Kepler One The Choosing

Book one in the Kepler One series.

Copyright ©2017 by TP Keane

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or

reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any manner whatsoever

without the written permission from the publisher, except in the

case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and

reviews. Inquirers may be sent via:

www.tpkeane.com

Massachusetts, USA

First Edition

Printed in the United States of America

Cover Design by http://lorainelotter.wixsite.com/rynkatryn

Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

Available

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017903420

ISBN: 978-0-9971793-5-4

10-ISBN:

To my amazing parents, Noel and Pauline Burke, whose

continued support and encouragement has spurred me ever

onwards.

Chapter 1

My mother coughed all night in the room next to mine as

death came to wrap its sticky black claws around her. Death

was slow to finish the job, however, too weary and overworked

in the pit of depravity that was my home. Such was the nature

of Tier Five, so dark, decaying, and cold, that even the Grim

Reaper was condemned to an eternity of relentless servitude

here.

The sound of her struggling to breathe brought tears to my

eyes and a tightness in my chest. I wanted it to stop, so

desperately I wanted it to stop, but who was I to do anything

about it? I was Zoe Ruthland, a Tier Five and lowlife according

to what was left of humanity; not worth the precious oxygen I

breathed. Like most things in my life, I was powerless to do

anything but wait as the cancer slowly took her.

I listened to her convulsing in wet, unyielding hacks, and I

knew each one caused her pain. I worried that the next one

would be worse, or wouldn’t come at all. It played on my mind,

maddening me to near the point of insanity, so I did the only

thing I could do. I turned over in my cot and plugged my ears

with my fingers, trying to squeeze out the sound. Still I heard

her coughing, and I couldn’t take it anymore. Anger, fear,

frustration, whatever it was that built up inside me, made me

want to slam my fists against the thin wall between us and shout

at her to “be quiet for five minutes, so I could sleep.”

No sound escaped my lips. These might be the last days I

had with my mother, and I couldn’t have my memories tainted

with regret. I lay there my eyes shut tight, listening to her

slowly die, and wondered when my time would come. Thirty?

Forty? I was only sixteen, but the radiation from above ground

had reached us all, seeping into the food, the air, the water, and

even our threadbare clothes. People were dying younger and

younger every year; my mother was only forty-five.

Despite her deterioration, the radiation counter on my wall

reassured me that not much had changed since I looked at it last.

There was still not enough to kill me outright, but enough to

shorten my life considerably, as it had shortened hers. Not many

lived past the age of sixty in Bunker Twelve, if it could be

called living. Whenever my time might be, I was resolved that it

would not involve any children of my own. Feeling tears run

along the side of the oxygen-generating mask which rarely left

my face, how could I do this to them?

What remained of the human race lived in an old bunker

constructed by an older government. We survived in a tomb of

concrete walls stained brown by contaminated groundwater, or

at least those were the colours of the walls I saw. Hydroponic

gardens sustained us, but rumours spread about how the

radiation had wilted and turned our Garden of Eden sour. I

wasn’t sure the rumours were true, but I suspected they might

be from the horrendously rotted taste of our meal bars.

Our scientists made inoculations for the necessary things

that couldn’t be found beneath the ground, like sunshine. Their

main task, however, was to find a cure for the radiation,

something that would help our bodies overcome the poison we

were all bathed in. They had failed, and no one believed they

would succeed. It was for that very reason the lottery was to

take place tomorrow, and, unbelievably, I had been selected to

be in the running.

The World Confederate Council, WCC, had succumbed to

the popular demand that a spaceship must be prepared for the

inevitable evacuation of Earth. The WCC had many delusions,

the first being that there was a “world” outside of our bunker to

council over. The second, that they could undo the damage man

and his weapons had done to our Earth.

Reluctant to give up on curing the cancer infecting us all,

and with nowhere to send the refugees, the WCC had pushed

back on the idea of a spaceship for as long as it could. It wanted

to reserve the last resources so the scientists could continue to

fail. But like my mother, the Earth was on its deathbed, and we,

like rats on a sinking ship, must now clamber to get off, or

drown.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to go.

I stared up at the yellowed roof of my quarters for what

seemed like the entire night. Like I had done countless nights

before, my eyes followed the lines of the number twelve

branded in black on its surface. Running from murderers who

would kill me to sell my organs was all I knew in life, but it was

familiar. Even though it felt like a prison at times, this was the

only home I had ever known and I would miss parts of it.

I would miss my mother most of all, and couldn’t bring

myself to think of her lying in bed with no one to help her, no

one to feed her or bring her water, and no one to shed a tear by

her side when death finally came for her. She told me how she

never wanted to be alone in her last moments, and that weighed

heavily on my chest. She was my last living relative. My father

died from a brain tumour some three years earlier and I was the

only one of their allotted “two children limit,” fulfilled; a dying

legacy to mill among the other condemned. But how could I

leave her?

My anxiety made my legs restless, so I got up. I must have

paced my bare room a hundred times before I found myself

looking into a small tarnished mirror on the wall. My reflection

stared back at me. Dark rims under green eyes, dulled too early

with life experience, were the tell-tale signs that I hadn’t slept

for many nights. My shoulder-length blonde hair was lank,

dirty, and unwashed; as was every other citizen’s in Bunker

Twelve. We drank only enough contaminated water to stave off

dehydration, nothing else.

As I stared at my gaunt face, it occurred to me that I was

nothing like my father. His brown, dying eyes still haunted me

to this day, and I was glad to see no resemblance. While my

memories painted him as a strong and kind man, I was thin and

weak. With little to eat, there was only enough to sustain our

bodies, not make them grow strong. I was also mature enough

that I could no longer pass as his son, unfortunately for me. As

a boy, there was less chance of being raped, but the risk wasn’t

eliminated altogether. At least that was the case for Tier Five

citizens, the lowest of the low.

I was one of those citizens, put here by birthright. With only

five tiers, those closest to Tier One resided deeper into the

Earth’s crust and were shielded better from the radiation. They

received more food and medicine, too. Council members of the

WCC spent their final days on silk sheets many miles below

me, while my mother struggled to breathe in the smoggy clouds

of their society, pleading with me for medicine to ease the pain.

I didn’t have any medicine, and every day I had to watch her

turn her head away as tears streamed down her grey-tinted

cheeks. Each morning she woke, I watched my mother endure

another day of agony. If it were me, I would want someone to

put me out of my misery, but I couldn’t bring myself to do that

for her.

My parents had taught me to see the value of life, even in

one as pitiful as my own. Contrary to the thieving, murdering

culture of those around me, they taught me compassion and

kindness. I even spoke differently to everyone on Tier Five.

While we weren’t so removed from our former lives above

world, about four generations, that we had lost the accents and

cultures of our home countries, most citizens of Tier Five only

had a basic grasp of proper English. That skill was lost to

criminal factions who invented their own secret language, and

parentless children who were never taught any better.

My parents had insisted that I speak as though I were a Tier

One, but they taught me too well. While others might have the

resolve to end their parent’s misery with a pillow, I could not,

and I resented them for it. I resented them for not making me

stronger, more callous; for not helping me survive in the world

that they had condemned me to.

I balled my fist and slammed it into the speckled mirror. It

cracked, and shards of glass crashed onto the cement floor,

echoing loudly against the walls. I heard my mother’s coughing

stop for a moment, as if she was going to do the motherly thing

and get out of bed to check on me, but the coughing returned. I

was left alone in the insipid surroundings of my room, knuckles

bleeding.

The lottery, a chance to leave death and live somewhere

other than Tier Five. I wanted to go now, I was so sick of death,

but if I was selected, how could I leave my mother like this? I

plopped myself back onto my bed again and sagged against the

wall, wrapping a dirty rag around my knuckles. They won’t

choose me, I’m a Tier Five, I thought. I was positive then that

my worry, anxiety, and even my hopefulness, was for nothing.

Like the food and the medicine, places on the only means to

escape this hell would be already taken by the children of the

elite. The lottery was only a façade to appease those who might

argue.

Only teenagers were eligible for this opportunity, because

they were old enough to be trained how to operate a spaceship,

but still young enough that the radiation wouldn’t yet have done

too much damage. They would also be most likely to survive

the journey and repopulate another world. I closed my eyes and

lay back in my bed, visualising what that new world might look

like. Air, not tainted with the smell of plastic, warm sunshine

bathing my skin, and food, sweet food, as far as the eye could

see.

An unsettling thought made its way into my mind then.

Maybe there was no new world? Maybe the WCC was sending

a group of teens into space so the citizens wouldn’t lose hope. A

sacrifice, a cull to ease the demand on our limited resources. If

that was the case, most, if not all, of the disposable candidates

would be chosen from Tier Five. I would have no choice but to

leave my mother and die in whatever vacuum of space I was

sent to.

“A fitting end to a miserable life,” I whispered.

Somehow I slept after that, comforted that my life would

continue to be predicable in its task to always disappoint.

Morning came before I was ready for it. The wail of the seven

a.m. alarm rang through the corridors of Tier Five. I could

almost hear the collective groans as people dragged themselves

out of bed, groggy from poor air and malnutrition. For what?

There was no work on Tier Five, only crime. The powers-that-

be, however, saw fit that all tiers should retain some normality

and routine. Waking everyone in the mornings was the

impractical habit they clung to. Not everyone obeyed.

A heaviness settled into my body. It made it difficult for me

to dress in my Tier Five uniform of black trousers and a grey

tunic. It wasn’t so much a uniform as it was a way to sort out

the different privileges of Bunker Twelve. The tiers were also a

way to keep order on a desperate world. Anyone judged to have

broken a law was moved up a level, closer to the surface of the

Earth and the radiation. There were no laws on Tier Five. How

could there be with no punishment worse than what we were

already living? We were left to survive, beg, borrow, or steal

our way through life. Many did those things, and worse.

It was rare that anyone got promoted to a better level. In my

lifetime, and my parents’ too, there had only been three people.

Deemed essential to the running of Bunker Twelve, they had

secured their comfort by whatever made them special. I wasn’t

special, nor was anyone I knew. With the same noose around

their necks as I had around mine, many had tried to sneak past

the security separating our tiers; all were shot dead for their

efforts.

My home was a dangerous place, and I learned from a

young age to trust no one. If anyone found out about my entry

into the lottery, they would kill me to take my place, so I kept it

a closely guarded secret, even from my mother.

A computer screen flashed to life on one of my water-

stained walls, the cracking, fizzing noise drawing me out of my

thoughts. It flickered for a moment, and long lines distorted the

pixelated face that came into focus.

“Good morning, Zoe Ruthland. May you find health this

day,” it cooed.

I hated the disconnected cheeriness the bunker computers

used. Even more so, I hated the greeting that everyone seemed

brainwashed into repeating. May you find health this day . . .

ridiculous!

“Actually, I won’t find health this day, computer. I think

you’ll find that I’ll be more contaminated today than I was

yesterday,” I said, pulling frayed shoes onto my feet.

“I don’t understand the question. Please rephrase and try

again,” it sung.

“Oh, shut up.”

The androgynous face on the computer blinked at me and

smiled, its dark hair, slicked back so I couldn’t tell if it was long

or short. Its avatar appeared delicate and its movements were

feminine. A slight tilt of its head as it talked, the sweet smile

framed with glossy lipstick, and the dark brown eyes edged with

mascara, all indications that it was female. Its longer nose and

strong jaw, however, were features more suited to a man. I

couldn’t fathom why an artificial intelligence would have

eccentricities like this, but it did. Perhaps it was an effort on the

programmer’s part to humanise it, give it a personality. Despite

the programmer’s best efforts, its sickly sweet smile never

faltered and its eyes blinked too deliberately to be natural.

“Why haven’t you switched off, computer? What do you

want?” I snapped.

“Today is the lottery,” it answered. “Congratulations, Zoe.

The president has asked that you please make your way to the

Central Pavilion after your breakfast.”

President James Tucker, the ruler of what was left, had more

important things to do than ask me to “please” make my way to

the Central Pavilion. I wasn’t even sure he knew I existed. I’d

often seen his ruddy jowls wobble on the computer screen as he

lectured us on how to ration more effectively.

Right on cue, a small compartment opened beneath the

screen. Resting inside was the same deep-purple nutrition bar I

had eaten three times a day for the past sixteen years. I picked it

up and the compartment closed. It fit neatly into the palm of my

hand, not big enough to reach the edges. How much of this

should I ration?

I slid my rebreather off long enough to take a bite, then

grimaced and replaced it again. The meal bar smelled as

disgusting as ever, like putrefied flesh and rotting fruit. It was

the sandy texture held together with gelatine that was the worst

part, however. A true appetite suppressant.

With a splutter, the computer screen went blank, and I was

alone again.

“The lottery,” I huffed, taking another bite.

There had been talk of the spacecraft from workers on other

tiers. If there was one thing Tier Five’s were good at, it was

circulating rumours. The ship, named Kepler One, was said to

be so technologically advanced that it surpassed anything here

in Bunker Twelve. Of course, citizens from Tier Five never got

anywhere near it, not even to help with the construction.

Perhaps we were too stupid, or maybe too untrustworthy.

The rumours, however, gave me a small amount of hope

that maybe our journey into space wasn’t the cull I was

expecting. Why would they exhaust such huge amounts of

resources only to let it drift off into space? As I took another

bite of my breakfast, I allowed some part of me to believe it, if

even just to linger a moment longer in the feeling. It was rare

that I got to feel hope.

I finished my meal bar before going next door to where my

mother lay in her bed. All citizens had their own room from the

age of ten. Some children ended up on the opposite side to their

family, and that afforded them little comfort or protection. The

rooms were small, no larger than a prison cell, and I was

fortunate that mine was next door to my mother’s. At least, I

had thought myself fortunate before the cancer. Now I wasn’t

too sure.

As her door slid open, some part of me hoped to find that

she was no longer breathing, while another part shuddered to

think it . . . but she was alive. Her thin frame was swallowed by

the small cot, and her hair had all but fallen out. Her lips were

permanently blue despite her rebreather. The cancer in her lungs

still sucked at what little life she had left, like a greedy child on

a mother’s teat. Her green eyes, my green eyes, had sunken into

her skull, and there was no part of her now that I wanted to

remember as my mother. She was remains, bones and skin

unable to move onto the next life.

“Zoe,” she whispered, stretching an emaciated hand toward

me.

“Mom, rest,” I said, rushing over to grab her hand.

It wasn’t often that my mother recognised me through the

delirium of pain, or rather it wasn’t often that she had the

energy to call my name. It felt bittersweet that now, on the day I

might leave her forever, she retrieved some modicum of what

she was like before. I helped her eat whatever food she could

tolerate. Each movement she took, that I made her take, was

met with a gasp of pain.

“Medicine,” she said, her eyes pleading with me as she

refused her food.

I already knew what she wanted before she asked, and I

couldn’t help her. I had tried to barter for some medicine, but I

had nothing to offer. I tried to steal it, but I wasn’t a very good

thief and nearly lost my life in the process. I had humiliated

myself and begged in the corridors for someone to help, but my

pleading went unanswered. I had tried everything, and now she

was still asking. I couldn’t bear it any longer.

“Okay, Mom, okay,” I whispered. “I’ll get you some

medicine.”

She smiled, and a tear escaped the corner of her eye running

slowly over her sunken cheek and across the crescent-moon

birthmark on the right side of her jaw. I hated to see her cry, but

seeing her cry from the false hope I had given her was

intolerable.

I left. Either I was going to whatever hell the WCC planned

for the lottery winners, or I would come back and end her

suffering myself. It was unthinkable, but I was desperate, and

she was in so much pain.

Joining the throngs of other people in the corridor, I blended

into the sea of grey as we made our way down to the Central

Pavilion. Even if this was a suicide mission, I didn’t care

anymore. I just didn’t want to be here.