Alistair lolled on his bunk, gently stroking Balderick's feathers whilst the raven munched on the last of the biscuit crumbs. He felt guilty for eavesdropping on Chelsea's personal argument and cringing, he remembered the last conversation he'd had with his own grandfather, the one in which he told him he hated him too. Deep down Alistair knew this was the furthest thing from the truth and ever so wished he could take it all back.

"Seriously," Alistair said to Balderick, "This all sucks." Balderick bobbed his head, agreeing as he swallowed.

"Nothing is easy Balderick," he sighed. "How did we end up in this mess?"

Julian put his head around the doorframe, his array of jangling bangles announcing his arrival.

"By gum, you look glum! I bet you're wondering: is this the real life or is this just fantasy?"

"It all feels like a bad dream."

"It might be some kind of madness beginning to evolve?"

"No, I'm sane," Alistair clarified.

"You should be so lucky," Julian scoffed. "There's really nothing to get hung about. Especially for a boy like you."

"No...everything is terrible," Alistair answered.

Julian tittered. "Don't be so melodramatic, my dear. Life is fab!"

"If life is so 'fab', why is all this happening to me?" he asked sadly.

"You gotta roll up for the mystery tour," Julian encouraged; this didn't cheer Alistair one bit. He sat on the end of the bed, crossing his legs; his tight, silver PVC pants straining at the seams as he knit his fingertips together and pondered a better answer. Alistair spied the hot pink Doc Marten boots but had learnt not to question why.

"Seriously, didn't they tell you there would be days like this?" Julian asked; Alistair pouted and Julian decided the boy needed cheering up. "Look, someday you'll reminisce and wonder where the time went. You tend to remember the good things, though it's the hard times that will make you stronger."

"Then why do I feel like I've fallen in to hell," Alistair overstated mournfully.

"Oh dear, are we really that bad? Hell ain't a bad place," Julian chuckled. "After all, they say Heaven is where you go for the climate; Hell is where one goes for the company." Alistair stared at the top mattress and wanted to sink in to his own and Julian quickly realised his forays in to child psychiatry were not up to scratch.

"May I ask how one boy found himself in so much trouble?"

Alistair shrugged. "One minute I was reading a book, the next, all hell is breaking loose!"

"A good book will do that to you," Julian mused.

"I was reading The Truth," Alistair continued. "Have you heard of it?"

"The Truth, eh?" Julian sighed, shaking his head. "I heard there were three sides to every story: Mine, yours and the truth and most of it fibs. Whatever happens, my dear, the past has a funny habit of being rewritten by the victors. And as such, one man's truth is not always fairly reflected in our here and now. Mind you, as it pans out, the future's over-rated. So you may as well do the best you can, live right here, right now and enjoy the moment for what it is," Julian summarised a touch nihilistically.

Alistair was confused.

"I'm quickly learning not everything is what it seems. If New Britain wasn't always like this, how did we end up in our here and now?"

Julian lingered before answering.

"What do they teach you in school?"

"Nothing," was Alistair's cold reply.

"Hmmm... Back then, not so long ago, when we was fab, society was never perfect. Yet when it truly goes down the loo, suddenly everyone is surprised. They wring their hands and they blub that 'it couldn't happen here'. Well my dear, it did bloody happen here. We Brexited. We lost Northern Ireland and Scotland, desperate to distance themselves from England. Wales became our only allies in Europe and eventually, we lost them too. And as the world fell down, all the little things chipped away at the psyche of society and eventually, without realising it, we found ourselves in a loathsome place. The trivial is ignored and long term, vile acts happen when everyone thinks life is just hunky dory. 160,000 Futurists piled in to the Olympic Stadium and swallowed Franklin Ashe's slurs, slogans and spin then spilled out a rabid mass of tin-pot, back alley fascists, and all the bad things just escalated out of control. The fascist pigs tell you they've a right to speak, but they speak vile rot. In response, the fairly Liberal Prime Minister, Mollo Brownlow, lead the chorus of opposition to the new British fascists. He became a hushed voice after successive waves of London bombings and escalating industrial action saw a House of Commons vote that permitted the army to crack down with curfews and tighter social controls. As the vermin infiltrated Parliament, they began persuading the good people to pipe down whilst the mongrels ran amok."

"King William V stepped up. Ich bin ein Englander...and that's when the fun began. The louts didn't like intelligent, articulate, open-minded people standing in their way. With their bovver boy antics, they puffed up their chests, Wills and Harry decided it was time for the good people of Britain to stop the rot. They did everything in their power to heed off a bloodletting but when the race riots erupted with the worst of the extremist, loutish civil disobedience, all control went out the window. Brownlow was assassinated, his successor was a CHAV and before long, everything went pear-shaped. The Loyalists grew weary of the goading to put up or shut up and both the Futurists and Loyalists thought a Civil War seemed jolly good fun. As a consequence, we fought ourselves to a standstill and we have never recovered."

"When the Civil War ended in 2048, the Futurists took power and I think the good people were tired of fighting. Any lingering doubt the Futurists were here to stay was quickly pulped. All sense and reason went out the window. You can't forget that a lot had happened in the world whilst we were fighting ourselves. The madman across the water demonetarised the US Dollar and caused economic catastrophe around the globe before radicalising his Neo-Christian anti-raunch culture supporters. Before long, the Americans had split at the seams, forming two camps and isolating themselves from the rest of the world for their piece of fratricide."

"Meanwhile, Continental Europe was finally conquered by efficient bureaucracy and rebaptised as Neuropa, which I believe is the only time in European history that the French, Germans and Russians ever agreed on anything. Yet Neuropa has prospered whilst New Britain has been allowed to exist because the Futurists hold the key to a stockpile of nukes and no one wants mutually assured destruction, so they pretend to get along."

Julian paused for thought and Alistair tried hard to digest this new found knowledge. Julian resumed, realising Alistair was listening intently.

That left us with Brazil, China and India competing as the New World Elite. Each to their own, they flex their muscles in a way not seen before, squabbling over water, food, fuel and fresh air. He, or she, who has, rules."

"Finally, and we don't know if this was Mother Nature having a big laugh at man creating fabricants in his own image, but the Miley Virus broke out amongst the synthetic population. Once it allegedly jumped to humans, the Hack pandemic became a cold, callous whisper in humanity's ear. Fabricants were at first quarantined then the remainder were all but wiped out during the subsequent hysteria. I suppose common people here have forgotten since it was a tick over ten years ago but I remember a time when fabricant bigotry was a national sporting institution, and we were pretty good at that too. Still, with 2.6 billion dead folks worldwide, considering the population was nudging 8 billion, sadly, it hardly seemed to have mattered to anyone, except pharmaceutical companies, body bag manufacturers and morticians."

"Wow! I never knew any of that," Alistair said, gobsmacked. "My pop never talks about the Civil War, or anything else for that matter."

"Probably for good reason, my dear. No one wants to dwell on the past. Once the King was executed, the Loyalists were scrambled and General Jeremy Golding used an iron fist to forge Futurist New Britain. Successive Chancellors moulded our fascist state; opposition was harshly dealt with. Freedom and dignity evaporated. The sloganeering intensified and millions were deported because they weren't considered to be British enough, whatever that meant, so now the East Coast of America has the largest English Diaspora since the 1600's."

"Of course now, life goes on, and the happy-clapping, chattering classes feel as if they have never had it so good. Meanwhile, the Government grows dumber and crueller with each successive Chancellor. Malachy glosses over the poor harvests and worsening environmental conditions whilst feeding the masses with ignorance and banality. For a while now, if you are in the know, you are given the wink. And those buffoons who commit intolerable acts in the name of the State, well, the State turns a blind eye. The upper crust will tell you New Britain is living in a golden era. But who are they fooling? Pick at the scabs and you'll find festering wounds. A general apathy prevails where the British people conformed and evolved in to a kow-towing nation of bystanders who don't think for themselves or lift a finger to change. The Guards may beat up on people, but really when nobody knows and nobody cares, at its core, this country is rotting."

"Chancellor Malachy has it easy because the majority take their lot and couldn't care less as long as they have enough Visi entertainment. But take a look around: everything is broken, everything is old...for goodness sake, we still use coal when Energel is the 22ndCentury marvel come early. Many have never known any better and for those out there who do care, sadly, they have silenced themselves out of fear of reprisals. When the levee broke, not one drop wanted to be blamed for the flood, and that's how it remains."

Julian sighed; Alistair's mind boggled.

"New Britain needs someone to give hope to the hopeless. I just hope Lizzy can do it."

"Lizzy?"

"QEIII. Look...it's a lot to grasp," Julian sympathised almost apologetically. "And only you will know if you are on the right side or not. You may think us fools but we strive to make a change..."

"I'd like to see things change," Alistair bubbled.

"So would I," Julian sighed.

"Why do you live down here then?"

Julian giggled, swatting his hand in the air, hiding his internal hurt with laughter. He continued mixing mirth with mystery.

"Between you and me, my dear, my past dictates my present. I'll make you drowsy with my romantic tale, but when I look back upon my life, it always with a sense of shame. Never wanted to be the boy next door, always thought I'd be something more. In the end, all I've done are despicable, sinful things. Capt Baker argues I shouldn't hole myself up, stop the pitying self-flagellation...try stepping out again. Let's just say, the Lord almighty will judge me my wickedness and forgive me my trespasses."

Mindlessly playing with a lock of hair, Julian contemplated the notion of returning to the surface.

"Even if I did come out...I can't live up there. It's too suffocating...too anodyne...too brutal. That lot don't look too kindly on people like me. And what's a boy like me to do there? I mean really, darling."

Julian became incredulous as he thought more about his predicament.

"They'd sooner have you dead and buried for being different. And personally, I'd rather be nose down in the dirt than become a cog in their fascist machine. Once upon a time, there used to be a lot more colour in this country. Now, no one has the guts to shove them down," Julian said, emphasising them with a despising tone. Julian looked at Alistair intently.

"Two centuries ago, they said the sun never set on the British Empire. We fought Great Wars for freedom and justice and dignity. Good British men bled and died for those ideals. Somewhere, somehow the British people forgot what that all meant and the sun set on our muddy little island. Someone switched off the lights and left us all in the dark."

"Of course, we are a new Britain, but a Britain that the British can't be proud of. We gaily skip along during one of our darkest hours. But believe you me: one day...a timid wallflower will say 'no more'. And when they do, they'll become a lion that strikes terror in the hearts of the bullyboys. I will fight to the death knowing that their cause is just and right."

Julian tendered a final prophecy.

"Lizzy can sow the seed but it will take a pleb to reap what she has sown."

Julian caught his breath; his face flushed and he clapped his hands together.

"I'll get off my butter box now," he laughed, standing and smoothing out crinkles in his clothes, making a promise. "It will get brighter later.  Let us not look back in anger, shall we?"

It suddenly dawned on Julian what would cheer up both he and Alistair.

"You know what you need?" Julian asked, pulling Alistair's arm and dragging him off the bed. "A makeover!"

**********************

Alistair sat in the sole barber's chair, covered in a hairdresser's sheet whilst Julian made judicious snips with his sharp, silver scissors. Julian manipulated jaunty spikes through his lithe fingers, massaging in scented, greasy product and ensuring each deft touch culminated in a snazzy hair-do. Upon completion, Julian brushed away rogue hairs and dusted down Alistair with talc, then dragged away the sheet like a magician revealing the prestige.

"Ta-dah!" Julian enthused. "A dedicated follower of fashion!"

Alistair turned his head side to side and examined his new do in the mirror.

"Nice," he lied, fearing he looked a little like Corey Kershaw.

"What a mighty boosh," Julian rhapsodized, carelessly tossing the scissors aside. Opening a make-up kit, Alistair shook himself off and checked out a range of fashion on a waiting rack. Pulling out a white T-shirt decreeing "Choose Life", he put it back and took out a self-styling T-shirt that altered images every fifteen seconds.

"Try it on if you like," Julian suggested as he twisted a number of lipstick tubes, sleuthing for just the right shade. "If it fits, keep it!" Alistair rolled on the self-styling T-shirt and stood in front of the mirror whilst a clutch of classic album covers appeared and morphed in to the next. Hysteriafollowed bySticky Fingers and London Calling; Abbey Road to English Settlement; Doubt, Dark Side of the Moon, Actually, Breakfast In America, Zoso, Parklife, Rio and Band On The Run.

"1001 British LPs you have to listen to before you die. If you're a good boy, I'll let you listen to them all," Julian promised before pointing to the next cover.

"Tenement Funster's Trapezoidal Space Jest. What a mind-job that album is," Julian chuckled, reminiscing. "Ahh...those were the days. I'll see if I can dig up my self-styler which collects all the PWEI artwork. Trust me, you'll never run out of shirt fronts then."

Once Alistair decided to keep Julian's T-shirt, Julian ceased rummaging and offered Alistair two choices.

"A pedicure and a manicure first," Julian tendered, presenting a bag of files and clippers. "Or shall we go with the eyeliner and lippy?"

Alistair swallowed.

"Do we have to?" he asked, unsure and preferring neither option.

"Do we have to?" Julian mimicked sourly. "What, are you afraid of a little glam?" Affronted, Julian tossed both kits aside and quickly bounced back. Grabbing a squat tub of sticky goo, Julian cocked an eyebrow.

"Back wax?"

Alistair shook his head, vehemently opposed to the suggestion.

"I have a better idea, my dear," Julian beamed, opening a large, glittering armoire.

"We will accessorise instead!"