Delphic Utopia

Paramount

"Discipline". That's a funny word.  The practice of training people to obey rules or a code of behaviour, using punishment to correct disobedience. This utopia had always been my home. I was born here. I was raised here. I was raised to believe all the things the elders say. Earth, global warming and the disorder of the society before us. According to them, they were tied to their 'mobile phones'. I didn't know what they were until sometime before. Anyways, the Delphic Utopia had always been perfect. There were no poor people, no beggars, no high classes (except The Direct, of course. They had always been in control of this place.) and no inequality. That was what I thought at first anyway.

You see, over time, The Direct seemed to change their rules and become more selfish. Earth was destroyed meaning The Survivors were evacuated and moved to space. Some of The Survivors had built a place up with the stones they had collected from the rings of Saturn, some from the moon and other planets. They had built this place up from nothing, they had trouble to keep the rocks in place but they succeeded in doing it anyway. After they built land, ten of The Survivors kept the others in control. They calmed them down, they talked through about what had to be done and overall, they were in control of the place. We now call them The Direct; the superior, the respected and the most important position in Delphic Utopia. The Survivors that built the Utopia from nothingness are called The Masons. It's the second most superior position in the utopia.

On a fine evening, I was walking around the artificial park the scientists made; there were trees hanging over me, casting the shadows onto my pale skin. There was a little pond with the water laid still, artificial lily pads hovered on top of it, decorating the pond with their green sheer. It was twinkling as a beam of artificial sunlight went through the pond, making it one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. I sat near the bank of the pond and pondered about what could possibly be out there. Are the tales from the elders true or is it just a cover-up? At that moment, I thought that I was probably overthinking and over observing again so I decided to get up and walk along the stone path and was headed towards home.

That same night, it got me thinking. Nothing can be perfect, there must be had been some implications in the makings of the Utopia, right? The word "Utopia" literally means 'perfect'. I wondered what secrets; if they had any, The Direct kept from us.

I was heading towards my school the next morning where I saw two of the Narcs(people who guard, protects and arrests anyone who doesn't abide the law.) standing in front of my neighbour's door. There I saw my neighbours - Marlene and Luke. Marlene had her arms over Luke's broad shoulders, hugging him tightly; her head tossed over on her right arm with her face covered in tears. They were like streams of rivers coming down on to her face. Her slender brown eyes were full of grief and sadness. Luke hugged his wife tightly with his eyes closed and his face close to her wife's face. He had the same look Marlene had. Grief and sadness. They seemed to have lost their son. The Narcs looked at me and I knew what they wanted me to do. I walked off to school with a heavy heart.

I was eager to find out what happened to their son - Max after school. Therefore, I texted my mum that I would be out for a school project for a couple of hours with my communicating device. It's called a Lix. I didn't know where to start but all I knew was that he loved exploring the Wall. The Wall protects us from what lies beyond it. We didn't know what but a lot of people here wanted to know.

I walked towards the edge of the Utopia where the Wall is and the surroundings there was very bitter and isolated. I was at least a mile away from the wall and thank God I didn't get any closer. I noticed that there were microlaser specks in the area of the wall. I was sure once I did one physical contact with it, I would be caught and be taken to the Direct. Not that far away from me, I saw a girl; long brown hair, strong body features and was around my age. I guessed that she had the same curiosity as I did. Except that she wasn't cautious. She touched one of the microlaser specs and set off an alarm near her area. If I was any closer, I would've got caught. Suddenly, there were Narcs in a Jeep; painted in camouflage colours. I tried to hide as best as I can in the uncut tall grass; hoped for the best that they couldn't see me. I peeked over the grass and I saw that the three of them grabbed the girl and cuffed her hands. Without sympathy, they chucked her in the back. They drove off and I guessed that they were heading towards the Paramount - home of the ruling, the Direct.

I wanted to follow them but I didn't have any ideas on what I should do and I had to think fast. And there it was, a delivery truck to the Paramount; every Friday, the Direct orders a new set of science equipment for their projects. They had these things but thought that it was more reliable if they used brand new equipment for these projects.

The truck was slow at first, it was strolling near the Wall. I thought that "Oh this is gonna be easy for me to grab on,". However, it started to speed up and I had to run towards it. I ran as fast as I could while I tried to avoid the outside mirrors of the truck from noticing me. They were like hawks in the desert; watching closely for any movement whatsoever. All I saw was a blur, literally, there was sand in my eyes, it felt like it matted them. As I ran, all I thought about was finding out the truth. I didn't know what I was thinking risking myself to feed my curiosity. It masked me from the pain in my legs trying to catch the truck. I sped up, arched my back and tilted my head back and ran like an ostrich and I finally managed to grab onto the rusty handles on the back of the truck.

There were a couple of bumps throughout the journey and my balance wasn't exactly great either. I thought it was best to lean on the double doors, hoping to reduce imbalance and the risk of me accidentally getting off it.

The Paramount was...I can't describe it. Extraordinary. Unprecedented. Remarkable. I saw the outside of it before, obviously. It looked like a crystal igloo of some sort - only it was so much more modern. It was on a platform and was shaped like a dome covered with big diamond-shaped chrome pieces; it fit with each other like a tessellation. Or a jigsaw puzzle. It didn't have any doors. It seemed like it but there were a lot to get into it. This was where I found out how people get into the Paramount and it was unexplainable.

The drivers had a fragment of crystal and they had to shine it with a special beam towards one of the chrome pieces. It acknowledged the truck and made an opening for it; big enough for it to fit in. It seemed like they used a scanning technology for entrance and I wondered if every chrome pieces were a key to get into the Paramount.

Once the truck was in the building, I quickly jumped off the back and hid behind a wooden crate near a yellow and black forklift. I observed the room and it seemed like it was a storage depot for the Paramount building. There were shelves of boxes and posts; some looked old and untouched. There were four forklifts in total, including the one that was near me. There were three parking lots for trucks and there were two shipping containers in total. And there was one transporter.

Both men exited the truck and went to the back. The fair-skinned man stuffed the fragment of crystal into the lock that locked the rusty handles together. Meanwhile, the tan-skinned man grabbed a slope and placed it under the double doors. They both opened them but I couldn't get a better view of what was inside the truck that was so secretive that they had to use a crystal to lock it! I only saw the body of the truck, however, once the fair-skinned man got into the truck and started pushing out the contents of it down the slope, I saw metal crates and it seemed as if it had password-coded locks on it. Whatever the crates had in it, it must be important to the Paramount. The men then carried the metal crates onto the transporter, they topped one over another until it was almost as high as the shelves in the depot. They pressed a button on the wall and a wide, huge tube came down from the ceiling and sucked the metal crates upwards. I was surprised it was silent, considering that vacuum usually makes a loud noise. Finally, the men went back to their truck, started the engine and got out of there.

After a short while waiting for any sign of life and movement; to make sure it was safe for me to look around the depot, I finally stood up and looked around. It was a huge depot and I couldn't believe it was inside the Paramount. I had always known it was huge but I didn't think that they would have space this big just for storage. There wasn't anything to look at really. There were only wooden crates; some untouched, some new, some old, some destroyed. I came to my senses and reminded myself why I was there in the first place.