What Remains of Rebecca Palmer Chapter Thirteen

 

Chapter Thirteen: Leonard

 

The file came up late in the morning, just before I was going to head to the cafeteria for lunch, and so I almost closed it without thinking. 

 

Ellory, Mara.

Age: 17

Inner Party 

Transfer Origin: Ravenscourt Hall.

Compliance Index: 6.4 (volatile trend).

 

I stopped breathing for a moment as I read the name, Ravenscourt. The word sat on the screen as if it had weight, and I told myself it was simply coincidence. My old school. I didn’t know anyone called Mara Ellory, but it was my old school, and she would have been a few years behind me. The system processed hundreds of monitoring updates every single day. It didn’t mean anything significant.

 

I scrolled down and saw a list of petty offences that slowly built up over time into a profile of a young woman with a wild, rebellious streak. Each point of inflection registered a score, and bit by bit the score built up. 

 

Cafeteria non-response to supervisory prompt.

Dormitory light-out breach — 00:19 hours.

Counselling notation: affective detachment.

Passive-aggressive response to New Feminism

Unorthodox approach to school uniform regulations

Baseline cortisol variance elevated.

 

It was nothing, but it was also everything, because I knew now how this worked. I knew the thresholds. The Purge instigated by the vengeful Frick family hadn’t stopped with me, my father, and my mother. There were eyes everywhere now – especially in a boarding school for the precocious daughters of Inner Party members who had been seen to be loyal to Karl Magnus. A sustained score above 6.5 combined with a resistance marker triggered a Reclassification Review. And Reclassification led ultimately to Relocation Assessment.

 

And Relocation meant ‘does not come back’.

What Remains of Rebecca Palmer Chapter Twelve

 

Chapter Twelve: Voight-Kampff

 

I stepped into the assessment room, and for a moment the stark utility of Chastity Reach fell away. The room had been deliberately softened, almost prettified, in the way one might arrange a consultation suite to calm a nervous patient rather than interrogate a worker. Pale beech panelling lined the walls, broken only by a single long expanse of reinforced glass that stretched the entire length of one side. Beyond it lay the wild, windswept landscape of the Isle of Jura - now renamed Chastity Reach - its dark, sullen moors rolling toward jagged sea cliffs under a bruised Autumnal sky. Thin sunlight silvered the heather and caught on distant whitecaps. It was the first real view of the outside world I had been permitted in over a month; my usual workstations sat deep in the complex, lit by artificial panels and pierced only by narrow arrow-slits for security. The sudden breadth of landscape hit me like cold air after confinement, beautiful and disorienting.

 

Two low armchairs faced each other across a small, round table of polished oak. On it rested a plain ceramic teapot, two cups, a small dish of shortbread, and a single white orchid in a glass vase - subtle touches meant to signal civility, safety, routine. A soft wool throw lay folded over the back of one chair. The lighting was warm, indirect, from recessed fixtures rather than the harsh fluorescents of the corridors. Nothing in the furnishings shouted surveillance, yet I knew better. Dr. Fenella Voss rose as I entered. She was younger than I had expected, with long, wavy dark brown hair that cascaded past her shoulders in soft, voluminous waves, and a deep side part that gave it an effortless elegance. Her skin was fair and smooth, and her makeup was subtle but polished - rosy lips, defined brows, and just enough eyeliner to make her striking blue-green eyes stand out even more behind those stylish black rectangular glasses. They had a slight cat-eye tilt that suited her oval face perfectly.

What Remains of Rebecca Palmer Chapter Eleven

 

Chapter Eleven: Surveillance State

 

The days turned into weeks and those turned into a whole month. 

 

I became… acclimatised. 

 

For most of the day I’d been reviewing the routine surveillance files on my primary assignment - Dr. Eleanor Vale - that sat waiting for me each morning like an early Christmas present begging to be unwrapped. It was like a regular window into her life, and a window to the world outside of Chastity Reach, off the coast of Scotland. I was becoming fascinated with Dr. Vale’s daily life. 

 

I drank my body weight in coffee as I flicked between the reports, audio files, location flags, and transcript downloads that filled out the Eleanor Vale file each day. I nibbled my lower lip and glanced around the wide office, seeing all the other women like me, similarly dressed, gazing at their own terminals, listening to audio files through their earpieces. No one spoke to one another except in passing by the coffee machine, and even then we were aware we could be overheard. My fingers fluttered over the keyboard. Files sprang open for me. 

 

DEVICE HARVEST — SUMMARY (PREVIOUS 24 HOURS)

 

Email Traffic: 42 inbound, 17 outbound. Notable correspondents: two university colleagues, one literary editor, one unknown encrypted address (flagged for investigation).

 

Content themes: lecture revision, book proof corrections, interview scheduling.

 

I always opened the encrypted exchanges first. They were always the most intriguing. This time the message exchange was short and ambiguous:

 

“They’re escalating their tone. Be careful with phrasing this week.”

 

Vale’s reply simply read, “I’m aware. I won’t give them theatre.”

 

I flagged the exchange for narrative reframing: Secretive communications/paranoia indicators, that sort of thing. I was actually getting good at this. The Steel Worlds would be proud of me. 

What Remains of Rebecca Palmer Chapter Ten

 

Chapter Ten: Target Acquisition

 

The studio lights were soft enough to flatter, and bright enough to expose. I watched from my workstation in Sector 4, the broadcast split across my screen alongside live sentiment metrics and engagement graphs. Comments scrolled in real time beneath the video feed, all flagged and colour-coded for my ease of understanding.

 

On screen, Dr. Eleanor Vale sat with the easy composure of someone long accustomed to public scrutiny. She wore tailored dark slacks paired with a sharp navy jacket over a simple white blouse, the lines of her outfit precise without being ostentatious. The jacket was structured but unadorned, signalling professionalism rather than vanity. On her feet were modest heels - practical, elegant, and understated. Her jewellery was minimal: small stud earrings and a fine, almost invisible necklace at her collarbone. Her hair, chestnut brown and cut to shoulder length, was styled in a smooth, professional blow-dry that framed her face without distraction. Everything about her presentation suggested discipline and clarity - nothing superfluous, nothing accidental.

 

Opposite her, Marianne Holt – the public voice of New Feminism in the UK - presented a carefully curated vision of mid-century domestic grace. She wore a pale blue dress patterned with neat white polka dots, cinched at the waist and flaring softly at the skirt in unmistakable 1950s fashion. The fabric sat primly at the knee, modest and demure, as though lifted from another era’s catalogue. Around her neck rested a single strand of pearls, matched with pearl earrings that caught the studio lights when she turned her head. Her blonde hair was styled in a sculpted, vintage wave, swept back and pinned into a polished half-up arrangement that evoked the golden age of televised homemaking. The look was immaculate - every curl set in place, every detail deliberate. Her warm smile completed the tableau, reassuring at first glance, though held just a fraction too long to feel entirely natural.

 

Between them, Fiona Bruce, the BBC moderator, smiled. “Tonight,” she began smoothly, “we’re discussing the growing influence of New Feminism and whether it represents a cultural correction or a step backward for women.”

 

She turned first to Holt. “Mrs. Holt, I’ll begin by asking you, is New Feminism restricting women’s freedom?”

What Remains of Rebecca Palmer Chapter Nine

 

Chapter Nine: The Kajira

 

Several Years Ago:

 

I was fifteen years old, going on sixteen, when my father showed me a kajira for the first time. Julia and I were enjoying a half term break from Ravenscourt school for girls and were trying to relax from the stress of our upcoming exams. 

 

The Manor, as Father always called it, or Chessington Grange, as the postman knew it, was a sprawling 18th-century pile deep in the Wiltshire countryside, with its high ceilings, polished oak floors, and walls lined with portraits of stern ancestors who had no idea what secrets their descendants would keep. The air smelled of beeswax polish and the faint lavender from Mother's sachets, but today there was something else - a subtle, unfamiliar perfume, like exotic spices from one of Father's hidden shipments. Julia was beside me, her arm linked through mine, her usual bubbly energy subdued into wide-eyed curiosity. We had been summoned here after lunch, and just before we were due to play tennis, Father saying it was time for us to ‘understand more about the worlds we serve’. Coming of age, he called it. We'd grown up hearing whispers about Gor, of course - the hidden planet, and the Steel Worlds orbiting the Jupiter belt, where our benevolent patrons, the Kurii suffered in exile, but much of it was abstract, like stories from one of those forbidden books in the library. Until now.

 

Father sat in his favourite wingback chair by the fireplace, the one with the carved lions' heads on the arms, looking every inch the Inner Party elite in his tailored suit, hair impeccably combed, a glass of single malt in his hand. His eyes, sharp and calculating as always, flicked to us with a nod. "Come in, girls. Rebecca, Julia – please sit. There's someone I want you to meet."

What Remains of Rebecca Palmer Chapter Eight

 

Chapter Eight: Chastity Reach

I stood out on the open deck when the ferry rounded the last shoulder of the Isle of Jura, off the rugged west coast of Scotland. The wind came at us sideways, sharp and wet, driving the rain in needling sheets that found every gap in my coat. It tasted bitterly of salt and iron. The sea below was slate-dark and restless, slamming against the hull with a rhythm that felt less like travel and more like warning. I gripped the rail with both hands, knuckles already numb, my short hair plastered to my face as I gazed out at the bleak coastline.

 

No one else stayed out on deck for long. We were all women, all with similar haircuts, wearing the same drab overcoats, and underneath those coats, we wore the same utilitarian, knee-length grey dresses with long sleeves and fold down collars. We had all been processed. 

 

Most of the women had retreated indoors, leaving the deck sparsely populated by the stubborn and the foolish. I told myself I wanted air. I told myself I needed to see where we were going. After having been locked up in a security installation for a couple of months I wanted to breathe clean, fresh air again. 

 

The island rose out of the water ahead of us, bleak and treeless, its hills flattened by cloud. Rain blurred the edges of everything, collapsing distance so that land and sea seemed pressed together, indistinct and hostile. For a moment, I thought the rumours had been exaggerated — that Chastity Reach would be hidden somewhere inland, modest, easily missed.

 

Then I saw it. The complex did not emerge gradually. Rather, it announced itself. A cluster of tall, angular structures clung to the shoreline like a deliberate wound, all concrete and steel, their surfaces darkened by constant exposure to weather. Nothing decorative. Nothing accidental. The buildings were laid out with a cold precision that made the surrounding landscape feel irrelevant, as if the land itself had been pressed into service and stripped of choice. Lights glowed behind narrow windows — white, unwavering, indifferent to the storm. Even from the ferry, they looked clinical. Watchful. I felt something tighten low in my stomach.

What Remains of Rebecca Palmer Chapter Seven

 

Chapter Seven: Moon Blood

London 2014:

 

I was twelve years old when I bled for the first time. 

 

“You have your moon blood, Rebecca,” said my mother, proudly, as if I had just graduated to using the toilet on my own. “Oh, my dear baby, how the years have sped by.” She reached out and hugged me with a fierce joy that left me wondering whether now was perhaps a good time to ask her for a pony? 

 

I so wanted a pony. I had been begging my mother for over a year, but she had remained steadfast in her resolve. “Where would we put it, darling? We don’t have a stable.”

 

“Mother?” I had stained the bed sheets last night and my initial reaction was one of fright. Had I injured myself? The blood was clearly coming from between my legs. But when the house maid had secretly smiled at me that morning, and nodded her head in tacit understanding, I knew I wasn’t going to be told off. 

 

Father had been lost for words. He had looked clearly uncomfortable with the idea that he might speak to me about whatever had happened.

 

“Your mother will explain things, Rebecca.” And then he headed to the safety of his study before anyone might include him in the conversation. I heard the door lock with a degree of finality which meant he wasn’t to be disturbed. When my mother did talk to me, it was with a formality I hadn’t expected. I had been told to wait for her in my bedroom.

What Remains of Rebecca Palmer Chapter Six

 

Chapter Six: Redemption

They didn’t tell me about Chastity Reach when I was arrested.

 

Or when they shot my dog.

 

They didn’t tell me about Chastity Reach when they took my parents away down a different corridor; my mother - with a leather hood over her head, buckled tightly around her throat - turning back once, already learning not to reach for me. They didn’t tell me during intake, or the first nights, or the days that blurred together in a way that made time feel like another thing they had confiscated.

 

They waited until the worst of it was over.

 

That was how I knew it mattered. By then, my body had learned the rules. How to sit. How to stand. How to answer without tone. The pain had receded into something dull and instructional. I had stopped expecting explanations. I knew how to ‘play the game’. I knew what made the difference between punishment and approval.

 

So when they moved me to a smaller room - cleaner, quieter - I felt something close to relief. There was a chair. A table. A cup of water already waiting for me.

The woman who came in wore a soft institutional grey instead of black. No insignia. Her hair was neatly arranged, her hands folded as if this were a conversation between equals.

 

“Rebecca,” she said.

 

It startled me that she used my first name.

What Remains of Rebecca Palmer Chapter Five

 

Chapter Five: Adjustments

 

I heard the bolt slide back before I heard the hinges creak.

 

I was sitting on the floor with my back against the wall, the blanket pulled around my shoulders, when the door opened and a man stepped inside carrying a pair of scissors. They were large, industrial-looking things, the metal dull and nicked, like they had been used for purposes other than hair. He did not look at me at first. He closed the door carefully behind him, then set a small stool in the centre of the cell. “Stand up,” he said.

 

My stomach dropped. I stayed where I was. “What is this?” I asked. My voice sounded thin, even to me. “Please. What are you doing?”

 

He glanced at me then, briefly, without interest. “Grooming adjustment,” he said. “Routine.”

 

“No.” The word came out before I could stop it. I pressed my hands to my head instinctively, fingers threading into my hair. “Please don’t. You don’t need to do this. I’ll cooperate. I have been cooperating. You know I’ve been cooperating! Please, let me talk to Michael!”

 

He sighed, as if I were being tedious. “Stand up,” he repeated.

 

When I didn’t move quickly enough, he crossed the room and took hold of me by my hair. His grip was rough and absolute as he pulled me to my feet and guided me to the stool as though positioning a piece of furniture. My knees trembled as I sat.

 

“Please,” I said again. “My hair - please. It’s all I have left.”

What Remains of Rebecca Palmer Chapter Four

 

Chapter Four: Kindness

 

As the next couple of days passed I began to fear the sound of the opening of my door – the grinding of its hinges, following the sliding of a steel bolt on the other side.

 

My fear wasn’t centred around the door itself, but rather the split seconds of uncertainty as to who would walk through the door into my cell.

 

Would it be Him… or Her.

 

The man was kind. He had given me a blanket. He had seemed shocked that I had been doused in ice water. That had been overstepping the bounds of decency, he had said. I had been Inner Party, after all. That had to mean something, he said. The next time he visited – perhaps twelve hours later - he had brought a thermos flask of hot tea and two scratched plastic cups.

 

“This must be such an ordeal,” he said as he sat down opposite me and placed the thermos flask on the table. “Now, I don’t know whether you take sugar or milk?”

What Remains of Rebecca Palmer Chapter Three

 

Chapter Three: Acquiescence

 

They had taken my shoes.

 

Spoken aloud, it sounded trivial. But when they ordered me to unbuckle them and hand them over, I began to cry with all the shock I had not yet been allowed to feel.

 

I stood in a windowless room somewhere underground that was bleak and cold, where the air had the weight of dead, buried things. It smelled of cold cement, disinfectant, and something faintly metallic, like old water sitting too long in pipes.

 

Harsh strip lights ran the length of the ceiling, humming faintly, casting a flat white glare that left nowhere for shadows to hide. The light was merciless. It drained colour from everything it touched, including me. The walls were bare concrete, painted a tired institutional grey that had been scuffed and repainted so many times it had lost any claim to smoothness. In places the paint had bubbled and cracked, revealing darker patches beneath, as if the building itself were bruised.

 

The floor was unfinished cement, cold through the stocking-clad soles of my feet. Every sound echoed slightly - footsteps, breathing, the soft scrape of a chair being dragged back into place - giving the impression that the room was larger than it really was, or emptier, or both. There were no windows. No clocks. No indication of time passing at all.

 

A single metal table stood in the centre, bolted to the floor, with two chairs on either side. One was lighter, clearly meant to be moved. The other – mine - was fixed, its edges worn smooth by countless previous occupants. I became acutely aware of how many people must have sat there before me, waiting, just as I was.

 

She was already in the room when I entered.

What Remains of Rebecca Palmer Chapter Two

 

Chapter Two: Rendition

 

The van’s engine cut with a low, grinding halt, leaving a hush over the driveway. For a moment, the estate seemed suspended in the late summer air. I felt Marcus stiffen beside me, tail lowered, ears swivelling toward the sound of shifting tires. The dog’s unease made my own pulse quicken, though I could not yet name why.

 

The doors of the van opened slowly, each one releasing a measured, deliberate hiss. Then they emerged. One by one, men in black sweaters and worn jeans, dressed alike enough to be mistaken for one another at a distance, stepped onto the gravel, moving with a precision that seemed almost rehearsed. Their faces were sharp, severe, and unreadable, as if sculpted for the sole purpose of intimidation.

 

I froze, my stomach twisting. Who were they? Government inspectors? Police? Something worse? The air thickened around me, and even the warm sunlight felt wrong, too bright, too exposing.

What Remains of Rebecca Palmer Chapter One

INTRODUCTION: At the conclusion of the novel, 'Steel World Inc', Karl Magnus, the Ubar of London, executed Willard Frick with a gunshot to the head, against the express orders of the Steel Worlds Council of America.   

Retribution was soon to come, not just to Karl Magnus, but to those London Families (The ‘Inner Party’ of the Court of the Steel Worlds in Great Britain) who were seen to be loyal to Karl Magnus. One by one the great American families took them out.

 

One such family was the Palmers – loyal to the Steel Worlds for generations, dating back to the Golden Age of the British Empire.

 

This then is the tragedy that befell their privileged daughter, Rebecca. 

 

What remains of Rebecca Palmer when the Steel Worlds clenches its iron fist?

Beginning Tomorrow: ‘What Remains of Rebecca Palmer’

 

I had doubts as to where we're going

But you gotta hand it to the guys upstairs

I've been put on a whole new program

Don't have to handle my own affairs

Everything I want is on my printout

I don't need anything anymore

I'm not confused by useless knowledge

 

I don't even know if it's 1984 

for sure

 

Rules rule Ok, ask no questions

Welcome to the age of consent

Fasten seat belts, drive with caution

Don't take shots at the president

Robot man's a wonderful creation

Automatically obeys the law

Laws of nature, man and physics

I don't even know if it's 1984 

for sure (1984?)

 

(Oh)

 

The only thing you need to know

Big Brother is watching you

You'll love him

1984