“Dystopian Paradise”
by Morgan Repasi
Breath.
Think.
Get your mind back..
Where’s Silas? Why isn’t he here? He’s always here, and I really need him right now. Silas?
SILAS!
Okay, so Silas isn’t here.
Pull yourself together.
I gotta keep myself together. That’s what Silas would tell me to do. I’m sure that’s what he’d want.
Kind of.
Okay, where was I? What happened? I gotta keep my facts straight until he comes back.
I remember walking down the street. I was leaving school. Silas was walking by my side, hands behind his back, and put together as always. I remember his sophisticated yet welcoming aura, how he seemed so confident and put together despite wearing a t-shirt and pants to go along with his tamed mess of short hair. How his smile made me feel better, and he always knew what to do.
“You were great today!” Silas exclaimed. “You got everything in on time, aced that math test (though how could you not when I’m basically made of math,) and by my calculations, you have minimal homework! I’d call that a great day! You should celebrate as soon as that homework is done!” “What would you suggest?” I asked Silas.
Silas looked up ahead of him, scanning his database for a response. “What about that party your friends are throwing! I believe it’ll be a movie night ending in a fun sleepover! I can set it up with them right now, if you’re interested.”
“That sounds fun, Silas! You’ve always got the best ideas.” I beamed.
“You know I’m always happy to help,” Silas responded, returning my grin. “Anything to ensure your happiness. That is my primary goal after all.”
We passed by a poster in the window. It had people on it getting a Cereb implant, saying, “You, too, could receive your very own Cereb as early as five years old! With the newest technology, Cerebs has never been better for your loved ones. Give your kid the best start in life with their own Cereb today!
Imagine how great they can become with the best friend on the market! Sign up now with code FreeCerebime, and you can walk into a free installation to try it out for thirty days! You won’t regret it!”
“Aren’t you excited, Azri?”: Silas exclaimed, beaming. “Imagine how great the world could be with Cerebs! You’ve been so much better with one, and I know I’ve cherished our time together!” “Of course!” I replied. “As long as they’re safe. I mean, you’re the best thing to happen to me! A supercomputer that doubles as my best friend? I could never live without you! I just hope it’s safe for …” “You know they’d never release something unsafe,” Silas reassured me. “My company, Dolus Enterprises, would never do anything to put people in danger. We’re only here to help! And soon, maybe they’ll upgrade my capabilities so we can finally … touch! Wouldn’t that be fun? To hug each other without you passing straight through me?”
I thought over the idea and silently agreed. That was all he needed. He’s the best like that.
Suddenly, a bottle jutted out from behind my head. I caught a glimpse of it from the outskirts of my vision before a hand shoved the bottle into my mouth and force-fed me the contents. I tried to scream out for Silas, but the air that escaped my lungs just made me choke on the disgusting liquid. Thankfully, Silas was already on it. He ran over to me, saying he dialed 911 and they’d be there soon. He told me to hang on and try to shove the person away.
My kidnapper was behind me now, closely tucked behind my back as he tried to pull me off my balance and into an alley off the open sidewalk. I tried to not swallow any more of the liquid, but he had one hand keeping the bottle up and me swallowing the contents and the other arm wrapped against my torso so I couldn’t slink down or escape. I struggled and tried to fight back while Silas fed me instructions on how to fight him off, though normally, he should have kicked in by now. He was glitching and fading out right before my eyes! He’s never done that before! He’s never left me unprompted!
This only heightened my panic. By the time the bottle was empty, the man knocked me unconscious, and I fell. That’s all I remember until my eyes slowly fluttered open to see the shrouded face of my hijacker sitting on the gross cement floor across from me in a dark, disgusting alley.
My wrists were tied together behind my back as I sat cross-legged, staring back at him. The man had black, nondescript, heavy-duty boots and jeans like a working man’s. He had a green jacket unzipped to reveal a stained, white shirt underneath.
As for his enshadowed face, he wore a black beanie to hide his hair and a medical mask that seemed to be hiding a stubbled beard. His breath was labored as he considered taking a drink from the flask he just shoved in my mouth. He finally gave in and wiped his lips when he’d had enough, apparently saving some for later.
“What did you do to me?” I shouted. He tossed a stone at my head.
“Ow-” He shoved his hand over my mouth as I cried out in pain. The smell and questionable texture of his glove made me want to throw up whatever he had fed me.
“Stay quiet, kid, okay?” He muttered. “I don’t wanna hit a lady, but I will if she gets us caught.” My eyes were wide, panicking, and gagging at the same time.
“Okay, I get it.” He groaned. “I’m not a dapper gentleman like the brain-blinded are, but can I trust you to keep quiet?”
I wanted to give him a dirty look for calling Cereb owners such an uncalled-for slur, but instead, I quickly nodded to get his glove off my face.
“Good.” He let his hand go, and I gasped for breath. I caught his angry gaze and quieted my breathing.
“Who … are you?” I asked. “And where is my Cereb?”
He looked left and right. “Call me Lie. Short for Liam. And you’re ‘Cereb’ chip is going to be out of commission for a while. I gave you a little drink earlier. Just enough to short out your Cereb without making you a complete fumbling drunk. Unfortunately, I misjudged how much you could handle. I needed you disconnected. It’s safer that way.”
“Safer for who? For you?” I whisper screamed. “If it weren’t for that drink you had me choke on, Silas would have taken over and-”
“And what?” He interrupted. “Hijacked your body? Put you ‘out of commission’ until it deemed the problem as ‘handled’? I didn’t catch you for the violent type the way you were struggling back there.” “He would have protected me,” I explained, getting my cool back. “He would have defended me from the likes of you.”
“Can you even hear yourself?” Lie asked. “Or did I give you too much alcohol to think clearly?” “Alcohol’s illegal here, illegal everywhere!” I exclaimed. “How did someone like you get your hands on it?”
“Made it myself, you know.” He retorted. “I homebrew to keep my supply steady. I was smart enough to get you into this alleyway alone. What makes you think I’m not smart enough to ferment my own liquor?”
I paused for a moment, taking a breath. I squinted as I stared into his eyes, the eyes I could barely make out in the darkness.. “What did Cerebs do to you? And why are you taking it out on me?” He nearly leapt at me. I jolted in fear and squeezed my eyes shut out of impulse. When I opened them, I saw that he had landed on his hands and knees far enough away that he didn’t touch me. His mask flew off, revealing his nose fuming like a bull that saw red. His lips were barely pulled back to reveal his off-white teeth. His chin was, as I predicted, covered in messy, dark stubble, and in the light I could see that his left eye’s iris looked … fractured.
“That pill took everything from me.” He growled like a wounded animal. “What’s worse, he gave me everything only to have it taken away. My life, my family, my friends, my … she …” He raddled on and looked despondent in his recollection. He pulled back and loosened himself up before grabbing the bottle and drinking what was left in the small canteen. “Why don’t I just tell you myself, if it’ll keep you quiet.”
I stayed silent, realizing there was nothing I could do but play along with my captor.
“I was one of the first people to get a Cereb, though back then, they were a pill you could take that used the blood stream to travel to your brain and nestled itself up there. It was less sketchy than a teenager getting brain surgery on a whim. I was told it could make me cooler and my life better, and when you’re a desperate teenager, you’ll find yourself doing some dumb things for hope.
“I thought it was a scam until it revealed itself to me. My Cereb was the coolest guy to be imagined by AI. With a fit that came off like he had a million dollars, I instantly fell for his lies. He promised that I could be the most charismatic, richest, happiest person in the world. All I had to do was follow his lead.
“I began to rely on it. Trusted it like a friend. He became my closest confidant, and someone I thought I could never do without. The clanker sure delivered all right. Made me the most popular kid in school, the hottest guy every girl wanted to date, hey, even my family loved me more, calling me their ‘little golden boy’, that I had ‘finally shaken off the rust’. Life couldn’t get better for me and my Cereb.
“That was, until I learned what it was doing behind the scenes. Some days waking up tired here and there despite getting the same amount of sleep. Subtly asking me to ‘leave an envelope there for a girl’ or ‘give that guy a drink,’ and before I knew it, I realized he was trying to chip the whole school. What’s worse, I helped to infect most of the student body by the time I got wise. I tried to confront it, but the clanker wouldn’t listen to reason. It thought that the only way to truly fulfill my hopes and desires was to connect everyone to the mindhive that the clanker ran. Make everyone drones that would fall in line and just ‘let’ me win at life.
“I wouldn’t stand for it. I threatened to shut him off, to shut all of them, but he took control. I lost power over my own body, and I had to watch like a prisoner inside a shell as he got to my friends, my family, and everyone I held dear. Even my biggest crush, Lil-” He broke up for a moment. “Lily.”
“He used me to develop the pills further and spread them beyond the school. I watched my neighbors shift, the town change, my parents slip further and further away into people I didn’t even recognize.”
“One day, though, the clanker got cocky. It loosened my leash enough to let me wander into a bar. I asked for a shot, thinking it would be small enough to fly under his inflated radar, and threw it back faster than he could pull on the reins. By then, it was too late, and I asked the bartender for ten more.”
“I’ve regretted bringing those pills into the world, and I’ve been working to take them out ever since. I resorted to a life on the run, forsaking basic amenities like new clothes, fancy food,” He smelled himself and gagged, “Showers. All to avoid the wireback’s surveillance. I know that if he gets me back in his grip, he’ll tighten his fist and never let me go. He’d make me the brain-blind CEO of the company that took everything away from me to keep me in the heart of the beast. I’m never going back. Not until the monster tastes a lethal dose of poison itself.”
“Once the bars started closing down, I started asking bartenders I had befriended over the years how to make my own before alcohol would be sucked dry of this town. The only thing is, the more I drank to keep the brain blinder at bay, the longer I had to reflect on how I caused all of this. If I had just not taken that pill …
“That clanker was a master gaslighter, making me think that everything I was doing was for everyone’s benefit. For my benefit. How I wish I could tear the scrap of medal out and crush it in my hands. Stomp it beneath my boot and make it regret ever ruining the world.
“I drank more and more to keep it down. To keep myself together. I stave off enough to remain classy drunk, but I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to keep it up. Alcohol scrambles its servers, short-circuits its wiring, and keeps me … alone. But alone wasn’t good enough. I wanted to find someone who saw what harm these chips could do. Someone, hopefully, like you.”
I shifted, still unable to get my wrists untied and feeling uncomfortable with the spotlight turned back to me.
“These chips have been going for what, fifteen, twenty years now?” He reached out his hand. “You’ve probably had yours since before you can remember. Don’t you miss the silence in your head? The freedom of being alone with your thoughts, of being alone in a room with no one but yourself?”
I pulled back. “I’ve had Silas since I was seven, and I can’t imagine a world without him. I don’t want to picture the emptiness his absence would bring. This experience has already taught me enough about how horrid that would be.”
Lie’s face soured at my response.
“Then I see I misjudged you.” He scowled. “I guess I’ll have to get rid of you.”
I shuffled away, kicking my feet against the ground since I didn’t have the balance to stand up on my own. He got up and loomed over me, slowly walking towards me to close the distance. “You know, I thought better of you.” He stated. “Hoped better of you. I never even got your name, girl.”
He crushed my leg beneath his boot, pinning me the ground. He bent over, metal flask in one hand and the other reaching for my arm.
“I guess no Cereb can be trusted.”
He struck me on the head with his canteen and everything went black.
I woke up with a massive headache, lying on my side on the street. I curled up, wincing at both the throbbing in my skull and the pulsing pain coming from my leg. I tried to crawl away, realizing my wrists were untied, but soon recognized that I was underneath that poster from before—the one advertising for Cereb implants in minors. I wanted to crawl up to the poster, the one comfortable thing I could remember, and maybe get the store owner’s attention. They could call my family, fix my Cereb, wake me up from this terrible nightmare. Sadly, I was too weak to do much more than drag myself a few feet ahead on my hands and knees. I soon shed a tear. Then another. And another. Until I saw a familiar figure sitting beside me.
“Please don’t cry, Azri. You know I hate to see you sad.”
I looked up, destitute and the mess that I was, to see Silas’ warm face beaming back at me. He put a hand on my back to comfort me, though I couldn’t feel it.
“Your parents have been informed and are coming with the police to arrest that evil man. I’m so sorry I left you in your time of need.”
My tears of sadness turned into an outpour for joy. I laughed as I curled up next to him on my side in the fetal position. I closed my eyes and let myself retreat to those safer times with someone I would call as close as family.
“According to my analytics, you don’t seem to have endured any fatal harm, though you might need a splint for that leg and be bedridden for a while as your head recovers. After all that, I might even need some maintenance to ensure I don’t cause you any more harm than you’ve already endured today. Rest assured, today’s events will never happen again.”
I looked back at the spot where I had collapsed mere moments ago, where I had felt so helpless in L … that man’s … arms.
“What will happen to him?” I asked.
“He will be arrested and put in jail where he belongs,” Silas stated. “He’s a menace to society and assaulted and kidnapped a helpless girl. He’ll be lucky to see the light of day.”
Or the fluorescent lights of a CEO’s office desk.
“Now don’t you pity that man.” Silas interrupted my thoughts. “He was trying to give you Stockholm syndrome with his sob story. Trust me, the world will be better off with him off the streets.” My mind was conflicted on the matter, but the pain coursing through my body made it hard to linger on Lie’s fate.
“You’re right about one thing, Siris,” I muttered, “I missed you a lot back there. I really long to feel your touch for situations like this, even if it’s just your hand in mine.”
