Officer Dougherty had tried to investigate the mysterious circumstances behind the assassination of Mayor Lucas, and had earned himself a month-long suspension for his troubles. When he returned, the fire inside him was gone and he fell unenthusiastically into line.
Theo used the bathroom and brushed his teeth, being careful not to use more than the smallest functional amount of toothpaste. The white gel was just one of many products in short supply on the island, and distribution of goods was disproportionate at best since Tiberius’s rise to power. Like most things on the island, rations favored those who wholeheartedly supported the regime.
Theo thought he might try to see Ryan after work. Tiberius had disrupted the science team, cancelling all research related to the Event and the new universe. He wanted them to focus all efforts and resources on the island. With Tiberius’s dislike of privileges being extended to the island’s youth, Ryan was lucky to still have a job with the science department. As it was, he was not allowed to do much more than paperwork.
The demotion had taken a huge toll on Ryan. He was moody and irritable and his relationship with Michelle had soured. Theo thought this was probably due in no small part to Michelle’s status on the island. She was an outspoken loyalist to the new government, and so she was one of the few teenagers treated with anything approaching respect. She had been promoted to manager of the records office.
Kylee had asked Michelle why she was so supportive of what was becoming something between a dictatorship and a monarchy. Michelle responded, “It’s not about whether or not I like the leadership. What you all don’t seem to get is that this is all there is. There’s no other country to run to. There’s no opposition. As far as we are concerned, Tiberius is the ruler of the world. I wish the rest of you would figure that out and start to play by the rules.”
Kylee had repeated this conversation to Theo. “What bothers me,” she had said, “is that Michelle skirted around the actual question. I really think she agrees with a lot of what’s happening here.”
“What does Jamie think?” he had asked.
“She thinks I’m oversensitive. Too much craziness makes me look for more craziness. I don’t know, maybe she’s right.”
Theo didn’t think Jamie was right. Kylee might have been thrown off by everything they had experienced since the Event, but Jamie had also been greatly affected. She probably didn’t want to think anything negative about her friend at a time when friends were in such short supply.
Theo kissed Kylee goodbye and walked out the door. Farmers got to work earlier than most other positions on the island and the apartment Theo shared with Kylee was far from the Margate fields. Leaving so early meant that he almost never saw anyone else on his long walks. That suited Theo just fine.
The streets leading out of the city had long been battered by years of strong storms and flooding in the summer and heavy snows in winter. The asphalt needed regular maintenance that it was no longer getting, and the Event had taken a heavy toll. Cracks spread like a dark circulatory system in every direction. Weeds grew from the cracks, spurred on and nourished by the torrential storms and ample sunlight.
Theo casually yanked a weed from the sandy soil, studied it for a moment and threw it over his shoulder. Funny that he still felt compelled to keep things tidy when the Supreme Leader couldn’t be bothered. No, that wasn’t quite right. Tiberius was a calculating man, and even the condition of the streets wouldn’t go unattended. Theo guessed it was more likely this was Tiberius’s deliberate effort to allow the streets to go to ruins. Even the government cars had run out of fuel. Atlantic Island was a pedestrian community for the foreseeable future, and Tiberius obviously wanted to route resources elsewhere.
A few blocks down Theo passed the water treatment operation. Here he saw the day’s first signs of humanity. The workers scurried from place to place, carrying vats, hoses and tools. The water treatment facility desalinated ocean water for drinking and bathing, and recycled wastewater to be used again. Giant storage tanks collected rain from the heavy storms. The operation was beyond Theo’s understanding. Its construction had occurred hastily during his brief spell working for the mayor. The sheer amount of people hurrying about told Theo that Tiberius knew water was a critical utility.
There were many things that Tiberius knew, Theo thought. It would be easy to dismiss the man as unqualified for leadership but the sad truth was that Paul Tiberius was a born leader. He knew how to keep a country going. The problem in Theo’s view was Tiberius saw everything in black and white without any shades of grey.
Tiberius was prepared to do anything and everything to enforce his view of what would keep a government operational. He was willing to sacrifice anyone for the greater good of the island. That was simply not something Theo or his friends could accept. Any society was going to be filled with “haves” and “have nots.” Everything Theo had ever heard or read told him as much. Yet Supreme Leader Tiberius pushed this paradigm to an absurd extreme, seemingly more so each day.
The tightening of rations, the endless forced labor, all these changes and restrictions were suppressing the majority of the population while the inner circle grew powerful and comfortable. Theo felt the impact of this as he walked the lengthy route to work. In the city, a short sprint from the majesty of the Palace, a checkered map had formed of affluence next to poverty. The farther Theo walked beyond the city limits, the more poverty reigned.
Three months in to Tiberius’s rule, the Supreme Leader decreed that dissidents could lose their property. In the time since, a convenient selection of citizens who had won nice accommodations in the property lottery had been declared “rabble rousers” and had been removed from their homes. The lucky were sent to communal housing near the farms. The unlucky went to jail with no determined length of sentence. Tiberius loyalists now occupied the quality real estate left behind by the nonconformists. Tiberius himself and many of the government employees had residences in the Palace.
Theo wondered how long it would be before the government targeted him and his friends. He knew too much about Tiberius and the whole operation there to think that being removed from the advisory council was the full extent of any action against him. He thought about this more and more with each passing week. Was there anything he could do to protect himself and his friends? He didn’t think so. In that one regard he agreed wholeheartedly with Michelle: Tiberius was the beginning and the end of authority on the island. If the Supreme Leader decided it was time to make an example of Theo or Kylee or any of them, they were totally and completely out of luck. There was nowhere to run.
Theo approached the edge of the tomato fields that marked the perimeter of the Margate farmland. The communal properties near the fields were still occupied at this time of day. For a reason Theo couldn’t identify, men with families represented a large portion of those Tiberius had evicted from their homes. The women and children milled about on the porches. Their sad faces and emaciated bodies stayed in Theo’s mind all day as he worked and they haunted him at night.
Every once in a while one of the forgotten souls on the porches would approach the farmers. Theo’s boss, an enormous man named Jerome, was kind but firm in telling the women to leave. Once, someone got through and grabbed Theo and one other man by one shoulder each with her boney hands.