The Last Place to Stand (8 page)

“Wallace,” Samuel said. “Where can we find out about new developments?”

“On floor 398, unless things have changed,” he said. “You should find the developments awaiting approval or rejection. I know the woman who does this. Perhaps we can find out what we need from her.”

“Great,” said Samuel. “For now, we should refrain from talking unless we’re alone and out of camera range. It would look suspicious. Conversations don't happen much now that they use the feeds.”

“That's right,” said Wallace. “I almost forgot.”

The five of them moved cautiously. On the first floor, their main goal was to get to a vertical transportation unit. The floor was enormous. It was where all technological ideas were submitted and converted into searchable feeds. There were seven long lines of people awaiting their chance to submit their ideas and plans. It was very seldom that a project was accepted, but when it happened it was the fulfillment of a lifetime goal for the inventor. Since technological advances were the highest achievement of man, the highest goal of an individual was to be a part of making such advances. The desire to be part of this great system was instilled since childhood. It drove much of what they did, dreamed about, and lived for.

Even before reaching one of the lines they had to pass through a check-in booth where a robot asked mechanically, “reason for entry?”

“Submission,” said Samuel. They were each given a green badge. After getting past the booth they walked up to the submission line. They stood there for a while and then pretended that they had to meet to discuss their submission in a corner. The corner just happened to be near the vertical lift. When the doors opened, Wallace whispered with urgency, “face the wall and take off your badges.” They did this. Turning around, he pointed to the camera above the door.

“Good thinking” said Samuel. He pressed the button for the 398th floor. Almost as soon as he pressed it, they were there. Gravity dampers kept the G-Force down, so they had no feeling of acceleration whatever. The door opened.

In front of them stretched a long hallway with wooden panels on the lower half of the walls. They walked with purpose as though they worked here. Their chips gave all the right signals, so they were not worried about being identified as not belonging. If a person was here, then that meant they must work here since the system would not allow others to enter. Good covert chip design on their part.

They walked down the hallway, going by doors on both sides, mostly closed. Another group of men walked by and Samuel and his men were careful not to say hi or do anything else to cause suspicion. They just looked straight ahead and tried to ignore everyone. Just like the average workers, receiving feeds and sending information, paying no attention to the world around them.

Toward the end of the hall, they saw a hatch on their right. This was the normal mode of transport in this building, but not for them. Chavez had a fear of enclosed spaces, so they ignored it and moved on. At the end of the hall, they saw a door, but just as Samuel was about to reach for the handle, Wallace pointed to a door on their left. Samuel turned and opened it. As they stepped out, Wallace whispered, “That other one was for food.”

“Oh,” said Samuel.

They entered a huge room. It was the size of a warehouse, but broken into small workspaces. Partitions were interspersed throughout, because people who worked here did not get distracted. They had complete focus on their tasks. Without the use of additional technology, workers received and sent business-level feeds. “This is technical support,” said Wallace. “It's worldwide, so it takes a lot of people. Different shifts go all day and night so those on other continents and time zones can get help as well.”

They walked along one wall ignoring people who passed them from time to time. Samuel observed that there were no windows. How very depressing, he thought. How can these people live this way?

It took them several minutes to cross the warehouse sized room. On the other side, Wallace whispered, “This is it.” They opened the door.

X213 had been running for just a few minutes before she was out of breath. Exercise was not emphasized in this society. She sat down, no longer able to cry. Feeling a little numb, she wondered what she would do now. She thought about going back to work, but that was enforcing the very restrictions that had dominated her as a child. No feeling, no independent thought, like machines doing what someone else wanted. In this world there was no sense of creativity. There was no art, no music for entertainment. There were just the feeds, and work. She thought about taking the chip out of her head, but then thought that if she did this, the authorities would either take her away as a deserter or come looking for her thinking she had a malfunction and needed repair. The chip itself had this signaling device. Though she couldn't turn it off, she could limit the number of feeds she received so she could think.

As she sat, she wondered who she would miss at work.
No one
, she realized. Not a single person. She didn’t feel close to anyone because she never talked to anyone. Of course there was that guy she had talked to earlier that day, but he was an anomaly. She remembered how he had said hi to her, the conversation replaying in her memory. He had said some unusual things. For instance, he said words like, community, time, rest, and he did not sound happy. She had heard about him. Even though she didn't know his name, she had heard that he had lived with the Outcasts and then, seeing the light, knowing that the Solpaths had the true path to a brighter future, he came back. He had to go through quite a bit of testing and trial before they would accept him in his current position. They had to make sure he wasn't a spy.

It was no longer the case that spies worked for other companies trying to bring a product to the public before another company. It was not even true that one country vied for power against another using technology as a weapon. The world was now under one government and had only one goal: to better themselves by bettering technology. It was a wonderfully united system. Instead of companies competing with other companies, there was one company, Techcorp, which was owned and run by the government. When the government owns everything, there is no competition and everyone is happier. And because the country was now run much like a huge company, the Director of Operations was the leader of the country.

Her thoughts went back to that man again. He had a look in his eyes she had seen before. She had known what it was at the time, but she didn't want to think about it. She had blocked it out through the distraction of business. If you run fast enough, you don't notice the ugly scenery. That was what she did. She knew what that man felt and it made her uncomfortable. She knew it because she had seen it. In the mirror, before she took her pills some mornings. He wanted out too, the same way she wanted out.

She wondered if he cried also. Did he have the shakes like her? Was he suffering the same things, but unwilling to admit it even to himself? She found herself hoping so, because the alternative was even worse. What if he knew his life was built on false hope and lies that he told himself? What if he was going through the motions, hoping that someday he would start to feel better, knowing that as long as he stayed in this job, in this apartment, in these meaningless almost faceless relationships, things could only remain the same. Things would never get better, because the problem wasn't just the way he felt. It was where he was and what he did. It was the life he built for himself.

She knew it was a lot to read into a two minute conversation. She knew she was being silly. But she also knew that look, and that didn't lie, because she had seen that look every morning before taking the pills and pretending one more day.

She knew she couldn't go back to work. But that man had no one to talk to and he had no way out. Even though she didn't know the answers, she at least was starting to understand the questions, and some people might go through their whole lives and never get that far.

She knew she couldn't go back to work. But she also knew that when she saw that man, she saw herself; and who could leave themselves behind when they could help, make a difference, be someone to offer hope?

She knew she couldn't go back, but now she knew. She would.

In the mass of people there was unrest. Little Brother knew it and they were there for those who understood it. For those who were on the edge, they sometimes helped out. Over the last three years, more citizens were leaving the city and joining the resistance or leaving altogether to live among the Waldenese. What was interesting was that more had been deciding to stay and join the effort recently. Zach thought that was an odd thing to do. But then again, that’s what he was doing.

He picked up his two-way radio and called out, “Chai, are you there?”

“Yes,” said Chai.

“What's going on in there?”

“Samuel and his men entered the building probably ten minutes ago. We don't have any way to contact them, but we can pinpoint their location on the 398th floor.”

“Very good,” said Zach. He turned to a man nearby. “How far does that transmitter you pinned on him go?”

“Far,” said a burly man in black with a neck as wide as most men's waist. “That baby will send a signal halfway around the planet. Pretty cool, huh?”

“Great,” said Zach. He spoke back into the radio, “Chai, why don't you stay there and let me know when you see them come out of the building.”

“Okay, boss,” said Chai.

“You know,” said Zach, “the Technos think they own the world. They think they are the only people on the face of it, and everyone else is just leftovers. They don't even know what's boiling under the surface. Can you believe that?” A whole group of men, sitting on some broken down piece of a wall, listened. It was a part of the city that had been abandoned. “I mean look at this. Here's a piece of land they ignore because it's easier for them to start building somewhere else from scratch than to clean this off and try again. That's what they do with people, isn't it? They would rather throw them away than help them cope. They treat people like machines. Machines!” He didn't have to tell them. He was preaching to the choir. They had experienced it first hand, and now they were his eager recruits.

Zach had gotten on one of his rants again. He sometimes did that. He had been silent for so many years that now that he began to articulate what he felt, he didn't always know when to stop.

“Why are you monitoring Samuel and his men?” asked Greg, one of the men of the technical division of Little Brother.

“Samuel and his men were never a part of our group officially, but they were an inspiration to me really. They would get their hands dirty when I didn't want to. I just want to make sure they're safe. I'm sure they would do the same for me.”

He turned toward the horizon. “I also want to find out what they’re after. Samuel has never been one to risk his life without reason. What does he know that we don't?”

The patient was nervous. He wasn't nervous about what would happen to him during the operation. He was scared of not performing as he should. He was scared that they would cancel the surgery and he would be excluded in taking part in the most important technological advancement in the history of man. Yes, he was nervous, but he was also excited as they wheeled him into the operation room, because so far it looked like it was going to happen.

He had, of course had an operation before on his brain. But that was to install the first card, and not nearly as invasive as this surgery. The other procedure had been to enhance his own brain’s capacity and capability. This new procedure, however, would be to add a co-processor; in essence adding a second brain. Nothing had ever been attempted like this, and he was a part of it. Excitement started to build within him.

The anesthesiologist moved into the light. “I am going to put you under, since we will have to open your skull for this operation.”

No candy coating here, just tell it like it is
, he thought. “Sure,” he responded. They gave him a shot. His excitement started to fade. He was losing his nervousness. He felt a weakness come upon him and then he began to have a feeling of vague fear. A thing without a name. A new “what if,” settled in his mind. But before he could even make it a real thing in his mind, he started losing his focus. Everything was covered with a blanket of drowsiness. He felt warm and tired, more tired than he had ever felt. Drifting to sleep, he at last heard the surgeon say, “Just a little longer...”

The anesthesiologist waited a couple more minutes and then signaled the surgeon. “He's out.”

“Great,” said the surgeon. “Let's make history.” He made the opening incision. In an adjoining room, a panel of bioengineering scientists, medical experts, and top staff at the company watched in expectation. Eugene, or E2175 as he was called now, watched alongside the Operations Manager. They could almost taste the future.

The surgeon opened the side of the skull where the current chip was seated. The chip itself was just an interface into circuits that sent electrodes into the brain. The current technology consisted of eleven wires planted carefully into specific portions of the brain for receiving and sending communications, for processing information, and for simple data storage and retrieval. They removed the patient’s old interface. It just took a minute. Then the surgeon held it up, looking it over. He had a look of disgust on his face, as if this was the cause of some disease. At that moment the chief technician handed him the new apparatus. It was a whole circuit board, compared to the earlier small chip that was about the size of the man's ear. This new unit was almost as large as the whole side of his face. Carefully, the surgeon massaged the man's brain.

He cut the divisions between the two halves of the man's brain. A common procedure in the distant past, but not one used much these days. He gently inserted the board between the two halves and looked at the monitor where all his vital signs were displayed. Everything was going just fine. It seemed the patient was dreaming.