No Such Thing as Love | Short Story (Random Updates)

2.Control

It was a nice speech, sure. Now I remember and almost shrug at the memory. But I don't let my shoulders rise. That speech clearly means something to her. But somehow along the years, those ideas have lost their power over me. Only a shadow of my youthful enthusiasm remains. That was the speech that had turned me into number one. A hell of a performance for a role that I thought I wanted. In truth, nothing changed. Not Control, not the city, not my daily life that was now playing on repeat, empty and meaningless.

So I guess that's changed. I stopped being a revolutionary. I'm just doing my job, let someone else figure out the rest of society's problems.

***

Our footsteps echo inside the empty hallway. It's narrow and only one of us fits between these pasty olive walls while we approach the mark's door. Yellow dull lights flicker to life when we pass motion sensors and my AUGi interface changes color to remain visible.

Control has given us access to the Eyes inside the mark's apartment and I'm watching the middle-aged man saunter across his room, on the way to the kitchen area. He's busy rummaging the fridge by the time we get to his door.

What is he looking for in there? Rations have been so poor lately that I hadn't had any leftovers in six months. And all rations are the same no matter what your citizen job is.

My partner moves to open the front door and barge in on the mark as any Warden can and should, but I grip her wrist and a chill runs along my spine.

"What is it?" One asks and her brows raise in the most annoying quizzical manner.

"The fridge is a blind spot."

Her eyes widen and with a few taps of her thumb on her index finger I can guess that she's requesting access to ultimate measures. As am I just before I nod to signal that I'm ready.

We move in fast but speak clearly and without rush.

"Citizen Lars Byron, we are Wardens on a routine check," One takes lead as her rank requires.

"Please step away from the fridge and show us your hands," I manage to say but the mark's already reaching deep inside the fridge swiftly as if to grab something.

I activate the ultimate measure without thought. The man screams and jolts back, holding on to his right arm and hitting the wall behind him in a frenzy.

The technology that allows us access to AUGi's or in his case, to Cora's interface is the ultimate measure. Tiny circuits inside the man's arm muscles spark to live and stimulate enough nerve endings to cause a debilitating amount of pain. It's like being burned alive, like being flayed slowly with a blunt knife. Or so I have been told.

It lasts a few seconds but takes the man a long time to recover from the agony. By the time he's coherent or seemingly so, One has him handcuffed.

"Fucking Wardens. Kids that play to the song of a damn machine! It's all going to shit already. You can't stop it! So do whatever you want to me!" the mark yells at us.

"You will be sent to a re-education camp as per article 72 of the Control Citizen Regulation," I respond calmly and without thought since I've been saying this same line for over a decade now.

I'm curious about the fridge. It has been a blind spot, meaning that the Eyes had no way of seeing inside it, so I expect to find some illegal articles like homemade alcohol, extra rations, paper photos that may have escaped the burnings fifty years ago.

But I'm not ready for the contraption inside the fridge shelf. Red wires going in and out of a bloated tawny package, crimson digital letters smack dab in the middle. Not counting down to anything, but only a switch away from detonation.