The Monarchy

 

I do not usually write fiction stories, preferring scenarios and similar matters, such as the ones on my site at www.changingthetimes.co.uk, but this idea has been floating around in my head for so long that I decided that I should settle the ghosts by writing it.  It’s set in an alternate world and I require comments on it ASAP.  There are two parts to the story and the text alternates between them; the present day and the past life of the hero. 

 

Tonight, I will know the truth.  Tonight, I will discover the face of the Divine Monarch of Great Britain and her empires.  Tonight, I will look at the face of the King, Charles XVIII, and kill him.  Tonight, I will strike a blow for liberty.  I slip into the locomobile[1] and drive, with my people, towards Buckingham Palace. 

 

I don’t know for sure when I first became aware of the divine monarch.  Sure, his masked features, dressed in fine robes and his face hidden behind a pure-white mask, were on every wall of the city of Charles, looking down on his people.  The masked eyes, always blue, looked as if they watched you wherever you were in the room.  The first time I saw a picture, I was completely creeped out and I ran crying to my mother.  When I told her what had scared me, she laughed nervously and told me not to fear.

 

She was wrong.

 

I do know when I became aware of his reach and his power.  I was only seven years old and my teacher was Mrs Bramble.  I remember her, because she disappeared, a few years later.  I had left school and was walking to the sweetshop, when I got there; there were two big men in the shop.  The shopkeeper, kindly Mr. Jones, told me to leave, but one of the men was quicker.  Snarling that he would show the shopkeeper what could happen, he kicked me in the chest.  I threw up over the shop floor.  Laughing, they took the cash that a terrified Mr. Jones held out and left the shop, pausing only to kick me into my vomit.  As Mr. Jones cleaned me up, I asked him who they were.

 

“That was the civil guard, lad.”

 

The Civil Guard.  Since that day, and after discovering that my parents could not punish the men – and anyone who did attack them was killed without trial – I made it my business to investigate them.  They were recruited from different areas of the country and sent away from their own homes, then given a licence to keep the people down.  Most of them promptly became legalised thugs, exhorting money from shop owners and tradesman, and making it difficult to survive. 

 

I think I became a revolutionary in my heart then.

 

“Drive down Monarch Road.  Go slowly past the civil guard post, ignore their sneers, and head towards the first security zone.  Then check in with the radio and stand by for the next step.”  Simplest plan ever, right?  It could not go wrong, and of course, it did. 

 

My people, the mixed group of revolutionaries were all around me when I had finished outlining the plan.  One group, the largest, was to carry a bomb to the power station, which was the most dangerous part of the job.

 

“The power stations nuclear, people, I’m asking you to take a terrible risk.”

 

“We know boss, you’d better get your bit right or we’ll come back and haunt you.”

 

That part was simple enough.  The power station at the mouth of the Thames River powered all of Charles.   If a large bomb went off – and the girls and I had done our best to build a really nasty one – near the station, the automatic shutdown procedures would start at once.  Charles would be deprived of power, even during our little attack.  The back up system, which was also nuclear, would automatically shut down as well.  A little oversight I intended to make the Monarchy pay dearly for.  But then, you had to give them credit; no one had attacked Charles since the war of 1920. 

 

But the secret war went on …

 

I was twelve.  

 

I was the second-best pupil in the school.  If you took out maths, I was the best, but Shirley Doughty was a maths genius and had enough in the other classes to get the highest average.  Not that I really minded, I thought Shirley was cute and sometimes wondered what she looked like naked.  But I never got the chance to see.  She kept asking Mrs Bramble about parts of mathematical theory that was way over anyone else’s head.  I suspect that Mrs Bramble was also out of her depth, but she never let on and allowed Shirley to read some special textbooks that she kept back.

 

Shirley was not very discrete, however, and she showed the books to her father.  He dad, you see, was quite important and he knew what the books were.  His reaction was terrible, seeking favour from the local lord; he turned his daughter and her teacher over to the civil guard.  They dragged Mrs Bramble and Shirley out of the classroom and we never saw them again.  Our questions to the teachers went unanswered.  Our attempts at a strike were broken with the cane and lines that we needed to write. 

 

I tried to ask Shirley’s dad, but he called the guard on me and I had to flee for my life.  Luckily, he did not know who I was, or I might have been dead then. 

 

But then, I was summoned to the headmaster’s office.

 

We talked about Shirley, and her fate.  He told me never to ask anyone about her again, but hinting that there might be people who could help.  But, in the end, he just sent me back to class.  However, he had one last thing to say first:

 

“Young man, have you ever heard of a man called Isaac Burns?”

 

 “No, Sir.”  That was a lie, I freely admit.  I had heard my parents talk about him in hushed voices from time to time. 

 

“He grew convinced that there was something wrong with the divine monarch and the Monarchy.  He sought to destroy it by killing the monarch.  They caught him and killed him in front of Buckingham palace and it took him three months to die.  Be careful, lad.”

 

Part Two of the plan was more complicated.  Basically, we had to get inside the first security zone and then take over a truck that carried goods to the Palace inside heavy, steel, boxes.  We believed, from what our one spy in the palace told us, that the boxes were checked outside the security zone and then moved into the palace.  Once inside the palace, we’d have to head down towards the Royal Apartments.  While the power was cut, our equipment could keep us hidden, but once they restored the power, we’d have to fight our way through. 

 

I was sixteen and had just become a man.  Unsure of what to do with myself, I had signed up for training as an overseer, a person responsible for the running of one of the colonies in the Americas.  That night, I became a man in a different, older way, as my first girlfriend and I celebrated in our own way.  But then, it was time to go to the training school. 

 

“Ok, scrum, this is your one chance to serve the Monarchy and the Divine Monarch.  God bless him.  Fail and you’ll go to the prison camps.”

 

Prison camps?  I was interested immediately.  Was that were they’d sent Shirley?  I dragged myself back to the lecturer with some difficulty.  He was passing out notes and I read avidly.

 

“America was discovered by Christopher Columbus after he convinced Spain to fund a voyage to the Indies.  The False Vicar then granted a charter to Spain and her sister kingdom, Portugal, to divide the New World between them.  This could not be allowed and so the English, Scots, French and Dutch formed their own colonies.  Of those, only the English and French enjoyed long-term success, and, today, only the Kingdom holds proper American colonies. 

 

Several dissident groups established colonies in North America in the 1600s, as well as ones sectioned by the English king.  After the Glorious Reaffirmation, the Divine Monarch Charles sent his troops, under his nephew, to America to bring the colonies back into the royal fold.  The puritan leaders resisted, as did the other religious deviants, but their people saw the light and many rejoined the true king.  As the puritans had been establishing a religious dictatorship, their leaders were wiped out completely, while the few remnants fled east, and hostile natives killed most of them. 

 

After the colonies were brought firmly under imperial control, the colonies were allowed to expand again, through always under the system of lords, priests and Monarchy that held them together.  The shipping in of thousands of heathen Nubians from Africa allowed the land to be tamed and vast farmlands to be tilled. 

 

After numerous wars, the Monarchy had established superiority in the Americas, defeating the Spanish and Dutch.  The French remain in impregnable Quebec despite the suggestion that nuclear weapons should be used to extinguish the French settlement.  As a testimonial to the mercy of our Divine Monarch, the near-by area is used as a prison camp for people condemned to death and allowed to live there instead. 

 

The only independent settlement in the Americas is loosely referred to as Nubian.  A number of slaves, not recognising how well they were treated, escaped in 1862 and fled east to the inhospitable landscape in eastern America, establishing a retreat there.  Despite some attempts on their part, they have never succeeded in inducing their enslaved brethren to join them or in posing a credible threat to the Monarchy.  The Royal Army uses the area as a hunting ground, but tourists are not advised to go anywhere near the proto-state.  The borders of Nubian control are fluid within the defined region, as the blacks have split into many factions.  Occasional reports of civil wars leak out from time to time. 

 

We spent three years learning nonsense like that.  Three years spent being trained to be workers, instead, we discovered that little of the knowledge applied on the ground.  I was lucky, I suppose, for when I graduated, I was posted to New England, near the Northern Exclusion Zone.  Andrew and Scott were posted to the borders of the Southern Exclusion Zone, and they never came back after their three years.  The natives, we all assumed, killed them. 

 

As we drove towards the security zone, a dark joke kept playing over my mind; ‘security fit for a king’.  I chuckled, causing the others to glance in my direction.  Without explaining, I checked our location and told the driver to halt.  It was time to head into the zone.

 

“Ready everyone?”  I asked.

 

“Yes, boss, we’re ready.”  They replied.

 

“Everything shielded?”  I said, checking the special weapons were hidden under the blankets; those would keep the guards from detecting them with their sensors.  Once I had double-checked, I told the driver to move into the zone. 

 

“Ok, citizen, out and let us search your body!” That was one of the civil guards, holding a gun on us.  I fought the inclination to run or fight, and instead played for time, climbing out of the car with the others.  I heard the guard suck in a breath when he saw Dianne and I planned a horrible death for him.  How Dianne held herself still I don’t know, but I admired her the more for it.  Soon, however, the ordeal was over and we had passed.

 

“Dianne, you ok?”  I asked.

 

“Kill him”, she said bitterly, “kill them all”.  I watched her as she pushed her hands over her breasts and hips, trying to force away his touch.

 

“We’ll kill them all,” I promised silently, “we’ll kill them all.”

 

We had passed the first hurdle and, despite Dianne’s dismay, we were in!

 

I shipped out that year, when I was nineteen, on the good ship Pinafore.  Modern day techniques allowed the trip from Liverpool to Boston to be made in a month, so I had plenty of time to read about the history of the colony and the Monarchy.  I also used my new access to the computers to try to locate more information about Isaac Burns, but I found nothing.  But then, someone found me.

 

“How about a drink, matey?”  The speaker was a sailor from Ireland, one of the most loyal and favoured states in the Monarchy.  I was intrigued by his appearance, as he was – bluntly – ugly, with a broken set of teeth and white hair[2]. 

 

“What happened to you?” I gasped, when I also realised that he had a wooden leg. 

 

“Isaac Burns did,” he growled.  When I pressed him for more information, he was reluctant until I took him to the bar and started piling him with drink. 

 

“Isaac Burns led me to my death, except the grim reaper just missed me by a hair.  He was a hotshot rebellion leader and he found me on the boat I commanded and convinced me to join him.  We sailed up the Clyde and attacked the Monarchy palace in the city of Glasgow.”

 

“Glasgow?”

 

“Johnstown.  It used to be called Glasgow, but they renamed it in 1920, after we had been through it.  Charles used to be called London, don’t you know?[3]” 

 

“No.  Go on.”

 

“Not much more to tell.  We sailed up the Clyde in our ship, opened fire on the palace and damaged it, but they had one of those new battleships in the Glasgow Docks and it blocked our way out.  We tried to lose it in the canals and docks, but they hit us with the shells, killed my crew and crippled me.  Isaac Burns escaped, of course, man like him must have kissed the blarney stone at birth, but I was captured.  The judge ordered me treated so I could never return to full health, reduced me to an ordinary seaman and let me go.  Heh, jokes on them, its 1970 now and I’m still alive.  What did you say your job was again?”

 

“I’m the assistant overseer for New England.” I announced proudly.  He looked at me as a rabbit might look at a tiger, and then hobbled off.  I was never spoken to by any of the other people on the ship apart from the basic necessities.

 

Yes, even then, doubt was beginning to set in.

 

After our search by the guard, we reached our first place in good time.  We checked our equipment and waited for the other team to strike, while inserting our own power sources into the crates.  We wanted them to head into the palace when the power went haywire – it should be cut off, but if they thought it had gone haywire, so much the better – and then we claimed into them.  Not entirely by chance, I got into a crate with Dianne.  We spoke for some time about our hopes for a better world, and then she had a confession to make:

 

“I’m dying.  I’ve got the devil’s disease.  If you want a volunteer for a suicide mission…” She broke down into quiet sobs.

 

The Devil’s Disease had appeared recently.  It was transmitted through sexual contact, even basic oral stuff, and it attacked the immune system of the body.  In its advanced stages, even a common cold could be fatal to its victims.  The Church of Saint Laud had promptly declared it the work of the devil and had ordered that all the sufferers had to be stoned to death.  This had the obvious effect of driving the sufferers underground.  More practically, the medical services of Saint Marie had discovered that it was best to stick with one sexual partner, therefore minimising risk of infection, and the church used that to increases its power.  People in schools and universities were tested for the disease and women were tested for virginity before their marriages. 

 

I remembered that – I remember how it affected my life…

 

New England always struck me as cold when we arrived there.  It was sunny when I arrived, but I was full of doubts and questions.  My boss, the head overseer of the colony, was not helpful either.  Mr. Rugifer had clearly not had a single qualm over his job – and expected me to work like a superman.  The five years I spent there were perhaps the worst of my life.

 

New England was divided into fifty townships, which were basically divided into houses, factories and farms.  The overseers were supposed to ensure that the people behaved themselves, attended church, sang ‘God bless the divine monarch’ every Sunday and did not try to question the system.  We would also try to prevent anyone from heading into the Quebec Security Zone, as it was forbidden territory.  The French settlement was prevented from expanding by the terrain and our presence.  Despite my hints, I was never able to visit the Security Zone itself, that was the province of the Inquisition, that should have warned me at the time, but I was too interested to care.

 

I spent the first year acting as Mr. Rugifer’s personal assistant.  That was intended to give me the skills to work on my own.  Mr. Rugifer had a staff of one hundred overseers, and they were all heavily overworked.  I watched as he settled disputes among people, called the guard to track down runaway slaves, acted as a judge in the trials and generally kept an eye on things. 

 

It was after that year that I worked on my own and nearly caused Mr. Rugifer to despair of me.  But first, I got a letter.  “Dear John”, it read….

 

“John, I have the most terrible confession to make.  I’ve been rejected for the Prince Rupert academy.  They checked my body at the medical exam and I’m not virgin.  You remember Fred?  I slept with him the night before, I’m not preggers, but they don’t care.  I’ve brought shame on the family name…”

 

Why?  I asked myself.  Why was a young, intelligent, hardworking girl rejected by the system she wanted to serve?  Why was she made to suffer for one mistake? 

 

Ironically, the last years saw me begin basic revolution.  Faced with ruling between small farmers and the big companies, I ruled in favour of the small man.  When asked to judge a girl who had engaged in pre-marital sex, I ordered her freed.  This swiftly got me into hot water with Mr. Rugifer, but I was too saddened to care.  Rapidly, I was transferred to the most dangerous part of America – The Nubian Security Zone.

 

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of an exploring nuclear power plant?  If you’re anything like me, I suspect you’d think of a mushroom cloud expanding into the night sky and a blast like the wrath of God.  It was nothing like that; even we were not so crazy as to penetrate the reactor core.  Instead, the power supplies started to flicker all over London and the guards got the fun of watching the lights go out all over London.  Not that we saw any of that, of course, we were in the crates, which were sliding down the ramp into the darkened palace. 

 

The crate hit the floor and we burst out.  The workers were running around shouting, like chickens with their heads cut off, so we were able to get out without trouble.  Swiftly, we shot at them with our needle guns and most of them went to sleep.  One brave worker managed to hit the alarm button before the anaesthetic took effect, but the power was still out and the button had no effect.  I saluted him as we went to sleep.  Dianne was less generous and kicked him somewhere delicate before I dragged her down the corridor and we headed into the heart of the palace.  Our chameleon suits blended us in to the darkness and kept us hidden from most of the workers.  Then the power came back on and exposed us, while the alarms went off …

 

In many ways, my stay at the Nubian security zone was the making of me.  Instead of the populated lands of New England, the Southern-North-American lands (a tribute to the powers of burocraticy, as no sane person would let that name stick.) were vast acres of farmland, until you got to the zone itself.  After the black rebellion in 1862, thousands of blacks had fled west into the god-awful terrain, which had defeated the Spanish and French, before the Monarchy laid claim to it.  Like our predecessors, we had not made our claim stick either, as the remaining Native American tribes had flocked to that area as well and proved to be very difficult to root out.  The arrival of some thousands of blacks had only made a difficult task worse, so the divine monarch had ordered total desolation around the region they lived. 

 

A strip of land ten miles across had been burnt, poisoned and thoroughly desolated, in order to keep the rabble penned up.  That, of course, was a relative term, as the Nubians had thousands of miles of the worst possible terrain to hide in.  Attacks by aircraft, missiles, hunter-killer teams, and full army assaults had accomplished very little, so eventually most people gave up and settled for using overseers, such as myself, to patrol the security zone and keep people on their side of the border.  I had a light plane, a battery of automatic missiles and a staff of fifty, as well as being able to call on army troops if necessary.  However, I saw no real action until the war broke out between the Bourbons and Russia. 

 

Quite what either power hoped to achieve by a futile war was beyond me, but I was able to follow the basics.  Following the Divine Reaffirmation, the French and English had been locked in mortal combat, which was won by Britain in 1800, while the French had to face their eastern neighbour.  The Russian empire had headed west while both the French and we fought our colonial wars, and the two powers came to blows in 1817.  After ten years of inconclusive and draining war, they patched up their differences and tried to head into other spheres.  But, because they still hated each other, they kept most of their power facing each other, allowing the Monarchy to beat them to India and China, both of which became part of the Monarchy’s system of informal empire.  The vast manpower harnessed by the Monarchy, not to mention the brilliant plan of arming the natives of central Asia and aiding them, held back Russian expansion until something had to break.  Tsars Paul, Alex and Nicolas sent their armies into central Asia and Manchuria seven times in the years 1850-1940, to be defeated each time.  The war of 1945 saw some gains being made in Manchuria, but they were forced to abandon most of them when the Monarchy deployed atomic weapons against seven Japanese cities, and threatened to use them in Russia. 

 

The Bourbon Empire, which was what the French called themselves when they united with Spain, was even more trapped in Europe.  They had conquered most of Europe into their empire or an informal system that was just as binding, but their attempts at outside expansion had failed.  Quebec, their only North American territory, was hemmed up by the Monarchy, while the Spanish territories had thrown off Spanish rule and declared themselves independent in 1812.  Mexico had become part of Nubian, as much as any state could be part of that state, and the rest had descended mainly into anarchy, although the Monarchy had taken over Panama and backed several south American factions in order to preserve some form of stability.  The former Portuguese colony of Brazil, which had become defacto independent in 1813 (when Portugal was conquered), became a client state and their rulers were becoming part of the Monarchy. 

 

Anyway, the important fact is that in 1990, France and Russia went to war.  The war lasted seven years, as the French dictator sent thousands of Europeans to die in Russia’s snowy lands.  The Russians fought back tenuously, losing millions of people, but the French ground every closer to Moscow and revolts were appearing in the Russian subject territories.  The Tsar made his decision; he ordered a full nuclear strike.  Russian missiles hit cities all across Europe (and Quebec) and ruined the bourbon empire.  In retaliation, the French missiles destroyed much of the Russian empire, effectively ending both empires. 

 

What, I bet you’re thinking, did that have to do with me?  Well, it was simple.  You see, both sides were convinced that the Monarchy was secretly supporting the other side, and that it hated their side.  Therefore, both sides decided to cause trouble for the Monarchy, including supplying the Nubians with some special weapons, such as the anti-aircraft missile that shot me down one day.  There I was, following the border line and zigzagging back and forth, and then a missile hits the back of my plane.  I have to eject and I came down in the middle of Nubian. 

 

Or so I thought.  The people who captured me claimed that theirs was the most important city-state (an exaggeration, their ‘city’ was the size of a large town) and they were at war with the others.  They told me that there were a small number of French aircraft, with French-trained pilots, used by their opponents.  They, of course, did not profess any love for the Monarchy, but, pressed against the border as they were, they were unwilling to provoke a punitive exhibition. 

 

Stuck there for a while, I had the chance to see just how much damage the Monarchy had caused.  The former slave, with welts across his back for daring to ask for more food, the women who had been flogged for suspected adultery, the child of mixed-race parents, not safe anywhere, but here.  I slowly realized just how much damage the Monarchy had caused and I resolved to set it right.

 

The tales of my wanderings for the next five years would fill many books.  However, because I can’t be bothered writing a book, you’ll have to put up with a summery.  I explored as much of Nubian as I could, accompanied by Annie, the women who became my first wife.  I tried to settle disputes as an overseer should, without any authority, but the weight of his words.  I fought a duel with a French agent, who accused me of still working for the Monarchy, and chatted to a man called Hadden.  If I had fought him instead, all would have been well, but I did not.  Thinking nothing of it at the time, it was a complete surprise to me to discover that the Monarchy records listed him as a spy, and me as not only a deserter, but an outright traitor as well. 

 

But I’m getting ahead of myself.  I formed my plan to hit the Monarchy then, and recruited from the small white population of Nubian.  I had hundreds of volunteers from the black population, but they would have stuck out like a sore thumb in Charles.  I slipped back across the border and checked computer records using an access I had made for myself some time back, some sixth sense warning me not to use my normal code.  I discovered that the war was over – the two sides having killed each other – and that I was listed by the new chief overseer, my old boss Mr. Rugifer, as a deserter.  Powerful forces had arrived to capture me, and I had to escape back to Nubian, only to discover that Monarchy bombers had hit my hometown.  Saddened, I recruited the rest of my team and we headed to England. 

 

Ambushed!  One minute the twelve of us were running down the corridor, the next there was a deafening roar and a hail of bullets came at us.  I ducked quickly behind a display case and pulled out a grenade, tossing it down at our attackers.  The grenade went off with a bang (duh) and stunned one of the sets of guards.  We ran down that corridor, shooting at the remaining guards as we ran, but we finally were trapped in a room.  I took the last grenade and tossed it at a guard, but it bounced off his head and explored against the wall, blowing a hole in it.

 

Dianne, the only other survivor, was quicker than me to see the implications.  Ordering me to head through the hole and deeper into the palace, she resolved to sell her life dearly.  I had a tear in my eye as I bid her goodbye and ran through the hole, hearing the shots behind me as she sold her life. 

 

I was on the alert, but I saw nothing and no one until I moved into a room.  It was an odd room, covered in maps of the Earth and the Monarchy, and books of figures from the population census, maps of the damage caused to Europe by the recent war and much more.  I was about to leave when I noticed the girl.

 

She was short, willowy and blonde.  I thought she looked familiar, and then I knew her.  “Shirley!” I shouted.

 

“Pardon?  Do I know you, sir?”  She replied.

 

“Who are you?”  I asked.

 

“Shirley Doughty, peoplemath expert, sir.”

 

I was stunned.  She was acting like a hypnotised person, more than a real person.  It was like she had to supply the answers when I asked her questions.  So, being a red-blooded male, I decided to take advantage of her.  But not the way you’d think.

 

“What’s peoplemath?”  I asked.

 

“Peoplemath is the science of predicting and controlling how people will react in a given situation.”

 

“What’s it for?”

 

“We used it to chart out the future progress of the Monarchy.  We add inputs to the living system, such as reducing the number of slaves or increasing the food supply, and we then calculate how the people will react.”

 

I could not stay here, so one last question.  “Where is the Divine Monarch?”

 

“Down the corridor, at the end, there’s a big double door.  His rooms beyond that.”

 

I kissed her on the forehead and was shocked when she started to undo her dress.  What had they done to her?  I wondered out loud. 

 

“You’ve heard of Focin, I take it?  Now, hand’s up!”  The speaker was a short, fat, man with pig like eyes.  He was holding a gun, which was pointed – you’ve guessed it – at me. 

 

“Focin is a drug treatment that focuses natural talent, such as in Ms. Doughty.  It keeps her remarkable mind concentrated on how to best develop the system of the Monarchy.  Should we give the rabble some more gruel or not?  Her calculations, and those like her, tell us.  Further, of course, we decide how to push our two rival empires into conflict, such as their recent war, and how to keep the Nubians divided.  Any other questions before I shoot you?”

 

I had to play for time, somehow.  “Why did she start to undress when I kissed her?”

 

He leered.  “She has remarkable gheans.  Her body has the key to making more intelligent people like herself, but we don’t want her to become a mother in person, because that might distract her from her job.  So, she’s conditioned to be receptive to advances, after which we check her body, decide if she’s pregnant, and, if she is, we remove the foetus and place it in a volunteer mother.  Simple, eh?”

 

“You monster!” I shouted, and leapt at him.  He was clearly unused to fighting and did not react in time to shoot me before I hit him.  We went down onto the floor together and I banged his head off the floor several times.  He fell into a limp heap on the floor and I left him there.  I said goodbye to Shirley, who had already returned to her work, and I headed down the corridor to the big double door at the end. 

 

Somehow, I managed to get through the doors without being seen.  I entered a large room with twelve chairs seated around a chamber – a far cry from the massive throne room that was featured in the longvision shows.  Suddenly, I heard a small cough.  I spin round and there was an old man facing me, dressed in dark robes with a cane.

 

“Can I enquire as to your business, young man?” He asked in a surprisingly strong voice.  I was in no mood to trifle and said so:

 

“I’m in no mood to trifle –”

 

“That’s a good thing, I forgot to bring one.”

 

“I’m looking for the divine monarch.”

 

“That might be difficult.”

 

“He’s not here?”

 

“Well, yes and no, do you want to know who the divine monarch is, young man?”

 

The odd thing about a tolatalarian system, such as the Monarchy, is that it was very easy to slip between the cracks and hide.  There were countless unregistered ships, piling their trade between the boundaries of the empire, which allowed me to forge papers and serve as an ordinary crewman.  If I had lived in Charles, Bruce[4], Clive[5] or Amhurst, I would have needed papers to satisfy the Civil Guard, but outside the most vital points, people could practically move as they pleased.  It was not much of a security risk for the Monarchy, they figured, probably correctly, that a small number of people living their lives away from home, without the security blanket provided by the Monarchy, would be no real threat. 

 

While in hiding on the east coast of Britain, I considered the possibility of defeating the system.  At first glance it appeared to be impossible; the system was amorphous and very difficult to destroy with a single blow.  Very unlike the Bourbon or Russian empires, which were now staggering back to their feet after a bitter nuclear exchange five years ago.  The foreign colonies, India and China, had been set up to make it very difficult to focus their strength, while any disruption would cause widespread starvation and famine.  China, split up into fifty nominally independent states, could hardly work to defeat a power that had crushed the Manchu central government and granted the mandarins limited independence, hell, most of the mandarins were grateful to the Monarchy.  Japan, crushed in the war of 1945, could not offer any resistance to the Monarchy at all. 

 

America, Africa and Australia were all dependent on the Monarchy in some way, as well as having large populations that relied on the Monarchy to survive.  Most of the power-holders in America, for example, were from families directly related to the Divine Monarch, which gave them an incentive to stay on his side in all disputes.  Britain itself, possibly the only real chance for a successful rebellion, had been cowed in numerous rebellions, such as the Scottish rebellion, which had ended in 1800 with a policy of genocide being applied to the highland clans. 

 

Ironically, the Monarchy did look after its people.  Not very well and not with the best of motives, but it did look after them.  You see, people who have nothing or no chance to move upwards have nothing to lose, they can revolt with ease.  Therefore, the Monarchy provides a basic diet to most of the people, gruel and bread, while making it easier to earn the money needed to have a better diet.  Religious education, teaching them to strive towards serving the monarch, helped to push the best of them upwards to posts of power within the system, while providing benefits to go with their new status that made the prospect of losing them worse.  Indeed, the local lord who was responsible for Shirley’s disappearance had risen from the lower class to power.  Health and other kinds of education made the lives of the people easier and therefore gave them more to lose.  The ones who did have nothing to lose, the slaves in America, had a chance to escape to Nubian and escape from their servitude.  I was never sure why the Monarchy bothered with slavery, when they could make machines to do their work and save the task of feeding them, but it was the system.  Perhaps they had themselves forgotten the reason why and therefore it never changed. 

 

But there was one small flaw.  People were raised to believe in the Divine Monarch as a superman, even a God.  If he could be killed, the system would tumble.  The Royal Family would scrabble for the post and, in the chaos; perhaps most of the power structure would be destroyed.  It was a crazy plan, but what was the alternative? 

 

“You wanted to know who the king is, young man?  I’ll tell you who the king is, the king is Parliament!”

 

“I don’t understand.”

 

“Obviously.  You see, Charles the first (peace be with him), defeated parliamentary forces in the disputes and forced his will upon us.  He was king, with all that implied, and he would have complete control.  He ground down parliament, he ground down the people, and it was he who gave the orders to crush the Puritans, create his own version of the Pope, and to burn out the flickering of American independence in 1700.”

 

“But … all they wanted was to live by their own religions ….”

 

“And that could not be allowed!  You see, Charles believed he had Divine Right, and so he set up his church, under Laud’s religious friends”

 

“Saint Laud?”

 

“Saint, my left testicule.  But it was him who started the new religion and in his name Charles founded his church.  Competition could not be allowed.  Hence the Jewish and Mohammedan genocides in 1900.”

 

“Charles II and John III were just as bad, but by then we had a little independent power back, we could try to reign in their excesses.  But it was too late; the kings had convinced the people that they were God’s chosen.  Those who tried to stop them were torn apart by the mob.  They took the King’s whippings with enthusiasm.  Scum.”

 

I was worried about where I was.  “Get to the point,” I said. 

 

“So, we made a false king,” he said.  “Rupert I came to the throne and allowed us some more power, so we killed him.  Are you familiar with the works of Machiavelli?”

 

“No”

 

“Whoever helps another to power causes his own ruin.”  He chuckled bitterly.  “We killed Rupert and created the legend of the Devine Monarch.  The monarch who is so pure that he must remain in a form of Purdah.  Of course, it’s just an actor under the garb, who thinks he’s just taking the risk of protecting the king from hunters.  And we are the king.”

 

“You are?”

 

“Dear me, someone’s slow on the uptake tonight.  We killed the king and took his power.  But, we had had enough of single people with supreme power.”  He gestured around.  “This room was once the Star Chamber.  Now it’s the monarch’s room, where ‘he’ holds council.  In fact, in this room, we twelve leaders of Parliament are all equal.  We vote on issues and act as a collective body.  Instead of a king, we share the power jointly, because we must.  Singly, we are nothing, the Street Guard’s push us around, but together, we rule the Empire.  Impressed?”

 

“Yes, but it must stop.”

 

“Why?  We have improved the quality of life for the ordinary people.”

 

It came bursting out of me before I could stop it.  “You call slavery to a god-king an improvement?   In the fields of Charlesland, the blacks toil under the lash to grow food.  In the factories, men work for a pittance.  You feed them protein gruel!”

 

“We must not have starvation.  That gruel fulfils all their needs without being too much.”

 

“Children are taught … ”

 

“Children are taught, carefully, how to question.  We breed independent thinkers, which we need, in the guise of rebellion.  How many of your rebel band, do you think, would have picked up books on their own if we had not made it difficult for them?  We offer people the chance to ‘escape’, to take up a better life, but they must do it for themselves!  If we gave it to just anyone, no one would see what a gift it is.  Tell me seriously, do you think that Nubian exists because we could not conquer it?  Three or four nuclear strikes and it would collapse completely.  We allow it to exist because it allows people, mainly blacks, I admit, a dream to reach when they escape.  Pursuit, of course, is never equipped with infrared sensors, nor are the slaves fitted with tracking devices.  They must have a decent chance.”

 

“What about what you did to Shirley?”

 

“Your old friend?  We offered her the chance to develop herself.  Believe it or not, she chose what happened to her.  You could call it rape, perhaps, but she chose it of her own free will.” 

 

“So, you claim to be helping people?”

 

“We are helping people, like we helped you.  We have the technology to keep records on every person in the land.  We watched as you read the forbidden books.  We watched as you started to form you own rebel cell.  We watched as you prepared the attack on the power station.  We saw how you convinced the leaders of Nubian to help you come to this place and we saw how you entered by stealth.  So, we now have an offer for you.”

 

“Surrender or die?”

 

“Not exactly.  If you refuse, I suppose I should tell you, your body would be emptied of sperm plasma, then you’ll be sent to the prison camp on Mars.  Your geans, you see, are better than most of the sheep.  Many a father will be cuckooed in his nest in a few years, but you’ll have thousands of children.”

 

“And the alternative?”

 

“Join us.  Oh don’t look so shocked.  I’ve told you enough for you to see why we need new blood, a new member of parliament.  The member for Newcastle passed away two months ago and we need to complete our little Quorum.  If you accept, you’ll be taking part in the decisions that run the empire.  You’ll get a chance to make the changes you want to make, and improve people’s lives more.” 

 

He looked thoughtful for a minute.  “He told me, you know, tarry till I come again.  And, somehow, I stayed alive.  But soon, the parliament will need a new Prime Minister.”  He shook his head sadly and turned to face me, looking me in the eye.

 

“There are two doors here.  That red one leads to the chamber where you will be told the reminder of the story and taught your duties.  That blue one leads to the chamber where they will take your sperm and send you to Mars.  The choice, young man, is yours.”

 

“One last question, sir, what is your name?”

 

“Isaac Burns.”

 

He left me, not looking back.  I hesitated, and then I made my choice. 

 

THE END

 

The Author Speaks:  The idea for the Monarchy, or something like it, has been floating around in my head for a long time.  I started on my quest to design an ‘evil British empire’ when I was inspired by Alison Brooks’ comedy AH, along Victorian lines, at http://www.flin.demon.co.uk/althist/ebe.htm.  I enjoyed the AH, but I felt it was not plausible enough.  I worked originally from a POD in 1783, when Britain finally crushed the colonies, but that just leads to massive British repression and constant revolts.  The foundations for the Monarchy had to be laid at the start.  I could avert the power shift in British politics that included the Magna Carta, but that would produce a world that was so different from ours that it could not be commented on. 

 

So I started with what I’ve called the ‘Glorious Reaffirmation’, the victory of Charles the First over parliament, and went on from there.  A decisive Charles victory would almost certainly mean the destruction of most of Parliament’s power, which would be placed in the hands of the King.  Charles would then have had the chance to crush the Scots, although he would have kept many of them alive as a threat to cement his rule, and re-establish his control over the American colonies.  He can then appoint a Viceroy and an aristocratic system, further cementing the colonies to the Monarchy.

 

A centralised England may not mean that the OTL traditional method of British naval supremacy is aborted.  The French and Germans proved that it was possible to build a navy despite centralized power, most notably the French in 1777.  The navy that was build decided the war for America, as it led to the British defeat at Yorktown.  Therefore, instead of random expansion, we have the British slowly establishing their control over America, and still fighting it out with the French and Spanish.  This means that there will still be a period similar to the wars of 1700-1800, which will probably end with complete British victory, as in OTL, but without the American Revolution.  The French get to keep Quebec for a while, as Louisiana is far more attractive in the long run and a far easier target. 

 

In the long run, the Spanish Empire in America is untenable.  Add in to the mix a more ruthless Britain and that empire will just collapse faster, forcing a Franco-Spanish alliance.  Further, British naval supremacy, as well as Franco-Russian suspicion, allows Britain to beat them both to China and India.  The Indian raj of this TL is very different from its OTL equivalent, as the Indian monarchs have been sucked into the system and used as minor princes, while the central Chinese power has been torn down, which made the mandarins nominally independent – and subordinate to Britain. 

 

The OTL British Empire was not, as a general rule, interested in expansion for its own sake.  There were individuals, such as Clive and Rhodes, who did try to push the empire into rapid expansion, but that was never a part of a general policy.  However, the Monarchy is into that expansion and has the ability to conquer China, which the British officers on the spot did consider, but rejected. 

 

Those interested in maps might be disappointed, as maps are not my forte.  Loosely, the Monarchy covers North America, Iceland, Greenland, Ireland, the United Kingdom, India, China, Lower Asia, the East Indies, Australia, New Zealand and lower Africa.  Nubian, the place of escapees that provides a safety valve for the most cunning and intelligent slaves, covers modern day Mexico.  The Bourbon Empire covers all of Europe, apart from Eastern Poland, and Algeria.  The Russian Empire covers OTL Russian empire, as well as Sweden, Finland and Norway. 

 

The central gimmick of ‘The Monarchy’, however, is the creation of the fictional Divine Monarch, in reality an actor whose strings are pulled by twelve parliamentarians.  Part of the problem with any central system is that, when all decisions come from one man, its easy for that man to get delusions of grandeur.  The twelve men, separately, are powerless, but when they act together, they are all-powerful as far as the Monarchy is concerned.  When a king is regarded almost as a God, as Asimov warns us in ‘Foundation’, rebellion against that king becomes almost impossible.  Therefore, the fictional king. 

 

The structure of the Monarchy is a blending of the less savoury regimes on the planet’s history.  The system has a landed collection of aristocrats, who control areas of the Monarchy, but are responsible for looking after the people in their area.  Further, the overseers, such as our hero, watch the aristocrats and make sure that they don’t abuse their powers.  A person can complain to an overseer about an aristocrat and be listened to by him/her.  The system is supported by the religious establishment, which preaches obedience to the monarch in every sermon.  In theory, there is religious tolerance, but that only applies to Christian beliefs, in Britain at least.  Both Judaism and Islam have suffered attacks in Britain itself, although tolerance and repression have occurred elsewhere. 

 

The Monarchy is a planned economy, not too unlike the USSR, but with smarter, less corrupt, people.  The system basically has the government provide basic care for the people, such as the food rations, while rewarding limited private business.  Unlike OTL, no private system can suffer a depression that can topple governments, while there are limits on how big the private business can get.  This has its odd points; slavery is outdated and uneconomical, but the system keeps it in place as part of its balancing act and as a cheap method of providing food.  This would be like a government developing hundreds of nuclear power stations, but keeping the old, coal burning, stations around and running as a back up. 

 

Power and position within the system – real power as opposed to family power – depends on education.  The system provides a good education in most matters to its people, which allows it to take note of the best and brightest and co-opt them into the system.  This can quite possibly allow someone from the lower class to rise quite far upwards in the system, which is rewarded with a lordship or a similar title, as is sterling military service and other system benefiting services.  The system must reward actions that help it. 

 

Further, anyone who decides to say at home and not rise is provided for.  The system provides basic rations to everyone, starvation is unknown within the system.  Those who wish to do nothing, but be left alone can do so, although occasional abuses of power by the security forces do happen. 

 

Finally the rebels.  In America, those with a rebellious tint try to head south, to Nubian.  In India and China, most rebels end up being killed or heading into the wild lands of central Asia.  In the rest of the system, there are systems, such as the ‘sea-beggars’, that provide a tough life without the Monarchy.  This tends to keep rebels busy.  The really good rebels get co-opted into the system or killed when they are caught. 

 

The Monarchy does pose a considerable threat to the outside world.  As the greatest naval and land power (British/American/Australian navies + Chinese/Indian manpower), plus its habit of imposing its system on everyone, conquest by the Monarchy is to be feared.  However, the Monarchy is very careful.  While it is moving to absorb the important parts of Europe and Russia, it will be careful to allow the factions that would be most likely to resist a place to live, unbothered by the system.  However, it is very ruthless if it has to be, attacked by Japan in 1945, the Monarchy defeated the Japanese navy and crushed Japan with several nuclear attacks.  Japan is now a radioactive wasteland. 

 

There are several ideas that I planned to put in, but was defeated by my lack of writing talent.  Isaac Burns, the famous rebel, was intended to be a great champion, a form of Robin Hood figure, which our hero would admire and emulate.  However, my plans for the hero to meet people who knew Isaac were defeated, which meant that the relvateion at the end, what really happened to Burns, was less poignant than I had wanted.  The character of Shirley never really came alive as anything other than a condition person without much of a personality, almost a robot.  Unlike some writers, I do not believe that a sex scene is necessary, (if Sterling had written this, the hero would have slept with her) and I used the idea that she might have been conditioned to respond to sexual advances like a robot to illustrate how cold the system could be to its people. 

 

Readers who are reading will note different influences, apart from real history, present in the alternate world.  The Draka books provided a few ideas such as the very primitive form of natural selection.  Asimov’s remarks on ‘god-kings’ helped to shape the idea of the Divine Monarch and ‘peoplemath’.  Finally, I am very grateful to Ian Montgomerie’s essay ‘musings on evil empires’ (http://gateway.alternatehistory.com/essays/MusingsEvilEmpires.html), which helped to clarify some of the issues that the Monarchy would need to cover.