The Fire Read online

  BACKWARD STORIES FROM RESISTANCE SCHOOL: Twenty chapters profile twenty outlandish classmates in a traitorous school that lectures students about fighting the New Order regime, and recounts the bloopers of failed missions along the way. Using this treacherous book as evidence, N.O. soldiers located the school and destroyed it.

  THE MYSTERIOUS DERELICT CIVILIZATION: A group of four children run about the ruins of an ancient office building once belonging to a corporation called Apfel, searching for clues about the rise and fall of its domineering yet completely shrouded empire. After the book’s publication, the author was gently reminded that there are perfectly good reasons why history has been erased, and such curiosity should be nipped in the bud.

  STEVE PLYMOUTH: An adventure about an overly emotional, ineffectual young New Order recruit who must kill the ex-boyfriends of the young New Orderling of his dreams before they can be together. Although a solid take on the need for toughening up young recruits, the plot relied too much on romance and popular culture; the book is therefore banned.

  THE SHADOWICK CHRONICLES: Twin boys move into their great-aunt’s Victorian home in what the previously uninformed author claims to be the Shadowland (a mythical location that the New Order has gone to great lengths to prove does not exist). NOTE: The author of The Shado-wick Chronicles has since been convincingly reinformed of the imaginary nature of “the Shadowland.”

  A CRINKLE IN THE MIND: Three siblings develop so-called magical powers that allow them to bend time. They use this power to escape the current government and explore new and far inferior worlds. If these children were not fictional, they would already be on their way to one of the New Order’s many reformatories for confused and dangerous citizens.

  THE SUSIE DARKSHACK SERIES: A woman in her twenties lives in a small town where her peers are humans and demons (made-up beings very likely created by would-be witches and wizards to terrify the respectable citizens of the New Order). She struggles to find a balance between which “demons” she should leave alive and well for her social life, and which she should kill off to maintain her safety. The obvious answer is that all manifestations of fictional beings should be destroyed without delay.

  PROHIBITED WEBSITES MEANT FOR SUBTERFUGE

  as Proclaimed by The One Who Surfs The Cyberspace

  Critter: A virtually incomprehensible online system of short, cryptic messages that helped Resistance fighters exchange hazardous information with one another. New Order efforts to eliminate this exceedingly criminal means of communication were swift and absolute.

  Juggle: This search engine was invented by a young rebel who narcissistically believed she could create a record of every piece of illegal, duplicitous, and highly dangerous information on the Internet. WARNING: This young woman is still at large and attempting to supply the good citizens of the New Order with so-called free-speech documents that contain false propaganda against The One and your illustrious government. A reward is offered for her capture.

  MyTaste: A social hub where users glorified the vice of individuality, based on their literary and musical tastes, to one another for “fun.” The New Order swiftly realized how much banned material was being distributed on the site and took action to replace all unlawful forms of “creative content” with acceptable New Order documents, such as the New Order Citizens’ Code and the autobiography of our esteemed leader, How I Became The One.

  Countenance Digest: This site contained the complete history of an age where children and adults were free to disseminate information — cultural notes, events, political opinions, photos, and other poisonous freedoms — through a massive user-generated publication. All traces of its existence have been ordered deleted from every computer’s cache.

  INAPPROPRIATE TELECASTS THAT PROMOTE ABSURDITY AND DELUSIONS OF GRANDEUR

  as Shut Down by The One Who Restructures The Visual Media

  FLEE: A musical comedy about Resistance kids attempting to escape from the Brave New World Center. The children realize that by singing inane pop songs in captivity, they are able to inflict massive psychological torture on their captors. Highly inappropriate material.

  DISAPPEARED: This drama follows a group of Resistance rebels whose plane — successfully tampered with by brave New Order soldiers — crashes into a deserted island. The passengers are subjected to tests by what they believe is a “magical” island (really a controlled space created by specialist New Order scientists), only to find that they are being held there until they can be executed for their crimes against the government. A fitting end for criminals of the state, but as the show inspired many rogue counter-telecasts with an anti–New Order message, it was discontinued.

  THE HOSPICE: A hospital mockumentary chronicling the daily lives of the last people alive who can still remember the time before being ruled by The One Who Is The One. The hospital’s insufferable manager, Melvin Slott, tries to make their last days easier, but for some reason each patient’s health deteriorates drastically under his care.

  SAWS AND MOLDER: A documentary that goes behind the scenes of New Order prisons through hidden cameras in interrogation chambers, with events displayed each week to the public. While intended by the Resistance movement as a so-called exposé, these tapes have been embraced by The One as a means to bring the good people of the New Order together against the criminals that threaten us. All cameras have since been disabled, but reruns of the original recordings can be found on New Order network channels.

  THE REAL CHURLS: The true story of seven captured Resistance teenagers picked to live in a beautiful government palace and have their lives taped to see if specialized New Order training could put them on the right path. As the show became increasingly violent due to the nature of the aggressive, uneducated participants, the experiment had to be abandoned.

  WHO WANTS TO BE THE ONE WHO IS THE ONE?: A popular game show that fed contestants trivia questions and promised its winners a chance at the throne for a day. No one managed to earn the top prize before the show was removed from the airwaves, due to objections from The One Who Is The One.

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  Version 1.0

  Epub ISBN 9781407071718

  Published by Young Arrow, 2011

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  Copyright © James Patterson, 2011

  James Patterson has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental

  Excerpts of poetry in this work are from the following public-domain sources: Chapter 1, excerpted from ‘The Mask of Anarchy’ by Percy Bysshe Shelley; Chapter 10, excerpted from ‘Death at the Window’ by Robert Fuller Murray; Chapter 14, excerpted from ‘A Hand-Mirror’ by Walt Whitman

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  First published in Great Britain in 2011 by

  Young Arrow

  Random House, 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road

  London SW1V 2SA

  www.randomhouse.co.uk

  Addresses for companies within The Random House Group Limited can be found at: www.randomhouse.co.uk/offices.htm


  The Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  Hardback ISBN 9780099544173

  Trade paperback ISBN 9780099544180