by Bradford Barrett

Created on: November 05, 2009

Prologue from the book "Solitaire"

I was a man once. I was honest; I paid taxes, and volunteered at the library. For my tithe of public service to the state I spent three years in the development corp. Half the time assigned to the urban restoration brigades, I taught underprivileged kids to read. Urban restoration is generally what they assign to those with low aptitude and no motivation. Little did they know this son of a political radical had both. Those assigned to urban living, are generally assigned to urban living for a purpose; they are the dregs of the New American Conglomerate. Improving literacy and intelligence among the children of society's undesirables is not something that is rewarded. As soon as children in my sector started passing exams of the state, I began to get extra days off, invitations to teach at more privileged schools, and orders to go on lecture circuits (a friendly suggestion to not perform so well in a merely honorary position, that I mistook as rewards for hard work) I turned them all down. As soon as my sector starting beating more privileged suburban sectors in math competitions and debates I was immediately deported to the devastation reclamation brigades; the urban restoration division is a post where they send the harmless to spend their tithe in anonymity, the devastation reclamation brigades is where they send those that are dangerous, those they'd rather not see survive.

During the wars of the previous century a great deal of the planets' landmass was obliterated with atomics. Reclamation was theoretically a way to put colonists in these burned out 'red zones' who could deal with the contamination and replant the areas vegetation. However the bean counters didn't plan on people within the red zones who didn't take kindly to legitimate humans coming back into their bombed out shells of cites. Mutants and freaks of all kinds, resistant to the radiation, with aging guns and motley assortments of clubs and spears awaited us. Reclamation was a virtual death sentence, sent out in suits with seeds and saplings against monsters in their own wastes. None of the first group sent anywhere survived, or the second, and most of the others were wiped out was well. I was part of resettlement group 98 into what was previously London. For almost a year and a half I scraped out survival in the harsh wasteland, until my radiation suit became a second skin. I got so used to sucking water through the rubber nozzle in my mask that months later

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