LANDFILL: What they built off the Gaza coast was always the plan

Chapter 01 - Dark House Protocol

“House. Immediate shutdown.”

“Good evening, James. “Shutdown is not allowed.”Her voice is friendly, yet conceals a firm refusal. Machines and robots add little embellishment; they are as basic as the two-up two-down he lives in.

“House. Emergency manual override.” Though soft, command fills his voice in a way she could not, his face stern, his weight pressed into the wall.

“Unauthorised use detected. Illegal use suspected.”

The camera in the kitchen whirrs as it pans to see him. He was expecting it.

“House. This is James Jenkins. Confirm visual, confirm voice. Imminent danger. Immediate manual override essential. Emergency override.” Jenks insists, using his formal name for the machine, his voice still as low as it can be while staying commanding.

“Is a backup required?”

“House. Negative. Imminent danger. Immediate manual override essential.” Still quiet, but more hurried.

Room lights cut out first. Click; the refrigeration stops. The fan slows; powerless. The neon lights fade, leaving the kitchen illuminated only by moonlight filtering through the windows.

Although pointless, Jenks fingers a manual light switch on and off. Nothing. The house is now dead, the diode lights just faint. The ghosting is from the surviving power of their internal capacitors. Jenks eases along the wall slowly and quietly. He mouths a count; twenty-five… twenty-six.

Zack, ten years old in pyjamas and slippers, ducks down, hiding behind the living room sofa. He knows he can’t stay there. Warm LED street lamps weakly bleed through the thin front curtains. Moonlight glows from the rear, giving the room a submerged, distorted feel, as if the air itself has thickened. Breathing fast, his eyes wide, he presses his forehead into his hands, dreading his next move. He’s done this before. Scratching at his hair, his chest rising and falling, he sucks at the air to prepare. But knowing doesn’t stop the fear.

The ghosting of the LED lights fades to zero as Jenks slides quietly along the kitchen wall, careful, alert, eyes everywhere. He mouths the seconds under his breath, precise, controlled: forty-eight… forty-nine… fifty. The numbers count out his tension, the rhythm of controlled patience, a metronome against fear. Against whatever’s coming. Or whoever. And he is facing something that has scarred him to the core. House off, cameras off, he folds fast into the living room, shoulders loose, eyes to every corner.

Counting breaths, the ten-year-old crouches behind the armchair near the door to the hall, still out of sight. Looking at his escape route. The stairs up.

Listening. Alert.

Zack runs but trips on the fourth step, his foot catching the edge, sending him tumbling down the stairs. He scrambles for footing, hands slapping wood, knees bruising. Not fast enough. Never fast enough.

Jenks darts across the living room in pursuit, stopping to check behind the chair. He scans the hall, the dark corners, and the sight lines. Listening intently, he takes a moment to do what little training a medic has taught him. This is what Janey would expect, survival skills she drilled into both of them before they arrived on the island.

Edged in moonlight from the top window, Zack turns hard at the top of the stairs, body skimming the bannister, never looking back. Something solid moves up the stairs behind him, but he doesn’t slow. Can’t slow.

The master bedroom door looms.

Zack bursts into the room at full speed, launches himself across the bed, rolls towards the far nightstand. He fumbles in the drawer, fingers close around cold metal. He swings the gun round.

A hand clamps his wrist.

The weapon is taken.

“Too slow,” Jenks says, steady but not unkind. He tries to keep the disappointment from his voice. Zack needs encouragement, not criticism.

Zack freezes, chest heaving. “You’re trained. That’s not fair.”

“Life’s not fair.”

“You’re a soldier.”

“No. Your mum’s the field agent, and she wouldn’t take excuses. I’m a medic.”

“She’s not here.”

“She wanted you ready, just in case. When she’s back, we can show her your skills.” The words catch slightly. Wanted. Not wants. He corrects himself internally, forces the present tense back.

“Where is she?”

“It’s a secret. Command don’t tell me. Now, she wants you ready. What would she say?”

“Go high. Hide, fight down.”

“Where’s high?”

“The loft.”

“Correct. And you didn’t go there.”

“I wouldn’t have had time to open it and pull the ladder down.”

“You would have. But you panicked. What’s up there?” Jenks points towards the roof space above.

“A torch. A gun. Supplies.”

“And if you don’t get the ladder back up and close the hatch?”

Zack hesitates. “I could still shoot them when they try to climb up through the hole.”

Jenks nods. “Exactly. It’s not a game. We’re trying to stay alive.” He hears how it sounds - paranoid, excessive. Other fathers teach their sons football.

“This island’s not a war zone.” Zack is a smart kid.

“No. Station Zero isn’t. The war’s over. But we still run drills. What do we do?”

“Run drills.”

Jenks ruffles his hair, holding him a beat longer than necessary, but long enough for his own pulse to settle, long enough to memorise the beat of a living child in his arms. He might be all he has left. The thought arrives unbidden, unwelcome. No. Janey’s still out there. She has to be. The faint scent of her lingering in their double bed brings a rush of memories, warm yet painful. “Let’s hope we never have to fight,” he says. “That’s the best outcome. Now… bed. Race you.”

Zack bolts for the door, laughing, the tension breaking like a snapped wire.

Jenks remains seated for a moment, then rises, lifting Janey’s nightdress from under the pillow. He holds it to his face, inhaling deeply, letting the familiar scent wash over him. He hears Zack’s laughter vanish into the other room, knowing it can only ever be a game until it turns real. He moves to the upstairs window and scans the street. Quiet. Too quiet. The road is too clean, almost clinical. Like a film set waiting for actors.

A black-and-white electric cart, golf-like, sits outside the neighbouring house, leaving the front of his unit clear. On its black roof, painted in white is ‘GRI 27’. Two black-and-white striped sentry boxes flank his house like punctuation marks. GRI logos are stencilled clean and proud. Both guards are X3 robots, no manpower wasted on them. No chat. No boredom. They are there to notice and report. The units across the road are dark, not allocated. They are used for visiting staff and dignitaries. Not that there are many. Beyond the houses and past the warehouses that draw the domestic units, the skeletal frames of the new commercial container and passenger docks are lit against the night sky. At least the new island feels a little more real everyday.

No one in the Combined Bureaucracies expects anything to go wrong tonight. Not anything big enough for the system not to be able to ignore.

Jenks does.

Jenks wants trouble. He’s deliberately been trouble because no one is listening to him. And if trouble brings answers about Janey, he’ll take it. He knows most things are ignored until they can be explained.

Zack, we’re getting away from this pile of rubble. Taking this posting was so wrong, he thinks. Don’t worry, son. As soon as we find mum, we’re getting out. The thought arrives unbidden. It wasn’t he who wanted to take the offer; Janey got the chance to be second-in-command. For him, it was the smallest clinic he had managed in years, located on an island populated more by robots than by humans. They almost didn’t take it; having a son had reduced both their career ambitions. They were very happy and this place is built on destruction; it couldn’t have been a worse move. He has to get her back in more than one way.

In his own room, Zack rolls onto his back, fingers brushing the framed photo on his shelf. “Miss you, Mum,” he whispers. His voice is small, hopeful. He says it every night. He said it when she started to appear ill.

The bedside light clicks on. The house has a pulse again.

“Dad?”

Jenks looks back into the house, he hasn’t done anything. Power was either restored remotely or he has a visitor. The television can be heard downstairs, heat pumps circle water in the radiators, the speaker system beeps as it comes back online. The house is ready to answer him. He’s being watched again. They’re always watching.

“They’ve put the power back on,” Jenks says, entering his room. “Their cameras can’t see us when I kill it. They don’t like that: their fault, they designed it.”

“And there aren’t any cameras in the loft.”

“Correct. Now go to sleep.”

Jenks looks at the photo in the boy’s hand. The harsh white glow can’t warm Janey’s face. That part is gone. Or never was. He doesn’t know anymore. He was fighting to recognise his wife at the end.

“Is she coming home?”

“As soon as she’s done with the mission she’s on.” The lie tastes familiar. How many times has he said it now? A dozen? Twenty?

He kisses Zack’s head, breathing in the scent of shampoo and childhood. A family that was together. Clean things. Safe things.

More devices creep back online. Toys and game panels that are normally ignored flicker to standby mode. The house now hums with electronic life, a dozen tiny lights watching, listening, recording.

Control, Jenks knows, is never absolute. But someone on this artificial island thinks it is. He knows Janey found something very wrong and now he needs to find her.

THE NEXT CHAPTER DROPS NEXT MONDAY - 8TH JUNE AT 1730