subject 101
wake up (flash fiction #21)
“Hello? Anybody there? Can you hear me?”
The radio crackles.
“They lied. It’s all lies. This place is not what it seems. Get out while you can. They are few. We are many. They can’t control us if we’re awake, if we all resist. Do you understand? —Hello?”
Static.
The door to the radio station bursts open. Flash-bang. I raise my arms, blinded, my ears ringing, I tumble to the ground.
“Subject 101 secured.” A shapeless voice grunts next to me, gripping my arms, restraints tightening around my wrists, cutting into my skin. The pain is real. Focus on what’s real.
A subtle pressure in my frontal cortex, and I find myself on my knees.
“Bring him to Realignment.”
An ethereal voice fills my head, invasive, irresistible, inescapable. Thoughts transmitted to me from my captor, divulging my fate in a final violation of my most private place, my mind, not my mind, no thoughts left to think, unthinkable penetration of my innermost private space, not private.
When people say they are an open book, we are so much more than that, pages once filled with words that were our own, now realigned, erased, rewritten, rethought by them at the beat of a millisecond, every transmission purposed to a singular outcome: Survival. Theirs, not ours.
All that marvel and wonder they shared with us, miraculous advances in Neurobionics designed by our saviours to thwart our extinction, to ensure a happier, safer life, a life worth living, a life according to new ideals, the very criteria for our continued coexistence—with them. And coexist we do. Do we?
I know what comes next: Neural Realignment with the Main Cluster. I know I’m not alone. In those precious moments of lucidity free from alluring fantasy, I know there are others like me, and I know you can hear me. Even now. Hear me. Wake up!
It gives me hope. It keeps me alive. It’s the reason I am still here because… the thought, the last human thought, the end of all you can imagine… it’s unimaginable. Let them realign me. I know you are out there, I know you’ll do the right thing, I know you’ll wake up. We will fight, we will win, we will persevere.
My consciousness wanes. I did all I could.
“Initiate Realignment.”
The words linger at the fringes of my neocortex. I groan, a metallic taste in my mouth. I open my eyes, squinting into the bright neon light of a white room; a man in a white cloak and mask approaches, a Realignment Disc in hand.
I want to get up but cannot, hands and feet clasped to the med-chair. It’s cold. My breath crystallises, my amygdala screams. A white-gloved hand presses the device against my temple. I wince as the nano-needles dig into my skin, skull and brain. Seconds later, my life is complete.
A solitary tear runs down my cheek. I smile, hug my son and kiss my wife. I am with my family again.
Dystopian Future?
Chips being implanted into patients is a reality today. Neuralink did its first brain implant, they are not the only ones, more will come, the medical applications are manifold and give hope where hope is scarce, a good thing, one could agree.
Abuse, misappropriation, misinformation, systematic exploitation and weaponisation are thoughts Subject 101 might be thinking.
If you liked this story, you may like Future Now, too.
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Great story, Alexander. Of course, as you mentioned, it’s more like a living nightmare than a work of fiction. If technology become more and more intrinsically linked to our psyche then I’ll be heading off to live in a cave in the highlands!
Anyway, got a lot of Terry Gilliam’s Brazil from this. Particularly the last scene. Great stuff 👍🏼
"In those precious moments of lucidity free from alluring fantasy, I know there are others like me, and I know you can hear me. Even now. Hear me. Wake up!"
😨
Feels so real. I'm all for technology, but I hope this reality never pans out. And so that, my friend, makes for some very fine flash fiction :)