by Aaron Frale
Jerry thanked the nurse with a handshake. She toppled over, and he dragged her over to a bed. The nanomachines would pump drugs into her system keeping her blissfully asleep for the next day or so. Another nurse could bring in one of the reprogrammed at any moment, so Jerry didn’t have a lot of time. He played the data record from the nanomachines.
At first, the point of view was disorientating. His entire vision went blank, and then he saw himself looking through the tiny window into the chamber. He was viewing the world from 07760’s perspective. He programmed the nanomachines to record every part of the sensory experience, not just the visuals. Jerry would see every sight, hear every sound, smell every scent, and feel every pain. The chamber fired up, and the view outside the chamber changed from his face to a mess of machinery. He could see a part of what was a massive machine. A mist filled the chamber. He felt sleepy, and his vision went black.
Jerry fast-forwarded until he saw visuals again. A half hour later, 07760 opened his eyes. Jerry saw a massive ceiling, and he was moving on what seemed to be a conveyor belt. 07760’s body must have been completely paralyzed because there didn’t seem to be any restraints. His heart began to beat because of the adrenaline glands. The nanomachines were completely disabled, so he was able to experience fear. A robotic arm descended from the ceiling with a large light. He was blinded.
A tool descended from the arm. He could barely make out a drill tip until it was too late. The drill burrowed into his eye. Jerry doubled over onto the floor and stopped the playback. One of the reprogrammed who half woke from his stupor vaguely saw Jerry on the floor clutching his eye and crying in pain. Even though Jerry’s nanomachines were fully functioning and ready to disburse drugs, they could not cancel out the psychological pain. Watching a recording with a full sensory experience created a phantom pain just as powerful as the real thing. Because there was no physical cause of the pain, the nanomachines couldn’t distribute the drugs. Whatever was happening to 07760 was excruciating. Jerry breathed deeply and continued playback.
07760 could not cry out because his vocal chords were shut down. He writhed and arched his back. Jerry climbed into one of the recovery beds. The pain was too much. He turned off the playback. His nanomachines attempted to calm him, but Jerry was overwhelmed. He had to devise a plan. Once he left the secure area, Nanette would be notified about his adrenaline surge because his wireless features on his nanomachines would turn back on. He was always led to believe that for safety concerns, certain features of the nanomachines were disabled in the reprogramming facility. He knew now about the secrets hidden behind the protocol. If the information leaked, the network could spread it fast.
People used to fear the spread of ideas. Socrates said reading would make people dumber. People would only learn through books rather than master a subject. The printing press was feared in the same way. Google was foretold to make people dumber. But in reality, they had access to more knowledge. The Internet let people verify a fact without a lifetime of study. It fueled the power of the collective. With the Internet, people began to think not with the power of one but the power of many. And then nanomachines came along, improving the concept of shared computing power by magnifying the computational power of the everyday person. The spread of ideas was good for humanity. The oppressor may seek to control the people, but they can’t quell ideas once they spread.
Jerry needed to finish the memory, no matter how much pain it caused. He steeled his nerves and dived back into the recording. He didn't modify the playback settings because he needed to understand truly what he was up against. His vision faded and the drill burrowed into 07760's eye. He felt a searing pain and a tug. Then there was a popping noise. From his good eye, he could see the other eye being pulled out of the socket and lifted into the machine. The conveyor belt moved him forward. The worst of the pain was over, but his body still ached. Without the assistance of nanomachines, he was flooded with fear.
07760 ended up under another machine. It was like a showerhead with tiny spouts. One of the spouts aimed at his right arm and a laser burned into his flesh. He could smell the burning. The skin boiled, and the bone melted. The pain was almost unbearable, and Jerry wanted to stop but persisted. Then the laser shut down. His body ached, and his right arm felt like it was attached by a thread. He could smell the burning flesh.
A face leaned over the conveyor belt. Jerry could not believe his eyes. It was another 07760. The new 07760 was wearing a suit and seemed to be a person of some importance. He said words to an unseen third person, but they sounded garbled like they were coming from the depths of the ocean. Jerry felt something warm on his ears. It was probably blood. Another person leaned forward. Jerry was shocked. It was himself. Their doppelgangers exchanged words and casually discussed something. The damaged 07760 somehow mustered the strength to lift his good arm. Whatever was restraining him must have been wearing off.
The doppelgangers looked at the raised arm in a state of mild disbelief. Jerry's double reached out and touched the damaged 07760’s forehead. The recording went blank. It was the void of unconsciousness. They probably weren't aware of Jerry's nanomachines because the machines continued recording the lack of sensory input. Jerry fast forwarded through the playback until the end to make sure there was nothing more. He deleted the stream. There was no reason to relive the moment, and the recordings could be fabricated with grayspace. The recordings weren’t evidence by themselves. And if Jerry was caught, the less his captors knew, the better. Jerry needed to make more people aware. He needed to start a revolution.
Jerry set into action. The first plan was getting 07760 his memories back. He stored them in a quantum locked briefcase. He needed to get 07760 out and get him the briefcase. Jerry would not be surprised if the conspirators added memory and tried to rewrite 07760’s personality with hidden subroutines. Any number of the reprogrammed could be sleeper agents.
Reprogramming was not an exact science. Some old memories would come back. People called them ghost memories. Some people went crazy searching down ghosts. Those usually ended up back in reprogramming over and over again. For a vast majority, reprogramming worked, and ghost memories would be chalked up as dreams. It was the best solution to crime that society had. Jerry knew that was the lie to cover the truth. Perhaps ghost memories were the body’s way of fighting the new memory. There was no telling how his future self reprogrammed 07760, and Jerry didn’t want to find out. A total memory wipe was the only solution. Jerry set his nanomachines to work and began to wipe everything from 07760’s mind.
Once Jerry was sure there was no trace of memory, he lifted 07760 from the bed. He switched 07760’s nanomachines back on, so they could start reviving him. The man would be out of it for a while, so Jerry put him on a hover stretcher. Once he got his patient situated, he noticed 07760's stomach was exposed. The nanomachines were busy repairing scar tissue. The words “ancient bookseller” followed by a year, date, and a location were burned into his body. It was quickly fading from the nanomachines repairing his body. Jerry had memorized it before it faded completely. He cursed himself for not noticing it before switching 07760's nanomachines on. Jerry pushed the stretcher out of the room with ease.
Jerry dragged the drugged 07760 through a maze of hallways. He passed some other agents and a nurse or two. Luckily, no one knew quite what was happening. They didn’t discover the incapacitated nurse yet. He constructed a dummy program for those that would notice his bio-readings. It wouldn’t fool Nanette, but it would give him time. His recent adrenaline surge was enough to arouse suspicion. Pushing a barely conscience man through the front door in addition to off bio-readings would surely cause a stir. He made it to a set of lockers in the front. No personal belongings were allowed in the building.
He pulled the briefcase from the locker. Inside were all of 07760’s memories. He scooped 07760 from the stretcher and dragged him out the front door. Jerry planned to get 07760 to a safe location and restore the memory when he saw Nanette followed
by a group of agents climbing the steps to the chamber building. She was quicker than he expected at disabling his bio-reading mask. She disabled the program in seconds, and he thought he’d at least have a minute or two.
The agents began to appear on the steps. First, it was one or two, and then groups. Finally, hundreds began to appear. They swarmed the steps. There was nowhere to run. He felt their nanomachines attempting to lock down his body. He had built a security network preventing anyone from accessing the functioning of his bots. However, his mentor was resourceful, and there were so many against one. It was only a matter of time before they would lock him out of his own machines. Even if they didn’t breach his security, the mob was almost on top of him.
“Stand down,” Nanette yelled out.
Jerry held the briefcase and 07760 tight. He visualized the “ancient bookseller” time coordinates etched into the body. He programmed the nanomachines and lifted 07760 to his feet. He could tell that his charge was regaining awareness. 07760 would regain motor control any moment now. Nanette charged with the swarm of agents that almost engulfed them. Jerry punched up the time travel protocols and blinked out of the future.
He had seen her eyes before he bounced to the past. There was emotion in her eyes. He couldn’t decide if it was love or betrayal. But it struck him to the core. He hesitated for a second and 07760 wobbled. He steadied 07760.
“Is everything all right?” Jerry inquired.
“Fine, I just changed medication. A little disorientation, that’s all,” 07760 smiled weakly. Jerry smiled at the comment. 07760 was a natural and would be able to blend in perfectly. Nanette would locate him fairly quickly. Jerry needed to create a diversion, so the time agents would focus on him while 07760 collected his wits. Whatever 07760 had planned better be worth it.
“You should sit down for a while and take care of yourself.” Jerry patted him on the back. Jerry saw Nanette across the street. She had tracked him down. It was time to go. He left the briefcase next to 07760 and took off running.
Event 14 - R
After hours of walking, we emerged into an underground city if one could call it that. There were dwellings made of plywood and spare parts. Filth cluttered the streets. People crowded in what looked to be a market. There were goods for sale: fruits, vegetables, meat, bread, games, purses, DVDs, trading cards, and even art. Most items looked like thrift store variety trash. The people browsing the market ranged from city dwellers like the two people we captured to homeless people. They all seemed to be well armed, but they made no move against us. We passed a row of portable toilets. The stink invaded our senses. It was like the filth from the city above cumulated in this one spot underground.
Our hostages led us through the crowd, and the people did nothing to hinder our movement. They simply stared at us with disbelief hanging from their faces. I realized after a short way that it wasn’t the gun they were looking at; everyone had a gun. It was me. They looked spooked like they had seen the undead. I didn’t quite understand the significance until we came to a trashcan fire surrounded by a group of people who looked like they were in the thick of an important discussion.
“Our leader is with those men and women,” the male hostage said. I squinted to see the group. We walked closer, and they began to take a more solid form as we stepped forward. I wished I had been watching the time agent. For all her emotional control, I bet she would have been just as surprised as me. Because their leader wasn’t my brother. It was me.
“Welcome, welcome!” he said. “I very rarely get to see my twin brother. You can put that away dear. I’m your friend. I was the one who sent you the message with the directions to find me, my brother.”
The time agent wanted to seize control of the situation, so she wasn’t taken in by his facade of friendliness. I could see her concentrating. My guess was that she would paralyze him and hold their leader hostage. But there was a problem. She looked like she reached out to a void. There must have been trouble establishing a link. I could see it on her face. Then she began acting strangely. She turned over the gun and handed it to one of the goons standing near the fire. I began to do the same thing, and I was powerless to resist. It was like somebody had control of my body. I moved like a puppet. I mentally screamed out at my body, but it was on autopilot.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Now that we are on more pleasant terms,” my future bearded self said and gave us a wink, “we must have a conversation, but not here. If you'll follow me.”
My legs thrust forward. I could not control my walk. I looked back to the time agent. She looked like a marionette on strings. The first step was awkward as we were forced to go forward, but the muscles learned to move more fluidly as we took more steps. It was like the force controlling us had to learn the nuances of our bodies.
We left the people at the trashcan fire behind. The minions didn't question their boss, and the three of us walked away together. We eventually wandered through the shantytown to a hut with sand bricks. It was round with a tin roof. Graffiti cluttered the walls and from the looks of the graffiti, the hut had been there a while. The bricks were out of place because they looked as if they should have been made for an ancient temple built by pre-modern humans, and the spray painted tin roof looked as if it was reclaimed from a warehouse.
“The brickwork is Adobe. It's a combination of straw and clay. It's much stronger than it looks. I had the bricks made for a very specific purpose,” the other me said.
I couldn't respond.
“I'm sorry. You'll have to wait. Your vocal chords have been disabled. Don’t want you to arouse suspicion among my friends.”
He opened a wooden door on hinges and shuffled us into the room. There was a large beehive-looking black chamber in the center of the room. It had a door with no clear way to open it. The black metal looked like many tiny cylinder circles stacked up to make the dome. There was a glass hole in the front. It was only big enough for one person sitting down. The inside was white and bright. The doors of the future pretty much had no handles because the machines controlled everything. Most of humanity would die trapped in tiny gray boxes if the nanomachines ever collectively failed.
“This technology is forbidden outside the reprogramming center. Only agents are authorized to use them and only at the proper locations. You have surprised me.” The time agent said in a dry tone.
“I like seeing agents show emotion,” the bearded me said. “A dilation of pupil shows so much. That's very unprofessional by the way. Maybe you need a reprogramming yourself.”
“What is it?” I said.
“It's a reprogramming chamber. We use them to rehabilitate criminals. It’s what wiped your memory to begin with. You wouldn’t remember because people need recovery time after a memory wipe,” she explained. “How did you get one of these?”
“I opened a credit line at Reprogramming Hut.”
It’s good that I didn’t lose my sense of sarcasm in the future because meeting myself was strange. Any detail we had in common was comforting. Seeing myself as the leader of some weird militarized underground was the discomforting part. In what version of reality did I raise an army? The chamber in front also seemed ominous. I wondered if there was part of my subconscious that remembered it. My future self shoved the briefcase into my hands.
“The briefcase you have in your possession has all the answers,” my doppelganger said bluntly.
I mulled over what he told me. My memories seemed to be naturally coming back. I remembered more of my past without the briefcase. Here was yet another person trying to force the memories on me. My intuition told me not to trust my doppelganger. It was the way he casually invaded my body with his machines and forced me to walk. The time agent at least only seemed to use my machines when necessary. There was something uncaring and almost sinister about my doppelganger. He seemed reckless. I was hesitant more so than ever now to open the briefcase, so I did what I did best—stalled for time.
“Why Ad
obe?” I asked. My history knowledge seemed to be an innate skill. It seemed I could bullshit about anything when I needed time to think. I should have been a politician.
“To prevent scans,” my doppelganger smiled. I don’t think that I smiled that much. It was like future me was trying to reassure myself. But conversely, maybe my future self was trying too hard because he knew what my past self was thinking. Didn’t I owe my other self the benefit of the doubt? The doppelganger continued. “The hut is made from a thick clay and straw turned into a brick. This chamber has an energy signature. Your nanomachines would pick up on it the instant you entered the camp, but the bricks block the scans. I find it amusing that ancient technology still has its uses.”
“But the chambers are tightly regulated!” the time agent exclaimed.
“Regulations can bend and break,” my doppelganger said. I saw her muscles tense up. It looked as if he might be controlling her again. There was something not quite right about my future self. He seemed like an asshole.
“She’s not harming you. Or me. So let her go,” I said.
“I can’t. How else would I force her into the chamber? She’s a liability.”
I appreciated a good sense of sarcasm, but he was a little too cold for me. I didn’t like what I had become. I couldn’t live as if everyone was untrustworthy and would screw me at any opportunity. She did risk a lot for me. What dark experiences were lurking in my memories that would make my future self lose trust in everyone? My future self seemed lonely, and I didn’t want to become that person. “If you don’t let her go, I won’t open the briefcase.”
“I could force you.”
“But you don’t want to because you would have done it,” I said.
“Forcing memory into an unwilling participant is very dangerous. It creates patches of memory that seem more like a dream than memory. It has a tendency to make people insane. So yes, I’d rather keep my sanity.”