'Tracking has picked up at least twenty voices in the abandoned bunkers. Three are known subversives, members of Dysto-Guerra.'
As the voice droned on, Bradford watched their graffiti being shown on the screen. You couldn't go into any car park in San Pablo, without seeing their tag. Dysto with Guerra underneath, all surrounded by red flames. Sometimes they just wrote Dystopia with a large question mark after it. Bradford didn't understand it, the nation had never been so happy, so content;
Dystopia;
An imagined place or state in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a totalitarian or environmentally degraded one.
He knew the dictionary definition by heart, his college sweetheart had read quite a bit about the growing Dysto movement. Now it covered the globe and was involved in numberless acts of terrorism. It reminded people of the ill-fated 'Jihadi,' movement and its brutality.
"I just don't get it Juliette, people are happy and have never been happier." He'd told her.
"As long as they don't ask too many questions Brad."
Juliette had been the first and last person to call him Brad, since he'd been a kid; he discouraged it after he graduated. It seemed a bit lightweight as a name.
"But we're encouraged to be curious. I myself have asked the lecturers many political questions."
She looked at him with a kind of pity.
"How many answers have you received Brad ? Proper answers that covered both sides of the argument."
"Well..... in the end I realised that my own views did coincide with the views of our government."
"And that doesn't worry you Brad, or at least make you curious ?"
He'd lost touch with Juliette after college and he was slightly afraid to look for her. Part of him had thought her capable of joining one of the Dysto groups and that was something he'd rather not know. He met her again by chance, she was attending a music concert with her husband and daughter. She still had that look of sadness and sympathy in her eyes, when she looked at him.
"Fucking Dysto." He said.
Maria nodded at him, they both knew the stats. President Herbert commissioned a monthly happiness poll and eighty five percent of the public were happy, with a record ninety four percent being content. Damn subversives, they'd find any excuse to cause damage and spread their lies.
"Repeat orders please." He said.
The computer ran through a summary. They were to take at least one prisoner for interrogation, the other members of the group could be eradicated. Or as Bradford called it;
"Another pest control mission Maria."
