The Last Place to Stand

by Redshaw, Aaron K.

  Another voice from one of the sleepers said, “Are you kidding? I couldn't even add single digit numbers the other day.” Other people were beginning to shift their places and raise their heads.

  “Samuel,” said Odysseus, “this is my son, Hamlet.”

  “The Dane, excellent choice in names,” said Samuel. “I do hope you don't meet his tragic end. And beware of poisoned blades.”

  “Odysseus, what you figured out,” said Samuel, “is that when we rely on technology too much, it causes our minds to grow dull. Me and my men wanted a different life, apart from all that.”

  “Does that exist?”

  “Come see,” said Samuel.

  There was a groan, and a woman, probably in her early forties, with long dark brown hair sat up. Seeing Odysseus, she stood up, carefully walking over to him. “I feel like I hit my head on something,” she said. She bent down and put her arm behind Odysseus, “How do you feel, dear?”

  “Fine,” Odysseus said, “Samuel, I want you to meet my wife, Jane.”

  “Nice to meet you,” said Samuel. He extended his rough hand.

  Odysseus, stood up with her and they held each other, Jane just a little shorter than Odysseus. For a moment, Samuel and the other men seemed a bit embarrassed.

  “I'm sorry,” said Odysseus. “I know that such a show of affection is not common anymore.”

  “Well, maybe not here, but where you're going I think you'll fit right in,” said Samuel.

  They soon woke up their son Sam, who evidently was a sound sleeper. “Sam definitely likes his sleep,” said Jane as she called him out from his dream.

  Once their other two children, Sam and Lucy, were awake, they began rummaging through the machine parts. They were the youngest. “This stuff is cool!” whispered Lucy.

  “I think we'd better get moving,” Samuel said. “We will be easier to see by day, even for machines.”

  That was when they heard the sound of something shifting in the garbage heap.

  Chapter 6

  The feed woke her up. It was like a stimulant the way a rush of news brought the mind to life. She had slept for three and a half hours--not bad, she thought to herself. She wondered how people ever slept for such long periods in the past. Technology had made it easier to require less and less sleep, even during her lifetime the time had shortened.

  She cleaned herself, and got ready for work. Today there were some promising prospects to consider. She might be able to approve one almost immediately. She was actually looking forward to getting back to work.

  Looking in the mirror she noticed the pallor of her skin looked washed out with a tinge of gray. She was glad that the old ideas of beauty had changed in recent years. People were no longer going with the old values. Now, in the modern era, utility and innovation far out-trumped the ideals of beauty and relationship. After all, work gives you purpose, and without purpose you are a waste of resources.

  X213, even with her excitement about work, felt a sinking feeling that seemed to be dragging her down. It was the same one she felt every morning. Nothing my morning pills won't solve, she thought to herself. She took her allotment of pills with some coffee. She had one for the sinking feeling, one to make sure her body didn't reject the chip. Another one was a way of tricking the body into needing less sleep. Another one increased work performance. Every occupation had at least one prescribed drug that would increase performance for you for that job. It was just amazing what a simple pill could do. Without her pills, she would be a mess and probably wouldn't even be able to keep her job. Well, got to take 'em, she thought as she swallowed the last one.

  When she was dropped off at work, she walked through the wide white doors with the inscription above: “Technology is the highest achievement of man.” The national motto. No wonder they were ahead of every other country in innovation.

  She had always had a kind of a childlike faith in what an authority figure told her. When a doctor said she needed another pill, she had no response other than acceptance and obedience. When society seemed to espouse that less sleep and more work, even when at home, made her more valuable, she believed it as any good citizen would.

  Sitting down at her desk, she began receiving multiple streams and approved and rejected proposals as quickly as her mind would run. They said that when she did this she was really in an altered state. It was as though she was dreaming so that time went by much slower than it felt to her. A work day might feel like weeks and weeks, but only be fourteen hours long.

  One of the proposals caught her attention. As the packet came, she realized it was a protected and encrypted file. One that she was not given access to open. It had the seal of not just her boss, but the vice president of operations. It was to bypass her completely, pre-approved. She had never seen one of these before. But if the VP approved it, it must be good. It would be interesting to see what kind of project this could be. It certainly must be exciting and innovative.

  The next one she opened was for a kind of device that improved hearing tenfold. This would be both due to digital audio refinement software as well as physical modifications made to the inner ear with the use of special plastics and chip integration. The proposal was well put together, but not as practical as brain interfaces, and not as quick to implement. Having a set of super ears, however, would be useful for certain professions. She designated this for the occupational enhancement division and sent it their way.

  After that she had another come in which was a brain chip that modified the triage system in the brain, making it easier to prioritize according to company protocol. That could be useful, even for her. She sent that to her supervisor.

  Next there were a couple of dozen which were advances either already implemented through different means or where similar concepts were already in development. One modification suggestion had already been made on the newer beta chip currently being tested.

  In her mind, she saw documents, read them, looked at graphs and data and mentally sent them to other individuals. Hundreds might be processed in a few minutes. When she read them, it was really a more direct input than actual reading, but since she was in an altered state, kind of like a dream, she imagined she was actually reading.

  To the outside observer, she was sitting in a chair staring at the inside of her cubicle. She had to take special eye drops before starting work in order to keep her eyes from drying out. She sat there almost in a trance, her eyes rapidly moving back and forth. The only thing that could call her out of this state was either a high priority feed arriving through the airwaves to her chip, and thus, into her awareness, or if someone physically shook her. Otherwise, she saw nothing, she heard nothing.

  She would do this for another thirteen and a-half hours, then go home.

  Chapter 7

  The man awakes. His first thought is that he knows he is one of the unmentionables. The Burned Out. His second thought is a question: Why can't I see? He feels instinctively for his chip and it is gone. He can't believe this could have happened to him. Then comes a third realization. He is covered in something. It smells like burned out silicon, feels like plastic and has some sharp parts to it. He tries to uncover himself.

  He hears someone coming toward him; sounds like several someones. They are trying to uncover him. One man says, “Are you okay?”

  The man who is laying down can't really feel anything. “I'm not sure,” he says in a raspy voice, “I think so. Where am I?”

  The rescuer says, “It's the city dump. Can you stand?”

  “Let me try,” says the man. The rescuer helps him up, but his legs won't cooperate. He can't make them move, and after his rescuer lets him go, he falls back down. “I guess I can't,” he says. “They left me. Left me to rot. I'm Burned Out.”

  “I understand,” says the rescuer. “We have come for people like you. Here, we can carry you.” Two guys take him by the arms, two by the legs and another holds up his midsection and they lift him into the air
. It feels like he is flying, but he is also afraid of falling because he cannot see where he is going. He can still feel the blood around his eyes.

  After they place him on a pad of cement, a rescuer says, “What is your ID?”

  “I am X4287,” he says. “I used to have one of the newest chips. I could receive a dozen streams simultaneously, and my database was double the average user. I had one of the fastest seek times for information ever recorded. I worked for the government and I was a model of productivity and utility.” He felt his eyes. “Then I started having problems. It started with the shaking.”

  “Yes, that's pretty common,” says another man’s voice. “I used to get those.”

  “But then,” he continues, “my sleep dropped in half. Rather than the usual three, or four if you are an older model, I would be getting one and one-half. Sometimes I could not tell the difference between a feed and a dream. It was getting harder to tell the difference between being awake and asleep.”

  “That's when I knew there was a problem. Things got worse. One day I was sitting down, receiving feeds while working on a project at work and checking my messages. The project I was working on required some powerful parallel computing. Anyway, I can't say more than that. When I needed to get up to use the restroom, I couldn't. My legs wouldn't work. I don't mean they were asleep, I mean I could no longer operate my legs. I panicked and yelled for help. A robotic assistant picked me up and took me to the doctor on site. After the AI examined me, he never gave me my results. He just summoned the carrier to pick me up and dump me off.”

  “It sounds like it must have been serious,” says a woman's voice.

  “Nervous system paralysis or shut down,” says the man who first spoke to him. He figures it must have been their leader. His voice is clear and commanding.

  “What does that mean?” says a younger sounding man.

  “It means, maybe the effect is temporary, maybe it is permanent.”

  “So what do I do?”

  “X4287? You’re why we’re here. My name is Samuel, and we’ve come to help.”

  Chapter 8

  Ghuhu was enjoying the sunshine, playing in the dirt. Dirt was great stuff. You could add water and it was mud. Then the mud could be shaped into just about anything. If you took mud and put it in a bucket and added more water, it looked like chocolate. Mama wouldn't let him do that anymore because she said water was precious and could not be wasted.

  His brother, Moses, and he were making mud balls. That was okay because they found the mud already made. If they made enough of them they could have a war. They could invite other kids and they could pretend they were the Technophiles and the Waldenese, fighting an epic battle. Of course, the Waldenese would have to win because they were the good guys and because they had brains that were all their own. Technophiles hated the way they were made, so they changed whatever they could. Then if someone had a problem, they would throw them away like trash.

  “How do you know the Techno's kill people just because their 'speriment didn't work?” said Moses. Moses was three so he didn't know how to say everything right yet.

  “Because sometimes they are brought here to get better,” said Ghuhu.

  “Have you seen them?”

  “No, but Mama told me.” That settled any argument.

  “Do you think Ahab really fought them?” asked Moses.

  “He says he did,” said Ghuhu. “But you know what? I heard he used to be one of them and that's why he's so mad at them.”

  There was a sound of coughing and when the boys turned around, they saw a group of men carrying a stranger who looked hurt. There was blood on his face and something was wrong with his eyes. There were some others who followed too, and they looked big and tough, like they’d seen a lot of hard days.

  “Mama!” the boys yelled as they ran into the mud dwelling.

  In the next house over from the boys, a woman with sun-darkened skin and an expression that showed that she had seen a lot in this life stepped out of the dwelling and looked at the strangers. Immediately she ran back into the house and brought out a bowl of hot water and a towel. Then running back in, she grabbed a pillow and a blanket. She laid them all out near the entrance to the dwelling and said, “Lay him here. Is this more of their handiwork?”

  “Looks like it,” said Samuel. She took the towel and wet the corner and began to wipe the blood off of his face. “What is your ID, or do you have a name?” she asked.

  “X4287,” he said. “I've already told my story once and would just like to rest if that's okay. I know they carried me, but it was not restful. “

  “Sure,” she said. “We have a place already prepared for you. Who are these others?”

  Samuel introduced Odysseus, Jane, Hamlet, Lucy and Sam. “They were attacked in the city,” he said. “They had already begun to turn and we were already watching them. It was fortunate we were close by when we saw the commotion.”

  “My name is Pocahontas,” said the woman. “But I'm usually called Poke. My husband will not be able to come just yet, but I will tell him that our family just got bigger for a while.”

  -----

  That night they all ate vegetable soup with bread. X4287 ate and quickly asked to be excused. He said he needed more rest. Having been given a blanket and a place in another room, he was taken to a room to sleep. A couple of Samuel's men went with him, also ready to sleep for the night.

  After they had gone, Samuel said, “Thank you so much for the soup, I have been living off of the fare of the Technos. They don't seem to find pleasure in food so much. To them, food is a function of necessity rather than something to enjoy. Do you remember?” he asked Jane, who was sitting near him.

  “Oh, yes,” said Jane. “It hampers productivity. If we didn't have to eat, we could get more done and progress would be quicker. This is why there are experiments always being done to try to make food quicker to eat, yet give more nutrients. There is also talk that someday, maybe they won't need to eat at all. Their bodies will be free of the need for food and rest.”

  “That's right,” said Odysseus, standing up from his place near the door, “rest has already been cut way down by many people. There is a prescribed drug that most people use, cutting down the requirement of sleep to three hours. We don't take it because we don't think it healthy, but then again, we are rebels in many ways. Just before you rescued us, we were thinking about what to do with our children's programming.”

  “Programming?” said Poke. “I guess it’s been too long. What does that mean?”

  Jane explained, “They used to call it school. All children have to go through a certain number of hours of programming per week. But lately it’s been getting more invasive. When they are young, they are taught basic morals such as . . .” Here she looked to her son, Hamlet.

  “Technology is the highest achievement of man,” he finished. Then he added, “Working gives you purpose. Without purpose, you are a waste of resources.”

  “Those are some of the things they teach when you’re young,” said his mother. “It’s different than how we grew up. And now as they get older, they are beginning to take their chips and program them directly so that students need less convincing, having their mind coerced through the chips influence. The feeds make it even worse.”

  One of the men with Samuel, Gary, said, “I thought the chips could not make you do anything you don’t want to. You still have free will, right?”

  “Well that's the way it is now,” she said, “but they are trying to take away free will altogether. Even now the chip does not control you directly, but it can influence you immensely. The chip now includes subliminal messages barraging you all the time, even when you sleep. Because the chip never does sleep, it can transmit data to your brain all the time. After you are told something is true a few times you may doubt it. After a hundred times, you may think it might not be true. A thousand times, you start to wonder. And after a million times, it must be
true.”

  “That's why we started looking at alternatives,” said Odysseus. “It took over a year for me to learn how to read. Then I taught Jane and Hamlet. Soon we began reading books at night. They are illegal because the government can’t control or change what’s been written in them. Some are kept for archive or display purposes in museums, and they are not easy to get. We started learning as a family through reading about other views of life.”

  Jane said, “That's when it started to get dangerous. We knew this “re-programming” of ourselves and our children might be risky, but we felt compelled. Once we started finding out about the world through other eyes, we started to have a hunger for more. We read stories, and histories, and the Bible. We read about sciences not related to technology such as zoology and sociology.”

  “But when it really got dangerous,” whispered Lucy, “was when we disabled our chips. Then, even though no one could tell just by looking at us, we started to act differently. And we couldn't go to programming anymore.”

  “We knew we would eventually get caught at that point,” said Jane, “but we didn't know what we could do.”

  Jane asked Poke, “Tell me, are there a lot of you?”

  “Oh, yes,” she said, “hundreds.”

  Sydney sat by the fire across from his wife and turned toward the new family. “We call ourselves the Waldenese. It's from an old book called Walden about a man who goes into the wilderness to find himself. Originally, that's what most of us were. People from the Technophiles who wanted out. So, you see, we can identify with many of you. That was some time ago when this colony started, and some are from the next generation that never knew the ways of your world. We are thankful for that.”

  “Technophiles?” said Hamlet. “Why did you call us that?”

  “Because, “said Sydney, “Techno has to do with technology--what that society praises above all things. And philiacs means to have a love for something that is insatiable.”