comments for critique
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This tale is set in a seemingly typical dystopian future where it's slowly revealed that ~70% of all recorded history (including even the names of former nations and spoken languages) has been erased and virtually all of the Americas as well as the Russian Extreme North/Far East (connected by an artificial Beringia) and most of the Arctic Circle has been under occupation of an autonomous totalitarian state that no longer knows the need for its own function. In that respect, think THX 1138...minus 30%. Also above ground. With a tiny pinch of Idiocracy thrown in there, in that the public in general has no problem existing without most basic human rights and any sense of individuality besides their own name. I think a lot of it leans towards a more humorous side eventually that reflects my thoughts on the American public (I should note that I begun writing this two and a half years ago and that it is not some reactionary bullshit like all the dumbshits that crashed the Canadian emigration website after the 2016 election) and the culture they willingly go along with, though it's amplified and underlined by a more sinister tone.

On that, I should note that I'm aware of how militaristic and cold a lot of this reads and that's something I've been working to revise based on critique from others and my own feelings.

I should also establish that much of this opening segment will soon be reworded/redacted, as it's a slightly overwrought string of necessary words to establish the manner in which the protagonist (the brother, which by the way is on amphetamines for the first third of the book, hence some of the wording) conveys his convoluted, unyielding and often unwanted thoughts to the reader. Over time he becomes better at controlling this, as he watches his sister grow and witnesses many of his friends die. ESP and time all play a heavy role in this novel, the brother having partially controllable precognitive abilities and the sister, possessing marked psychokinetic potential she is unaware of for the majority of the story.

Bits that appear in brackets are [non-actions] where the brother is thinking and the story is effectively 'paused' at that moment.

Lastly, though it's not to be apparent in the book until the climax, the "They" here refer to headless monoped drones that act as police - again, a la THX 1138's android enforcers with a more weaponised design.

prologue
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An incandescent monitor pulled the eyes of the ardent ignorant. [This screen, to them, was never off. In their affixed position, they could not be swayed, or made to stop receiving their programming. It was their current, unwavering focus, and often it seemed only a third party could end it. Not just in our household, but all. Every family comprised of any man, woman and child across this state were given the programming. The minute fragment that rejected solely comprised of those looked down upon, bearing intellect dwarfing that of those who dismiss them. And somehow we are not particularly intelligent. We bleed flaw. Souls of normalcy, surrounded by the muted, every potential attribute of particularity long eroded – their sheer lack of any sort of good sense – by the screen. It seems fair enough to me.]

[I was born during the worst of it, as were most of those I commune with. We don't know when exactly the screen realised its intentions in full but we are mindful of it. One irony among a long list is that those who create and perpetuate the programming have been subjected to it themselves. I would call that a red flag when it comes to trust. My grief extends past those who birthed me, those who raised me and those that attempted to lower me. I feel for us all, that very such emotion that cannot be sustained, not with the retention of reason.]

[I do a pretty good job tolerating it.]

[Slow down. Dire situation, here.] I break my ether of thoughts, refocusing on the fact that the floorboards, thankfully easily moved, could be the last thing she sees. [The last thing I see.] I shook my head and crawled to the right to glance out again. The crack in the wood was small but sufficient. They strapped them to the seats. Mother, father and one of my two siblings, Jen. Phoenix remained right next to me, grasping and holding me tightly, shivering in fear. I tried to comfort her as best I could while keeping her quiet. She refused to look out at the others, and instead buried her head into my shoulder, dampening it with periodic tears. [In her short 13 years of life she had been exposed to the atrocities of life far more than I had from birth to her age. Throughout my life I've done all I can to ensure she wasn't subjected to the same sort of indoctrination that the rest of my family was, and although I've so far been successful, she remains vulnerable and incomplete.] Looking back out, I had noticed that the stream had begun. They had opted not to attach the lenses, as the rest of my family had no resistance of any sort. Time went by and as the 45 minute broadcast elapsed, we remained silent, as did they – mother, father and Jen reciting though what they were told to, when they were told to. When it was over, a pulse sequence was used to induce further retention, and then the screen defaulted back to the general programming. They left the house, and the metallic sounds of their armor made the floor ripple with each step. When one of the three passed over the floorboard we were under, I pulled Phoenix down into a prone position and covered her mouth. We were not detected. We waited after they exited and cleared the block to climb out. As I shielded her eyes, I checked the door frame, astonished to find that - for the first time - my device proved competent. The magnetic box concealed in the drywall had removed a palisade garden key. They hadn't noticed. I dislodged the box and the key fell. Quickly, I crammed it into my pocket. Phoenix clutched my side, and I grabbed her and rested her on my shoulder as I ascended up the ancient, creaky stairs I now knew I'd never have to use again. Throwing every latch on the window of the washroom down, I slid it open. As I climbed out on to the ledge that entwined around the house, the winds lashed with a peculiar fondness. Tonight, they were the winds of escape.

[Tonight, the winds of a future.]

----

[Some say a flame tends to dance. Its stage a wick, or a torch.]

[I'd argue that the same could be said about the troposphere. Kilometers high of electronic blue, rippling back and forth. Human-generated aberrancy. Contrived. Gusts of elite proportions with no constitution. Contrived. You could give your trust to any group of persons proclaiming they'll fix the world again after it has endured the slow, sickening death they've brought upon it - they'll all outsource it to their fake engineer friends, unwounded, dancing on the deceased headstone its soil still serves with no concern, no acknowledgement of the desecration that has once more occurred, almost as some form of consummation.]

[They don't care. It means, unconditionally, nothing to them.]

[So my former cell and makeshift bunker and the town streets tend to fare pretty congruently. If it weren't for my excitement, I'd probably complain about it some more.]

The smell of the vines...mundane and slightly moldy. One hand clutching plant and the other pressed and sliding against the wall. Looking down, our skin being the only pale pigment not meeting the shadows, we descended.

And I stumbled and cut a line through my left hand as it brushed against thorn and into rusted pipe, yet again being too lost in thought.

"Shit! Ah-"...."Goddamn it,"
I collected myself and pressed my back to the wall in the crawlspace.
"Brother?"
"I'm..gh..I'm fine. Hand me..." I pointed anxiously at my bag. Apparently she'd caught it.
She unzipped it and pulled out an old cotton shirt.
"Yeah, yeah. That'll work," I said as I pulled it tight around my palm to stop the bleeding.
My right arm and hand somehow managed to support her while holding on to tungsten and ivy. From this point the dark blue sky could barely be seen, as there were lights following the pipe all the way down. [Only once prior had I nearly fallen in my many trips down, but it was far closer to the damp soil below, not at the halfway mark of the lights. In that moment, I laughed and resumed climbing with a short burst of adrenaline. In this moment, I worried for the safety of my sister and - stupidly - the potential for mockery in the irony that this climb I'd mastered tenfold for this one moment...this goddamned climb I had made again and again to perfection, all in preparation of bringing her down with me, happened to be the one where I slipped.]

Then, the equally stupid revelation that she had no knowledge of that and was not the paranoid one here hit. After about ten seconds, I managed to lock that waste of thought away with all the others to deal with never. I pushed my legs against the opposing wall and placed my sister on a small ledge.

"Are you okay?"
She was not mocking me, thankfully.
"Yes, just need to-" I looked down at my dressed hand.
"Just need to rest a moment."
"...Did I cause it?"
I straightened up quickly.
"Absolutely not Phoenix. I screwed up, and you're okay, and I'm okay. I'll tell you if something's your fault, remember?"
She grinned naively but she was up to speed.
"I love you brother," she said as she moved her arms towards me, "I -am- ready."
I breathed a sigh of relief and felt happy, if not just for a moment. Glancing down, we had 16 meters more to go. I clung with my left arm - the pain now dull - and wrapped my right around her, pulling her back to me.
"And I am so proud of you," I spoke, tearing up slightly, as she hoisted herself up and around my torso, leaving her face to the wall behind me.

We resumed our descent, and I felt the air below rush past me as the distant outside wind commanded it, with the sense of smoke and grief slowly replaced by the humid warmth below, but for whatever reason, I could only look up right now at the faint, fog lined opening. There was no light.

"Brother?"
"When does the storm end?"


"Never."