The Wasteland Soldier, Book 1, A Fractured World

Three

Chancellor Jorann sipped his tea and watched from his office window as thousands of citizens on bicycles streamed through the city streets. Men and women, of all ages and abilities, would soon begin the day shift at the production factories, the workshops, the recycling plants and the warehouses.

At sixty one years of age, now in his fifteenth year as Chett's ruler, he allowed himself a content and reflective smile. In all the years that had passed, enduring heart breaking personal loss and making tremendous sacrifices, the pride in leading this great urban community had never dimmed and he knew that it never would. He saw Chett as the leader of Gallen, its central city, a shinning beacon of hope. One day the boundaries would expand and new cities would emerge and the desert tribes would cease the bloodshed and unite. There was much to be optimistic for but he felt apprehension instead. He wasn't fearful of change, he felt he encouraged it, but he had sensed for a period of time now that something was awry in his beloved city. It was only a feeling, intangible, but it troubled him.

He finished his processed tea and set the cup down on a table wedged beneath the window. Tea was a much sought after commodity and only available to government officials and residents of Hamble Towers. He was fully aware it was traded on the black market. Operations had been shut down and criminals exiled into the wastelands but he knew it was impossible to completely stamp out. However, the black market was a low priority at this moment. Returning to his desk, he once more began to study the file that was of much greater importance. It had kept him awake through the night. It hadn't only been the file. And, if he was truthful, the smile he had enjoyed a moment earlier, watching his citizens head into the Worker Zone, was more to do with her than any of them. She had stayed with him last night once again. She had stayed with him for two weeks now. So many years his junior. Too many years, he mused. The Chancellor knew she had touched his life in a way that only his life partner had before the sickness had taken her.

Gingerly, he opened the file, a sheaf of untidy papers inside.

His office door was wide open, the corridor beyond lined with smaller offices where a core of ministers and administrators and clerks worked. There was a knock and he looked up to see his First Minister and General of the Red Guard, Gozan, standing respectfully in the doorway, waiting to be acknowledged and invited inside.

"It's good to see you," said Jorann, rising and warmly greeting the man

Gozan closed the door.

"It has been a week since we spoke," said Jorann, tapping the file. "What can you tell me?"

Gozan was silent for a moment, his narrow face betraying little. A long scar ran down his left cheek and over his jaw. His grey streaked black hair was worn to the shoulders, neatly clipped. His clothes were immaculately pressed, though of less quality than his senior companion. Thoughts gathered, he sat, and leaned forward in his chair, crossing one leg as he did so.

"The SOT has no connection with our missing men," he began, his voice low, almost hushed. "I have questioned the troublemakers and core members we recently arrested. Their network of traitors and liars is exposed now and we have rounded up the final numbers of their organisation. I believe no respectable citizen was ever truly interested in their rhetoric. They are figures of hate, Jorann. I also believe they were never a threat to our society, more an annoyance. The men and women we arrested are guilty of minor offences – vandalism, defamation, theft of citizen parcels - and all will be executed, naturally, but they had no involvement in this matter."

"Then this is all a little disconcerting," said Jorann. "Would you care for a drink? I have tea."

"Er, no, thank you," said Gozan, seeking a more enlightened response to his opening statement.