Max Headroom Prequel
Chapter One:
Red Sector A
Being a Blank was not easy to begin with. You had no rights if your information wasn't set down on a computer system somewhere. The politicians and their followers saw to that. But when the war had been officially declared, it got worse.
They rounded up the Blanks, young and old alike, and herded them into fenced-in encampments, crowding them in until there was barely enough room to move. Not giving them a chance to bring any personal items.
There was no reason given, except that they didn't trust those who refused to enter their information. Anti-Blank sentiments were added to the usual wartime propaganda, and those few who weren't discovered right away were soon turned in by their so-called friends and neighbors who were interested in getting the reward being offered, or who simply mistrusted or hated Blanks.
Amongst those held prisoner were a woman and her seven year old son, both Blanks as the rest of their family had been. Her other son and husband had died within the first few months of imprisonment due to sickness and malnutrition, but she had held on for the sake of her surviving child.
Bryce looked at the thriving world beyond the fence, the barbed wire cutting into his fingers as he longed for what he knew he would never again have. Freedom. Even at his tender age, he understood reality. And right now, reality sucked. He was wire thin himself, rejecting half of the food that his mother, Dominique, set down before him from the meager scraps their captors delivered each week. He knew she was giving up her rations to give him more and he refused to let her starve for his sake. There was no way he would survive without her.
As the shots rang out near the gates, Bryce was unsure how to react. He had heard gunfire before. Oftentimes it was the sound of his fellow Blanks being mowed down by guards as they thinned the crowd. He cried at first, thinking of friends and family he was losing in each culling. But after a while, the tears no longer came.
Then the dark day came when he felt a hand on his shoulder. It was not his mother, but a man in a guard's uniform who led him and several other children onto a large black bus. He did not know where they were being taken, but he was certain he would never again see his mother or the other Blanks who remained in the prison. He wondered if this would be the last bus ride he ever took.