The Upper Worlds (The Soul Survivor Series Book 1)

by Van Forson

  Mindy and I finally reached the end of the corridor, which opened into a reception area. It was an awesome looking foyer decorated with marble and golden statues of all the famous people on TEN. In the centre was a glass tower. The tech all around was so advanced that I didn’t even know what most of it was. Even the Guardians were sophisticated and made from platinum. They were way sleeker and more advanced than the bulky white plastic ones in my neighbourhood.

  “This place is magical.” I said taking it all in.

  “Like, so incredible.” Mindy agreed.

  Out of nowhere a stunning man, in full makeup, wearing an asymmetrical dress appeared in front of us. He was holding a lazer projecting our images.

  “You must be our W dot E from F to the B.” He trilled in a voice almost as high pitched as Mindy’s.

  “Yes we are, I’m K - ” I began, but before I could finish introducing myself the man bypassed me and launched himself at Mindy.

  “You. Are. Gorgeous!” He stated the obvious as if Mindy didn’t know what she looked like. “I just love your bangs!” He said fluffing up the front of her hair.

  “Why thanks, it took me like all morning to get it right.” Mindy squealed revelling in the compliment.

  Mindy got told how beautiful she was several times a day, but I never saw her tire of it.

  “Just simply divine dah-ling!” The man said pushing me out of the way.

  “I’m Ivan, I’m your contact and I’ll show you where you will be working for the week.”

  “I’m Mindy, Mindy Lush.” Mindy pouted.

  “Yes. You. Are!” Ivan clicked his fingers, punctuating his words.

  “I’m Kid,” I shouted from over his shoulder.

  Ivan whipped around with dramatic effect as if I had startled him.

  “Ye-ees!” He said slowly looking me up and down.

  I nervously smoothed down my side ponytail suddenly feeling inadequate. Maybe I should have made more of an effort on my appearance like my dad had told me too. ‘The fact is Keziah, there’s only one opportunity to make a good first impression,’ he had warned me before I left the house. But I was comfortable wearing a hoody. It kept me warm.

  Ivan turned back to Mindy and gushed, “We have the perfect work experience for you, right here in the heart of TEN in the studio. And girlfriend that is where it’s at! You’ll meet all of the stars and like gorgeous people and you’re so beautiful I’m sure I’ll even get you a feature in one of our shows. Your face fits honey. You are perfect!”

  “Really? Oh, my!” Mindy yelped in sheer delight.

  Ivan was definitely a Code Type AE. Mindy had found her male equivalent. Ivan half dragged Mindy to the glass tower elevator. I was left standing by reception.

  “What about me?” I called out.

  Ivan whipped around as if he had forgotten I was there. He sashayed hastily back to me and looked me up and down again.

  “You’re not quite right for the tower,” he decided. “I wouldn’t want to bring facially challenged people there; you’d only feel out of place. What Code Type are you?”

  Now I was flummoxed. How could I possibly tell him that The Res had said I was Human?

  “She’s a brain.” Mindy interjected saving me from further embarrassment.

  “Oh, my!” Ivan announced throwing his hands up in the air, exasperated that he’d wasted precious time talking to an Intellectual Type.

  “Well the beauty can come with me and the brain can take that corridor down to your left, someone will be there to meet you. Have a nice life!”

  Ivan sashayed away dragging Mindy with him to the elevator. Mindy turned back to me.

  “See you at lunchtime,” she waved with a happy twinkle in her eye.

  “Bye Minds.” I managed to say just as the elevator door closed in my face.

  In typical fashion, Mindy had gotten the best job due to her looks. She was my good friend and I cared for her deeply, but the way our genetics predetermined our lives annoyed me greatly.

  Everyone at TEN was rushing around looking beautiful, important or both and I was a nobody. I couldn't possibly be this Soul Survivor that the Arcadian Urbanites revered.

  “To the left or was it right?” I muttered to myself feeling like a total and utter loser.

  A group of Techies walked through a door on the right marked ‘TX’. Not knowing where else to go I ran in behind them. The door swung shut behind me and I was alone in a long dark hallway full of grey steel doors. The glitz and glamour of the foyer were gone.

  “Hello?” I called out.

  My echo reverberated down the long metallic walkway but the Techies were nowhere to be seen. I turned to go back to the reception but the heavy steel door was locked.

  “Just great.” I sighed. I walked slowly up the hallway to find another way out.

  All of a sudden a door flew open. A ginger haired Techy ran out and grabbed me.

  “Are you my new assistant?” He asked manically.

  “Erm? I guess so.” I said unsure of exactly where I was meant to be.

  An illuminated sign above the door flashed Sector Seven.

  “I’m James, and you are?” He said with a hurried handshake.

  “I’m Kid,” I said happy to have at least one person at TEN interested in me.

  Inside the room, behind James, I saw hundreds of TV programmes, films and music videos playing on a multitude of screens.

  “The hired help are getting younger and younger,” James said to himself, “But I’m not one to question.”

  The images on the screens had me transfixed.

  “Don’t just stand there, come in,” James ushered me into the room. “There is so much to do. Here take these,” he said handing me two blue circular plastic patches.

  I looked at the inch long objects not sure what to do with them.

  “Put them on,” James instructed.

  “Where do they go?” I asked feeling stupid.

  This first day of work experience at TEN was no way near the fun I thought it would be. I looked towards the exit in two minds whether to stay or make my excuses and leave. That would make Madeline Stone’s year if I decided to quit my work experience on day one. I decided to stay.

  “In your ears of course,” James said tetchily, “I’m frequing, and you don’t want your head crammed with all of this nonsense.”

  “Right, right.” I nodded not understanding the technical talk but going along with it anyway.

  I placed the plastic patches in my ears, and instantly the room spun. My body lurched forward as if I had been catapulted into the air and was tumbling to earth at a great speed. I grabbed hold of the wall in an attempt to keep my balance.

  “They’re probably not what you’re accustomed to in training college; these are the new kind. They take a little while to get used to." James said.

  The pit of my stomach dropped and I wretched fighting to keep my breakfast down.

  “It’s always the same with new employees. You'll be okay in a mo," James was unconcerned. "Then you can help me Freq these new ‘mercials. The Yuletide season is coming and we’ve got a massive backlog.”

  James’ words were appearing to me in visual text rather than audible sound. Rather than hear, I could read his speech.

  “W-Wh- What have you done to me?” I managed to say, my voice occurring as colours rather than words.

  This was unbelievable. My senses were all scrambled. My legs wobbled, and my body shook. I was engulfed by a million distorted voices, but I couldn’t identify where they were coming from.

  I squinted my eyes and focussed my attention on the screen directly in front of me. The disorientation grew more intense. Then it clicked. The hundreds of voices were coming from each of the TV screens. But this wasn’t the regular sound matching the film being shown. This was hundreds of other voices hidden within each scene.

  My knees hit the floor. I grabbed the patches, and I tried to take them off. James was still talking to me, and I concentrated enough to r
ead his words,

  “If the patches are at a high frequency turn them anticlockwise, it blocks out the signals.”

  I turned the dial, and the voices stopped abruptly. The wild ride ended, and I instantly regained orientation.

  “What was that?!” I spluttered flopping into a chair.

  “You were experiencing the coding,” James said seated at a giant mixing desk with lots of buttons, switches and levels. At the centre of it was a long digital number.

  “The patches decode the subliminal messages. What you were hearing was the televisual output in its natural state before we do the frequing.”

  “So when you say ‘frequing’ what is it exactly that you mean?”

  James looked up exasperated,

  “Your training appears to be rather limited. Techno Corp is getting very slack these days. But I’m not one to question.”

  James took a deep breath and sputtered,

  “I don’t have time for an encoding 101 session but the basics are, in this department we change the frequency of all the TEN output, music, games, films, programmes, adverts - everything so that the masses can’t hear the subliminal messages that are being transmitted.”

  I sat bolt upright as Techy James continued,

  “The patches allow us to listen to what is actually being said and our job is to raise the frequency – freq until all the messages are hidden. Then they are broadcast, and the citizens of the world buy, eat, think and even love in the way TEN tells them to. Subconsciously of course.”

  “So there are hidden messages in what we watch,” I gasped.

  “Of course,” James said matter-of-factly. “That’s the easiest way to control people, by making them think they have free will, when in fact they have none at all. Citizens of the Upper Worlds would freak out if they knew we formed all their habits and opinions for them. Well, probably not. They’d react exactly how we’d tell them to.” James chuckled to himself hunched over his mixing desk like a mad scientist.

  “Their brains are all re-engineered and they don’t even know it.”

  “Why?” I asked helplessly.

  James looked at me aghast,

  “You just said W-H-Y.” He spelt out the word suspiciously. “I’m a Code Type Dg, a doer, modified not to question. I thought you were a Dg too, a Regen from Techno Corp. But you can’t be if you said the ‘W’ word. Because we never question our superiors.”

  The jig was up. James had given me all of this information voluntarily because he had mistaken me for someone else. I couldn’t own up now or surely there would be dire consequences to face.

  A screen in front of me displayed an advert for holidays in outer space. I quickly thought on my feet.

  “No, I’m not questioning. I was about to say Why –tes, you know, the space tours. I would really love to go on a moon cruise.” I nervously pointed to the screen.

  James looked at the screen where The Whytes tours advert was running.

  “Your patches aren’t frequed correctly. The signals are still getting through making you want to consume. Turn the dial anticlockwise some more that should completely block out the messages.”

  I pretended to do the action.

  “That’s much better.” I said.

  “These patches are miracles; I wish we could take them home. But alas before we leave work we hand them in and then get decoded.”

  “Oh yes, decoded.” I imitated his forlorn expression pretending to understand what the term meant.

  “You know I wish we didn’t get decoded.” James said wistfully, “I don’t like my memory wiped, forgetting everything from the working day. Sometimes I think it would be nice to remember, but I’m not one to question.” James said accepting his place in the Code Type hierarchy.

  “Yes, I’m not one to question either,” I said mirroring his motto.

  “We can’t spend all day with our chins wagging, there is a lot of work to do, so let's get on with it,” James said before training me on the mixing desk and showing me how to freq.

  With all of life’s to-ing and fro-ing.

  You still get to where you’re meant to be going.

  Nine: The First Eye

  I sat in front of the TV screen in my bedroom trying to comprehend the day’s events. I pressed the zapper in a daze watching the programs flip from one to another. I could barely remember anything from my first day of work experience. I knew I worked with a Techy called James, but I couldn’t for the life of me think of what we had done. My mind was completely blank.

  “Wake up Zombie!” Jet clicked his fingers snapping me back to reality. “Ma said you had something cool to show me.”

  “What? Oh yeah. Look at this pic I took with Tainted Stone.” I gave Jet my IM, and he projected the picture I had taken earlier.

  “Well, it’s not the actual band, it's just an image, so what’s so cool about that?” Jet shrugged.

  I should have known he wouldn’t be impressed.

  “The Vir Sims at TEN are so lifelike. The tech in that place is off the chain.” I said.

  “Meh.” Jet said, sitting on the corner of my bed. “So how was your work experience?"

  “Good. I think.” I said rubbing my weary head.

  We sat in silence for a moment, and I went back to my mindless changing of the channels.

  “All you do is stare at the screen all day.” Jet mumbled.

  “I’m just doing what everyone else does.”

  “Well not me, I never watch screens,” Jet said.

  I sat upright, and I looked at him properly. That was true. Jet rarely watched any screen unless it related to his homework or those music boxes he liked to play. And Jet was so odd. Different from everyone I knew.

  “Why are you looking at me so weirdly?” He asked.

  “Why don’t you like watching the screen?” I said.

  He eyed me suspiciously, “Why do you care?"

  “Can't I take an interest in my little brother?”

  “Well if you must know it bores me. I mean what’s so great about watching other people’s lives and gossiping about them? That’s what most TV shows are about. Plus Skye and I have so much going on.” Jet brightened like he always did when talking about Skye.

  “We’ve got her secret power training, and we do band practice. I haven’t got time to be staring at screens all day.”

  I looked at Jet squarely, as if seeing him for the first time. He was so different from me. If he didn’t look like me, I would have sworn that we didn’t share the same DNA.

  “But Jet, everyone watches screens. It’s just the thing to do.”

  “For you and your friends maybe but Skye doesn’t have any screens in her house, not one. Her mum says something weird happens to you when you watch too much telly.”

  That was it! I remembered!! Something did happen to you when you watched too much telly. And I knew that because I had spent a whole day making sure that it did.

  “That’s why you’re so strange!” I exclaimed, “Because you don’t watch screens like the rest of us, it doesn’t affect you.”

  “What are you talking about? What doesn’t affect me?” Jet asked puzzled.

  “That.” I said zapping off the TV set. “Come,” I said dragging Jet behind me. “I need help to figure this one out.”

  ***

  “…So you mean to tell me subliminal messages are being encrypted into television output to brainwash everyone?” Max concluded pacing up and down his bedroom.

  “Yeah, that about sums it up,” I said sitting on his bed. “But if you are privy to that information they decode, I mean, erase your memory at the end of the day so you can’t remember what you’ve done. I think my decoding was only temporary because I’m not a Dg Code Type, genetically modified to follow orders without question. I think Dgs are the only ones allowed into Sector Seven.”

  “Fascinating.” Max raised his eyebrows and pushed his specs up the bridge of his nose.

  “Like, that’s not how I saw it, and I was th
ere,” Mindy said.

  She was synched virtually into the room, while physically sat at home in her bedroom.

  “Yeah, but you were busy in the studio while I was downstairs in transmission,” I countered. “You wouldn’t know what goes on down there.”

  “Are you like sure that you’re not just jealous because I was with the cool people and you were stuck with the Brainiacs?” Mindy griped.

  Today had been the best day of her entire life, and now it was being tarnished.

  “Well, technically if what Kid says is true Techy James is far from a Brainiac. He’s a do-er with minor technical ability, and that is a huge difference.” Max corrected her.

  “Like whatever,” Mindy said dismissively. “Aren’t you just a little bit bitter Kid?”

  “Well yes, my work experience sucked big time, but that’s not the reason why I’m telling you this. I’m saying it because it’s true.” I knew how farfetched it all sounded.

  “Yo! I’ve got plenty of literature I could give you to read which says the same thing.” Wain, who was also synched in, piped up.

  Finally, his Code Type friends were speaking his language. He had always been aware of what he saw as the oppressive regime of the Upper Worlds, but this was the first time Kid had shown any interest in something like this.

  “There are people here in Zero who have been claiming this to be the case for the longest. The Upper Worlds controls us all. Not just us Tachions, but you Code Types too.”

  “Well, I believe you, Sis. This could be the first mission The Res spoke about.” Jet jumped up enthusiastically.

  “Hush!” Max whispered loudly. “We agreed we wouldn’t talk about that whole unconfirmed you-know-where experience until I can conclude my findings.”

  “Who made you the boss of me?” Jet said annoyed.

  “Let's forget you-know-where because TEN is like way cooler. I met so many celebrities today.” Mindy gushed.

  “Real life or Vir Sim?” Max asked.

  “Like that doesn’t matter. All that counts is that from my pics people are so jealous of my life. Yay. Go me!” Mindy cheered herself with a mini cheerleading formation of a round off into the splits.