Machine God: A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller (Final Draft)

Tease Me

Oh, cell life.

How I not missed you. The four steel walls greeted me with their bland surface. The door closed behind me and stayed shut. I wanted to check whether I could still go outside, but the voice put me in place.

"Your limit has been reached. Your right to go out will be replenished in twelve hours, forty-five minutes and eleven seconds."

I was not going to argue with the door. I had my fun today, and experienced more aliveness than in the last months combined. For some reason, I craved human interaction just as much as the exercises in the training facility.

Fighting and folks, that's what it was all about.

But why was that?

No matter how much I dreamt and pondered, the holes from the pre-ruin days remained hidden in the shadows. The earliest memory was hearing Ceedee's lovely voice and having her icy-blond hair brush at my dusted face. Not a bad place to start from, but still.

I wanted to know the person I used to be.

And although the body wanted to rest, the mind stayed awake. I touched the wall-screen and looked up my profile. Opened the permission protocol and read some of the disabled rights.

The right to remain silent within a questioning.

The right to use a tier one firearm.

The right to request a personal five minute conversation.

The right to walk around for 120 minutes.

The right for three rations a day.

And 1000+ other ones I was too lazy to scan through.

Seriously.

So.

Many.

Damn.

Rights.

I needed to earn.

Why couldn't I speak about the past, or the future?

This world was a never ending mystery box. And for every new question answered, a new one climbed up, putting me back into the mist of confusion. Still, I couldn't give up.

Progress happened in tiny steps.

After all, I turned from prisoner to a low-level citizen, but still.

As soon as I earned more permissions, I could unlock more secrets of this world. No matter what the Bulwark Cluster tried to hide from me, the truth was going to be revealed, sooner or later.

"Konforma, are you there?"

"I'm always there."

Thanks to the omnipresent surveillance, yippie.

For once, I looked forward to hearing her voice.

"What do I need to do to unlock more rights?"

"You need to serve the greater good of course."

"And what can I do right now?"

"Restore your energy so you'll be at maximum capacity tomorrow."

"Why? What's happening tomorrow?"

She paused, probably for dramatic effect. Konforma liked to play with my anticipation.

"Tomorrow is your first field mission in the Lost Lands."