Nothing moved in the grass below save for the breeze touching the grass gently, blowing a few rust-coloured leaves across the dusty, faded black tarmac of the road.  It was that time of year, a few blissful days of calm weather after the relentless, burning sun of Season 1 and preceding the bitter storms and biting cold of Season 2; they’d called it ‘Winter’ once, it was in a history film she’d seen in Education. Before the Climate Change, whatever that was. Across the empty road, another city apartment block rose from the ground, and more alongside of it. The gaze of her brown eyes rested on the sign to the left of the first, “ALL CITIZENS UNDER THIRTY MUST NOT LEAVE THEIR APARTMENTS PAST 18PM.” Simple black blocks on bone white announcing the curfew. Nobody dared to graffiti it; it stood out from the wall behind, the wall that had been sprayed myriad times.  She glanced at the clock; the digital numbers mounted on the wall provided a luminous red glow, 17.15PM. The sky was starting to turn pink and gold, the numerous factories in the area made enchanting if polluted sunsets. The sickly smoke that spewed and spurted into the sky all day refracted and reflected the final rays of the sun.

      She started as there was a knock at the door, before hurrying over to switch on the kettle and walk to the door. Setting a calm expression on her features she opened the door to a man wearing the uniform of the Law-Enforcement and Media Group.
     “Resident 209: Name of Laraine Colerne?”

      “Yes?”

      “May I ask you some questions?”

     “Of course.” She said, beginning to worry what this officer’s purpose was.

     “Are you happy with your standard of living?

     “Why, yes. It’s wonderful.” She said, pushing her black hair out of her face as she suppressed a sigh of relief, it was another attitude survey; it would be published outside the city, trying to persuade people to move into cities from the rural areas. They seemed hugely successful, people poured into the cities all round the country every year. She’d seen the short films broadcast before: ‘The city of Lundun, where you can find a place to work and live while protected from Terror’ Most of them were drab, dull and dreary, merely featuring an assortment of citizens gushing about how life was wonderful here, no shortage of work, wonderfully low crime, well, no crime at all really, wonderful communities, wonderful food and accommodation, wonderful everything,

     “And how is your employment? What do you do? Are you paid fairly?”

     “Oh, I work repairing various electrical devices. The work is satisfying and the pay is very generous.”

     “Would this job need training? Were you trained at all?”

     “Oh yes, all the training was provided by the Training Groups. They were brilliant people.”

     “Indeed. Thank you for you time, Resident 209.”

     “Thank you.” She shut the door as soon as she politely could and shoved her hands into the pockets of her faded blue dungarees as looked up the clock again; it was now 30 time units past 17. There was no time to go out anywhere now; the latest curfew was rigorously enforced, you’d be stopped, ordered to produce and show your Biometric ID card and if you couldn’t produce it, or were under 30 years old you’d be…well, Laraine wasn’t quite sure what would happen after that. It had never happened to anyone she had ever known.

     Nobody ever broke the rules; after all, the risk of being branded as having ‘Dubious Loyalties’ or still worse, ‘Harbouring Questionable Intentions’, was too a high risk to take. If that happened to you, you would be subject to pitiless public beatings, degradation to the most dreadful degree, and whenever there was a shortage you would be placed at the bottom of the list for the necessities such as food and employment.

     If that was not enough, anyone who was associated with you could easily be picked out for victimization just as much as you could, sometimes more: your family, your co-workers, your friends. All would fall under a watchful, suspicious eye. Anyone who was but a little unconventional in their ways could be suspected. Not having an occupation, living alone in a larger flat, just walking a different way home could bring the eyes of suspicion onto you; you wouldn’t even know it at first. Your employer received the small scarlet sachet containing the report on a disk. It went on your Disk, every citizen had a Disk, and nobody was ever allowed to read their own, only Law Enforcement and Media could read other citizen’s Disks. Or so Laraine had heard. That was why everyone took part in everything after all, otherwise you took the risk of somebody else noticing and thinking: “Why doesn’t she take part? Doesn’t she want us to win? Does sympathize with Them? Perhaps she needs watching.” At least, it seemed that way. Laraine doubted anybody knew how the Law Enforcement team worked. She had some vague idea it was something to do with Neighbourhood Groups and Work Group meetings.

She was disrupted from her contemplation by the kettle switching off as the electricity cut out. It was part of the new Conserve Energy Campaign to fund the War on Terror, the WoT. Only a certain amount of power could be used every few days, to save money. Heating was cut out too, and with Season 2 approaching fast; Laraine’s small apartment was getting cold as the light ebbed out of the sky. It was all voluntary of course, but nobody ever would ever dream of saying no. After all, didn’t they all want to support their military forces abroad and at home?