The Resistance

had to be the Underground, he realised. He was finally seeing them in action.
    Quickly Jude tabbed back to get a shot of the road, where men in Pincent Pharma security uniforms were helping the drivers out of the trucks and attempting to put out the fires. He saw one of the security guards shout something, then, moments later, they were dragging two of the Underground men out from the path. The men were soon surrounded, their weapons wrestled from them.
    One of the guards pulled out a walkie-talkie and said something into it. Two other guards immediately pulled the prisoners’ hands behind their backs and handcuffed them.
    Then a guard was shouting something and pointing his gun at one of the prisoners, and before Jude realised what was happening, the prisoner had fallen to his knees, blood pouring from his head. Jude caught his breath, recoiling backwards but unable to look away from the heap of khaki and the oozing red on the road. The man was dead. Actually dead. Jude’s eyes flickered up to the other guards, who had stepped back, their expressions a mixture of horror and disgust.
    The guard with the walkie-talkie barked something, then grabbed the remaining Underground prisoner whose eyes were fixed on his dead comrade, his face white. The prisoner was shouting something, trying to fight as they dragged him away, but it was useless.
    Jude sat back on his chair, barely daring to breathe. For a long time, he sat like that, perfectly still. He’d seen a man die. In a world where death didn’t occur it had shocked him to his core.
    And then he shook himself. It was only real, after all. Reality wasn’t as important as people made it out to be; to Jude it was simply the physical state in which he found himself, an environment he had limited control over. Pushing all thoughts of the Underground soldiers from his head, Jude exited the Pincent Pharma system and pulled up MyWorld, the virtual reality environment he’d been building, and surveyed his work. It was summer in MyWorld. The streets were thronged with people – young people; in its large parks, ageing adults were nowhere to be seen. Instead teenagers played football, shared jokes, sat around smoking and using mobile phones with no police harassing them. Grinning, Jude made his way along a short path to his usual spot, a bench, from where he could survey his dominion. Just as he knew she would be, his red-haired girlfriend was waiting for him smiling, looking hot in her short denim skirt.
    ‘Hi, Jude2124,’ she said, her voice sultry. ‘I’ve missed you. Where’ve you been?’
    Jude2124 grinned. ‘It doesn’t matter. The important thing is that I’m here now.’
    Peter turned to see what was going on. He could hear a commotion on the main road, but it was several hundred metres away and the high walls prevented him from seeing anything. The guard turned and sneered at him.
    ‘Jumpy, are we? Little bang got you scared?’
    Peter didn’t reply; he just shoved his hands in his pocket, then watched as the guard swiped a card, pressed his fingers against a glass pad, then allowed his eyes to be scanned. Finally, the heavy doors slid open to reveal a lobby, behind which four great escalators stretched upwards. A man walked towards Peter and the guard, a serious expression on his face. Peter felt himself stiffen; the man was Richard Pincent. The guard gave a brief salute.
    ‘Peter,’ Richard said, a brief smile appearing on his lips. ‘Excuse me just one minute, won’t you? Little disturbance outside.’ He looked at the guard, the smile gone. ‘You need to get back to your post. We’ve got a Code X.’ The guard nodded, his face grim, then turned and walked quickly back towards the gate, pulling a walkie-talkie out of his pocket and clamping it to his ear.
    Peter watched him leave, then turned back to his grandfather, who was barking orders into a small device that looked like a tiny phone; his voice was low and inaudible, but the tension could be felt. Then he put the phone in his pocket, looked back at Peter and smiled again.
    ‘Come with me,’ he said, then clapped his arm around Peter’s shoulder. ‘Welcome to Pincent Pharma, Peter. Welcome to the most advanced laboratory in the whole world. The envy of scientists everywhere. Welcome to your new world.’

Chapter Three
    The lobby was vast, larger than Peter had expected from the outside. This was a place that could devour you if you weren’t careful, render you as insignificant as a