Kill Code opens in a future close enough to feel uncomfortably familiar. Climate catastrophe has divided society into protected enclaves and sprawling zones of poverty, while the National Security Council guards the people who still possess wealth and power. Hogan Duran, a disgraced former police officer surviving on society’s margins, sees the organization’s entrance program as a route back to stability. The opportunity, however, requires him to enter a system whose rewards depend on secrets, coercion, and carefully maintained inequality.
In a world gone wrong, can one man actually make a difference, or will he die trying?
Kill Code
by Clive Fleury
Genre: Dystopian Science Fiction
WHEN THE OCEANS RISE...THE TRUTH DROWNS
It's the year 2031. Our future. Their present. A world decimated by climate catastrophe, where the sun's heat is deadly and the ocean rises higher every day. A world ruled by the rich, powerful, and corrupt. A world where a good man can’t survive for long.
Hogan Duran was a good man once. He was a cop, forced to resign in disgrace when he couldn't save his partner from a bullet. Now Hogan lives on the fraying edges of society, serving cruel masters and scavenging trash dumps just to survive.
But after four years of living in poverty, Hogan finally gets a chance to get back on his feet. He's invited to join the National Security Council, the powerful paramilitary organization responsible for protecting the rich and powerful from the more unsavory elements of society. All he needs to do is pass their deadly entrance exam, and he'll be rewarded with wealth and opportunity beyond his wildest dreams.
But this ex-cop's path to redemption won't be easy. The NSC are hiding something, and as Hogan descends deeper and deeper into their world, he starts to uncover the terrible truth of how the powerful in this new world maintain their power...and just how far they will go to protect their secrets.
In a world gone wrong, can one man actually make a difference, or will he die trying?
Kill Code is the first novel in an exciting new dystopian science fiction series from the mind of award-winning author, screenwriter, and director Clive Fleury. Fans of The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey, and Divergent by Veronica Roth will be captivated by Kill Code.
Hogan’s struggle begins with a bargain that defines the novel’s central conflict: the institution offering him security is also responsible for defending the social order that has left him scavenging to survive. Joining the National Security Council could restore his income, purpose, and standing, but the entrance process requires him to prove himself to an organization whose authority depends upon exclusion and fear.
The world surrounding Hogan is not presented as a distant abstraction. Driverless transportation has displaced workers, wealthy districts sit behind steel fencing and armed checkpoints, and entire communities have deteriorated into tents and improvised structures. These details make the class divide visible before Hogan reaches the NSC facility, establishing why its promises are so difficult to refuse and why its secrets carry such dangerous consequences.
Hogan is also an unusual candidate for the role expected of him. He is older than most of the recruits, still affected by the loss that ended his police career, and uncertain whether he can compete with younger applicants. His doubts create a more vulnerable route into a story built around paramilitary training, political corruption, climate collapse, and an increasingly hostile landscape.
The Station: a seething mass of humanity. Some came with hope in their hearts, ready to embark on the journey of a lifetime. For others, it was the only place they had left to go. They had reached rock bottom. Day or night, the scene was always the same: Transporters arrived and departed constantly, full of people desperate to get away from here, from there, from everywhere. Others wandered around the Station aimlessly. These were the homeless, the addicts, the criminals, the thieves and deadbeats. They spent their time begging or looking for something to steal.
And there was always tension in the air. A fight could break out at any moment as these tired and hungry people reached their wits’ ends and lashed out at the world.
Max and I had been waiting there two hours, which was at least one hour and fifty-nine minutes too long but neither of us minded. I kept reaching into my pocket to pull out the letter and stare at it.
“You’ll wear it out, buddy,” said a smiling Max after I had brought the note out a tenth time. “Just accept it. Next stop: Easy Street.”
I pushed the letter back into my pocket. I still couldn’t believe it. I’d been accepted. That was the good news. The bad news was I knew that this letter only confirmed that I had been chosen for NSC training. It was incredibly difficult to get this far, but even so, only a very few would make it to through to the next stage—to become officers. Frankly, I had grave doubts I could make it that far.
Max tapped me on my shoulder and pointed to a transporter that had just pulled in to Dock 10. It had the word Seattle printed above its windshield. It was Max’s ride. “Okay, Hogan, looks like it’s my time to go.”
I moved behind Max’s wheelchair and pushed it through the seething crowd towards the vehicle. It was, like all public transporters nowadays, driverless. So since there was no one to help, it was up to me to put Max’s ticket into the scanner and to lower him into in his allotted seat. After that, I folded his wheelchair and carried the chair to the luggage rack at the front.
As I finished storing the chair, I spotted an attractive woman in her mid-thirties walk up to Max. I watched as she checked the seat number on her ticket. “That is twenty-two N isn’t it?” I heard the woman say to Max as she pointed to the vacant seat next to him.
Max smiled. “It sure is. And you have the luck to be sitting next to Max Creeling.” He held out his hand. “Great to meet you.”
The woman smiled and sat next to him as I returned.
“Okay, Max, time to go. See if you can get someone to help you with the chair at the other end.”
“I think I can organize that,” the woman said. “I’m Lisa.” She pushed out her hand and I shook it.
“Pleased to meet you, Lisa. Thank you for your kind offer. Now, Max, don’t forget when you get to Seattle to keep out of trouble.”
“Will do.”
I high-fived Max. “Bye. And behave yourself.”
“Always.”
I turned quickly and headed for the transporter’s exit door. Almost as soon as I had stepped down from the vehicle, the door slid shut, the last passenger just managing to squeeze on. As the transporter drove off, Max peered out of the window and winked at me before turning to speak animatedly with Lisa. It looked like he had struck it lucky.
I missed him already.
My transporter would be in next. Dock 20. I started to walk towards the number 20 sign, scanning the crowd for those who were waiting for the NSC Transit transporter like me.
A tall, handsome man in his early twenties stepped in front of me, momentarily blocking my way. I glanced across at him. I knew the type. Dangerous and arrogant but the sort of asshole that women love. In fact, two young beautiful girls were with him: long legs, flowing blonde hair, angelic faces. They were obviously twins.
***
Kill Code will appeal to those who prefer dystopian fiction grounded in recognizable social and technological developments rather than a remote or heavily fantastical future. Its 2031 setting combines climate damage, automated transportation, mass unemployment, fortified wealth, and privatized security into a society that feels only a few decisions removed from the present.
The novel may also suit readers interested in compromised heroes and dangerous institutions. Hogan is not entering the NSC because he trusts its mission; he is entering because poverty has narrowed his alternatives. That tension gives his attempted redemption a political dimension, particularly as he begins to understand how the organization protects its authority.
Those who enjoy survival trials, conspiracies, paramilitary training, stark class divisions, and action-oriented science fiction will find those elements built directly into Hogan’s route through the story.
Clive Fleury is an award-winning writer of books and screenplays and has worked all over the world as a Film/TV director, writer and producer. He has written six books, most recently 'All Or None', the second novel in the Detective Ryan Murder Mystery series.
'All Or None' sees Detective Ryan back in the thick of things. His latest investigation into a mysterious death couldn’t come at a worse time. He discovers his mother is hiding a troubling secret and is further sidetracked by a new romance. Fans of who dunnit's, crime thrillers, and cop and detective stories will love this novel.
Clive's other books include 'Off Season' - book one in the Detective Ryan Murder Mystery series; 'Kill Code' - a dystopian science fiction novel set in a world facing climate change; ‘Scary Lizzy’ - a novel about an eight year old girl, who befriends an African child ghost – and the teen action adventure book; ‘The Boy Next Door ‘ - a story of what happens when a teenage girl has a crush on her next door neighbor, who isn’t all he seems. He also co-wrote ‘Art Pengriffin and The Curse of The Four’ - a young adult fantasy adventure about a teenage boy who discovers his father was Merlin the Magician.
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The most revealing part of Hogan’s journey may be the view from the NSC transporter. On one side are clean streets, swimming pools, green parks, and guarded checkpoints. On the other are crumbling roads, temporary shelters, unemployment, and communities treated as threats. Hogan is traveling toward the institution that maintains the boundary between those two worlds, even as he hopes it will rescue him from the wrong side of it.
That contradiction gives Kill Code more than a survival-test premise. Hogan must determine whether reclaiming his former status is worth serving a system built to protect privilege—and whether a man already carrying the weight of one professional failure can risk everything to challenge it.
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