UCH. 1 - To the best of your ability

Chapter 1. To The Best Of Your Ability

A single man walked into the nearly empty room, and took a seat. He was the only one in the room that wasn’t an employee of the facility, and felt a bit awkward. He was supposed to do it a long time ago, but he never really got around to it. It didn’t matter to him.
On the wall, there was yet another television drilling propaganda into people’s minds. Leonard Malenport’s well known face was, as usual, on the television screen, babbling on about the great progress that the fascist empire was making. Malenport was, surely the greatest politician of the twenty second century. He knew how to manipulate, he knew how to gain trust, he was a deceiver.
Ingo knew almost every nook and cranny of his face, and he knew that he was putting on a show, something that all skilled propagandists do. Ingo, about twenty four years old, saw the man every day on the televisions wherever he went. It was because of Malenport that his job had just been taken from him. An absurd protocol which stated that alcohol could no longer be sold by personal businesses, which meant that Ingo’s career as a bartender was doomed. People were outraged, but they certainly never showed it, for the Fascist dictator on the television was watching every move they made. It was rumored that those who were disobedient would be tortured, or be sent into the Military.
Ingo sat there waiting to take his Abilities Performance Battery. It was mandatory that each and every person of age thirteen and up to undergo a series of tests indicating physical health, mental health, and various forms of intelligence. If there was something that Ingo never trusted, it was Malenport’s goons. He knew that if he performed as well as he could on the tests, that would give himself unwanted attention, something that he did not wish to have. It wasn’t that he was modest, but he was not naïve about the nature of Fascist dictators. Had he posed a threat of any kind to Malenport, he would be an enemy in his paranoid mind.
“Are you Ingo Helmi?” the attendant asked.
“Yes” he replied.
He was led to a squeaky clean testing room which had walls of grey and white tiles and a black floor. The only things in the room were a desk and a chair. The lighting was bright, and there was a door leading to a bathroom on the right side of the room.
“Ingo Helmi, you may sit down.” A voice echoed through the room. He complied. A period of silence ensued, Ingo guessed that the tester was checking his records over.
“It appears that you have some experience in the field of electronic wiring, is this correct?”
“Yes” Ingo certified the question.
“And despite the lack of electricians that we have, you refused to take the occupation?” the tester asked.
Ingo hesitated for a moment, unsure of what his response should have been. Inside, he refused the job because he was not at all a qualified electrician, he had created a fake record for himself. He was a politician at heart, and it was a dangerous time to be one.
“I hear they aren’t paid well” Ingo answered.
“Quite the contrary, Mister Helmi. The job market is every so bright for electricians, as opposed to bartending. The media network is employing every electrician that it can find, and paying them well I might add.”
Ingo had just been reminded of the ban of alcohol selling from local businesses.
“And if I refuse?”
“You can not refuse Mister Helmi. Now, you are here to take your APB, which you have neglected to take for over seven months and twenty five days. You will take them today, and you will not leave until the whole thing is filled out. Your career depends on it, so it is recommended that you perform to the best of your ability.” The tester ended.
On cue, the little desk opened a slit, and a packet came out. The test had sections in every general area of knowledge. He knew that the walls of the room were designed so that they could be seen through, and that they were carefully monitoring him. He had to play it safe. He couldn’t show the signs of someone who is purposely getting questions wrong. He hesitated for each question, and purposely scratched his head, and pretended that he didn’t know he was being watched. He looked around the room, pretending to admire how clean the room was. Did they think he was an idiot? He sure hoped that their psychological monitoring wasn’t advanced enough to detect deliberate dumbness.
It took three hours for him to finish the APB. It was difficult to remain stupid throughout the whole length of the exam, but he had accomplished his goal.
“Mister Helmi, you are dismissed” the tester said.

Ingo walked out of the building as fast as he could, before they could possibly question his effort on the exam. As he stepped out the door, he saw the sprawling city out in front of him. Despite its massive population, the life of the city had died down tremendously. People stayed home, and there were more sentries than ever before, immediately eyeing him the moment they were aware of his presence. Public transportation was cut, so the buses that used to come every ten minutes would come every three hours.
Ingo was not going to wait for two hours, for his apartment wasn’t too far from the APB testing center after all, and curfew was in three hours. The sentries, the new name for “police” wore their helmets that covered their whole head so that they were seen as tools instead of people. They were barely people anyways, they often beat people for no reason other than to put fear into them. What did they care? They would never get caught, and it was fun for them. Ingo was aware of their nature, so he traveled an obscure path.

The capital city of the empire, Aegea, was at the center of an island with the shape of a hook. At the point where a hook would be sharp, the government buildings resided. Ingo was at the sharp part, looking to travel to the bottom of the island. He would go along the coastline, because it wasn’t as watched and there was less of a chance that he would be caught.
Not many people wandered the coastline. There was nothing there, and sand was polluted with all kinds of things. Ingo walked along the beach looking beseechingly at the mainland. There were farmlands over there, and rural settlements. It was where people would go to take a break, but lately Malenport’s grip on the population had tightened. He made the people as dumb as possible about the outside world, and limited public travel. His excuse was that there wasn’t enough petroleum on the war effort, and they needed to conserve resources for the soldiers. Ingo could see through this simple ploy however.
He was fairly close to the point where he would have to leave the coastline. He walked past a retired vessel repair shop, when he heard a muffled scream. He panicked, and quietly made his way in to see what was going on in there. He peeked through a small crack in the wall, and saw the unimaginable. Men and women, lined up against the wall, with their mouths gagged, their eyes blindfolded. There was one man who apparently resisted, and was being kicked on the floor by the ranking officer.
“You traitor! You filthy traitor!” the commander yelled, as he stomped on the man’s face. The man could only make muffled sounds and bleed.
“You do not even deserve to be killed, but we’ll be nice. Just for you, we will kill every last one of your friends and family in front of you!” He said.
The man was held down by soldiers, handcuffed, kept down by two dozen boots. He watched in horror as his blindfolded wife was led to a few feet in front of him.
“This is the reward you get for being a traitor” The commander sneered. He then took out a knife and stabbed her. It was cruel enough that she, and innocent person, was killed. Even crueler though, was the knife, providing a painful death. Ingo’s eyes flashed with anger. He wanted to leave, but his eyes were glued to the situation. He wanted to do something about it, but what could he do? He was unarmed, and there were at least thirty soldiers in the room watching. The man fought with all his strength to get free, with murderous zeal, but he was outmatched in strength.
“You scum, it’s what you deserve” one of the soldiers spat. As if that weren’t enough for the man, his children and relatives were killed in front of him as well, and all of his friends. All were blindfolded and stabbed, and the man could only watch. He tried to shut his eyes, but then they were held open by someone. What the man did, Igno never found out, but one of the soldiers eyed his silhouette against the pale blue sky, and point his finger and yelled. Igno darted towards the city. He wasn’t able to save them today, but he would avenge their deaths in the future. It was still a shock to him how history replayed itself – this was the kind of stuff that the dictators did in the early twentieth century. It was barbaric, and yet in a way he knew it all along.