by Rob J. Hayes
“Right now you are all receiving proof. A data stream. Everything we’ve been able to recover. To discover.” I swallow down a lump in my throat and cough again. “It should be everything you need to… to see the truth for yourselves.”
I glance up again. Milly shakes her head and then moves her arms in the old, jerky movements of a robot. She wants me to be more human. Wants me to convince the world, not just tell them where to find the proof. She needs me to do what Simon should have.
I look back to the camera and take a deep breath. I don’t know how to connect with people anymore. But I do know one thing. I know life as a Drone.
“For the past four years I have lived my life as a Drone. For anyone who doesn’t know, that’s what we call people who sell their emotions on the black market. We sell everything we’ve felt, everything we feel. We harvest every memory so we don’t feel anything anymore.
“Not many people choose the life. Those that do usually have a reason. It’s not about the money. It’s about the need to not feel. For me, I chose that life after I accidentally shot and killed my own daughter.
“For a long time I suffered from the worst nightmares. The type a person gets only by serving in the military. The type a person gets only by serving on Mars. I suffered with the things I had seen and the things I had done. One day I woke up in the middle of the night and saw… something. A monster. Something that can’t exist on Earth. I reached for a gun and shot it. Only it wasn’t a monster. It was my three-year-old daughter, come to see why I was screaming in my bed.”
I pause there. Swallowing down the lump in my throat and wiping away the tears that had come to my eyes.
“She died. For a while. We brought her back.”
I stare at the monitor screen, but I don’t see it. I’m remembering that night. Digging down, trying to remember the emotion.
“I couldn’t live with the guilt. The shame of it. I couldn’t live with the feelings, the emotions. I couldn’t live with what I had done. So I ran away. I found a harvester. A man who was willing to take away the emotions. Scour my memories and take away everything so I wouldn’t have to feel them ever again. For four years I lived without emotion. But it wasn’t living. I was merely existing.”
I open my mouth to say more and a gunshot rings out, followed quickly by two more. Milly is tapping furiously on her PD. I can’t see Kendall from here, but I can hear her.
“Hurry it up, Robot. We have company.” Kendall shouts. More gunshots. Milly closes the door to the office. Trying to cancel out some of the noise.
“We don’t have long.” I face the camera again. “They’re trying to shut us off. Stop us from warning you all. I hope it’s too late for that already.
“Three weeks ago I found my harvester, a man by the name of Pascal Renault, dead in his apartment building. It was not an emotional transference deal gone badly. It was a hit, carried out by professional assassins. He was not the only one. All over the world, black market harvesters were being murdered. There was only one place that details on all of their locations was kept. Arkotech, the manufacturers of all emotion harvesting tech. For years they sold their products to criminals even when the technology was illegal.”
More gunshots. Bullets being traded back and forth. No matter how good Kendall is, she can’t hold out forever. At some point she’ll run out of ammunition, if nothing else.
“I went to Arkotech. I was there when the terrorist group, the Sanctitists attacked.” I hope Langdon will one day forgive me for sharing the details. I hope Arkotech will be too busy fighting lawsuits to file one against me for breaking the NDA. “I was the one who delivered Dr Maximillian Brant to them. He harvested my emotions and ordered me to resolve the situation. I did, in the most logical way possible. I gave the Sanctitists what they wanted.”
I hear a scream from outside the office and look up. Milly is backed up against one of the banks of servers. The gunfire is nearly constant now. Back and forth.
“Arkotech and the military covered it up to stop their technology from receiving any bad press.” I continue my story, speaking more quickly now. It won’t be long before the soldiers think to gas the place.
“But the Sanctitists weren’t only after Dr Brant. They took something else. Data from Arkotech’s computers. The same data we are now transmitting to all of your PDs. Proof of everything.
“Arkotech produced eight billion copies of their newest technology, a touch screen harvesting technology capable of taking a person’s emotions at a mere finger press. All eight billion units were sold internally to their parent company. Me.com.”
I hear Kendall’s voice, raised to a shout, between the bursts of gunfire. I can’t tell what she’s saying, but I can see Milly nod and drag her finger across her PD. For a moment the gunfire sounds distant and I hear Kendall let out a load groan. I can only hope she’s OK.
“Eight billion is more than one for every person on Earth. It is also the same number of Epicurus Personal Devices produced by Me.com.”
I give the information a moment to settle in before I forge onwards. “Every single Epicurus device contains the technology to harvest a person’s emotions through its touch-screen. The coming update that allows Epicurus to read a person’s emotional state and upload it directly to their Me.com feed will not only read your emotions. It will harvest them. It will take them from you. Away from you. It will steal your emotions.”
I hear Kendall curse and a moment later I hear the gunfire again, just as loud as before.
“Gaia’s blue blood! Hurry it up, Robot.” Her voice is strained. Pain. Fear. Anger.
“The UEA congress recently pushed through a new law. It states that the harvesting of emotions is completely legal as long as there is no harm or threat visited upon the victim. That means it is completely legal for Me.com to use Epicurus to steal your emotions. I do not have proof, but I suspect Me.com paid members of congress to push the law through as quickly as possible.
“The worst bit about all of this is that unless you take action. Unless we all take action right now. We won’t care. Once the update to Epicurus goes live, nobody will feel the outrage, the anger, the shock, the fear, the disgust. If we, the people of Earth, allow Me.com to harvest our emotions as they want… We will become little more than robots. We will only feel what they want, what they allow us to feel. They will take everything that makes us want to rebel, to fight against the oppression, and leave us with only those feelings that allow them to continue unopposed.”
I glance up to see Milly pull the pistol from her trousers and rush forwards towards the doorway. She’s not trained for combat. Things must be bad out there if Kendall has asked for help.
“No one person can stop this. Me.com has made it legal. Legitimate. We can’t just sit back and wait for someone to save us. We can’t just sit back and trust the UEA will fix things. It won’t. We need to take a stand. Not just me and you. Everyone needs to take a stand right now. While we still can. While we still want to.
“We need to boycott Epicurus. Boycott Me.com. Everything they’re linked to and everything they stand for. We need to protest. Peacefully. We need to stand as one against the oppression they are trying to crush us with. We need to say NO!”
I look up to see Milly struggling back towards the office door. She’s supporting Kendall. Half dragging the assassin backwards. I see blood. Leaking out from Kendall’s chest, soaking into her shirt and trousers. Her right arm is hanging down by her side, more blood dripping down from her fingertips to splash onto the green carpet.
Milly pushes open the glass door of the office and the gunfire sounds louder again. She drags Kendall through the door. The look in her eyes is pure fear and adrenaline. Kendall smiles at me, but it’s half-hearted. She’s hurt badly.
“We’re just about out of time, Robot.” Kendall pushes Milly away and slumps down against the front of the desk. She holds up her left hand. I see a small device with a red button on top. Kendall laughs and presses the button.
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br /> An explosion rocks through the floor. It shakes the room. A pane of glass shatters. I see debris rocket into the server room. I hear distant screams start as the noise of the explosion dies down. Kendall lets her arm fall to her side.
“Well that’s my part of this job done,” she says in a voice thick with pain.
“You’re still broadcasting, Mr Garrick.” Milly nods at me.
I look back at the camera. I wonder if Summer is watching me right now. I hope Susan is. I hope she gets the message. Hope she stops both of them from ever using Me.com again.
“I have lived the past four years as a Drone. I gave away everything. My hope and pride. Anger and fear. Love and empathy. Guilt and doubt. I gave it all away and lived a life of nothing. No attachments or friends. No loved ones or enemies. I’ve come to realise it’s not a life I want. Not a life I would want for anyone. Especially not my daughter. I don’t want her, or anyone else, growing up as a slave to our government and the corporations that control them.”
I take a deep breath and sigh it out. “Please. Stand up and fight against them. All of you.”
I stand up and take hold of the monitor, turning it and the camera around to face the office doorway. Then I walk in front of it again and go down on my knees next to Kendall. She’s looking pale again, her face drained and tired. She’s losing a lot of blood.
“Are we done here, Robot?” Kendall asks.
Milly sits down on the other side of me. She removes her PD and places it on the floor next to her.
“Now comes the part where we surrender,” I say.
Kendall lets out a strained laugh. “Well, we should go get a victory beer then. Just as soon as they let us all go.”
“We’re still broadcasting.” Milly glances back towards the camera embedded in the monitor and then away, as though she’s scared to show her face to the billions of people watching. I’d wager we’ll be all over the news soon enough whether we want to be or not.
“I know.” I put my hands on top of my head, still in direct view of the camera. Milly does the same. Kendall raises one hand. She doesn’t even try her right.
I hear footsteps outside. They sound close now.
“We surrender.” I raise my voice loud enough for the soldiers to hear and so the billions of people watching can’t help but understand.
The first of the soldiers creeps into view and more follow. They line up in front of the office. A dozen barrels all pointed our way. I see fingers on triggers. Prepared to fire.
“We surrender,” I say again. I nod my head upwards, hoping they see the camera. “And the whole world is watching.”