“Sure,” he said. “That would be hard.” Then a thought jumped out at him and before he considered it, he had said it, “Have you ever thought about what it would be like if we left the city?”
“You mean move to another city?”
“No, I mean if we lived outside of the city.” H662 knew he was walking on thin ice just mentioning the idea.
“How could you even think such things?” she said, suddenly awake now. She sat up. “How would we live? Where would we go? We’d be like one of the Outcasts.” There was a wild look in her eyes. A terror he had never seen before.
“Would that be so bad? They are people too, after all. Maybe not that much different than us.”
“But they don’t have technology. They have no chips. They cannot work in a city. They’re just a bunch of barbarians, living in mud huts!” The wild look had flamed to more of a panic.
He hated to see her this way. He put up his hands, “Okay, okay, I was just wondering. I’m sorry I brought it up. There was silence for a couple of minutes while his wife calmed down. “Hey, I think I’ll get something to eat before I come to bed, okay?”
“Okay. But...don’t bring up anything about this again. If you’re going to joke, do it at your own expense, not mine.”
“Okay. Goodnight.”
“Night,” she said. Before H662 had even closed the door, her head was back on the pillow but her eyes remained open. He could tell the talk had really disturbed her and it might be a while before she slept.
Later, as H662 sat in the living room with his evening carbpack he tried to imagine what it would be like to live with the Outcasts. Maybe it wouldn’t be all that bad.
Chapter 12
The sun had been down for a few hours and the moon put a silver-blue hue on everything, and Chavez walked alone and cold. Finally, he saw what seemed to be dwellings ahead. They were nothing like where he had come from. Primitive housing made for barbarians and outcasts. But then again, he had to reconcile himself to the fact that he was now an outcast himself. What else could he be?
A middle aged woman sat by a fire and she was weaving something by hand. As he drew near, she looked up. “I was wondering if you were going to make your way here,” she said. “I said to myself, here comes another one of those defectors from the city, come to make a new start of it.”
Chavez felt off his guard. “Do you get many of those? I mean, is it common?”
“All the time. And yes.” She smiled and the fire showed her age more in the lines from her eyes and around her mouth.
“I am Chavez.”
“A respectable name. Not many come with names these days. How thoughtful of you.”
“I didn’t want to live with an ID anymore.”
“Of course you didn’t.” She sat cross legged next to the fire and kept weaving. Come, have a seat. I won’t bite.” She motioned to a stump beside her. “So what is your story, dear?”
Again, the shock of someone outright asking for him to talk about experiences almost overwhelmed him. A tear began to trickle down his cheek, and he was glad it was dark. “I-I didn’t like it there.”
“I’m sure you didn’t,” she said calmly.
“I tried, but I just couldn’t stay.” He fell silent, trying to hold the tears inside.
“When did you decide to leave?”
“Two days ago,” he said. “I left my family and everything.”
“Sorry to hear that.” She rubbed some of the dirt from her hands. “But why? Why did you leave them? Didn’t you have everything you ever wanted? Wasn’t it the golden age of humanity? Wasn’t everything at your fingertips?”
She was goading him on, he thought to himself. “No, it was horrible. This talk we’re having now could never have happened there. Never!” He felt himself getting upset.
“No, it wouldn’t,” she said. “Not when I was there either.”
“You grew up in the city?” asked Chavez.
“Let’s not make this about me. You tell your story, and then I’ll tell you mine. That’s the way it works for newcomers. Telling your story is important, that’s the wisdom of the people. Is your story painful? Sad? Heartbreaking?”
“Some of that,” he said.
“Then I’m all ears.”
Chavez began, and before long, a crowd of villagers from surrounding dwellings gathered around quietly to hear him.
Chapter 13
Late at night, after everyone had gone for the evening, U2258 entered the building. It was not illegal for him to be here, but it would be considered highly suspicious for how late it was. He entered the elevator and then took a horizontal transport before arriving at the hallway that led to the experimental division.
He could not get out of his head what had happened with the signal and the man who supposedly was receiving it. Something was wrong and they weren’t telling him. That made him suspicious and angry. For U2258, anger wasn’t something that exploded out of him, but a simmering, bubbling syrup that burned and found odd cracks that seeped out of him.
Using his keycard again, he entered the laboratory where the experiment had been done, and there in the half darkness, only lit by the electrical lights from a panel of consoles, and sitting in exactly the same position where he had left him, was their patient and test subject.
At first U2258 expected him to talk, to say something or sound an alarm, but there was no sound from him. Still, U2258 moved slowly, methodically, hoping to go unnoticed. Anyway, he had every right to be here, but why wake up the subject?
He sat himself quietly at the console he had used earlier that day and typed into the routines from that morning. It took him only a moment to find the recorded feeds. They were displayed as a set of squiggly lines on the screen, but the feed the subject had not acknowledged was the lowest set of lines on the screen.
But this was a representation of the feeds, not the feeds themselves. In order to get to those, he would have to break into a part of the system that was not open to him. That was where things might get dicey. If they found that he had broken into the feed production itself, questions could come up. This was not his area of study and he had no place working with the feeds. Losing his job was what it would boil down to, so he had to be careful. Very careful.
If there was anything about U2258 that could be said of him, it was that he was careful, even to a fault. But he was also good at his job and he knew much more than what was required in his field of study. Within a few minutes of dodging security traps and sorting through lines of programming code, he found the source, and a way to broadcast it so that it would be audible in the room, just as the subject would hear it. Eventually, he had heard, they planned to stream video as well.
He started the process, and what he heard sounded like nonsense phrases. Soon, however, he realized the phrases had common themes. “Technology is the way of the future. Technology will make your life better. If you want to live free, live close to technology. Your chip will save you. Your chip will give you power over your enemies, the knowledge of the ages…”
It went on and on like this and then repeated again and again. It was like it was trying to win an argument. And then it all came together in U2258’s head. The reason the man had not acknowledged the message was because it was under his conscious mind. It was a subconscious message. They were brainwashing him!
The shock hit him and even his methodical mind was jolted for a second. He looked, but the man had not stirred, and U2258 wanted to keep it that way. Feelings of fear came over him as he began to cover his tracks, erasing any evidence that might show he had been here. Once he was confident he had done his best, he backed out of the room quietly and walked down the hallway.
He was almost to the elevator when he heard the hum of an electric motor. Someone was already on their way up. He found the doorway to the emergency stairs and stepped just inside.
“If you want to ask me, it’s these experiments they run,” came a low grinding voice from just outside the door.
“They told us it was unavoidable,” said another voice, almost as low. “The man knew what he was getting into.” He could hear the voices fading and footsteps grew faint as they moved away from him down the hallway.
“But a body,” said the first man again, loudly this time. “Why do we have to dispose of a body?” It sounded as if they stopped walking for a moment.
“Just do your job and we’ll be covered.”
Through a narrow window in the door, U2258 saw them enter the room he had just left. The one with the test subject. He wondered if he should try to escape or hide or stay and watch. He decided he was in a safe enough place and that if they left, it would likely need to be through the elevator.
The door opened and both men walked out, carrying something heavy between the two of them. It was the body of the test subject.
Chapter 14
The sun came up bright the next morning through the narrow window over the dining table, and H662 felt as though the night before had never even happened. His foreman would surely pull himself together today. He had always been a rock. A man to depend on.
H662 ate his nutritional supplements and some juice concentrate and headed out. His wife would awake in another half hour to leave for her work. She was a good worker, a good wife. She was also tasked with taking their daughter to daycare before work. He hadn’t had a chance to see her last night, but perhaps tonight he would. It was important for a girl to see her dada at least every once in a while, wasn’t it?
That morning, he inspected his pod while it drove him to work. This was one of those older models. H662 knew a trick about them. If a man knew enough about pod construction, this one had override chip capability. If something should go wrong in the program, and if danger was ahead, a smart engineer could override the chip and go to manual, using a series of buttons to drive. That idea was obsolete now since there had not been an accident in many years. It was an old piece of technology, slowly phasing out, and few but he could have done it in the first place.
Once the pod dropped him off, he entered his workplace with a spring in his step. He had allowed himself an extra hour’s sleep this morning since the night before had been so long and since he had had the added responsibilities from his foreman for a day. He didn’t know how the man did it. It was a lot to oversee.
He was glad to get back to work. The morning seemed fresh and hopeful. He attacked his work with vigor, focusing on what was before him. The thoughts of yesterday were gone and now he could concentrate on what mattered: the work.
It was odd no longer having the competition of the foreman’s son. It was always good to have a little healthy competition.
H662 had worked a couple of hours before he realized he had not seen his foreman. Surely they would have let him come back. It was only a momentary lapse for the man. They wouldn’t get rid of him for that, would they? He decided to check on him.
He knocked on the door, but no one said anything. He tried to open it and it opened easily. There was a stench that first met his nostrils. He tried to figure out what it was, but then he saw it. His foreman sat behind the desk, papers and broken pictures still on the floor. And clearly he hadn’t sterilized himself that morning because he smelled horrible. Bottles were stationed all over the desk. “Come’on in.” He said it all slurred together. “I’m jus’ta picture o’ prod...productivity today.”
“Sir,” said H662. “What are you doing?”
“I’m gettin’on wi’ life. So my son died. I’m not suppos’d t’care about that am I?”
H662 didn’t know what to do. He was flashing back to the feelings he had tried to hold back all day yesterday and they made him feel uncomfortable.
“I mean it’s all ‘bout the comp’ny. Right?”
H662 shook his head. That is what they had always been taught.
“Right!” Then, to his surprise, his foreman picked up one of the bottles and threw it hard at him, but missed him. It thudded against the wall. Unsatisfied with that, the foreman picked up another bottle and stood to throw it, this time shattering the bottle against the edge of the door.
“Sir!” yelled H662.
“We’re not suppos’d t’care. Right?” He grabbed another bottle, but this time H662 ducked out the doorway as a bottle came flying through, over his head, and shattered on the cement floor.
Another supervisor passed by H662 and entered the room and the conversation could be heard outside. H662 just stood there watching as if he were in a dream.
“What are you doing?” he asked
“If you can’t understan’, then it’s not worth explainin’!” yelled his foreman in the other room.
“Sir, I understand you’re upset about yesterday. But really, it’s not the end of the world.”
“Isn’t it? Isn’t it the end of the world?”
The door at the far end of building opened and in walked one of the divisional managers. H662 didn’t know him, but had seen him at some important meetings. He outranked everyone in the room and he walked with a grim purpose, face devoid of emotion, and behind him walked two guards dressed in shiny black protective uniforms. They headed across the length of the factory floor and into the office, leaving the door open. H662 could see them through the door now.
“What’s wrong with you people,” said his foreman again. “Can’ a guy ‘ave a bad day for a change?”
“Sir,” said the divisional manager. “You will have to come with me.”
“Well, what if I don’t wanna.”
“Sir, you are being part of the problem.”
“Am I?” asked the boss. “Am I part of the problem?” His voice no longer sounded mad, but serious, and with such force that H662 could not help but wonder at it. The guards took him each by one arm and escorted him from the room. Again his foreman said, almost pleading for an answer, “Am I? Am I really part o’ the problem?”
They escorted him from the building and everything grew quiet again. The other workers went back to their stations as if nothing had happened. But H662 could not get those words out of his head. “Am I? Am I really part of the problem?” For the rest of the day he thought about that question as he quietly worked at his station.
Chapter 15
U1472 was just wrapping it up at her work. It had been a very ordinary day. Boring, really, but at least she was doing her duty. She turned off her communications station and stood to leave when a hand touched her shoulder. “U1472, do you want a ride home?” It was D1298. When he leaned over, she saw that he had red highlights in his brown hair, which only the light revealed. “I live just down the street, and we could share the same pod.” He had been all business last night at the meeting, but now he seemed somehow changed. More personable.
She considered his offer for a moment and decided there could be little harm in it. “Sure.”
They took the elevator down to the bottom floor together and D1298 acted as a gentleman. He asked her how her day went, and talked about his day. When they got to the ground floor, he summoned the pod himself and let her in first. U1472 was taken aback by this side of D1298. She had only known him as a supervisor, and he was a good one. But she remembered the way he had made a pass at her, which shocked her. Now here was a whole new side of him and she liked this side.
“So I was just saying to Y1416 that we really should make those headsets more comfortable. You know the one you wear every day? How do they feel to you?”
“Not bad for the first two hours or so, but after that they become unbearable. Often my left ear turns quite red and sore by the end of the day.”
“My point exactly. They’re the same ones we all have to wear, but you most of all. How about if we get you a new set. I’ll work on getting everyone a new set before long. It’ll make the work easier to deal with.”
“Thank you,” she said. She liked this man more and more. He was watching out for her. He really did make a good boss.
“I live at the building just before yours, so I’ll just get out with you and
walk home. Anyway, it’s dark and I’d hate for you to walk in the dark.”
“Th-thank you,” she said. Should she tell him no? Was this crossing the line? But it was dark, and she thought there was no harm in him walking her home.
The night air was cool, and she could even see a few stars through the city smog--a nice night for a walk. Too bad they were only walking across the parking lot to her house. When they reached the door to her apartment, she pulled out her key card and unlocked the door. He immediately opened it for her. “I guess you’ll be fine now,” he said. “It was nice to have someone to talk to about my day. Have a good night and I’ll see you in the morning.” He let go of the door and let it close behind her and she realized she was looking forward to seeing him again in the morning.
She was halfway to her apartment before she froze, shook her head, and then laughed. She had forgotten to pick up her daughter. She walked back to the street and called another pod.
As she was on her way to get T-5529, her mind wandered. She thought of what D1298 had said. He liked having someone to talk to. Did she have someone to talk to? No, not really. By the time her husband got home, she was done with her day and ready for bed or asleep. But he was just being a good citizen, wasn’t he? Wasn’t that a right priority to have? Or was there something more?
Chapter 16
U2258 lay in his bed that night and methodically ran through the events of the evening. He learned two things tonight, and they both spoke very badly for the company. First, he had learned that when feeds were sent to the new chip, in the very first experiment with this new technology, they had sent an additional feed as a subliminal message, spurring the hearer to more loyalty to the city and technology as a savior. U2258 did not like the idea of men controlling men. It did not seem right.
Second, he had learned that the man who was in the first experiment had died somehow and their course of action was to hide the fact, even from him. This was even worse and he began to feel a distrust for his own company.
***
The next day the head of manufacturing approached him. “U2258? I want to show you something,” he said. “Follow me.”
He got up and followed. The two got into an elevator and then a horizontal transport, eventually winding up on the 35th floor on the west side. This was an area U2258 rarely ever saw. It had nothing to do with his work. They walked down a long hallway.