by Ora le Brocq
Andrew gaped in despair at the information flowing over the world and fell to his knees. I snapped myself free of the mental link and walked out of the silent apartment, unwanted by them, unwanted by the street, with nowhere to go and no one to turn to.
Chapter Fifteen
I knew I had to end it. My life. What was left of it. Two weeks of hiding after the riots confirmed that. The revolution had come and gone but had never really materialised. It never will. Gwen was right. Nothing will ever change. All I had left, before ending it all, was a final visit to where it all started. To be honest, I had nowhere else to go. I didn’t belong anywhere anymore. I couldn’t belong. I was too different from the street and the steel cities.
I made my way into what had been the headquarters of Vine Corp. Most of the building was empty now. The scandal of their corruptions had caused the stock value to plummet. Of course, what caused the outrage in the business community was the fact that Vine got found out, rather than their policies and actions.
They had been bought out by the Tendriz Corporation, their main rival. One less corporation in the world, but now, there was a much bigger one, with even more power. The Tendriz Corporation promised an ethical business model. I had already accessed their mainframe and discovered they were as bad as Vine, if not worse.
The elected government had been all too happy to let Tendriz take over Vine. “The market should regulate itself,” was the line of the official press release, as it always is. The corporations demanded the government back off and do nothing. The government, as always, obeyed. Besides, the government was busy prosecuting all the rioters who had broken into New London and punishing them with long jail sentences. The grievances, the injustices, the sheer unfairness of life had been pushed away by media outrage at the mob. The press demanded action and blood. The government, as always, obeyed.
I made my way to the laboratory where I had been upgraded. Tendriz is now exploring that experiment. All the staff and material had been removed from Vine’s headquarters to give the illusion the project had been shut down, whereas in reality, it was merely relocated and rebranded. Professor Holloway now has a larger budget and even more human guinea pigs to work on. They tried looking for me, but when you can access all information, all commands, all communications, it’s difficult to sneak up on a girl.
I reached the lab. It was empty and dark, apart from a dim light in Professor Holloway’s old office. I walked in and saw Andrew, sitting on a cheap chair he must have scavenged from somewhere. I knew he was there. I’d followed him on the surveillance cameras for a week as he wondered New London in a daze, refusing to answer his phone, to access his emails, to go to work. Now, he was here, snivelling in the chair.
He looked up as I entered. He squinted in the darkness.
I mentally increased the light level just enough so he could see me.
As he recognised me, he burst into tears, then laughter and then more tears.
“It’s Zara!” he finally hiccupped. “Zara, who I had to convince to help us. I couldn’t convince you of anything, could I? Not when you have access to everything. Now look at me. My life is ruined. Your fault!”
“Your life is ruined because you embraced just one aspect of it. You believed it, breathed it, and now it has been taken away you are left with nothing. Now, you’re like the street.”
“No, no, no,” he shrieked, shaking his head violently. “I’m not like the street. I’ll never be like the street. I have knowledge! I have understanding beyond the sheep on the street. I’ll never be like them. I know too much. I’m too clever!”
“You’re not clever. You’re just a drone. Just like everyone on the street is a drone. The only variation is we’re programmed in different ways. You were programmed to aspire. We were programmed to sink down. Yet we were all indoctrinated with the fallacy that we were free.”
“I was free. I had wealth and security and respect! What did you ever have?”
“Nothing, because life is just a grey drizzle for anyone from the street and golden drizzle for those in steel cities. Your corporations and governments have made it that way.”
“No! You’re violent and morally depraved,” burbled Andrew. “I saw it! I saw it on the screens. I saw it in the violent behaviour of the mob who just wanted to burn and smash! They’re all trapped by their own hatred and violence. I see it in you! No wonder you all mutilate yourselves with tattoos and piercings! You’re so violent, you carry out that violence on yourselves!”
“Our bodies are all we have been left with, the only commodity we have after years of having our rights and dignities stripped away by the media, by government, by business. Our bodies are our own canvas. Modifications, tattoos, mutilations, cutting, it is our way of marking our canvas, of making a personal stand, something unique to us. Except,” I added bitterly, the knowledge sour in my mind, “everyone marked themselves in the same way, with piercings and tattoos, so we were all still just following the herd, deluding ourselves that we were individuals, somehow different or special.”
“We are your superiors in every way,” giggled Andrew. “I’m better, I’m better, I’m better than you!”
“Yet, any sense of responsibility and morality you ever had was whittled away by colleagues, peer pressure, greed, your lust for money and power. Don’t you realise that you bought into a false reality just as I bought into mine? We are all in cages. We can’t escape.”
“Alphas aren’t in cages!” shrieked Andrew in shock. “We control the world!”
“But the system controls you,” I said gently. “I brought down the Vine Corporation but another company has taken its place. Get rid of the chief executive? The deputy chief executive will continue with the same policies and agendas. Get rid of the entire board of directors? Any new board coming in will work within the structure left behind by the old board. The system will never change. New people follow existing structures, like ants running along a tunnel, never changing, merely supporting.
“You see the circle we’re all caught in?” I asked. “We’re all trapped, Andrew. It’s just that some cages are more comfortable than others.” I realised I too was trapped. I would never be able to get away because everywhere was the same.
“I’m not in a cage, you are,” burbled Andrew, his fractured mind stuck in a groove.
He was right, of course. I was in a cage. I dreamed of the revolution but the dream was actually somebody else’s. I just parroted it. In any case, the revolution was a lie.
Even when I thought I was being truly free, such as when fucking Clare and Kyle in jail, I was buying into someone else’s vision of freedom, one that satiated their gratification. I swapped one box for another, one that stated that sexual freedom and freedom of the body is liberation, but in the end, I was still only doing what others believed. I sold myself cheaply for an illusion of power. What did we achieve in that cell? A few moments’ pleasure. After that, nothing had changed. We were still locked in, still telling ourselves that the revolution was coming, that all would be well… and neither Kyle nor Clare even bothered to ask my name.
Andrew was as bad, just in a different way. He kept his head down, let people do what they wanted without protest even though he knew it was wrong, in the hope that he could climb the corporate ladder and achieve the goal he had been conditioned to want–gain power and make lots of money, for money means you are a success.
The fact remained that we had both bought other people’s values and called them our own. We were still in cages, but we made the cages ourselves, locked ourselves away inside, thinking we were free.
“That’s why we all turn inward in the end,” I mused out loud. “You’ve turned inward to madness. I’m using my new tech to make my own reality. It’s really nothing more than an extension of what you used to do as you climbed the corporate ladder and what I used to do with my body modifications.
“You should go home, Andrew. Your mother is worried about you.” Turning, I left that darkened place behind.
Chapter Sixteen
I I lay on my side on the king-size bed. A dark, gentle, red light from the ceiling spilled down, making the bedroom soft and seductive. I had my Wi-Fi uploader relaying the three hundred or so channels directly into my mind. The three hundred channels were also playing on the home movie screens that covered the walls, the latest in multi-rotational home cinema entertainment.
Wrecker, my boyfriend, walked slowly toward the bed. I turned off the entertainment channels. This was entertainment enough for both of us. We could exist in each other’s company with no outside distraction in our secluded flat. All we needed was each other. We could always see it in each other’s eyes.
I lay back, watching Wrecker as he approached the bed. He slowly, teasingly, pulled his black T-shirt and black leather trousers off. I watched his muscled body as he paced back and forth, letting me enjoy the view of his hard body before he leaned over and kissed me passionately. He then moved down my body, kissing every bare inch, until he reached my clit ring. He always stops there. My stimulation is important to him.
He gently tugged on the ring, rotating it left and right, his fingers brushing me, making me twitch. The small charge in the ring vibrated through me, stimulating me even more. His tongue joined his fingers, lapping gently at my clit, tickling the walls of my pussy, easing me aside and probing deeply inside. With a quick, confident movement, he made me lose control and I had my first orgasm.
Wrecker lifted himself and lay on top of me, covering me in kisses. He never penetrates me until he’s made me cum. He always says it’s the least he can do for me. What can I say? He worships me. And I worship him.
I opened my legs for him as he lifted me up by my ass, getting a good grip so he could thrust upward, his bulging cock sliding in, making me explode. I moaned in delight, my hands skittering over his body, feeling his muscles, his strong, protective arms. My cries echoed around the flat as Wrecker increased his speed, thrusting higher, kissing my neck, whispering how much he loved me as he worked his hips and carried me to sensual bliss.
I cried out again, temporarily satiated. Now, I wanted to please Wrecker, to feel his hot cock in my mouth. I rolled over and straddled my gorgeous lover and moved down, his body quivering in delight, and pushed the wet head of his cock through my soft lips.
I smiled and gargled as I slid the length back and forth in my mouth, deep throating it, sucking, licking, kissing my lover, making him squirm in bliss as he gently held my head, running my long black hair through his sensitive fingers. I felt his hands flex as I teased him with my tongue stud, making his cock grow even bigger in my mouth until I released it, unable to resist any longer, and I jumped back on, plunging down the rigid shaft with a scream of delight.
Wrecker spun us around, cradling me in his strong arms as he pushed me onto my back, his cock sending waves of pleasure through me as he pounded me, his eyes locked on mine, his passions robbing him of everything except his burning desire to always be with me, near me, inside me. He pounded wildly, gasping and crying, shouting my name as I moved in time with him, crying out in delight, two bodies merged into one, two souls locked together.
I wrapped my legs around Wrecker’s muscled body as my final climax roared through me, screaming, crying, laughing in perfect sympathy with my lover. I hung on, my legs around him, feeling my orgasm explode deep within, releasing wave after wave of pleasure, blurring the world, filling my senses, sending the juices sliding down my thighs, mixing with Wrecker’s cum.
Wrecker collapsed on top of me, gasping, holding me tight. I always exhaust him, but he always has the strength to hold me until the morning. I lay safe in his arms, looking at the red glow of the light, feeing utterly happy and relaxed.
The fantasy faded. It all checked out. The scenario was set. I was back in reality.
Chapter Seventeen
I could escape in only one way. I created a sub-routine within the Data Net, hidden among billions, into which I could download my consciousness. I populated the routine with characters and scenarios from my past, making minor adjustments here and there. In this false world, I still illegally wipe memory chips, but I do it for more money and a better life.
Wrecker is now a good, attentive friend and lover, a genuinely reformed bad boy rather than a narcissistic sponge. Yes, I was again buying into the fantasy, accepting the conditioning of society and convention, that you can reform a bad boy, even though you can’t. They are just scum, through and through.
Indeed, I was accepting the conditioning of society all over again. I could have made myself a princess or an alpha corps or anything at all, but I knew I would never truly believe it or accept it. I therefore made my own reality based on the old one, with just a few tweaks to put me on a slightly better footing. In this world, I will always have money for food and the utility bills, so I will never be cold or have the water cut off again. I now live in a slightly better area. I’ll never be attacked again.
I copied myself into the programme buffer, ready to be transmitted in. The final step was to erase the knowledge of what I knew from the copy version of me. I couldn’t let myself know what I knew, so I reconfigured my synapses and wiped my memory of Vine Corp, of the experiment, of all my knowledge and enlightenment. I made myself smaller. I created my own fictional universe in which I could fit in and survive, the same way we all do, day after day, to survive the horror and reality of life.
I then dumped this smaller version of myself through the buffer and gave myself life. The life I can never have. The life I never could have had, even before. I can only survive by not knowing these things, by believing I have genuine choice rather than the illusion of choice.
If you are reading this, you have discovered the written record I have left behind, hidden away in a system file. I felt I ought to record all that happened to me, maybe out of vanity, maybe out of hope that one day this document will be read and wondered at for the world will be better. But I know this will never be.
Do not search for me. By now, I am dead.
Just like everyone else.
All that remains is a small copy of me, limited, constrained but unaware of being limited and constrained.
Just like everyone else.
Existing. Surviving. Moving forward one day at a time, controlled by society, by expectation, by those in power. By my own small perceptions.
Just like everyone else.
Just like you.
You don’t screw the system. The system has already screwed you.
About the Author
Ora le Brocq lives, works, and takes inspiration from the Malvern Hills that dominate her home. She enjoys the writing almost as much as the research.