“Don’t be so moody!” yelled Asteria and took Gillean by his arm. She pushed him in the pool.
“Aah, you sly little kid!” he swam and gulped for some fresh air.
She jumped in the water and started splashing the man. They were fooling around when suddenly the air raid alarm started wailing.
“What’s going on?” asked Cullen in a disturbed voice.
“We gotta run away from here!”
“So much fun…”
“Dude, don’t make our time wane” the girl jumped up and waited for him.
“Where are we heading now?
“Somewhere away from the open space”.
“Why?”
“No time to explain!”
The air and space broke with a sudden smash. The building vibrated, trembling between irreversible forces. Bright tendrils of light reached out, casting a brief and blinding blow. A cacophony of sound echoed through the surroundings, the sky completely red.
“The roof is gonna fall down!”
“Take this!” Asteria gave a strange brown bundle to Gillean and he unfurled it.
“Glasses?”
“I’ll explain later, just put them on!” she took out the same pair of glasses from her bag and did as her companion. She held his hand and whispered : “Think about something good, that makes you feel warmth inside”.
“I’ll try…”
***
“Dad, can you help me carve and construct a ship from wood?”
“Of, course, my dear”.
“I want it to be like a Titanic out of wood!”
“Leave me alone till eight o’clock. I promise I will have finished by then”.
“Good luck!”
“Daddy, are you finished?”
“Behold! Titanic-out-of-wood edition”.
“That’s exactly what I asked for! You even dyed it blue!”
“My pleasure”.
The little boy hugged his father and they went to the pond in the backyard. The ship was so swift on the water that little Gillean was totally astounded and felt calm looking on the waves the hand-made toy created. The gurgling sound of water made him close his eyes and he fell asleep on his father’s shoulder. The strong and loving man carried the child in his creatively furnished and bright bedroom. He slept soundly, dreaming about being a sailor on a gargantuan ship somewhere in the Pacific.
***
“You all right?” the girl slightly nudged Cullen by his shoulder.
“Are we still alive?”
“If I can interact with you, then obviously yes”.
“But how?”
“I gave you a special pair of memory glasses. They transferred you to your past and you could observe and go through your cherished moment again. My glasses were responsible for keeping you concentrated on the very memory and not drifting off in something negative”.
“But why’s that so and where are we?”
“I teleported us to an underground”.
“Tell me what the heck is going on!” the man looked at her with dismay.
“To get the ball rolling, I’d say that our current government is absolutely abominable”.
“Why is that so? Democratics or Republicans?”
“None of the above. There’s a new governmental structure. It’s called a Global commission. It’s an authoritarian regime”.
“Hold on…Are we being watched?”
“Yeah. Whenever there’s established or registered a new real estate ,the police forces and the district attorneys working in tandem with the government come to the place to incorporate it in the data base, file some documents on your obligations as a property owner and they install some CCTV’s all around the house or whatever. I’m not an exception, so cameras are also watching me. It was hard to get accustomed to it, but we don’t have a choice”.
“Do they control your browser history? And all your messengers?”
“They take over all types of connection with the outside world you might have”.
“Do you vote at all?”
“No. It’s been the same leadership since I was born. It’s sort of hereditary. The authorities take on their children and other potential descendants”.
“That’s shitty. Have you tried protesting or throwing off the parliament?”
“Are you kidding me right now?”
“Not really”.
“The protesters are dying of hunger and tortures in jails. The capital punishment has been brought back and there are some other measures like electric chairs as in the past. The police forces use robotic dogs that have an acute sense of smell and can track your dread a thousand miles away. No one has ever managed to get away with even a minor crime and flee the iron soulless creature having a constant bloodlust”.
“What else is used to carry out the punishment?” the man was struck with shock.
“So, our legislature has a special set of norms and measures regarding the punishment. It’s called a Conformity Enforcement Protocol: Mind Compliance”.
“Do they oppress you to access your mind and memory?”
“Yeah, sort of. In the protocol are included and utilized an extreme surveillance, advanced neuroscience and psychological manipulation. All citizens, from birth, are implanted neural compliance chips. They always monitor the brain activity, and any deviation from approved thought patterns or emotions is flagged as a potential delinquency”.
“Holly cow! Do you really have a chip inside?”
“Thanks God I don’t. The policy with chips is rather immature. The government initiated it 5 years ago, give or take. They didn’t touch us, only the newborns and all these generations”.
“That’s awesome”.
“I couldn’t agree more! At least my thoughts are confidential and not accounted for”.
“As far as I understood, that’s not all?”
“Yep. In addition, when the citizen is deemed delinquent, the regime activates punitive neural overrides. These overrides induce intense psychological distress and pain, even a temporary paralysis if the person is trapped in a capsule and floating in an acidic water and tortured with a stun gun later on. The severity and duration of the punishment vary depending on the level of delinquency”.
“Bloody hell!”
“I’m not finished”.
“Oh…”
“Culprits also undergo a memory manipulation process. The technique implies a sequence of actions during which the memories associated with rebellious thoughts or actions are altered and erased. As an additional form of punishment ,the offenders are subjected to virtual reality experiences that stimulate extreme scenarios, such as imprisonment, torture or isolation. The accused people are socially ostracized, with the regime actively encouraging citizens to distance themselves from those labeled as dissidents. Families and friends may be incentivized to report any signs of non-conformity. The surveillance technology monitors people in their homes, workplaces and public spaces . AI algorithms analyze behavior in real time, identifying potential threats to authority and triggering immediate punitive measures. And the last but not least is a reeducation camps phenomenon. Some extreme cases may impose the criminal on going to this camp, where they go through an intensive indoctrination programs. These camps employ psychological manipulation, propaganda, and physical conditioning to break down individual resistance and ensure complete loyalty to regime”.
“Pinch me if I’m dreaming, I’m begging you!”
“Don’t wanna disappoint you, but you aren’t”.
“We’re doomed then!”
“Ha-ha, I’ve been living in this type of state for my whole life”.
“It doesn’t mean that the whole civilization and the fucking world isn’t gonna collapse!”
“Hey, fella, take it easy!”
“You don’t get my point. It’s not supposed to be this way!” the man exclaimed and accidentally broke the pair of memory glasses he was wearing.
“You ham-handed! I stole it in my college warehouse!”
“But you can order new glasses online, can’t you?”
“I do, but the staff is already looking for the ones I stole and they’ll find a guilty person not a moment too soon”.
“Don’t sweat it. Your fellows won’t rat you out”.
“They don’t know about it”.
“That’s it! You found a solution”.
“Maybe”.
“But you still haven’t answered my question: what happened?”
“The punitive bomb exploded”.
“Why is it punitive?”
“Such kinds of bangs happen almost every day. They mean that the citizens had been too bold and committed a lot of things they are not permitted to. This one was pretty strong than other explosions happening lately”.
“Wow, everything is way worse than I imagined”.
“It could be much more severe”.
“Did I say it out loud?” Gillean’s face got red immediately.
“Heh, yup”.
“Were they eavesdropping on us?”
“This underground is abandoned because we don’t use public transport already. And it’s absolutely cut off from all the observation. Sometimes people come here for some privacy cuz they’re not safe even at home”.
“I’ve found out too much as for one day…” Cullen sat on the concrete floor and yawned.
“But it’s absolutely essential for your endurance”.
“Will we get out and go somewhere to eat?”
“Oh, sure !I forgot about food at all. Don’t you mind going to a local robo -café?
“I don’t really care about a place, I’m just hungry as hell”.
“Got you”.
Asteria took out the two tablets-teleports and they departed to the robo -café. The man was relieved to have a break from all this madness. The atmosphere was gradually getting less tense. They sat at a small table near the window. People were coming out of their houses to unwind after the explosion.
“What do you wanna order?”
“A some kind of sandwich and a beverage to drink”.
“The technology is really straightforward-just scan the code here and it’ll lead you to a DM with the robot-waiter. It’ll receive your request and deliver the food promptly.”
“OK. I’ll eventually quaint the hunger”.
“A great decision”.
“Asteria ,I’ll leave you for a couple of minutes”.
“Okey-doke .I’ll wait for our dinner”.
Gillean went to the toilet. He stood in front of the mirror. In that fleeting moment, the contours of reality seemed to waver like a mirage in the desert heat. The surroundings, once anchored in certainty and familiarity, morphed into a dreamlike tapestry of uncertainty. Colors lost their vibrancy, and sounds became distant echoes, as if filtered through a thick veil. Time, once a reliable companion, slipped through unsteady fingers, leaving an unsettling residue of disconnection. It was as though the world had momentarily slipped off its moorings, leaving behind a surreal landscape where the ordinary transformed into an enigmatic dance of shadows and whispers. His knees shaking and body losing balance, he fell on the cold tile floor.
“All of these is so weird and inconsequential. How can she be so hospitable with a stranger? Why does she want to help and save me? It’s so suspicious that she laid out all the information about the government so freely and openly despite them observing and prying on every single word you say. Something is bound to go wrong…” the criminologist thought to himself and kept sitting on the floor, unable to get up.
***
“Do you copy?”
“Copy. The password?”
“Bait 29”.
“Hello, Asteria. How’s the plan ?”
“Everything is exactly the way we want, the fortune is completely on our side. I still wonder how can this man be so delulu , like, he’s 35 already and he trusted to a random teenage girl”.
“That’s a perk. It’s not beneficial for us to deal with something overly-complicated”.
“What am I supposed to do now?”
“Did he order something to drink?”
“Yeah ,a Diet Coke”.
“Do you have the Memo pills with you?”
“Yep, all supplies are in my duffel bag”.
“Take his Coke and dissolve a couple of pills in it”.
“Got it. And then what?”
“He’ll just pass out. You call me ASAP and we take him to the asylum”.
“Copy that. Over!”
“Over!”
A radiant glow of ecstasy enveloped the room as she triumphantly opened the heavy bag and let her new friend down. Her eyes sparkled in an infectious energy, and a subtle but confident smile played on her lips. Every gesture exuded the sense of accomplishment, as if she had conquered an arduous challenge and emerged victorious. The girl’s posture spoke of self-assurance, standing tall with a newfound strength. It was as if an invisible aura of success surrounded Asteria, leaving an unmistakable trail of triumph in her wake.
***
Cullen got up, his legs shaking. The shadows casted by the dim light caused the goosebumps on the strong man’s skin .The air hung heavy with a palpable tension, and chilling silence exacerbated the disconcert. His breath quickened ,and beads of sweat formed his forehead as the eyes darted nervously around the room. As Gillean’s gaze fixated on an indistinct corner, an unspoken dread took hold, rendering him paralyzed with fear. In that moment, fear prevailed, gripping the criminologist in a silent invisible vice that refused to let go.
“I can’t force myself go out and look in her eyes. She’s tricking me, and it’s undeniable”.
He approached the sink, opened the tap and the cool stream of water made him come back to the reality. Gillean Cullen was standing and washing his face, craving for the freshness he needed so desperately. The man glanced on his reflection. The drops of water were all over his face and T-shirt.
“Am I a doormat or sissy? Get a grip of yourself, man! She’s a plain teenager”.
The criminologist mastered his courage, took a deep breath and pulled the door handle.
“Oh. Good luck to me!”
***
“Oh, come on! Where’s this dumb man?” Asteria started losing temper.
“Are our orders here already?”
“Yup. You all right?”
“Kinda dizzy and weak”.
“You need some food and energy then!”
“Where are all the guests?”
“It’s really late ,so people are going home or somewhere else for entertainment”.
“OK”.
They sat in a stony silence. Gillean sensed that something was suspicious and therefore lost appetite. He looked across the table and saw his companion with a content look on her face. The room fell into a hushed stillness, disrupted only by the sound of robo-waiters doing their chores. The atmosphere shifted, and a wary uncertainty settled over them like a cloud.
“I’ll leave you for a second” the teenage girl said finally.
“All right” the criminologist replied and shrugged because he didn’t expect her to speak.
She got up and went into the corridor. Cullen sighed and felt a relief.
“What a strange feeling! We were like friends at first, and then, I feel a complete shift after this explosion. Not only in our interaction, but all around us. Even the air has changed since then” the man thought to himself and took a sip of the Diet Coke.
“Hm…It tastes differently, not like the Coke. As if something has been mixed with it” Gillean realized what had happened and whose initiative it was.
The room was bathed in a muted glow, the soft hum of surrounding sounds merging in something distant and inconsequential. His gestures became feeble and uncoordinated. A delicate tremor coursed through his limbs, as if a gentle breeze threatened to topple him. A mirage of reality was fading into the background. In the unfolding scene, time itself seemed to slow, as if granting a moment of reluctant grace before the inevitable. Gillean’s consciousness ebbed away, leaving him lying absolutely defenseless under the table in the restaurant of the city where he used to live, but was a total stranger simultaneously.
***
“Mr. Bell! Do you copy?”
“Copy. How’s he doing?”
“He’s already passed out”.
“I’m coming. Distract the robots somehow”.
“See you soon!”
Asteria grabbed the glass of Coke and deliberately threw it in the wall. All the robots approached the sound and the girl started throwing the leftovers in them. They chased her as she was running towards the pantry and ran into the room. The cyborgs followed her and the teenager distracted them by knocking off some jars and ran away. She closed the pantry door and victoriously waited for her boss to come.
“All the years of hard work and practice haven’t been in vain!” she said and waved to her compatriot as she saw him enter the restaurant.
“Good job, kid!” he exclaimed and gave her a friendly smile.
