“In what way?”
“They don’t come right out and say it, sir, but I suspect that with the amount of extra-curricular studying he does, they feel intimidated, as if he’s making himself more educated than they are.”
“That wouldn’t be difficult. They’re essentially babysitters. Tell me about the new one.”
“Subject number four just came up, just before I asked to see you.” Garrett eagerly consulted his printout to refresh his memory. The blinds on the wall behind the doctor cast horizontal shadow stripes on the page. “Two of his reports just came in today, actually. The most recent one from a school security officer. He was observed threatening and acting menacingly toward some athletes and cheerleaders.”
The doctor leaned forward. This was interesting. Overt anti-social behavior. It might be too late to recondition him, but if it wasn’t, and they succeeded, he could be a very valuable test subject. “Any history of actual violence?”
“No, sir. He’s only threatened it, but his threats are rather vicious and unheard of since we began monitoring students. This morning, before school, he caught the attention of an Equality Enforcement Corp officer who was bringing in a citizen for racial sensitivity training.”
“Was he cited?” the doctor interrupted.
“No, sir. He was only scanned. The officer reported that since they already had a citizen in custody, he just scanned the kid out of curiosity. As it turns out, he wasn’t chipped, but facial-recognition came through.
The doctor opened his top desk drawer and removed his e-cig. He leaned back and begun puffing on it, contemplating the odd nature of this fourth subject. “And what did he have on file before today?”
“Miscellaneous but minor reports from teachers and security monitors about his unusual interest in reading, similar to subject two, but with four it’s almost entirely fiction. Oh,” Garret interrupted himself. “That’s another thing. Almost everything he’s ever read was written by Caucasian authors.”
The doctor couldn’t believe how complex this subject was becoming and he wondered how he hadn’t already been cited and sent in for basic equality education.
“He sounds almost too good to be true. A virtual psychopath just waiting to break out of his shell. I wonder if it’s not too late. I can’t wait to see how he responds to treatment. Are you sure he has no record of being detained or cited?”
“There is one archival record of him being at the scene of a minor crime. A suburban drone has him on video purchasing illegal tobacco products.”
“Why wasn’t he arrested at that time?”
“The seller is on a Do Not Detain order so we can track him to his supplier. The kid got lucky.”
The doctor set down his e-cig and said, “So did we. Is that all on the fourth subject?”
“There’s one more thing that might be interesting. When his mother came to plea for religious exemption to keep the kid from getting chipped, the grandfather did all of the talking. And he has definitely been on our radar. He’s a pre-war holdout with multiple citizen reports of outspoken condemnation of just about everything we’ve done to make life in Orange County better than anywhere in the country, if not the world.”
“Interesting. He could be an argument for nurture instead of nature. He’s perfect. When can we have all of them here and ready for treatment?”
“I can send eeks, I mean, E.E.C. officers for them as soon as you give the word.”
“You have it,” the doctor said and turned back to the fish that he found endlessly fascinating. “Thank you, Garrett.”
Fielding’s assistant walked to the door, thinking, then turned before leaving and said, “Doctor, do you think it’s significant that all of the subjects are smarter than average? Are these kids just too smart for their own good?”
Fielding responded without turning his head. “They’re too smart for the greater good, Garrett.”
Four
All six students in the classroom looked up as Deron opened the door. He thought it was funny how people always did that, as if something interesting was about to happen just because a door had opened. He did the same thing though, and didn’t know why.
He went to his desk and logged in to the class via the computer embedded in the glass surface of his desk. Every time he did so, he wondered what point there was in having his body present in the classroom. Oh yeah. If he logged in from home, he’d miss out on the wonderful socialization that came from being there in person.
“14th Tardy” flew at him, blinked a few times, then shrunk away. Whatever. He quickly tapped the virtual keys to submit a new Completed Read, then thought about what he should read next. Classic twentieth century science fiction, or something completely different this time, but from the same era? Maybe some Stephen King for fast and light entertainment after the intense "Mote in God's Eye" he'd just completed.
He went up to the teacher’s desk and asked, “Can I go to the library, Mr. Miller? I’d like to get another paper book.”
“May I go to the library?” the teacher corrected.
“Yes, you may,” Deron answered. “But no running in the hall.”
The teacher smiled reluctantly as he typed up a digital pass which he beamed to Deron’s communicator and made a print-out as well, just in case the comm malfunctioned. When the paper spat onto his desk, he handed it to Deron.
“Try not to take too long.”
“Thanks.” Deron took the paper and refrained from saying anything sarcastic about how he’d miss out on so much if he didn’t get back right away. He felt that his thoughts about the pointlessness of so many things were also pointless. He had no reason to speak them. Besides, Mr. Miller was actually pretty cool. He didn’t want to antagonize him.
He approached the door to the library, feeling the sun heating the back of his black tee shirt. The library windows were polarized and dark. He assumed there wouldn’t be many students inside. There never were. The library was an unpopular place, except for when it provided a means of getting work credit for doing nothing.
He stepped through the door and welcomed the large drop in temperature. Outside was in the low 90s but felt hotter through his black shirt. Inside, the library felt like 65 degrees. He shivered and looked around. As he suspected, there were only a few students sitting at tables, talking and passing notes with open books sitting before them as if they were reading.
He headed toward the science fiction section to see what was available before checking with the librarian to see if "Lucifer's Hammer" had come in yet. He'd ordered it two months ago. It should be here by now. After browsing the same old limited selection of physical books, he headed toward the Check Out and Return counter that was adjacent to the librarian’s desk. If he wanted to find something new, he’d have to browse the ebooks later, but that had never yielded anything good in the past. He suspected that computers wrote most of the new fiction books.
The librarian turned from the two EEC officers she had been talking to and looked right at him. Her eyes widened and she exclaimed in a surprisingly loud voice, "That's him!" as if he had snatched her purse earlier that day. Rather than charging him as he half expected them to do, they merely turned their heads and looked at him as he slowed down but continued heading toward them.
The three of them stood staring as he walked up to deposit his book in the slot labeled "RETURNS." The two men were in their mid to late 20's and dressed in the completely black uniform worn by all divisions of the Department of Equal Opportunity. Deron had no concerns about being guilty of any equality violations and didn’t understand why they were looking at him as though he was. As he stepped up and dropped his paperback in the return slot, the librarian inched back and looked rapidly from Deron to the two officers. The man further from Deron looked at a sheet of paper in his hand, then at Deron and asked, "Deron Michael Young?"
"Yeah. Are you looking for a serial killer?"
The men in black were confused by his question and looked to the librarian. She took
another nervous step back and shook her head. She didn’t understand him either.
"Excuse me," she muttered, and quickly let herself through the swinging, waist-high door to her left. Hurrying off toward the opposite side of the library, she started to look back once but thought better of it and kept her eyes straight ahead, looking toward the Library Administration office.
The man closest to Deron said, "We'd like to talk to you, Deron." He had an Asian accent that matched his features. Both of them had an air of command authority about them. Although he'd said they'd "like" to talk to him, it didn't sound like a choice was involved.
Deron knew they were similar to police, but they were different than ordinary cops. They didn't have the predatory look that Deron associated with police. Unlike the ones on TV, real cops seemed to be starving for crime or criminals so they’d have something to do. They scrutinized everyone in their line of sight for signs of criminality. It made no sense. The reported crime rate in the cities seemed to be constantly on the rise, although there didn’t seem to be an increase in observable crime. And there were far more equality officers than there were police officers, so it seemed obvious to him they didn’t need the police very much anymore.
They started to walk toward the exit fully expecting Deron to accompany them. He did, and he realized it was too late to hide the pack of cigarettes making a rectangular bulge in his shirt pocket. He assumed that the law to finally and completely ban smoking must've just been passed. Smoking was the only law he had ever broken. But he broke it consistently and in multiple ways. Being under twenty-one, he purchased his cigarettes illegally as many adults did. He had already decided he would not register as a controlled-substance addict and would not apply for a smoking license. He violated environmental laws every time he lit up outdoors within city limits, and inside his bathroom without an EPA approved indoor-air-filtration device. He probably violated another law when he smoked on school property like he had just done moments ago. I'm busted, he thought. No doubt they can smell it on me. But it’s not an equality crime, so why did they send eeks?
After going through the doors, they headed north toward the main administration building. They continued without speaking as though they hadn't left the library's mandatory silence behind them. Deron thought about the insignia for the government department they worked for: D.E.O.
It was just another useless part of the government. DEO might as well stand for Dimwits Engaged in Onanism. He almost laughed out loud, but wondered again what the DEO could want with him. Was the government using them to enforce a new smoking law? Had he broken a new law that he hadn’t heard of yet? New laws were announced every month. More and more citizens became criminals to some degree overnight. It was harder and harder for the average citizen to not inadvertently break the increasing number of laws.
He watched the pair of black pant legs in front of him as he walked along and thought about crime and being a criminal. He realized that there was only one pair of legs in front of him now and that the other man had positioned himself behind him. He suddenly felt apprehension. Something's wrong with this picture. Possession of a pack of Marlboros was still a misdemeanor, wasn't it? If they arrested him for it, it would surely cost his mother a lot of credits, but it would be his first offense. Maybe he should just ask them what the hell they wanted to talk about. For some reason, he couldn’t. He pretended that it didn't matter and he didn't care. He continued to follow them right past the Admin building and now into the staff parking lot.
Where the hell are we going? he yelled inside his head. Now he was starting to feel panicky. An itch started in the center of his back, and regular breathing required effort. He imagined the tall, black man behind him pointing a gun at his back. His legs started to feel weak as blood rushed to his head, making him dizzy and flushed. Thoughts rapidly flashed through his mind. The librarian had pointed him out to these guys. Was his book way over-due? He laughed nervously at his internal monologue and tried to tell himself to relax. There's nothing to get worked up over. This will end up being something completely mundane, he told himself.
They stepped up to a white EEC four-door sedan with opaque tinted windows. Deron looked left and right, quickly debating if he should make a run for it without even knowing what he would be running from. The man in front turned sideways and faced Deron. "We're just going to take a short ride. This won't take long." The other man was still standing behind him.
"What won't take long?" he demanded to know, trying to sound aloof and unconcerned. But his voice came out sounding high-pitched and loud, like a scared kid was speaking through him. His ears burned at the sound of his own voice.
"Our job is just to transport you. Someone else will answer all your questions soon enough," said the man behind him as the man in front opened the back door and gestured for Deron to get inside.
"I'm not going anywhere with you until you tell me what this is about!"
His words came out in a rush and his voice sounded more like his own; confident and defiant. "I'm not about to be ordered around by two complete strangers and driven off to God knows where. If you expect me to get in that car and go with you, the least you're going to have to do is tell me why. "
The Asian looked at him for a second, not accustomed to non-compliance and said, "We're with the government. Get in."
Despite being a smoker, Deron was still a fast sprinter. He was sure he could outrun these two, even though they looked very healthy and in excellent shape. They’d beat him as far as stamina went, but he could lose them quickly by taking alleys and hopping fences into backyards, and zig-zagging his way through the neighborhood, or even the entire city if necessary. He had lived all of his seventeen years in various cities around Orange County. He knew Westminster and Garden Grove as well as he knew his own neighborhood. He knew he could get away and then find a place to hide if they were bent on pursuing him. His grandfather would give him money if it was an emergency.
He felt a hand on his back, nudging him toward the back seat. It felt surreal to him that he was about to be driven away from school in the middle of the day. He wasn’t worried about being embarrassed. But he did feel like something was happening that would cause an irreversible change in his life.
He had no idea what he could’ve done to draw the attention of the eeks, but he sensed that whatever it was, it was going to require him to change something about his life that he wasn’t going to agree with, then trouble was really going to start. He imagined that he’d end up being just like his grandfather.
Thinking of Charlie, Deron suddenly decided he wouldn’t just go willingly into the arms of the government, and he took off running.
Five
"No!" the old man yelled into the phone. He looked around his modest one-bedroom house with an expression of anger, fear, and exasperation. There was a softness in his eyes that contradicted his tone of voice and his flushed features. He stood there listening and shaking his head slowly like he was a camel being informed that the Straw-Placers were on their way to put another straw on his over-burdened back.
"Visitor," a female electronic voice called out, informing him that someone was ringing his doorbell.
"Honey. I've gotta go. Whatever happens, you know I always loved you and Deron more than anything. I just can't change, sweetheart. I'm sorry." He hung up the phone and wiped a tear from his eye.
"Visitor!" the voice cried a bit louder, having not sensed an auditory acknowledgement to its first announcement. Just one more thing that isn't the same. One more robot to make life easier, the old man thought as he leaned against the wall beside the phone.
Charlie had resisted every encroachment of what he still referred to as his "civil liberties" and "God-Given rights." He was an oddity long before the government had taken such a large interest in people's private lives. He had never licensed his pets and was outraged at the thought of having to get a license to have a four-legged companion. His dogs had always worn collars with their names and Charlie's p
hone number. What more was necessary?
“License” was a word that Charlie knew the real meaning of and he wasn't about to be brainwashed by any new-fangled definitions. He also refused to have his rights turned into privileges by strangers who granted themselves the power to control others. A man had a right to own and care for a dog. License meant "permission" and Charlie would be damned if he was ever going to ask another man, or a group of them, for permission to own a dog – to have a best friend.
Licenses for dogs, businesses, cars, and everything else were just for government agents to meddle in your business and keep track of what you were up to. Charlie used to try telling people that there were unlimited ways you could be tracked, monitored, and controlled, even before they’d started putting cameras everywhere and computer chips inside people “for their own good.”
No one was a person anymore. They were files, numbers, statistics. Even before the war that led to this “great new society” they were allegedly living in now, employers were blatant about how they viewed the average working person. They’d referred to people as “human resources.”
But nobody listened to Charlie then. His wife especially had little tolerance for his fanaticism and had threatened to leave him over it just before the war. Shortly after the reformed government took over, he’d finally given up on trying to share his opinion. Things were a hundred times worse with the new government and still, nobody seemed to care.
And now his daughter sounded just like the mother she’d only known as a young child, trying to convince him to just accept the way things were and to quit breaking so many laws all the time.
He now had a dog without a license, failed to register with the Senior Supplements Administration, smoked on occasion without a license, and worst of all he’d failed to turn in his weapons or check them in to a government sport-shooting facility which was the only way a person could “own” a firearm; and who knew what other host of smaller infractions he was guilty of on a regular basis. Charlie was waiting for the announcement that a county permit would now be required to scratch your balls.
2043 A.D. Page 2
