The Empire of the Green
is a dystopian
novel a la
Burgess’ A Clockwork
In Green, set approximately
70 years in the
future,
the scientific
and
social phenomena
that have gotten
out of
hand are global
warming,
overpopulation,
and
genetic
engineering.
The excerpt is from
the first chapter,
set in
a squalid Manhattan,
now
a canal city due
to
rising ocean levels.
The long day ended. The sun set and Man Eaten was given a brief respite from its torment, from the heat and the dust. The bloated, gaudy red orb, mottled with orange and purple, sank slowly into the gauzy pink, polluted clouds which killed the sun's light, turning blue from the effort. The poor of the city stirred. In the lowest depths of New Venice, the canaille roused themselves from their heat-sodden slumber to ply their trades, to thieve and murder, in a desperate bid to stay alive one more day. Crudely built boats and rafts, heaped with passengers, rubbish, and scavengings, set forth on the turgid, black waters of the canals, on Seekit and B'way, on Fort the Second and Bleak. A fortunate few had ancient, broken-down outboard motors; most made do with oars and poles. The makeshift fleet moved purposefully through the stinking waters, bent on a million different errands as they threaded past the ruins of once-proud brownstones and skyscrapers from whose windows shabby merchants now hawked their pitiful wares. Dealers strutted and bragged of their drugs' potency and naked men, women, and herms preened.
Like
the rest of New Venice's poor, the boy awoke desperately hungry. He had slept fitfully through the day, his
only shelter from the blazing sun a strip of canvas stretched across the guardrails of a fire escape landing of a
brownstone on Wet Hateful Tix. His bed
had been a carefully arranged pile of rags on the rusty iron rails. He rose slowly and stretched. The boy was twelve, a cast away child who
staved off starvation by theft and beggary.
Despite privation and abuse, he was beautiful with curly blond hair,
blue eyes, and delicate features. His
hands and face were burnt brown by a sun whose
ultraviolet rays were unfiltered by the protection of an ozone layer but the
rest of his skin was fair.
The boy rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, the extent of his toilette. He pulled on his clothes, a shirt and pants, both articles greasy and threadbare, and fastened a crude harness around his chest, fashioned out of leather straps and D-rings. It was his proudest possession. Thus attired, he scampered agilely up the fire escape to the top of the building. On the roof, a thin metal wire of high tensile strength had been fastened to a post. The taut wire sloped down into the black night. The boy hooked his harness onto the wire with one of the D-rings and launched himself head first into the darkness. With the skill of long practice, he hurtled along the wire above the canals for several blocks until he came to another fire escape which he ascended to start the process again.
Tonight, driven by hunger, he would leave the protection of the tall buildings, with their dark corners for hiding and plentiful rappelling wires for quick escape, and go to the Lowered Eat Site, to the markets which squatted on the roofs of the low buildings of Grenshit Vile Edge. The sharp-eyed peddlers made it difficult to steal but the boy would take the risk. The markets had soy porridge, algae cakes, and krill bars and sometimes there were even such delicious rarities as meat and vegetables. The last wire ended at a bricked-up third-story window at Juneteenth canal. The boy made his way from there by a series of rickety wood bridges from rooftop to rooftop until he arrived at the markets.
The markets consisted of stalls set up on several dozen rooftops fenced off with barbed wire. Spotlights were strung overhead for illumination. Goods were brought to the markets by the canals in shabby launches equipped with outboard motors (the key to the merchants' prosperity) and then hoisted up to the rooftops. Each rooftop specialized in different types of goods: carpenter's tools for the construction of boats and rafts, rebuilt outboard motors, hooded clothing for protection from the sun, room filters to screen out pollutants. The roar of generators competed with the blare of musideks and the raucous shouts of the people who thronged the rooftops. The boy elbowed and pushed his way through the teeming crowds to the food stalls. A thousand odors assailed him, smells fine, sweet, and foul. His mouth watered and his stomach constricted painfully from the smell of crackling grease and the sight of rectangular orange and blue krill bars heaped up on the wooden tables, plaz packets of freeze-dried edible algae which only needed a few drops of water to be eaten, giant vats filled with piping hot white soy porridge. He walked down the rows of stalls and lusted after the feast spread out in front of him, daring to look at the food only fleetingly out of the corners of his eyes for fear of arousing the wary merchants' suspicions.
He crossed a bridge and came to a rooftop where delicacies were sold. A few gnarled carrots were spread out at one stall, still caked with dirt. Another held potatoes no bigger than his small fist (he had stolen a potato once and had not liked it, it had been like chewing on a stone). An orange captured his attention, sitting in solitary splendor on a table. The boy had heard of oranges but had never seen one before (or any other fruit for that matter). It was a small, pathetic wizened thing but he’d been told that inside its skin there was delicious golden juice and pulp, sweeter than synthrup. Behind the table, a hideous crone kept guard, a bloated hag swathed in a kerchief and shawl, her eyes occluded by grotesque mottled-gray skin tumors which covered her face.
The boy knew that he should take no chances in the markets, that it was best to try to steal from the huge piles of krill bars and algae packets where a few stolen items would be easily missed. But the orange was so beautiful. The old woman who minded the stall was undoubtedly almost blind. He had always been phenomenally quick. If he picked the right moment, he could snatch up the orange and dash across the bridge to the next rooftop. There, he could quickly lose himself among the crowd and make his way out of the markets. Once safe among the tall buildings in the Wet, he could cut the orange in two with his sharp knife, eat one half himself, and sell the other half for enough money to buy twenty meals.
He strolled past the stall with a feigned air of unconcern. He thought he saw the old woman's eyes flicker for a split-second.
The boy snatched the orange off the table with catlike speed and sped off.
"Yo, yo, yo, traiga me jumpout pronto," screeched the aged merchant as she heaved herself out of her chair, "pequeno blond monkey robass orange me!"
The bridge and safety were a few feet away. As his foot hit the first step, however, rough hands grabbed him and yanked the boy off his feet. He hit the rooftop. Boot-toes thudded into his ribs, for the merchants dealt harshly with thieves of their own or anyone else's goods. The boy curled instinctively into a ball and tried to squirm away from the blows. A powerful, bearded man hauled him to his feet and back-handed him across the face.
"Little bastar', venga Eat down Wet pensabe gran omber, robass be vieja."
He drove his fist into the pit of the boy's stomach. He doubled over in pain. The old woman waddled over and added her feeble bit to his punishment, pummeling him with her doughy fists.
"Dame goods, pequeno monkey-boymurd, dame be!"
The boy was roughly searched and the orange was retrieved. His knife was taken away from him. The bearded man gave an order:
"Yo, Choi! Ponga flare down, jumpout come be fix young fucking-ass here!"
"Claro, omber."
His capture filled him with despair. A phosphorescent blue flare arced gracefully into the black night, its brilliant glow the herald of doom. Any hopes that he might escape with only a beating were destroyed. Within minutes a black and white police gofast hovered over the rooftop. The super-amplified siren wailed deafeningly while the louvered nozzles on the side of the gofast's fuselage tilted for vertical descent. Loose paper and trash was caught and tossed about by the vortices of exhaust as the craft settled onto the rooftop. Gull-wing doors opened with a hiss of hydraulics and two black-clad men emerged, their faces hidden by ornate demon's head helmets of black trimmed with silver. Dark smoked glass visors hid the policemen's eyes. The gleaming plaz helmets enclosed their heads entirely. An amplifier and radar were mounted in the helmet's flared pointed ears and brilliant revolving lights were set at the tips of the horns. They could only be told apart by the fact that one was shorter than the other.
The boy sobbed and shivered with fear. He had always avoided arrest in the past; he had to, for it was final. Jumpout squads were infamous for their brutality. Unconcerned about the violent crimes of the poor among themselves, they acted only to protect the interests of the propertied classes. Once arrested, no matter the offense, the poor of the city were sentenced to "rehabilitative toil" in forced labor camps. There, they were quickly worked to death, growing algae in shallow ponds or an even more gruesome fate, compelled to work in the flooded subway tunnels under the canals of New Venice where drownings and cave-ins were the rule.
The taller jumpout's voice, deliberately distorted to disconcert and terrify, boomed through the helmet amplifier.
"666-214737030269,
"ACK" squawked a synthesized electronic parody of a woman's voice from the cruiser radio with a hideous screech of feedback,
"666, BREAK, BREAK, 3057, BREAK, KNIFE AND MARX, BREAK, NEWSIT 15, BREAK, BREAK, OVER."
"Rod," said the jumpout with distinct tones of disgust, "Ack. Over."
"ACK. OUT."
The shorter jumpout lifted up his visor. He had one small, piggy blue eye, a short thin nose and a thick red mustache. His other eye had been removed and replaced by a robotic eyeball with a highly sophisticated quartz lens. An angry red seam ran along his forehead, down his temples and cheeks and to the point of his chin. It marked where his helmet had been surgically joined to his skull.
He opened his mouth to speak but the words came from the amplifier in the left ear of his helmet.
"Hurry. State beef, citizen!" This last word was said with withering scorn.
"Young Michael Jackson down Wet Site robass be vieja." responded the boy's captor.
"Huh? State again? Neg state fucking English?"
"So spoken, jumpout. No murd, sabe? Ponga pequeno rip-off down per robass."
"Pequeno monkeymurd asshole robass orange," piped up the old crone.
The taller policeman's amplifier boomed with laughter.
"Seven years canalbeat, 02, and still negrod? Wits state monkey 412."
The short jumpout gazed with momentary irritation at his partner and then brightened as he realized what he had been told.
"Well, shit, app little fucker, then."
"Brilliant, 02, brilliant."
The short cop grabbed the boy by one wrist and twisted it painfully. He could hear the whine and hum of the robotics implanted in the policeman's arm as he shrieked in agony.
"Little chicken, you'll help Mayor fix subways," the cop said.
"After hole hawks get some round-eye," responded the other.
Both policemen laughed uproariously, their distorted guffaws like the shrieks of broken machinery.
The short jumpout grabbed the boy by the head with both hands and pulled his face close to his own. His sour breath stank of synthcaf.
A blinding blast of white light shot through his left eye into the boy’s brain.
"Retscan neg."
"Always like that," said the taller jumpout philosophically, "monkeys never copper until apped."
"666-215212030269, 412 aff, perp app, Cauc, blond, blue, approx 10-12, 160, neg, over."
"ACK. NEWSIT UPSPEED, COPPER? OVER."
"Ack, bitch! Upspeed thissit oh-zero, out."
"Neg upspeed anysit to please the bastards," lamented the tall jumpout.
"Go now," the shorter one irritably remarked.
The jumpouts dragged the boy kicking and screaming to the cruiser. They hoisted him into the air to slide him into the confinement compartment in the rear of the cruiser.
"Stop, stop, let go of that poor urchin. Let him go, I say!" a plummy voice called down to them from above.
Everyone looked up in amazement to see a top-of-the-line wild purple Scorpion sport blimp cruising overhead. Loudspeakers mounted on the blimp's gondola broadcast the deep, perfectly modulated voice of a well-educated man, one accustomed to giving orders and being obeyed.
"Unhand that child this instant. I've never seen such abominable behavior. Unhand him while I descend."
The jumpouts had to defer when the elite of New Venice gave orders. Reluctantly, they put the boy down and released him. The blimp descended slowly. Willing hands, eager to curry the favor of a wealthy man, caught the mooring ropes and secured the blimp to the rooftop. An aluminum ladder extended automatically from the gondola. The entry port slid open and the handsomest man the boy had ever seen in his life descended. At least two meters in height and massively built, he moved with the lithe grace of an accomplished athlete despite his size and bulk. His hair was jet black and combed into a towering pompadour and his round face had a genial expression which looked habitual. He was gorgeously attired in green hose, golden breeches, death's head codpiece, eighteen-centimeter lace ruff, and a gaudy synthsilk tunic which flashed a million brilliant colors as he walked across the rooftop.
"Officer, my name is Winston Sperling," the man boomed imperiously as if nothing more needed to be said.
"Rod," said the taller jump-out uncertainly, "beef wit?"
"If that's your jump-out jabber for did I see this so-called crime, yes, I most certainly did. This poor child, this skeleton, was simply trying to feed himself and for that heinous offense you are about to toss him into some gulag and snuff out his brief life."
The aristocrat reached out to hold the boy protectively in his arms. He couldn’t understand most of the things that Sperling said but knew that he wanted to help him. Unused to kindness, the boy was confused but still deeply grateful to the man for his aid.
"Pequeno monkeymurd robass be orange," screeched the crone.
Sperling turned to gaze at the old woman. He fixed a monocle in his left eye to inspect her more closely. His face wrinkled into an exquisite moue of distaste.
"You are the very essence of wretched cancerous decay," he remarked. "It pains me enough to have to stand on this squalid rooftop without having to look at your tumor-ridden countenance. If I give you five krugers will you go away, preferably by drowning yourself in the canal?"
The crone's milky old eyes, barely discernible through the slits of her eyelids, brightened at the mention of money. She held up seven fingers and gestured wildly.
"Esto, esto be now."
"Make it ten, then."
Sperling reached inside his tunic and pulled out a purse of purple velvet. He carelessly counted out the golden krugers, tossed them at the old woman's feet, and snatched the orange from her hands before she could react.
"This for your rotten-rind, dry-pulp, precious orange," Sperling yelled as he tossed it into the canal.
Instantly several men leaped into the filthy black water to recover the valuable commodity. The old woman sank down painfully onto her arthritic knees to pick up the coins.
"I believe the matter is now resolved, gentlemen, and I use that term with imprecision," Sperling said with supreme self-confidence. "There is nothing further here to detain you. Find some other poor child to harass and torture, this one is under my protection."
The jumpouts bridled at Sperling's insulting words but knew better than to talk back to one of their masters. The squawk box intervened to save face.
"666, NEWSIT STAT!"
The short jumpout snapped down his visor to hide his irritation. Without another word, they jumped into their cruiser. The heat and noise of their take-off washed over the boy and Sperling.
Sperling reached down to lift up the boy's head gently by the chin. The young aristocrat towered over the skinny child.
"Little friend, have you ever seen our great metropolis from the air?"
The boy shook his head.
"Then come with me, we'll go on a little pleasure jaunt!" Sperling clapped him mildly on the back.
The boy smiled timidly. Sperling's jovial manner made it very easy to like him.
"Climb aboard, climb aboard, dear friend, my pirate ship awaits."
They clambered up the ladder into the gondola. The blimp dropped a full meter lower when Sperling put his full weight on the rungs. The boy had a little difficulty scrambling through the hatch but a slight push from one of Winston's enormously powerful hands got him through. Inside the gondola, he got his first taste of luxury. Windows on all sides provided a 360-degree view while a large plazglaz panel set in the floor allowed him to look below. The floor and sides of the gondola were carpeted in a thick blue plush shot through with threads of gold and a scalloped white vinyl couch was built into the stern. At the bow of the gondola an overstuffed chair sat before an elaborate console of instruments whose red, purple, and blue LED readouts blinked on and off.
"Come sit back here with me," said Sperling as he settled his large frame onto the couch, "ordinarily I would take the conn but tonight I want to have the pleasure of being your guide, seeing how you are, so to speak, a virgin."
It seemed quite natural to sit right next to Sperling. The boy felt protected next to his bulk.
"Argo," said Winston.
"Yes, dear," a breathy female voice intoned from the console.
"I want the grand tour for our guest. A one-point-five click alt should do and then squiggle through the stratocity for a bit."
"Just as you like, Sperly-poo," the console gushed as the blimp gently ascended into the air.
"Terribly familiar, isn't she, but what can you do, she's programmed that way," Winston confided.
The boy finally got the nerve to speak.
"Tu be gencode?" he whispered timidly.
Sperling looked at him for a moment with mild surprise and then his laugh boomed throughout the gondola.
"Good, good! I was afraid you were mute. Is that what the teletabs call us, eh, gencodes? Well, yes, I suppose I am."
The boy was now truly in awe of Sperling. Although he did not really understand what gencodes were, he knew that they were the most fabulous, glamorous creatures in the world. They were constantly featured on the giant screens placed high above the canals. Beautiful, powerful, and enormously wealthy, to the poor of New Venice they were like gods. The boy couldn’t believe this sudden turn in his fortunes, to be saved from arrest and transported into the starry realm of the gencodes.
Sperling's voice broke his awestruck rapture.
"You must be very hungry if you were desperate enough to steal that shriveled orange. Would you like something to eat?"
The boy stopped being shy at the mention of food.
"Yehshur, hambre, wanna comida!" he said eagerly.
"I'll take that gibberish for assent," Sperling said with a chuckle. He pressed the ball of his thumb into an indentation in one of the gondola walls. A panel slid open to reveal a refrigeration unit whose frosted plaz panels held a number of antique bottles and several glass bowls filled with a red substance topped with a foamy white crest.
Winston handed him one of the bowls and an ornate silver spoon. He smiled warmly as he gave the food to the boy. He noticed the brilliant blue of Sperling’s eyes. A curious design had been etched into the bowl of a young boy handing a cup to a naked, bearded man reclining on a couch.
The boy eagerly tasted the food. It slid down his throat in an unblemished ecstasy of pure pleasure, easily the most delicious thing he had ever tasted in his life.
"Bylaw! Wha be?"
"What you're eating? Ponistrawbs and creamish. I take it you like it since you polished that off in two gulps. Here, have another."
Sperling watched with approval while the boy devoured four bowls of the treat. He pulled out a lace handkerchief, dampened it from a tap built into the refrigeration unit and wiped away the red and white residue from the boy's mouth.
"You are without a doubt the prettiest boy in New Venice. What's your name?"
"Name? Name wha Yo llama?"
"What do they call you, boy?"
"Tu, monkey, boymurd, pequenomurd, pollo-"
"No, no, don't list all the terms people abuse you with, I want your proper name! Oh, damnit, now I understand. Nobody ever cared enough about you to give you a name. We shall have to remedy that. Let me think of a fitting name. Show me your profile."
"Wha?"
"Turn your face this way." Sperling put a hand to the boy's cheek and gently pushed his head to one side.
"Semidivine,
like the face of a child emperor on a freshly minted golden denarius. One would almost think your genotype had
been set but then you never know when you'll find a pearl amidst the shit. Beauty like yours, my boy, would have set
ancient
And that is how Lucien got his name.
Sperling leaned over and gently kissed Lucien to mark his christening.
"A new name for a lad in a new world. Look out, look out and see the glory of your city, New Venice in all its airy splendor!"
Lucien looked down, through the plazglaz panel set in the floor of the gondola and saw a vision of swirling lights and myriad colors far grander than anything ever vidded on screen. The stratocity of New Venice, built on the roofs of the ancient skyscrapers, was stretched out at his feet. Gaudy pylons, spheres and arcs, grim fortresses and extravagant palaces jutted a full kilometer into the sky, fantastically ornamented, brilliantly lit and done in a thousand architectural styles, linked together by a wild tangle of enormous transparent tubes which gracefully looped over, under, and around one another. As the Argo glided by, Lucien saw that the tubes were crammed full of well-dressed people who hurried busily along the moving sidewalks. Thousands of exotically decorated and painted blimps, balloons, and hydrogen powered gofasts flitted about the city.
If Winston Sperling was the most beautiful person that Lucien had ever seen in his short life, the stratocity was the most beautiful thing that he had ever known. He fell in love instantly and decided that he would never return to the filthy canals below if he could help it. The beauty and magnificence of the stratocity intoxicated him; he knew he wanted to live there forever. Sperling put an arm around his shoulders and pointed the sights out to him.
"That
enormous green glass obelisk is the
"Be Mooniement?"
"Yes, that is the vernacular term for it, I believe."
Winston's pink, well-scrubbed hand brushed against Lucien's greasy, filth-encrusted shirt. He pulled his arm away with a grimace of distrust.
"You are a dirty little ragamuffin, you know. When did you last bathe?"
"Wha bathe?"
"You know, wash, clean yourself, take a bath!" Winston said with a trace of irritation. Then he thought a bit about the matter and laughed. Sperling's good humor seemed to never desert him.
"No, on second thought, I suppose you wouldn't. We shall have to set you right in that department too. Argo!"
"Yes, Winnie?"
"To
the
The Scorpion gained altitude and speed quickly. The blimp raced away from the stratocity proper, southwards to a gleaming silver structure which stood in splendid isolation. As they drew near, Lucien saw that the building had been constructed atop two very tall rectangles of glass and steel and that its multiple curved spires and sharp projections jutted out like frozen tongues of white flame.
"My
home,
Lucien
had often admired the
The
Argo soared to the highest peak of the
Winston took a few steps with Lucien dutifully behind him, hurrying to keep up with his giant stride, when the gencode turned and halted.
"Wait a minute, you're not coming into my digs with those filthy rags on. The whole place will be instantly permeated with plebeian grease. Factotum!"
"Yes, Mister Sperling," replied one of the servants in a high-pitched voice, his eyes downcast.
"Strip this child and burn his clothes. Make sure you wash your hands afterwards. Then have Menial put him in the shower."
"As you wish, Mister Sperling."
Sperling walked off without a backward glance. Lucien tried to follow but was restrained by the bony hand of Factotum. With practiced ease, the servant yanked off the harness, stripped Lucien's shirt off and then, before the boy could react, flipped him onto his back and yanked off his pants. Embarrassed at his nakedness, Lucien scrambled to his feet but before he could say anything, Factotum pulled a pair of plaz slippers out of a bag which hung from the sash wrapped around his waist and thrust them towards him.
"Here, put these on, boy, so you don't dirty the carpets."
Lucien obediently stepped into the too-big slippers.
"Now follow this man." Factotum pointed to another servant.
"Tu dame harness," said Lucien.
"This?" replied Factotum, holding up Lucien's rappelling gear. "You won't be needing it anymore. Now hurry up or Mr. Sperling will be angry."
Lucien
was reluctant to give up his harness but did not want to anger his newly found
benefactor. He said goodbye silently to
the prized possession and followed Menial out of the hangar, the oversize
slippers flap-flapping with each step.
Menial led Lucien down a lushly carpeted, softly lit cream colored
corridor. The walls were crammed with
paintings, mostly scenes of young men and boys in various stages of
nudity. They stopped before an open
stretch of wall. Menial spoke and a gap
appeared. They passed through the
portal into an enormous chamber whose high ceiling swooped upwards to terminate
in a curved plazglaz wall which provided a panoramic view of the
"Keep away until she gets used to you or she'll claw your eyes out," Menial warned.
"Wha he llama?"
"It's known as a cat," Menial answered with condescending superiority, "but her name is Alecto."
Lucien could not take his eyes off the beast.
"Come along, I have other things to do besides take care of you," said the haughty servant.
Menial took Lucien into a bathroom which adjoined the bedchamber. It too was large and sumptuously furnished with marble tiles and floors and a golden wash basin and fixtures. Menial had Lucien step out of the slippers. His bare feet were cold on the marble floor. The servant grasped a gold lever in the shape of an arrow which was set in a wall and turned it to the point where a gauge underneath showed the desired water temperature. He then pushed the arrow in and hot water began to pump out in a fine driving spray from several showerheads set at different points in a recessed compartment. Menial then shoved Lucien unceremoniously into the shower.
"That white bar on that dish is known as soap. Rub it all over yourself and then let the water wash it off you. I'll be back to towel you dry."
Lucien picked up the soap and tentatively stroked it against his chest. The warm, clean water felt wonderful. It was his baptism into a world of luxury and ease. From now on, he must please Winston if he was to stay there.