Utopian Uprising: Prisoner of the Mind

by Brian Craft

  As soon as the Second Shift ninety-nine are reclined in their chairs, lights dim automatically as the domed ceiling fades. One by one along the spiral, like a countdown starting at the outermost chair, Hivebeam projects into each individual’s forehead. His or her eyes close, body slackens, hands twitch a little, and holographic displays spring to life around them.

  The beams continue, tightening around the spiral until it completes the initiation at chair #1, where Orion’s shift replacement, a black man about average height and nothing else special that you can see, blanks out in surrender to Hivebeam.

  The only seemingly exceptional thing about him is his mind, and now the central computer is using it, and he isn’t.

  Holographic monitors initiate and the glow intensifies throughout the Hivemind chamber. City grids, train systems, all the way down to small buildings where Hivemind will lull everyone to sleep tonight.

  The immobilizing Hivebeam then has a return flow that pulses upward from the sleepers and connects to the web above. It sparkles with data pulsing along the route until it converges in the center of the room and disappears into the orifice in the middle of the dome.

  The tiny sparkles of light inside the beam aren’t random. Each has a shape and direction, and all have some variance in brightness. There is gravity to the data carried in these energetic pulses the computer can use and direct where to go in the stream.

  The pulses tangle and shift, channeling into junctions inside the beam. Snaking, twisting, accelerating lighting-fast to arrive at their destinations across the metropolis.

  …

  Maglev races through the city along the glowing thread of Hivebeam. It runs the length of the transport interior, sparkling with millions of minute data pulses that direct everything. Indifferent passengers ride in silence. Some stare at personal video projections to bide their time, most stare into space. All is clockwork, so why pay attention?

  Orion has found his favorite spot mid-car. But tonight, instead of daydreaming over the city, he’s studying the beam overhead in the train like maybe he can understand something about it that he can’t while he’s connected. He’s been growing more restless about life lately, but the death in Hive has propelled his mind in a new direction. The idea that a third of his life is gone every day in a wink of an eye is haunting his mind. The control he surrenders daily to Hive is only the epicenter of the control that society has given away.

  Security is the excuse they all conform to. Protection and the promise of a better life if you only cede control and don’t ask any questions. But there is a weed breaking through the concrete that has set in Orion’s mind.

  A heavyset man with sunken eyes shifts anxiously next to Orion. He eyes the Hivebeam, too, and can’t keep his hands on his bouncing leg long before a twitch on his cheek compels him to impulsively scratch a spot where a few red scrapes are almost ready to bleed.

  “I’m Fray,” he whispers to Orion. “Can you hear it?”

  Orion looks around as if uncertain Fray is talking to him.

  “Like a master’s whisper to slumbering sheep.” Fray bores his eyes into Orion. The desperation in his eyes glassing over with tears that beg for understanding.

  Orion methodically stands not wanting to provoke Frey and moves to an open seat at the end of the car. From that vantage he can monitor the unraveling citizen from a safe distance.

  After assuring himself that Fray isn’t following, Orion sinks back, checks his posture, and then raises his eyes to notice that his knees are a hair’s breadth from touching the delicate legs opposite him. His eyes float up to settle on a beautiful black-haired woman.

  She drops her eyes and casually attempts to hide the petals of a flower that stems out the rucksack in her lap. She composes herself like Orion did. Readjusting her position, straightening her waist-length jacket, and smoothing her pants. Then her hand drifts up and gently move a silky tress of hair away from her eyes. A carefully timed blink and her hypnotic emerald eyes lock on his. She freezes. So does Orion.

  He glances around to confirm no one else saw her hide the flower, then whispers, “Some laws are meant to be broken.”

  Iris discreetly slips her hand to the side, exposing the flower so he can get a full look at its delicate purple petals. It’s contraband, nature, randomness that no one is allowed to handle, except the few horticulture techs that maintain the robots that in turn maintain the crops. And surely, no one is allowed to carry them out of the cultivation greenhouses.

  Orion interrupts the moment when out of the corner of his eye he spots Fray skulking along the transport aisle, the scratches on his cheek opened and bleeding. His eyes locked on the beam as if he's stalking the flight of a white phoenix. Some passengers sense the aggression in him and shy away, trying awkwardly to steal a few more inches of space away from the walkway. No one wants to get caught in a weird moment with this unhinged man, and certainly, no one wants to be implicated in something ‘deviant'.

  Fray is rambling now. "Someone wants us to see it. It controls this train. It controls this city. They want us to see that we are controlled. They want us to be afraid." Then Fray stops, his hand absently smearing the blood across his cheek. He stares at the blood on his palm like he barely knows what it is. He turns his focus up again and glares at the beam. "It can't control me anymore." He spreads his fingers as wide as he can as if he's about to receive something enormous while reaching upward to wrap them around the incredible energy of Hivebeam.

  Orion screams, “NO! Don’t touch it!”

  But it’s too late, Fray plunges his hand into the naked energy stream. His entire body, every muscle, every cell, seizes and his back arches almost hard enough to break itself. His eyes force impossibly wide open and drain of color as his own muscles reel taut and pull his entire face into a stretched, absurd show of unwelcome ecstasy. He sucks in a massive breath, over-filling every last fraction of his lungs and then a wave of convulsion slams into him. The look of disturbed bliss overtaken by gripping pain.

  A jagged tremor rolls through the transport from end to end. Shocked passengers scream and grip their seats as if they might be propelled out of them. The loudspeaker blares. “ALERT! Civil crime 5-9-4 in progress. All passengers stay where you are!”

  Orion lurches for Fray. He plows into the energy-snared man, the force dislodges him and he stumbles back, stunned, then slackens and starts to sink. Orion hooks his arms under Fray’s and tries to hold him up. Pigment floods back into Fray’s eyes as he locks his stare on Orion.

  A sudden velocity break heaves everyone forward and announces the transport deceleration as it begins its descent to the street. Fray looks at Orion and says, “Did you see?”

  The pressurized sides open and Fray pushes Orion away as black-clad police in helmets and tactical gear rush in, a chiseled Sargent Tack leads the way. Fray recoils like he's getting ready for a fight, but instead, he meagerly states, "I did nothing wrong."

  Tack glares at him but holds his hands palm forward to counter the impression that he’s a threat. He advances slowly on Fray as he backs away, soon he’ll run out of room. “Be calm. We’ll take care of you,” Tack says.

  Fray knows better, he knows what’s next. “Keep your hands off me. Stay back! Leave me alone!” An officer grabs for him and Fray shoves him off. The angle gives Tack the chance he needs, and he juts his gloved hand forward, fingers and palms suddenly charged and glowing with embedded electrodes. He seizes Fray’s arm and a jolt pours from the glove.

  Fray is thrust back into the wall and collapses to the floor in a heap.

  In seconds officers dive on him, cuffing his arms. Tack addresses the startled passengers, all standing now and beginning to exit. Tack barks, “Everyone remain seated. You witnessed a crime. We need to speak with you.” The stunned, but obedient passengers pause and comply, turning back to retake their seats, while a few remain standing but freeze.

  Orion backs a step, careful to not draw attention or touch anyone else that might when he not
ices the purple flower on the floor. He quickly snaps it up and slips it in his coat while everyone’s eyes are glued to the police and Fray. Orion turns to the open door in time to spot Iris look back at him before she disappears into the gathering crowd outside. He hesitates a moment, then impulsively exits the doors. He spots her threading through the crowd and follows her away from the police who will be sure to find the flower he’s illegally hiding.

  He carefully slips through the crowded sidewalk trailing Iris. It’s an older area of the city with shops and personal businesses being slowly replaced by newer, Hive operated facilities. But the legacy of randomness, lighted signs, and eclectic buildings adds to the genuine and chaotic warmth of free choice. The city planners refer to areas like this, with limited Hivebeam infiltration as dead zones. They are working hard to eliminate these dens of deviance.

  Iris glances back at Orion, and then ducks into a public food center, the equivalent of a cafeteria. Orion checks over his shoulder, then slips through the door after her.

  The huge room is filled end-to-end with hundreds of people lined up and plodding like cattle through long aisles of waist-high plastic countertops. The walls are digital displays looping through information about what's available. Carefully designed messages recommend the proper nutrition and recommended body function, all mixed with propaganda about how their diligence helps society manage resources. Always circling back to how processed is better because it eliminates waste and ensures their perfect lives.

  Citizens pause over touchscreen displays embedded in countertops where they select from food images. Moments later, something appears that looks 100% exactly like the image, no matter how many times the image is selected it’s always the same: processed.

  Iris wedges in between several people who move aside without confrontation, it's a good way to hide in plain sight. She nervously checks all the eyes around her, but nobody cares. No one is looking. She selects an image of a water drop and presses her hand against a scanner. A light swells under her palm, then dissipates quickly as her photograph appears on the display. It announces, "Your daily ration is exhausted."

  Iris looks pissed. “Come on! It’s water!” Some people around her shy away at her outburst, nobody challenges her cutting in line but they don’t want to stand next to a boat rocker.

  Orion reaches over the counter across from her and engages the scanner. It glows and fades under his palm, then an aperture spins open in the countertop and a clear plastic sphere containing water is lifted through. He retrieves it, then rolls it to Iris.

  After he has her attention he turns his palm over, revealing her flower poking out of his sleeve. She scans around, but no one is paying attention, or at least no one wants to see. She looks him over and offers, “Now you’re breaking the law.”

  “Worth the risk?” he replies.

  She pops the spout on the water and downs half of it. She rolls it back to him and states, “I want my flower back.”

  He finishes the water. “Maybe I want it.”

  “Get a job in a Green Zone.”

  “Already have that. Sort of.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Orion. You?”

  “Government?”

  “Not really.” He’s not entirely lying.

  She moves away and glances over her shoulder again, pausing a second to guarantee he follows. He hurries to get around the end of the counter and cuts across the aisles to follow her. She moves quickly and gracefully through the crowd, practiced at angling her body or shoulders or hips to slip past unnoticed. All the way she keeps watch over every detail of the area.

  Once they are near the end of the room where the crowd thins, she slows long enough to let him catch up and addresses him, “Why did you try to stop that man?”

  “I don’t know,” he replies. His tone is honest, like even he’s searching for the reason.

  “And me?” she continues. “You make a habit of helping criminals smuggle illegal plants around the city?”

  “You’re not a criminal. Why risk it?”

  “Same reason he grabbed that beam.”

  “You want to get caught.”

  She pauses and looks right at him to assure he hears. “I want things different.”

  Almost nose-to-nose, Orion replies, “Look where it got him.”

  “Look where it got us.” She doesn’t break eye contact.

  “He was scared.”

  "He's not alone." She scans the room and then slips out the back exit.

  Orion follows.

  The back entrance leads to quieter street parallel to the maglev line where they won’t have to worry about prying eyes. They walk close as they weave through the sparsely populated sidewalk toward a different spur of the maglev line.

  The side street and fewer people make the dead zone character all the more apparent. It's not as utopian and sterile as all the other areas. People are more casually dressed and linger with each other, at ease with their surroundings, more engaged and willing to talk. Orion doesn't see the apathy in their eyes. Although now, with his cleanly manufactured clothes and polished look, he seems like the odd man out and some people notice. Not afraid, but certainly keeping their eye on him; the government man.

  Orion hasn’t ventured out of his normal routine in years. It’s been cultivated for him in nearly every way, and he’s been content within it. Walking through this neighborhood brings back memories. The dead zone isn’t new to him; the entire city was once more ‘natural’. Before the plagues and shortages that nearly ruined everything, this would have been his home. So, this break in routine feels like a welcome.

  Orion confides in Iris. “I didn’t really think people were still living like this. In dead zones.”

  “There’s probably a lot you don’t know,” Iris retorts. “It’s not a dead zone to them. It’s their choice.” She turns a corner toward a busier street. Iris confesses, only loud enough for him. “I’ve seen you before, you know? Same transport. Every night.” She glances over at him, his look more relaxed after a few minutes off the grid. “You don’t look so distant tonight.”

  “Something happened that, well, I feel sort of awake. Like I wasn’t before,” Orion surprises himself with his candor.

  Iris eases her guard a bit, but she still keeps part of it long enough to ask, “And then you break the law with a perfect stranger?”

  “Seemed like a good idea at the time,” he offers, a little charm slipping in.

  The statement softens her guard, and she brushes her hair away from her face so she can see him clearer. “There’s a garden where I work. They have flowers. The only open-air green left in the entire city after the ban.”

  Orion registers the irony. “My mind runs that island. I’m a Hivemember.”

  Her eyes narrow on him as she angles away a little, quickly sizing him up. “Well, the automated sprinklers cause me more trouble than I’d like. Can’t you do something about that?” She’s testing, a little nibble to see if he’ll bite.

  Orion tries to break the tense back-and-forth by walking ahead a little on his own and points to a nearby shop. “I can find you a raincoat.”

  Iris joins him. "Alright," she replies and then turns him right around the corner where the next maglev stop is positioned.

  The next transport is already gliding along the line. Orion pulls her aside from the crowd gathering for a ride. He slips the flower out of his coat and into hers. Then he gently folds her coat closed and holds on to it for a long moment.

  She gently pulls his hand away, opens it, then she leaves something small in his palm and closes his fingers around it, holding his hand with hers so he knows it’s secure.

  “Thank you,” she says. “It would have led them to me.”

  “What are you giving me?” he asks, not willing to look away from her face.

  She leans in close, her lips an inch from his. “Another good idea.”

  Orion seems a bit intoxicated. Closeness, or more to the point, intimacy is as
foreign to him as the missing stars in the city sky. The touch of her hand quickens his pulse and sends a tingle across his skin. His mind centers only on her, clear, alive, and instantly hopeful. “I don’t know your name,” is all he can think to say.

  “Iris.”

  It takes a second for her name to register. His dream. Iris.

  Before he can speak, the wind swirls in around them from the approaching transport. Iris pulls away carefully, allowing the magnetic sense between them feel real, and to let him know she feels it, too.

  The maglev glides in and settles softly behind her, and the doors lift open, surrounding her in a halo of light from within the car. Her eyes remain locked on Orion until the doors close and the transport whisks her away on the wind.

  Orion watches her disappear into the city. The radiant light from the transport fades around him as it spirits away and he’s back to the old normal. The ever-present Hivebeam quietly glows overhead, always pointing the way. Once the maglev is out of sight, he peels his fingers open careful to keep her gift hidden from plain view.

  It’s a small, semi-translucent data cube. He rolls it over. There’s nothing special on the outside.

  He grips it tight, then tucks it into his jacket.

  CHAPTER 6

  Dr. Burroughs hunches behind a desk in the darkness of his office, surrounded by hundreds of floating video images like disembodied television monitors. The images are channeled to him in real time via thousands of closed-circuit cameras located all around the metropolis.

  Some exhibit wider views of common areas, most are close-ups of people as Burroughs tracks some, then changes view to spy on another. He enlarges one, then a different one, shrinking some back to size, then switching the view or deleting them from the gallery altogether. He’s searching.

  He sorts through the images like a well-practiced inspector as he watches the Hiveroom, food centers, maglev stops, people moving about in common areas. Then he pauses on an image of people sleeping privately in their own homes. He fixates on the sleepers for a long moment before he leans in close to. He closes his eyes and slowly indulges himself by immersing his face in the lighted hologram. The image plays across the pale contours of his face, his expression drenched in reverie.