The journey took just under half an hour. For the first ten minutes they drove through the affluent residential areas of Charmed. Large homes of varying architectural styles, surrounded by plush green lawns sported long driveways adorned with top of the range SUVs and sporty coupes. Even though Hannah had been living in such a home for a number of weeks now, she still felt in awe of these magnificent displays of social stature. All owned by those with SPRs greater than 90. The bigger the house, the higher the SPR.
As the car ventured further, they entered the area of Servilla. Here the population with SPRs in the 80th centiles resided; those lucky enough not to be classed as Flawed, but still not quite perfect enough. Seen as the society's middle classes, most residents worked for either the Government or business in mostly administrative roles. Those in the higher 80s were predominantly in education, law enforcement and medical care: nurses, midwives and general practice. Surgeons however remained resolutely a 93rd centile and above profession. Sevilla was well kept, clean and functional. Accommodation was still sizeable but it lacked the obscenity of wealth she had seen earlier.
The traffic lights ahead of them turned to red and the car glided gracefully to a stop. Hannah casually looked over to a red- brick, three-storey home. In the rear garden a family played together. She pressed down on a button and the smoky glass window sunk into the body of the car. Fresh air breezed in, carrying with it the sounds of happy children. The noise pulled at her heart. To the rear of the house was a garden. Here a small child, with chubby thighs and bouncing curls was being pushed higher and higher of a swing. The child was squealing in delight. Close by, an older boy kicked a football to his father, who in turn heaped praise on the child for his ball handling skills. The innocent, joyful scene was almost too painful to watch. The traffic lights turned green and Hannah was grateful that the car started moving away.
As they left the outskirts of Sevilla, they entered the rural lands- huge expanses of farm and woodland stretching for over forty miles. This vast area fed the city and its strategic importance to the Council was never underestimated. The majority of the Flawed were forbidden from living here, although they did populate it during the day in their role as manual labourers. The large farms were independent and owned by Top-5 business leaders. The government, ten years earlier, had privatised them in a bid to make them more productive and profitable. Working hours increased, wages were cut and conditions became more atrocious. However, such was the scarcity of work for the Flawed, that for every job there going, there was at least another twenty-people waiting in line. Recruitment was based on 'productivity exercises'- shovel races a perfect example. Here, those that dug the holes and ploughed the fields the quickest got paid; the slowest amongst them sent home at the end of a hard day without pay. Today, resulting from the actions the previous night, they found the area devoid of life- the Flawed were locked down in their quarters under curfew. No work meant no pay and Hannah wondered how many small children or elderly Flawed might die that day due to hunger or ill health. She shivered and pressed the button for the window to close.
This was the farthest Hannah had ever been from Charmed. As they drove on further, she spotted the occasional small, stone cottage set back from the road. Higher rating Flawed resided in these cottages, employed as farmland caretakers. They watched out for runaways, poachers and other unsavoury characters. Each cottage was armed with one shotgun and each caretaker was ordered to shoot on site if they suspected persons of falling foul of the law. The car slowed as it approached a small gravel side road on their left. They turned onto the road, its surface littered with pot holes with dense hedging on either side and followed it for a mile. At the end, they approached a slightly larger stone cottage than the ones they had seen earlier. It was surrounded by tall trees that cast a gloomy shade over the house. In the middle of the pitched, slate roof, was a small, brick chimney with two smoking pots. A large black dog rushed out from the wooden veranda on the front of the cottage and jumped around the car, barking furiously.
"Are you ready Hannah?" Zeke asked; the first thing he had said since they left Charmed.
"No, but I might as well do this anyway." she replied, staring intently at the dog.
"Don't worry about him; he's a real softie when you get to know him."
The driver got out and opened Zeke's door.
"Jim, we won't be long, let me know if anything unusual occurs."
The black dog jumped up at Zeke, and began happily licking his hand.
"No problem, just keep an eye on the time. You cannot be late for Briggs" said the Jim, the driver.
"Will do," Zeke replied.
The driver closed Zeke's door and went round to Hannah's side.
Hannah climbed out slowly, suddenly nervous. The dog made a run for her and growled; Hannah backed up until she was leaning against the car.
"Burt, come here boy!" shouted a female voice, a familiar female voice.
Hannah's attention immediately shifted from the dog to the owner of the voice. She looked over towards the cottage and standing on the veranda stood Mary. The dog ran back to cottage and Mary bent over and patted its head.
"You shouldn't have brought her here, Zeke," she reprimanded.
"She gave me no choice," Zeke replied with a shrug of his shoulders.
"Quickly Hannah, come inside, we can talk there."
Hannah's mouth was open wide, unable to take in what she was seeing.
"You'd better close that mouth, Hannah or you'll be catching flies," Mary laughed.
Zeke tugged at Hannah's arm and led her to the cottage.
They made their way up the creaking wooden steps onto the veranda. Mary held the fly screen open and ushered Hannah and Zeke inside. The room before them was sparsely furnished. At one end was a modest kitchen area with an old wooden table and chairs. The table was already set for six people; none of the crockery matched and many of the items were chipped or had cracks. On the opposite side of the room were a couple of worn armchairs and a wooden rocking chair positioned next to the large brick fireplace. A fire was slowly dying in the grate and sat by it, was a rack of small children's clothes, drying.
"Mary, are the children here?" Hannah asked excitedly. She'd missed them terribly, they reminded her of happier times and she realised she was quite desperate to see them.
"Aye, they are. Just out for a little walk, collecting logs for the fire. They won't be long."
The Mary who now stood before Hannah, was not the sad, weak woman she had known. Here was a confident woman, who carried herself with strength and composure. Hannah felt nervous in her presence.
"So what brings you here Hannah?" she asked.
Hannah had thought of a dozen questions in the car and yet now, when asked what they might be, she didn't know how to answer. Zeke offered her no help, having taken a seat at the far end of the kitchen and was looking at his ComDat. Mary could see she was struggling and stepped in.
"I supposed you want to know what's going on, who we are and why you are involved?"
Hannah nodded.
"That's a lot of questions and most of them I can't help you with."
"Are you the leader of the, err... resistance?" Hannah replied.
"Heaven's no! I'm just a poor soul who was forced into this by fate, by circumstance, by Briggs, all of it I suppose."
"So who is the leader then?" Hannah asked.
"Patience Hannah, in just wait a few minutes you'll be able to meet them."
"So how long have you been here?"
"Since the day of the fire. Zeke got word that I was to be arrested, that they'd finally found me. He arranged for some men to get us out quickly. They burnt the house down to try to put an end to the hunt for me and it seems to have worked."
"But I was still there, they nearly killed me!" Hannah said angrily.
"I asked them to check every room and they told me they had, I honestly thought you'd gone home. The children had been playing up and I had spent over an hour trying to get them to go to sleep. Then the men arrived and got us out, Zak didn't appreciate being woken up and behaved badly which slowed us down, but we got out just in time. If I'd known you were still there Hannah, I would never have left I promise."
Hannah memories of that night were now altered by Mary's story.
"So what are you doing here?"
"Hiding, waiting, hoping," came Mary's reply.
"You know about my SPR and my promotion to the Top-5 then?" Hannah asked.
Mary smiled.
"Hannah, I have known about you for a very long time. You are the reason Bob and I left Charmed. You see we weren't Flawed originally. Did you know that Bob worked for the Ministry of Ratings? Well he was just a programmer, his job was to ensure that the SPR data base was kept up to date and bug free. His job was to find viruses, back doors and debug problems with the network. He never inputted data until one day when he was asked to help out. A couple of his work mates called in sick and he stepped in. Now, I'm not a computer jargon person Hannah, but from what I gather Bob noticed some anomalies. Some of the data being inputted didn't correspond with some of the SPR figures. Bob wrote a query program that looked for other anomalies, he downloaded the files that were flagged up and took them home to work on. He did it to see if he could fathom out the problem and report back to his superiors. He was up for promotion and thought this little bit of homework might help his chances."
Hannah sat listening intently to the story. She still found it hard to imagine Mary and Bob not as Flawed. They blended in so well, but, I guess I did too, she thought.
"What Bob didn't realise was that he had inadvertently downloaded the data for a number of high ranking officials, Briggs being one of them. Your file came up too. He started to work on it from home and found lots of data that just didn't sit right, he was getting very close to finding a solution when everything came crashing down around us. You see, workers weren't allowed to download files and certainly not take them off site. One of the work mates who had been off sick, who I should add was also hoping for promotion found an electronic trace of what Bob had done. He reported it and Bob was summoned to the office where he was asked to explain. It all fell on death ears. His managers reported him to the Council and Bob found out he was about to be arrested. So we fled. Do you know how long he might have gotten in prison for that stupid mistake Hannah?"
Hannah shook her head.
"Twenty years for data theft, and because he had told me, I would have gotten ten for conspiracy to steal data. We just couldn't face it Hannah, couldn't bear the thought of being apart. Then look what happened," she said sadly.
Hannah was about to ask another question when she heard the dog barking outside and the giddy sound of small children approaching. Zak burst through the door first shouting for his mother.
"Mum, Mum, we got loads of wood today. Can I have..." he stopped mid-sentence and stood staring at Hannah, his mouth open wide. For a moment he seemed unsure of himself but then a big smile formed on his little lips.
"Hannah!" he cried out. He ran to her and jumped in her arms.
"Hello there, Zak. How are you my lovely?" she asked squeezing him tightly, his little hands squeezing her back. "Haven't you got tall since I last saw you; a proper little man now. Where's your sister?" she asked.
"Hannah!" screamed the little girl who had just come in. In an instant, she too had run over and was now embraced in a hug.
"Oh, I missed you," Hannah said, planting kisses on the tops of both their heads.
Hannah, so caught up in their happy reunion, didn't see the woman entering the cottage. The woman with greying hair, tied up in a bun, ageing skin who had her right arm held up in a sling. Hannah also didn't notice the woman was entering the room carefully using a white stick, tapping away at the floor as she walked.
"Ah, there you are," said Zeke. "Hannah, there is someone I would like to introduce you to."
Hannah looked up from the children and over to the woman.
"Hannah, this is our leader...Cecily," Zeke announced.