Sector, that meant each Sector had about 3 million residents. Just in my Sector alone, I had a 0.03% chance of moving to Terranovus.

“Cause the chances are impossible,” I bluntly stated.

“When did you become such a pessimist?”

“You mean a realist?” I grinned back.

“Oi!” Clara yelled and she wacked her spoon over my head again.

“Ouch!” I cried out.

“Just imagine,” begun Clara, and she placed her hands over her heart and shut her eyes, “imagine standing on grass, the softest green of all grasses, and breathing in air with no pollution...”

I shook my head and rolled my eyes. Clara whacked me with the spoon again.

“Stop it, will you!” I told her angrily.

“No, you stop it!” argued Clara, this time serious. “That island is beautiful and this opportunity is the only thing that’s keeping those people alive right now.” Her ladle was pointing at the homeless behind us. I scowled at her.

“Whatever,” I said and untied my apron. I turned my back to her, walked up to the lockers and shoved the apron into the laundry. Screw her, I thought and swung my bag over my shoulder, screw them all and their false hope.

I stormed out of the shelter, thankful it was the end of my shift anyway, and messaged Tommy that I was finished. He instantly replied and told me he was just waiting round the corner.

I smiled and relief flooded through me. Tommy would agree with me, I knew he would.

I turned the corner and saw him leaning against a wall and tapping away at his Ingo. Sensing my presence, he looked up and smiled. I smiled back and made my way over to him.

“Hey stalker,” I shouted out.

“Hey pretty,” he replied with a wink. I snorted at that.

Together we set off to begin our routine Sunday walk through the districts and immediately I delved into the nitty gritty details of the night before. I described the outfits, the wooden panelling, the cutlery sets and the old man named Alfred-

“Wait! An old man?” laughed Tommy. “Seriously Tilly, was that the only friend you made?” I playfully pushed him and shunted the image of Philon out of my mind.

“Hey! Alfred was a Sergeant Major thank you very much.”

“A Sergeant Major? Wow! What did you guys talk about?” Tommy asked fascinated. He loved all things when it came to Army rankings. And so I explained to Tommy what Alfred was like and what we talked about. I also described the food we ate, what the food was like, what the Commander of the Army was like, everything! Then I told him about the girl with the torn dress.

“An accident?” he burst out laughing. “Come on Tilly, I know what your definition of an accident is!”

“Hey! It’s not my fault I have big feet!” I argued back. He playfully poked me in the ribs and I stuck out a foot to trip him but he skillfully leapt over it. We laughed and continued our conversation down the street and towards the markets.

As we talked, I was glad there wasn’t any awkwardness between us. After last night I was worried our friendship wasn’t going to be the same but thankfully we were back to our old usual banter filled selves. After a while, our conversation turned a little more serious.

“I agree Tilly,” started Tommy, “this Terranovus false hope business is crap. Come off it! One family a week from each Sector? Has the bloody Army forgotten how many families there are in each sector? The chances have to be something like-”

“0.03% within our Sector and not including the others,” I said. “I’ve done the math.”

“It’s bullshit!” he said. “Moving the tiniest fraction of people from the Sectors to another is not going to solve our issues. What we need is control, security and stability – not false hope!”

“Why haven’t they built artificial islands yet?” I asked.

“Don’t you remember what they taught us in history last year? They tried that a few decades ago but the island sunk, millions died, the engineering failed.”

“Oh yeah,” I said dismayed, “but surely technology has advanced since then? Why haven’t they tried again?”

“Beats me,” shrugged Tommy.

I sighed and looked around at the markets we had finally reached. Even here the air had a positive vibe too. We were at the food stall section and my mind wondered back to the food I ate last night.

“Hey, I want to show you something,” I told Tommy and dragged him over to the vegetables.

“I’ve seen vegetables before Tilly,” he moaned.

“Not this one!” I excitedly replied. I searched the mountains of vegetables stacked on top of each other and eyed each one – desperate to find strange looking long green stemmed vegetable I ate last night. What was it called again? Broccolini?

“Sir, do you have any of that new broccolini in stock?” I called out to the stall owner. He gave me a blank look.

“A what?”

“Broccolini.”

He looked at me like I was mad.

“You mean a broccoli? They’re over there hun,” he replied and pointed at some broccoli.

“No, a broccolini! Looks like a broccoli but small and thin with long stems. They’re a really old vegetable from the old days that’s making a comeback,” I explained. Now the stall owner looked pissed off.

“What game are you playing at girl? I’m the best vegetable seller and if a vegetable was about to make a comeback I would be the first to hear of it. Now shut your trap and be off with your boyfriend there!” he yelled at me.

I went to open my mouth to tell him exactly where he could stick his vegetables but Tommy clamped a hand over my mouth and dragged me away. I pulled his hand off my mouth.

“What are you doing?” I yelled at him.

“Cause you’ve turned crazy. A broccolini?” he said to me trying to keep a straight face.

“It was one of the vegetables they served to us last night, I’m not making this up! Alfred told me all about them,” I argued.

“Well perhaps Alfred was pulling your leg cause they’ve clearly not been invented yet.” I scowled at him and stormed away.

It was only after I harassed five other stall owners that I admitted defeat and apologised to Tommy. The expression of admiration and humour spread across his face made me even more annoyed so stuck my tongue out at him. He laughed, and as he did so, we noticed the crowd around us beginning to grow anxious and agitated. Suddenly, the electronic billboards flashed and the Channel 1 logo appeared. It was six o’clock. It was time for the first lottery winners to be announced.

Shushing sounds sounded through the streets until the crowds came to a complete silent standstill. I stepped closer to Tommy and we stared wordlessly at the quiet crowd. In all my life I had never heard the streets this silent. Everyone watched the Channel 1 logo twirl and flash and before we knew it a very excited and ecstatic Fayard Carter appeared smiling down at us. Fayard was a household icon; he starred in anything and everything.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” his voice pounded through the street speakers, “boys and girls! It is now time to find out who will be the very first residents of Terranovus!”

Whispers of excitement filled the streets. Strangers smiled at each other, teenagers squealed with excitement and parents crossed their fingers in hope.

“Now, if you haven’t seen Terranovus yet because you’ve been living in a hole for the past twenty-four hours let me show you-”

The screen flashed green and the luscious full of life island appeared. It looked just as beautiful as it did last night. I glanced up at Tommy and watched him look at the screen with awe and amazement.

“For the past three years, the Army has kept Terranovus a secret from us. They’ve been working super hard and have put all their efforts and resources into this wonderful land and now it is ready! The lottery is a fair, equal and unbiased system in which all residents have an opportunity to be chosen. Created using an algorithm, tonight’s lottery winners will be picked at random from a secure location, shielded from any cyber attack. So, who’s ready for Terranovus?”

The crowd erupted into a frenzy of excited cheers and smiles. They were ready alright. The screen turned back to Fayard in his studio.

“Without further ado, computer, please produce our first lottery winners!” he shouted. Fayard was instantly replaced by a million names flashing through the screen so fast not one letter was recognisable. Tommy clenched my hand and I squeezed it back. The hope within the crowd was intoxicating.

“And stop!” screamed Fayard. The computer stopped and the letters froze on a name and series of numbers.

Chadha S7321.9

“Mr Davide, Mrs Giorgia Chadha and their son from Sector D8 district 7th, congratulations! You are the first citizens of Terranovus!” announced Fayard. An image of a family of three appeared on the screen. The family looked normal, neither rich nor poor. According to the small profile that appeared Davide and Giorgia Chadha were factory workers and their son, Bram, had a passion for science.

However, the crowd wasn’t feeling Fayard’s joy. Everyone was silent, a little disappointed and deflated. Tommy and I were right; this wasn’t going to end well. Fayard kept talking but at this point the crowd had lost interest and everyone had started moving again. Tommy and I watched the crowd for a moment then turned to each other.

“This is crap,” said Tommy. I sighed and shrugged my shoulders. There wasn’t anything we could do about it apart from tune in the following night and hope again.