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“I presume some kind of combination of all of them," I said, but listening to it laid out like that did make me doubt how it could possibly work fairly.
"And who gets to decide that?" He wasn't finished picking holes and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to keep on trying to plug them.
"We have elected officials called Guardians, who are lead by a President and together they work for the benefit of the population by-"
“Living in the nicest apartments on the top floors of the best buildings?" Coal guessed, smiling smugly at me.
This dude has a seriously punchable face when he does that.
"Well, yes, but they contribute a lot to-"
"And by any chance do these elected officials tend to come from families that live in those kinds of apartments in the first place?" he interrupted me again.
“Anyone has the right to stand for election," I said firmly.
“But would they have the funds in place or the connections required to run a successful campaign?"
I looked at him with my lips parted, ready to argue further but I couldn't think of anything to say. My mind raced back and forth as I tried to reject his arguments but I couldn't.
"Probably not," I conceded finally.
“So the rich and powerful stay rich and powerful and the rest of you work as hard as you can to try and reach the top floors whilst never really having a chance of making it up there." He smiled knowingly at me.
I frowned. I had to admit I'd never really heard of anyone making it very far beyond their original living area. Eventually I just shrugged. I couldn’t really argue against what he was saying anyway.
“Don't you know that the so-called contamination wasn't something that just happened entirely by accident?" Coal asked and I frowned at the change of subject.
"What do you mean?" I frowned.
“I mean people are the reason we're in this mess. Though I'm probably not the best person to explain it." He shook his head and turned away but I reached out and caught his hand to make him look at me again. His fingers were rough with callouses beneath mine and my skin prickled at the contact but I refused to let go.
"Can you try?" I asked in a low voice. I’d only ever heard one explanation for what had happened at the end of the old world and I wondered how much Coal's understanding would differ from mine.
Coal looked at me for a long moment and I watched his resolve crumble as he gave in to my question. He pulled his hand away but shifted a little closer to me so that our legs were almost touching.
“The stories handed down to us say it started because there were too many people in the world, so there wasn't enough food." Coal frowned, concentrating and I shifted a little closer, aching to hear his account of things. "Scientists developed chemicals to give to the plants to make them grow bigger and faster to feed everyone…but it went wrong." I nodded, I knew that much already. "They were supposed to spend years carrying out tests but they didn't. They just started pumping it into farms all over the world. Instead of focusing on the problems that were being caused by the effects of the chemical, like the creatures and plants growing like crazy and becoming completely uncontrollable, they threw more effort into making the cities secure and finishing the Walls.
We think that they knew overpopulation was the world's main problem so they weren't exactly worried about something happening that could eliminate a good portion of that problem."
“You mean they knew what could happen?" I asked, my mind whirling at the mere suggestion of something so awful.
“Maybe. It certainly seems convenient that all of those Walls were already well underway before the crisis."
“Why did people think they were building them?" I asked, wondering how they could have gotten away with such a thing.
"Counter terrorist measures. At the time, they said they needed to create safe zones within Walls for people to get to in the event of an attack; the cities were already highly populated and lent themselves to being altered into a space ready for a massive population quarantine.
Then they selected people to live within The Wall. Supposedly it was a random ballot with some exceptions made for people who had particularly important skills. Though in the case of an attack, they said everyone would be protected inside.
They kept the news stories about the Walls and the terrorists separate to the stories about the food crisis so not many people saw the link."
"But if they were ready to shelter people in the cities then why did so many people die?" I asked. It was common knowledge that in the old world there had been billions of people whereas now the cities held only a fraction of that number.
“The changes they made were only meant to affect certain plants but whatever they did mutated and soon all of the plant life was contaminated and everything started growing quicker than it could be cut back. Then the animals that ate the plants started to change too, and some of the people. Once it was in the food chain there was no stopping it. Eventually the world had been affected so drastically that it was unrecognisable."
"What happened then?" I whispered, I knew the version that I'd been told but I wanted to hear his.
“They became something less - civilised, more primal. I don't know really. Our Elders say they lost reason and only acted on instinct, you know food, shelter, food again. And they would fight to the death for whatever it was that they wanted. They aren't people anymore, they're like a different species."
