Excerpt: Untitled

From Chapter 7: Ruth Mitchell
“So, what, you think you’re some sort of revolutionary, now? Some sort of hero, is that it? Going to save the world single-handed, Hugo?”
Her tone was biting, mocking him for what could only be termed his absolute stupidity. Of all the things he might do, of all of the stupid, idiotic things. It was not as though those groups ever achieved anything real, anything substantial. They couldn’t change the state of anything; at most, they ended up floundering, and at last becoming nothing more than a social club, where a group of men and women got together and complained about the state of the country to one another and discussed plans which would never be realised. It was a waste of time; this frustrated Ruth more than anything. A complete waste of time. She would have preferred him to be a part of a work group, to work late hours. They might not be able to do much with the money, but it would have been something to show for his efforts. Something, as opposed to empty words.
It was more than just a waste, however; it was dangerous. There had been incidents of brutality with the control-agents, mostly in the higher sectors, when they suspected they were being usurped. They, after all, had their livelihoods to protect – something which Ruth understood more than any of Hugo’s ideological pretensions. The detainments, the beatings, the murders – they made sense to Ruth, logically. Someone could kill or maim or imprison to protect themselves, their family, from being moved to a higher sector. It didn’t happen often, but if enough wages were lost, then living in one’s birth sector was impossible, and the only way to go was up, to the higher ones. To the sectors a person had always avoided; the ones that children were warned about, told to evade on pain of mugging or beating, or whatever activities the lower sectors took part in. The desire that Hugo had, to join something so pointless – something which was more likely, rather than to help him, to kill him and his family and everything that they enjoyed – was totally alien to her.
There wasn’t much in this life, and it was dreadfully monotonous, and sometimes frightening through no fault of her own, but she had grown used to it. She knew what to expect from it, and she did not want to change it, exactly. She could not think of what else her life would be, apart from this. Of course she had wondered what things would be like if she had been born elsewhere, to someone other than Margaret and Harold Jennings, sector-81. Who hadn’t, during the period in her life in which some hope was still retained? Who hadn’t thought of how different things would be if they were someone else? That was natural – that was curiosity. That was not practical.
“Don’t, Ruth. It’s important, more important than anything around us. Haven’t you heard about the mind-fluid?”
“I don’t know, I don’t care about any bloody mind-fluid! Mind-fluid won’t feed the children, and it won’t keep them clothed and housed if we lose half our income because you’ve been detained. You shouldn’t worry about something so inconsequential. It doesn’t matter. Not to us, not to you.”
“But it does matter! Ruth, it’s the most important thing I’ve ever done, isn’t it? I can’t do much working at a bloody factory – but maybe here—”
“At best, here, you’ll change nothing.”