I Got'cha!
by David J. Wighton
Book #1 in the Wilizy Series
Copyright 2014, David J. Wighton
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Acknowledgments
This book is dedicated to my wife, Dale, whose support and patience made it possible.
Cover design by Jenny Anderson at WordPress.com
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Other novels by David J. Wighton
About the Author
Chapter 1
I woke up abruptly – suddenly aware that I was lying on something flat and hard and that my head was really hurting. I flashed my eyes open and shut – testing to see if that made the pain worse. It didn’t. I squinted them open again.
I could see my study chair flopped on its side. The tip of one of its wooden legs was pointing right at me so I had a close-up look at the years of dust and grime that were plastered to the little plastic glidey thing that made it easy to move the chair. “Why is my head hurting?” I asked the grime. It didn’t answer.
I was lying on my right side in my dorm room, my head flat on the concrete floor and my right arm pinned uncomfortably beneath me. Opening my eyes wider, I could see the front of my study desk and the edge of my bed. I freed my pinned arm and prepared to make it into a pillow. To do that, I had to lift my head. That was a mistake.
I knew what pain was. All kids my age had felt pain. Like everybody else, I had to live by a certain number of rules. If I knowingly broke a rule, my brain-band would squirt a little pain juice into my brain. If I broke the rule again, I’d get a longer squirt – one that would really hurt. I must have crushed a major rule to be getting this kind of punishment. The problem was – I couldn’t remember doing anything wrong.
The pain from my head was surging in time with my heart that was beating far too loudly in my head to be healthy. I hadn’t been zapped by my brain-band since I was eleven-years old. It was the year that my care center’s Let’s explore new foods experiment had gone horribly wrong. I could still remember staring at the inert circular blobs on my scarred tin dinner plate when it was placed in front of me. We were given permission to begin eating, but instead of the usual clink of cutlery and noisy chatter from two hundred eleven-year old boys, there was dead silence in the food hall. A few guys were poking at their suppers with their forks. Me – I was smelling it. It smelled yucky. I knew I wouldn’t like it.
One of the proctors announced that tonight’s meal was part of a lesson in life. He told two hundred scrunched up noses that we should be prepared to explore new foods. How would we know if we liked or didn’t like something unless we were willing to give it a chance?
I knew the answer to that question. “If it smelled yucky, it would be yucky.” I wasn't dumb enough to say that out loud.
Nobody made a move towards the repulsive looking mush on our dinner plates until all forty of the proctors stood up and pointed their brain-band activators at their assigned tables. Since everyone in the dining hall knew what would come next, two hundred forks made tentative gestures at two hundred plates. I was trying to find the smallest amount of mush that I could pick up on my fork and still have it fall off when a painful zap made me drop my fork. I looked up to find that my tablemates had deserted me. Three of them had a finger and a thumb pinching their noses shut and were chewing with their eyes closed. The fourth was trying to flush the paste in his mouth into his stomach with big gulps of water. A second brain zap made me vibrate for a couple of seconds. My theory that a yucky smell equals a yucky taste was quickly confirmed. I didn’t get much satisfaction from being proven right.
I was watching one of my tablemates using the edge of his knife to scrape some lingering tastes off his tongue when one of the proctors started a speech about learning to accept change. None of us believed it for a second. After all, we had been living in the same bedroom in this same dorm since our fifth birthday when we had been transferred out of the Infant Care facility. Only the furniture and our uniforms had changed to match our growing bodies. All of us knew enough of the history of the It’s Only Fair society to know that nothing had changed in the daily lives of Alberta’s adults for years and years either.
I figured tonight’s dinner was some sort of deranged psychology experiment. I managed to confirm that three of the four semi-hidden cameras in the dining hall were in record mode without getting zapped for being rude when an adult was speaking. I was carefully adjusting the tilt of my knife so that I could see the camera behind me when one of the A’s put up a hand. This was not a surprise. Everyone in the room knew that the A’s were the most aggressive gene-type, the most likely to speak out, and the most likely to take charge. I was a Z. I would have been the last boy in the room to raise my hand. “What was that stuff?” the A asked.
“Sushi,” the proctor replied in a neutral tone. “Raw fish.”
There was a pause of about two-seconds and then two hundred mouths gagged open, and two hundred eleven-year old stomachs convulsed their contents all over the tables. We also splattered the floors, the chairs, our neighbours, and everything else in the vicinity. I heard afterwards that the eleven-year old girls in the dining hall across the common area had been forced to go through the same experiment and they had delivered the same unanimous verdict to the kitchen staff.
Now, four years later, I was vividly remembering the sushi because my stomach was going to produce the same eruption if my brain-band didn’t kick in quickly with some pain control. Brain-bands are supposed to reduce this level of pain automatically and since mine hadn’t, something was clearly wrong.
Was I in another experiment? I could see my personal Are you behaving yourself? camera on the wall above my desk and the camera’s light was off. That’s when I saw thin fishing lines dangling from the grungy ceiling tiles. Each line had a black metal hook at its end and each hook held a large, numbered sign with some printed words on it. I couldn’t read the signs from where I was lying. Gingerly, I sat up, propped my left elbow on the leg of my upended study chair, and swiveled my head to find note #1.
#1. You may be in pain. You’re probably disoriented. Breathe deeply and your body will return to normal. Don’t try to use your brain-band. It won’t work.
I did as the sign told me and began to feel better. Sign #2 was right next to #1.
#2: When your brain-band stopped working, yo
u may have lost some of your personal memories but those will come back. Your name is Zurt. You’re fifteen-years old. You’re a boy. You’re going to your grad’bration tomorrow.
Yes, my name was Zurt! I could remember wishing that I hadn't been given that name because nobody else in the center had a name that started with a Z. But, my proctor had told me that I was given a Z-name simply because I was the last baby to be manufactured that year. He said it was totally fair for everyone to get a name created by a computer. That way, nobody received a name that was better than anyone else’s.
#3: You’re not going to like what comes next. Keep reading the notes and everything will be OK. Take some deep breaths and then look directly above you.
I craned my head back and saw three thick, heavy-duty fishing lines dangling from the ceiling right above my head – each with a fishing hook at the end. A brain-band was nestled securely on those three hooks. I could see dried blood on the skull rivets on the inside of the band. I grabbed for my head and, ignoring the renewed pain, I groped through my hair looking for the reassuring feel of my smooth metal brain-band. It wasn’t there.
An image of both of my volunteer-parents popped into my head. They were sitting across from me at a picnic table on my fourth birthday. My volunteer-father was so distinguished looking. He always wore such fine looking clothes. My volunteer-mother had this air about her. Earlier, the principal of our school had approached our table and she had wagged her index finger at him in a No gesture and he had immediately turned and walked away. The oddest thing – both of them had perfectly groomed fingernails. I had never seen anyone else with manicured fingernails. My volunteer-father leaned over the table close enough to touch me – but of course he wouldn’t – and looked sternly at me. “You must never, never, never try to remove your brain-band, Zurt. You will become extremely ill if you do.”
Then, I remembered my volunteer-mother’s annual phone calls. She always ended them with some gruesome story about what some stupid kid had done to his brain-band. One time, she had to operate on a boy who had pried his brain-band off with a screwdriver. She had managed to save his life but he’d never move his arms again. I remembered all of her other warnings too. I’d pee in my pants for the rest of my life. I’d be blind. I’d spend my life drooling and rolling around on the floor. I stared at the floor where I was lying. A wet patch of drool was on the carpet where my mouth had been. Then, not knowing how I had managed it, I was standing up, my head was hurting like crazy, and I was dizzy. I looked down at my hands – they were covered in blood!
In one of our health and safety classes, the instructor had reassured us that accidental brain-band detachments need not be fatal so long as a doctor was called immediately. Flinging aside the fishing lines, I lunged for my study desk and the communicator that would be on its top. I was thrashing through the clutter on top of my desk looking for it when I noticed the series of pictures taped to the dingy gray wall of my dorm. They clearly revealed the person who had hung the fishing line from the ceiling and had attached the hooks. I recognized him immediately. Me! I had taken off my own brain-band!
I went back more slowly to the centre of my bedroom and found sign #4.
#4: Those stories you’ve been told about what happens to people who remove their brain-bands – they’re all lies. Removing the brain-band causes temporary pain from the rivets being yanked out of your skull. That’s all.
#5: Don't let anyone find out that you've removed your brain-band. Be sure to destroy these notes and wash all the blood out of your hair before you leave for grad’bration. Your hair will hide the fact that you don’t have a brain-band. That’s why you grew it long. Avoid contact with everyone. Being a Z, you’d have done that anyway, but you need to be extra careful now. You mustn’t be seen without a brain-band.
#6: I put a data storage bot in your pocket with instructions on what you should do for the next couple of days. I don’t know what emotion you’re feeling right now, but isn’t it really, really cool that you are having an actual emotion?
I pulled the storage bot out of my pocket. Parting the sticky hair at the back of my head, I slid the bot into my scalp plug and read the last poster board sign while I waited for my brain to download the bot’s directory.
#7: Grad-bration is the only month you’ll ever have in your life when you’re allowed to break the rules. Memorize this excuse in case you get caught. “I wasn’t interested in grad’bration activities. I just wanted to find out what it was like to live without a brain-band.” Keep telling that lie if by some chance the DPS catches you.
Back to the Table of Contents
Chapter 2
I cleaned up as directed and then examined the two heavy packs of gear that I had prepared for myself. One was for local weather conditions and the other contained cold weather gear in case I decided to do some high altitude climbing in the Rockies. I stuffed both packs into my copter and headed west.
As I flew over Calgary, I saw that the conversion of the old decrepit city center into farmland was progressing steadily. Of course, the city’s asphalt-covered streets had been melted down decades ago in a desperate attempt to produce gasoline after the last drops of precious oil had been sucked out of the Earth’s ground. Leaving Calgary’s skyscraper relics behind me, I made my way to the foothills of the Rockies, landed at the park-and-plug next to the grad’bration site, and connected my copter to a solar panel that would recharge its batteries.
I left my pack with the cold weather gear in the copter. Humping two big bags deep into the forest wouldn’t be necessary if I decided not to make the long trek into the mountains. I noticed that the other copters in the lot were full of valuable personal possessions too. This was not unusual. Alberta’s children were raised from birth to follow society’s rules. Since a brain-band was always present to provide a painful reminder, nobody broke any rule – not even the ones about covering your mouth when you coughed or chewing with your mouth closed. Life was better for everyone if everyone followed the rules. It was only fair.
The grad’bration site was in a large wide valley surrounded on all sides by thick forests. I strode down the path that meandered the length of the open grass fields pausing only when I reached the swimming hole for guys. I spent ten-minutes there, as per the instructions I had left for myself. Zs are notorious loners and nobody would be surprised if I disappeared into the woods for a month. But first, I needed some students to see that I had actually come to grad’bration in case the DPS came around asking about me. I was shocked to see that all of the guys in the pool had bare ears. Then, I remembered that the brain-bands had been turned off for grad’bration. We were free to do whatever we wanted without fear of zaps.
In a society where everyone had essentially the same body, guys were used to seeing other guys with naked heads. But, from an early age, we had been taught to keep our ears covered whenever we were in public. Some guys felt awkward even taking their ear-gear off to go to bed. I wasn’t that modest, but I couldn’t imagine myself swimming with naked ears even with a de-activated brain-band. I had known for some time that I had smaller than average ears and it wasn’t something that I wanted to advertise.
I felt uncomfortable watching the naked swimmers, so turned to climb the tree-covered ridge leading away from the fields. Seeing how full the pools had been made me realize that students from other Albertan schools were here. That meant that other Zs would be graduating and they’d probably be roaming around in the wilderness too. I’d have to be careful that they didn't see me.
Anxious to get my memories back, I clambered high enough up a tree with dense foliage that anyone roaming through the woods would have difficulty spotting me. Minutes later, I was reclining in comfort in my camouflaged sleeping hammock and waiting impatiently for the contents of the bot to transfer into my brain. The first file was a video clip that I opened with some curiosity.
I must have taken my pinky-ring computer off, placed it on some flat surf
ace, and pointed it towards a stump. I watched as I walked into view of the computer’s camera, sat down on the stump, looked straight into the lens, and began to talk. It was weird listening to a brain image of yourself talking. However, after the first sentence, I had other things to concentrate on.
# # # # # # # #
"Zurt," I heard myself saying. "I didn’t take off our brain-band to discover what life was like with emotions. If you haven’t already remembered the real reason, here it is."
"Halfway into the term, I received an email from my physics instructor who had noticed that I had never earned a grade higher than a C+ on any of my courses. He said that I’d have to start working a lot harder if I was going to get a B- in his course. He’d be looking for a very creative invention in my end-of-year project."
"His message bothered me. Like everyone else in school, I had been earning straight C+ marks for eleven full years; why was he criticizing me for that? And, why was he suddenly trying to pressure me not to be average? When I read his email a second time, I scrolled down and found a series of messages between my instructor and another person – someone with a coded ID but with a Department of Public Safety email address. I learned that the unknown person was going to give me a physics research job with the DPS, but he wanted to see what I could accomplish if I had to work under pressure. My teacher was supposed to encourage me to get a B- grade in his course."
"At first, I was relieved that I was going to have a physics research job for the Department of Public Safety. I had expected to be assigned to work on a farm just like almost every other high school graduate. But, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. The DPS man wanted me to be better than average; but, that didn’t make sense. The It’s Only Fair society is based on a fundamental philosophy: It’s only fair that everyone is the same. Why would the DPS suddenly want me to be different?"
"I began investigating. The more I discovered, the more I found to investigate. Now, two months later, I’m left with a lot of unanswered questions and a strong feeling that something may be very badly wrong. But, I can’t prove anything. And, I certainly can’t take my questions to any of my teachers who I believe are all working for the DPS."