The Train to Freedom

Standing at the ocean’s edge felt like standing at the edge of the world. Hanna imagined the high density buildings and city lights falling behind her, with the moonlit ocean becoming her only reality. The onshore wind kissed her face. Only four spins of the lighthouse’s beacon, then I am free, she thought to herself. Hanna instinctively reached for the letter in her pocket, unfolding the crinkled paper. She brushed her finger across ink to see if she could feel Mia’s voice in the smudged letters.

There are many women here, like you and me. We are a family of rebels and fighters. There’s no internet, no surveillance. We don’t abide by the Concord Law. The ideal person isn’t a strong male possessing a high IQ. An undercover Anomaly will help you sneak out of the apartment block. From then on, you must follow the steps I’ve listed below. I can’t wait to see you again.

Her sister Mia had escaped from Melbourne when she could, and now it was Hanna’s turn. The train was located through a secret chamber in the lighthouse’s basement. The Anomalies built the underground train-station from Melbourne to Tasmania twenty years ago for the very purpose of sneaking people out of the Concord Region. Hanna took deep breaths of salt and sewage — with a hint of cindered ash. A branch of a smoked tree rolled at her feet, taunting her. The splintered bark carried screams and the suffocating stench of blood-fog; concealing the pallid faces of her family.

“No one can live here anymore,” her Dad had said as they drove away, sweat and tears dripping down his face. “We have to face the facts.”


Her Mum wailed in the front seat, clutching her stomach. “My baby boy, my son!”

Hanna’s family moved to the country town of Bairnsdale after their old house in the bushy, Dandenong Mountains burned down — burning her youngest and only brother Ben with it.

Heat was rising. The ocean in front of Hanna was rising. She wouldn’t mind if the ocean rose — she’d live on a boat and stare at the never-ending world each morning. The ocean gleamed with the phosphorescence of a thousand melting stars. It reminded her of the fizzy champagne her Dad would pour for “his three, darling girls” on a Friday night.


“To staying alive!” he’d exclaim in his rich baritone.


There was hope in their Friday evening toasts, just as there was hope in the train-line snaking beneath the ocean’s surface.

It happened one Friday evening. The Seekers arrived. Headlights like giant searchlights magnified on their drawn curtains. Mia stamped on her phone with her hiking boots. 


“Are you crazy?” Hanna hissed, pressed against the wall.


“When they have your digital footprint, they have everything.”

Mia was right, but her efforts were in vain. Their Dad ushered them out the back door, but they didn’t get far before they were caught by men in black wielding microchip guns.

Hanna rolled up her cardigan sleeve where she stood, revealing her wrist. 134579. That’s who she was to the Concord’s. Beneath the bruised skin was her microchip. They knew everything about her from the chip — smaller than a 5c coin. She’d cut it out if she could, but they insert it deep enough into the skin that cutting it out would be suicide. She’d be out of the region’s reception soon enough. They would no longer own her identity, her mind and her fears.

The lighthouse a hundred meters to her left lit up. The beam turned around four times, casting a golden path across Hanna’s eyes — the glittery path to her freedom.

Mrs Ashida’s large silhouette paced on the windows overlooking Melbourne.

“I’m suspicious about Hanna 134579,” she said. “She’s been assigned as a Maid to an esteemed household with superior genetics. Most other Maids took their sleeping tablets at 8pm, yet my electronic map alerted me to her location on St. Kilda beach at 9.04pm. I don’t know what excuse she made to get out of the apartments.”


“She’s been on our Dysfunctional radar for ages, Ms,” said a Seeker — bent over a monitor in the computer lab, slurping his energy drink. “We’ve monitored a spike in her cortisol levels. Her amygdala region keeps lighting up too. She seems to be thinking about her past life with her family, Ms.”

“Her sister and a few other traitors escaped a couple months ago. We know an escape exit is nearby. We must save her while we can,” Mrs Ashida stormed out of the computer lab, through sterilised corridors and into the HQ.

A few men typed furiously on laptops, answering reflex and mind tests. Some worked out on gym equipment with holographic timers floating above their heads.

“Seekers,” Mrs Ashida’s voice snapped their necks in her direction. “A new urgent case has appeared.”

Mrs Ashida assigned the Seekers hastily. She pressed her phone to her plump, powdered cheek. “There’s one special Seeker we need to make this work. His name is Peter 134578.”

Hanna’s chest tightened as her sneakers met the cushiony sand. She was close. So close. Her heart pounded blood to her numbing fingers as she sprinted towards the lighthouse. A whispering siren coiled in her ears, building to an omniscient wail with no end point, no source. It keened towards the moon — spilling through the beckoning ocean — and to the tops of the skyscrapers far to her left. Just let me make it. Just let me feel my sister’s arms around my body, her courage and hope breathing fire into my shrivelling heart.

Ten Seeker shadows appeared on the little hill preceding the lighthouse. They pointed their guns at her. The man in the middle of the group kept his hands in his duffle coat’s pockets — his coat’s tail flapping in the breeze. 


“It doesn’t have to end this way,” he said in his familiar, soothing voice. “You can live a long life, living up to your natural gifts.”

Grief welled in Hanna’s stomach. She shivered — the men’s trained, icy stares wilting her heart. Her fath—the Seeker addressing her took something out of his pocket. He revealed his palm. Red and blue lights swam on the heart-locket.

“You remember this, don’t you?” his lips slowly curled up into a smile. It looked almost genuine to Hanna — despite the hard, plastic eyes.

“You gave it to me for my tenth birthday,” Hanna’s voice wavered.

An ocean of pain coursed between father and daughter. Each step Hanna took towards her brainwashed father wrung her sponged-heart of hope.

Her Dad placed the locket in her palm. She gently opened it. Once there was a photo of her grinning family in it. Instead, a little packet of dust nested there. It looked like the sand they stood on — Soothesnow.

When Mia forged connections with the Anomalies in the early days, she insisted they only pretend to take the highly addictive substance. Each night, the two sisters would pick up the cute floral saucers holding the Soothesnow and tip the contents out the window. They’d watch the powder disintegrate with the dead leaves and debris infiltrating the air.

“It’ll erase your pain. It might even make you happy,” her father said, still smiling. “You desire love. You desire family. I care for you, my darling girl. You know I do. There’s a home for you here under Concord rule.”

Her father’s breath warmed her cheek — just like it would when he’d tuck her in bed and read her fairy tales. Hanna’s knees felt like they were about to snap — she was already plummeting down an endless hole of guilt and pain and fear. I care for you too. I miss you, I love you. I’m sorry. She was a selfish fool. She took a deep breath, took a harder look at this man who was her father — but entirely not her father. Her father used to be brave. Strong. Forced-fed Soothesnow. A middle-aged, strong-bodied, empathetic and shrewd man; he was the perfect Seeker. Hanna understood what the Seekers were doing to her. They knew how to manipulate her, how to break her. Mia’s voice filled her cottonwool head — “never let them break you.”

Hanna stumbled back, shrieking when she collided with a man’s chest. He clamped bony hands on her shoulders. 


“I can…persuade her.”

Hanna’s heart pounded. They would shove an overdose of Soothesnow down her throat. Her brain would drift blissfully to Saturn while she was either raped, murdered, or both.

Hanna could hardly remember entering the lighthouse, the door clicking shut. She had already felt dead — lead through a cold, underground world of sharp metal. Surely the man was in fact a demon, and they were descending deeper into hell. The Seeker’s thin, moustached face flickered under industrial lights. She didn’t register the man’s long, sharp fingernails sinking blood half-moons in her skin. He pressed her against the wall and said one word — one word which carried the breadth of the ocean. “Go.”

The Anomaly — undercover as a Seeker — pointed to a door with a flashing EXIT sign above it. He released his unrelenting grip on her arm and disappeared into the basement’s shadows. Hanna had staggered through the door and onto the underground train platform. An old woman’s affable eyes lit up upon seeing her. She remembered the woman’s arms wrapping around her shoulders — the first gentle, loving touch she had received in years.

“It’s okay, dear. You’re going to be okay.”

With her head against the train seat, Hanna let her tears pour down her cheeks. Tears of happiness, tears of grief. 



She was on her way to freedom.