Alistair Raven and the Stormtrooper in Stilettos (Book 1)

Part 1 - Chatter 1

November 27th, 2077

...we begin.

Alistair Raven was a boy who had been waiting for tomorrow all his life.

He was no ordinary New London boy either. Well behaved, polite and respectful, his grandfather had raised him well mannered in a nation of thuggish, vapid delinquents. Granted, Alistair did have a flair for boyish mischief, a low threshold for stupidity and an uncanny thirst for understanding, yet he was smart enough to keep all this to himself – head buried in e-books, biting his tongue, keeping his questions to himself, or posing them to his reclusive grandfather. In no shape or form did Alistair resemble one of the cookie-cutter, mass produced Futurist Youth tyros steadfastly brainwashed, intolerant and monosyllabic. His world was hued in shades of gray and he bobbed amidst the pond scum without ever once disturbing the surface.

The school bullies berated him with their fists and harsh words and as far as they were concerned, he had 'no future'. His grandfather, Archie Raven, told him to hold on to his dreams; that good things come to those who wait. This boy didn't want to wait forever, he did just get by: beaten but not crushed, he knew of no other way and he played the hand life dealt him, and once in a while, when the cards were reshuffled, he was dealt the same dud hand. One day though...

In the gloom, this fourteen-year old New London boy, made the best of what he had. He sat at his rooftop workbench, atop a concrete eyesore in the QP tenements, whilst the Skyboards shimmied in the mizzle. The incessant noise of HyperTraffic and junkyard-dodging Overground stock, all jostling for airspace, echoed in his ears. The oft-repeated tripe of the Skyboards was spoken in a trite, androgynous voice demanding attention and obedience. Casting his eyes upwards, the sky above was a mottled tapestry of colour; a chessboard of countless billboard signs arcing to all horizons. Live footage of a brilliant sun, not seen in this city for many a year, beamed down, slowly tracing across the sky, where the real sun would have been if it could cut through the gloom. This artifice was the only 'sun' Alistair Raven had ever known.

Our future, your hero a recruitment ad looped, flashing footage of extremely well armed and stoic looking New British Guards flexing their muscles and stomping forward in their armour. Jump cuts stung the eyes with scenes of Guards quelling riots and keeping the peace by wielding rhythm sticks. Just to the left, another Skyboard asked: Are you an Agent of Change? A short film of a person eavesdropping over shady conversationalists in an Overground stairwell was followed by an arrest and a medal of honour being presented to the informant. The imagery was brutal, terrifying, cold and austere.

Welcome to the hardline... an adjacent Skyboard bellowed, promoting devoted servitude to the Futurist Armed Forces, serving in various outposts around the country, defending the national borders from the dirty Scotch and Welsh heathens, and any other dirty, fundamentalist foreigner who wanted a piece of everything that the New British had. The irony was lost, but not to Alistair, who thought anyone who wanted all this misery was welcome to it in exchange for something – anything - else. As he looked over at New Heathrow in the distance, bulging with international airships coming and going, he wondered what visitors to New London really thought. They probably believed the lies, like everyone else.