Balance of Probabilities: Chapter 33
Created | Updated Jul 1, 2023
Balance of Probabilities: Chapter 33
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Meera studied the map. The green of Society striding across the globe. She knew the Areas by heart, as all kindergarten kids did, she knew most of the Cities too, no mean feat.
The Areas were numbered in the order they'd given up sovereignty and became part of Society.
Europe and most of Scandinavia being first, the Russias, Mongolia, the Middle East forming the huge Area 2, South America third, North America and Canada following suit.
A while later the continent of Africa became fifth, Australia the sixth and final Area.
The Great Plague of '62 sadly wiping out 98% of Australia's population. Area 6 becoming a huge, uninhabited, almost forgotten corner of Society.
What she'd never seen, what most Citizens, or Agents for that matter, had never been allowed to see, was a map of the whole globe.
The lands that Society hadn't engulfed and civilised, (barring the red that indicated the nuclear wastelands of Greenland, Iceland and Japan).
Meera's eyes automatically travelled east of Area 5, south of 2, above 6. The Grey Zone, the landmass of the old India, her ancestral home.
Grey. Those vibrant lands, grey, really?
The GZ had point blank refused any efforts to have them become part of the new world order. No trade, no contact, no travel. All political discourse had ceased.
Embargoed, shunned, and eventually forgotten by Society over the years, the borders built and reinforced, always bigger, more heavily armed, impenetrable.
The end of the known world.
GZ had finally been deleted from all maps Society produced.
But still they existed, in splendid isolation, billions of people living outside of Society's rules, new Barbarians waited at the Gates.
