The Big Picture
The
beginning
The tower cut a black line through the
undisrupted white. The column of graphite rose, slowly spiraling and spinning,
weaving it’s way through the pearly mist. The contours blossomed all over the
page. The faint hiss of the pneumatic door was like a gunshot in Reuben’s head.
The sketchbook disappeared into the folds of his coat, just as the Hunter
entered the train car. It floated, as if made of cloud, down the aisle, and
stopped next to him. Reuben was the only one in the carriage. It was a Hunter-type
Robotic Artificially Intelligent
Droid, or RAID, designed and
operated by the government to control the population. Not that it needed controlling.
Ever since the revolution, the destruction, and when the city was rebuilt, the
people hadn’t needed anything. Everything was provided for them. Shelter, clothes, food, entertainment, they
were all instantly and eternally available in every home in the city. The people
were docile, as if every one of them had been injected with a permanent
sedative. They just followed their routines, and wore the same identical
clothes, and lived in the same identical houses. People only leaved their
houses to do stuff they couldn’t do at home. The black orb hung in the air in
front of him. It’s photoreceptor turned to him, an endless pit of hazy amber.
“Name” the orb emitted. “Reuben Eddie, 23, 104 North”. This was his address.
“Destination” asked the Hunter. “68, 55 West” replied Reuben. Marco’s address. The
Hunter floated away through the empty carriage, and disappeared through the
door.
Marco
Marco Talbot’s aging face gazed out of the
window of his two-bedroom bungalow. Over the tops of the identical houses that
surrounded his, he could just make out the towering grey form of the city
center. His mind drifted to the future. He imagined a different world, where
the city was beautiful and clean, and not shrouded in the permanent smog of
pollution. Where the buildings were elegant and different, and people had their
own point of view, not just what the government wanted them to think. Most of
all, he dreamed of colour. There was no ` in the world. The city was all black
and grey. Art, colour, freedom of speech and expression were all forbidden. He
tilted his head down to notice the man walking up his lawn. The brown curly
hair and green eyes of Reuben Eddie. Marco smiled at the sight of the almost
child-like face bobbing up to his front door. He left the window to open the
door, but stopped when he saw Reuben emerging through the doorway. “Morning
Marco” said the figure in front of him. “ Morning Reuben. I forgot I gave you
my code”. Marco strode into the kitchen and turned to haul himself up onto the
counter. “Any progress?” he asked. “Yes, the twins are on their way now, and
ready to lay the charges at noon” Reuben replied. “Excellent. It’s a damn risky
job they’re doing, but they’re doing it for a good cause. It’s going to be
pandemonium when it goes up” Marco stood up and led Reuben into the living
room. The walls were bare. A grey sofa and a small table were all that occupied
the vast room. There was a thermostat on
the wall. Marco twisted the knob to the highest setting. There was a muffled
click, and a panel of the wall swung away, as if it had melted into nothing. It
was like someone had opened a chest full of jewels. Reuben’s eyes dilated and
then adjusted to the bright colours. The plain white wall had revealed a
cacophony of greens, reds, yellows and many other colours. “You’ve made more”
Reuben pointed out. And Marco had. The last time they had met, Marco’s portfolio
consisted of nothing more a few canvases, but now there was a whole multitude
of paintings, drawings and pastel sketches, lining all three walls of the small
hidden room. “They’re incredible” Reuben gasped in awe. “How many are there?.
“Nearly fifty” Marco replied. Reuben remembered the drawing in his pocket. “Oh,
and I made some sketches” he said. He showed Marco the building. “It’s good.
It’s very good. If we live through all this, and our plan works, it may even be
able to exist”, Marco remarked. “We’d better get going, or it’ll never get
done”. The pair walked out, closed the door to the concealed artworks, left the
house, and headed for the train station.
The
Town Hall
Max and Clare trotted down the steps of the
town hall and hurried into an alley on the side of the circle. They turned back
to look at the building they had just left. It was a large concrete stack, with
square windows here and there, much like a taller version of the thousands of
simple grey buildings that made up the city. It was not extraordinary, but it
was the heart of the government, the corrupt elites who had founded the city
purely to make money from the people. Max and Clare had grown to hate the
government for years. When they were young, they ran across an old man in the
street. He grabbed them violently, and screamed at them about how he had hated
his life, and how he was so crazy from living in a boring, repetitive world. A
Hunter then appeared, and silenced the man. The twin children then carried on,
but the event stayed with them for years, coming back to haunt them. They began
to build up a hatred for the government, and the systems that they lived by. Clare
especially. She once attacked and destroyed a Hunter, and she had her tongue
cut off by the government. Now, they were two of over a hundred people
throughout the city who felt this way, and were actively taking part in the
destruction of the town hall, which they hoped would start an end to the
tyrannous regime. Two silhouettes
appeared at the end of the alley. “Hello
Reuben, hello Marco. It’s all set”, Max said to the approaching figures. “Good”,
was the reply of Marco, emerging from the darkness. “Well, let’s do it. If we
don’t survive, hopefully our deaths can spark the people to rebel”. The three
of them walked up to the town hall and stood on the steps. Max ran out into the
circle and stood in front of the town hall, a large, homemade camera over his
shoulder. It would stream live the following events to the entire population. The
sky was it’s usual smog grey, from the pollution produced by the factories on
the borders of the city. The usually empty circle contained a few people,
wondering around or sitting on benches. Marco looked around at the grey
buildings that lined the circle, to the grey sky, to the grey paving stones and
benches. “We have a message we need to send,” he shouted. The people in the
circle turned their heads to gaze at him. “I have a dream. We live in a world
that is intolerant to colour. The people in this city are so obsessed by what they
do and what they think they know to be true, that they never pause to look up
and think about other possibilities”. He definitely had everyone in the
circle’s attention now. They were staring avidly. “Have any of you ever
wondered what’s outside the city walls? Behind your TV screens? Behind this
door?” he asked the audience, indicating the town hall behind him. “Well, open
your minds!” As he spoke, a huge waterfall of colour cascaded down the face of
the town hall. It depicted a utopia, a beautiful environment of light and
happiness. “You don’t know what you’re missing!” Marco shouted to the camera.
“You are all under the oppression of a government who make their money from
your labour, and live by the concept of ruling your minds. You are the mindless
slaves of their oppression! Break free!” The doors to the town hall burst open,
and a ball of black erupted from within, like an ominous cloud under the
gigantic poster of light. The camera could not see the Hunter, as Marco was
blocking it from view, but Max gasped when Marco’s knees buckled, and his limp
body rolled down the steps, with a bullet in the back of his head. Reuben was
the first one to react. He dashed forward and shouted at the Hunter, with a
small box in his hand. “If I press this button”, revealing a small button on
the remote, “The town hall will explode”. The Hunter was programmed to be
smart. It stayed still. Suddenly, all over the circle, people began to stand
up. They were taking off their clothes. They peeled off their identical coats
and jumpers, but underneath…They all wore brightly coloured shirts. Every one
of them was wearing colour. It seemed the whole population was rebelling in a
self-organized, peaceful revolt. “How did we not know about this?” Reuben
murmured. He half expected them to all fall dead at the hands of the Hunter. But
the Hunter, unknown to everyone else, was going through all possible ways out
of the situation. The events unfolding in front of it were overloading it’s
system. It decided on one solution, as it saw the sudden burst of colour as a
huge violation of the law. It sent out an ultra-sonic pulse. Hidden in the town
hall, Max and Clare’s bombs went off.
Let
there be light
His wrist was cocooned in plaster. Half his
face was red, the painfully peeling skin starting to beg to be itched. Reuben’s
eyes beamed around the train car, full of passengers. They all looked
different, wore different clothes, carried different things, different colours.
He strolled out of the car and onto the platform. He stepped into the elevator
and whooshed up out of the earth. As he stepped out onto the street, cradling
his plastered wrist, he looked up, and gazed at the huge tower of coloured
glass, erupting out of the ground in front of him. It had been a hard battle to
win. He looked down to see a column of stone in front of his creation, with the
names of the fallen inscribed on it. Fallen in the battle for freedom. And now colourful
shops, restaurants and bars surrounded the circle. Reuben walked into the
entrance hall of the huge tower. He strode up to the elevators to rise up to
his penthouse office, and gazed at the plaque that hung over the four doors. It
read; “Designed by Reuben Eddie. In honor of Marco Talbot”. And sure enough,
the walls of the lobby were covered in beautiful canvases.
