Series Recap
“The City Survives and the City Thrives!” That was the truth that every school child and every adult knew as surely as they knew their own names. And yet, while that may be true Over the Hill, those living Under the Hill lived a different existence.
With only two seasons – Winner, freezing cold with bright blue skies and Sunner, hot and humid with frequent short-lived but heavy storms, or “Suddenlies” – those living in the Under were locked into their homes under Curfew from sunset to sunrise, and spent most of the daylight hours working menial jobs to keep the City running, living on not much more than the bare essentials to keep them alive.
The only way that those Under the Hill – the Unders – had any hope of stepping foot in the Over was to pass the Zam. Everyone had three chances. If you passed, your name was announced at City-Fest, held at Mid-Sunner in the Fest-Park. Only then were you allowed to go through the Checkpoint, have a star tattooed over the birthmark between your eyebrows, and cross the Boundary that divided the two communities.
This Boundary was only two centimetres high, but it may as well have been an unbreakable glass wall. No one even dared think about crossing that Boundary unless they had passed the Zam. Not one person could even bring themselves to get one toenail closer than six metres either side of it. The Boundary ran from the Water’s Edge to Water’s Edge, the northwest border of the City to the southeast. It ran right through the Fest-Park, where the stadium was erected for City-Fest each Sunner, the Overs sitting on one side, and the Unders on the other, each glued to their seats until the festivities came to an end.
What many didn’t realise was that there was another segment of the population. Unseen, unheard, the Greymen were those deemed not safe to be on the streets unless their bodies were encased in pods that looked like the top half of metal balls on low casters.
These Greymen roamed the streets of the City at night, cleaning the sewers and pavements, serving their City and their Pendrakon – the leader of the Council – all the while being constantly brainwashed into being incredibly grateful for the privilege of doing so.
They were convinced that their pods were a lifeline, along with the braces that bound their hands and the breathing masks that they could not remove from their faces. After only a few months, they even viewed their pods, which were as full of sensation as their own skin, as extensions of their own bodies, and their masks as much part of their face as their jaws.
The Greymen were tended by their Helpers who cared for their practical needs.
Denzin Walker – a natural born free-thinker in a world of mandatory genetic engineering – was taken away from his family one night, and awoke transformed into a Greyman.
His new friend, Chimma Haddon, the birthmark between her eyebrows signifying that she was an Under ‘designed’ by City Infant, was genetically engineered to be both obedient and highly susceptible to the mind-moulding effects of the gas. Her only dream was to pass her Zam and move to the Over, with the hope that she could one day bring her family there with her. This dream was turned on its head the night she ran across a Greyman who looked incredibly like her friend Denzin.
In the process of experimenting with how to release Denzin from his pod, Chimma also breathed in some of the gas, and the two of them ‘impressed’ on one another binding commands that they could then never break: because of their love for one another which is as strong as steel, neither could put themselves at risk nor allow the other to sacrifice themselves for each other.
Another unintended but permanent result of a command given under the gas was that Chimma’s left hand longed to rest on Denzin’s lap – so much so that she would have happily sat there and starved to death rather than take her hand away if it had not also been impressed on her how dangerous it was to do so.
Together with Denzin’s designed – and perfect – twin sister Kayda, Chimma rescued Denzin after nine months “beetled”, only for Kayda and his parents, Rodder and Mathy, to then be taken. When Chimma met an old customer, she became acquainted with the Gathered, an illegal group of believers who secretly pray to Senda. The Gathered became essential supporters as Denzin and Chimma rescued his parents.
Driven by guilt, Denzin’s laser focus became rescuing his sister, which was the only way he had any hope of redeeming his own pitiful life. But when he finally found her, all they could do was watch as she was marched through the City and taken away by ship along with one hundred Greymen.
Denzin knew it was beyond him to rescue his sister on his own. With this, he set his mind on rescuing as many other ‘natural’ Greyman as possible, in the hopes to enlist their help. And a serendipitous discovery of a long-abandoned, flooded tower rising above the Water provided the safehouse needed to put this into action.
Through it all, the prophecy both Denzin and Chimma did everything to escape was being played out before them. Every choice they made led them deeper into its clutches.
The Designed one that was not designed will be taken and freed.
When the Designed clings to his Strength and the Strength empowers the Designed, they will free the taken and take the one who sees himself free.
But without his Strength, he is lost, and hope melts away.
And without the Designed, she is weak and easily defeated.
Blessed is the one who aids the Designed and his Strength.
