Sector
L
Nathan spends the day off in the apartment of a friend. The
two talk adult subjects while her son, a toddler, innocently plays on his
computer.
- Did you like my computer, champion?
- How does the computer works, Uncle Nathan?
- Works with electricity. - He replies evasively.
- What is electricity?
- Electricity is the product of voltage and current, resulting in electrical power.
- What is electric power?
- Electrical power are the primary and secondary effects of electricity measured in Watts.
- What is a Watt?
- Watt is the power unit name created by James Watt.
- Who is James Watt?
Realizing the insistence of her son, Nathan's friend says:
- You don’t have to answer everything. He doesn’t know what you mean.
- No problem. Maybe it's his true curiosity and he will become an engineer when he grows up. - Nathan looks at the boy and answers. - James Watt was a physicist who lived in the 19th century in England.
- Where is England?
Finally the boy comes to a question he cannot answer.
- Well ... Let's look on the internet.
Nathan types in the search text box the following sentence: "Where is England? ". The search result returns with a hard and inconvenient answer:
"Access denied. This information is restricted to the corporate conglomerate of Sonata ".
- What is it, Nathan? You seem nervous. - Asks the woman.
- I am! - He shouts, startling them. - Look at that, that’s exactly what I'm talking about! Corporations keep us under control and manipulate us every day! Can’t you see it?
- What you mean? Do not tell me it's that subject again?
- First they restrict access to information, after they repress the protests on public roads, and now another Martial Law? Not to mention the missing people. What's going on?!
- Do not say those things in front of my son! I do not want him to be a neurotic nutcase like you!
- So that's what I am? A neurotic nutcase? Did I say something that is not true?
Your friend does not know what to say.
- I do not care what you say or what you think, I do not want to hear. If you do not care about yourself, then at least care about my family! I will not put in risk the safety of my son when the police knock on my door looking for someone who talks too much.
Then an awkward silence hangs in the air. Nathan does not say anything, he’s got used to the silence, keeping for himself the anguish and emptiness of living alone in a city inhabited by millions. Thoughtfully, he gets up and says goodbye. He does not want his friend to suffer his pain.
On the platform beside the megatower he waits for the aerobus. He did not use the aerometro, he is too tired to put up with those cheerful and materialistic teenagers flirting and singing in the cars.
People crowds the platform. Anticipating that his journey back will be very uncomfortable, he gives up the aerobus and calls a taxi.
The hovercars fly from one side to the other on the virtual paths of Sonata. They pass through the towers at various levels and never seem to ease the traffic in the metropolis. Suddenly a yellow hovercar comes and honk for the people on the platform. Nathan quickly runs into the vehicle and sits in the back seat. He would say the destination when he sees another man sitting next to him.
- What is it? I'm in the wrong cab?
- Excuse me, sir. We have few hovercars in traffic. With these terrorist attacks, many drivers are afraid to work.
Keeping to himself the nuisance, he nods, then says:
- Take me to the residential district Verdun.
- Yes sir. But first I’ll drop this citizen at the Phalanx industrial district, if you don’t mind.
Nathan replies:
- You cannot take me first?
- Excuse me, sir. This passenger was here before you.
There’s no more privacy in Sonata, there’s no more peace. Those who usually isolate themselves stay in their apartments, hidden and safe from the chaotic world outside. At least until the police show up and arrest them for vagrancy and job abandonment.
The taxi moves and aligns itself with the virtual paths of the urban airspace. Annoyed, Nathan is silent and wants to be silent all the time. Then the man, the other passenger besides him, asks:
- You work in corporations?
The boy looks at the man besides him. He has a pale, clean-shaved face. His eyes are black, as if demonstrating surveillance. Strangely he wears a jacket too bulky on a hot day like that.
- Yes.
- Bio Protesis ...?
- Electro Core.
The man nods, seeming to think of something.
- Did you finish college studies?
- Yes.
- Congratulations. Not everyone can afford or have the skills to study at a college today. And those who cannot, as I call them ... inept and unfortunate ... end up working the rest of their lives in heavy manual services, being forced to install bioprosthesis members in their bodies, arm by arm, leg by leg, until its true organic essence disappear in those degrading industrial production lines, being eroded and crushed by stress and pain until the day they die.
With the strange answer Nathan faces away, ending the conversation.
- Nice to meet you. - Says the man, offering his hand.
Nathan extends his hand, displaying his biomechanical arm. The man sees it and makes a disgusted expression.
- You are young, and to work in the corporations I must deduce that you are smart too. The organization I belong to would benefit greatly from new recruits like you.
- Recruit? What organization is this?
The man is obscure to respond.
- Our organization believes that the prolonged use of prostheses and implants have an adverse effect on the neural user, weakening his reason. These chips destroy the user, body and mind get used to their presence increasingly obligatory and essential. The body no longer rejects them, on the contrary, it even more accept them. It is a slow and silent process of symbiosis, much stronger than any drug.
- Are you saying that bioprosthesis implants that heal people and save lives are... Symbiotic...?
- The neural and body fusion works best if the user believes that, in fact, implants can help you. Then the symbiosis will be complete.
- Blinds seeing, deaf hearing and wheelchair users walking is harmful to your organization?
- Slavery is a fair price to pay?
- Are we slaves?
- You do work in a corporation, doesn’t you?
And then Nathan shuts himself.
The taxi continues flying over the metropolis. The beautiful urban towers switch to the robust pipeline of the industrial landscape.
- Do you know the Phalanx industrial district where am I going?
- No.
The boy knows indeed. It is in Sector K, next to the famous Containment wall to around the metropolis.
- In this sector are some of those who I spoke to you about, the robotic laborers, half machine, half human, condemned to die here.
- I think you're exaggerating.
- And also ... - he continues, ignoring the boy - ... those manipulated, exposed for too long for the implants to brainwash them. These are the tainted ones, the cancer of the new world, the last threat that must be destroyed.
- Destroy the workers? That discrimination really makes any sense to you?
- Oh no, young man. I think I was not clear. Their work is not to produce consumer goods for this rotten corporate society. They do not see the damage that the cybernetic implants produce ... These defend it.
Then the man opens his jacket and pulls out a pistol from his waist. Nathan panic, the man has a belt of bombs around his body.
Pointing the gun at the driver's head, he says:
- Drive the hovercar to the compound of the Trans-humanists!
- What?! The compound of the Trans-humanists? I don’t know what you're talking about!
- So I’ll drive it myself... - the man unlocks the gun.
- Wait! Okay, I’ll do what you want, but don’t shoot!
The driver drives over the pipes and chimneys. There are some compounds on the concrete megastructures, but the driver has no idea where he's going.
- Quickly! - Shouts the man.
Nathan is paralyzed. Now he can see the terrorist at his side. The man has no apparent bioprosthetic member, as if his body were purely made of flesh and bones, a rarity nowadays. Definitely he is a member of a radical and violent faction of Sonata, the bloody Purist Resistence.
The driver sharply turns the steering wheel, making the terrorist loses balance. In a flash, the driver attacks and tries hard to disarm him. Nathan is scared and does not know what to do. The hovercar is ungoverned and flies dangerously between the tracks and the nearby buildings. The man's gun shoots off, making several holes in the vehicle bodywork. As if it were all a nightmare or a bad movie, the driver grasps the hands of terrorist and tries to point the gun to his chin. The hovercar hits something and distract him. Now the terrorist forces his hands and tries point it back to the driver.
The hovercar hits again. Nathan hears a shot. The driver is shot in the chest and falls in the front seat. The terrorist leans over the seat and tries to get behind the wheel. The grenades in his jacket swing, Nathan can see dozens of them. Blood flows to the boy's feet when he hears:
- Hey, asshole.
The terrorist looks down and sees the driver holding a pin in his hand. The man despairs. While he's distracted, Nathan presses a button on the hovercar's dashboard and the doors open. In a very unlikely courage of those who only wants to survive, Nathan pushes the terrorist with his feet, kicking him out of the vehicle. The man is thrown out but manages to hold on the opening. Nathan is surprised, the seconds before detonation are taking too long!
Gathering his strength, the driver gets up and steps on the man's hand, crushing his fingers. The terrorist screams and let it go, freely falling by the high sky of Sonata. Nathan looks out and sees the falling man, strangely he seems to smile. Suddenly the explosion shakes the air, dismembering his body "pure and unsullied by the symbiosis of the machines" into thousands of pieces.
Breathing relieved, he feels something bothering his knee. Nathan looks at the seat and sees another grenade, the pin was missing. Jumping into the driver's seat, he shouts:
- Take cover!
The explosion of the impact is fascinating, almost hallucinogenic. The boy loses hearing, time seems to slow down. Between long and confusing seconds, he sees the fire burning the upholstery and part of the bodywork detachs from the rest of the vehicle. And paradoxically it all seems so ... peaceful.
The hearing and the time slowly return to normal, accompanied by a terrible physical pain. Nathan looks at what's left of the windshield and see the colossal wall of Containment approaching. On the wall is written "City limits. Go back". Firmly pulling the steering wheel, the air car begins to rise as it approaches dangerously the wall. Nathan has the impression of climbing up a dam of a hydroelectric plant, something extinct nowadays.
The air car reaches the top, but exhausted after the effort, begins to fall again, this time on the other side of Containment. Above the wall he sees a very wide and deserted avenue, with barbed wire around it. Nathan shakes. His body is flooded with adrenaline and surprise, what he sees before his eyes is unbelievable!
The outside world is real!
The boundary between worlds, the gulf between life and death, Nathan feels as a god seeing hell beneath him, sitting on his throne floating in Paradise. The gray, ruined and dead city, the remains of the ancient metropolis pulsing life years ago. The same rich and populous city that today harbors in the dark bitter memories of an inglorious past.
The hovercar goes down quickly. The landscape defines itself when he sees huge buildings in ruins surrounded by a thin layer of haze. Nathan fears seeing all those dark and empty places, nothing inviting in a place so inhospitable.
Falling on the street, the impact reverberates in his head and he faints.
- Did you like my computer, champion?
- How does the computer works, Uncle Nathan?
- Works with electricity. - He replies evasively.
- What is electricity?
- Electricity is the product of voltage and current, resulting in electrical power.
- What is electric power?
- Electrical power are the primary and secondary effects of electricity measured in Watts.
- What is a Watt?
- Watt is the power unit name created by James Watt.
- Who is James Watt?
Realizing the insistence of her son, Nathan's friend says:
- You don’t have to answer everything. He doesn’t know what you mean.
- No problem. Maybe it's his true curiosity and he will become an engineer when he grows up. - Nathan looks at the boy and answers. - James Watt was a physicist who lived in the 19th century in England.
- Where is England?
Finally the boy comes to a question he cannot answer.
- Well ... Let's look on the internet.
Nathan types in the search text box the following sentence: "Where is England? ". The search result returns with a hard and inconvenient answer:
"Access denied. This information is restricted to the corporate conglomerate of Sonata ".
- What is it, Nathan? You seem nervous. - Asks the woman.
- I am! - He shouts, startling them. - Look at that, that’s exactly what I'm talking about! Corporations keep us under control and manipulate us every day! Can’t you see it?
- What you mean? Do not tell me it's that subject again?
- First they restrict access to information, after they repress the protests on public roads, and now another Martial Law? Not to mention the missing people. What's going on?!
- Do not say those things in front of my son! I do not want him to be a neurotic nutcase like you!
- So that's what I am? A neurotic nutcase? Did I say something that is not true?
Your friend does not know what to say.
- I do not care what you say or what you think, I do not want to hear. If you do not care about yourself, then at least care about my family! I will not put in risk the safety of my son when the police knock on my door looking for someone who talks too much.
Then an awkward silence hangs in the air. Nathan does not say anything, he’s got used to the silence, keeping for himself the anguish and emptiness of living alone in a city inhabited by millions. Thoughtfully, he gets up and says goodbye. He does not want his friend to suffer his pain.
On the platform beside the megatower he waits for the aerobus. He did not use the aerometro, he is too tired to put up with those cheerful and materialistic teenagers flirting and singing in the cars.
People crowds the platform. Anticipating that his journey back will be very uncomfortable, he gives up the aerobus and calls a taxi.
The hovercars fly from one side to the other on the virtual paths of Sonata. They pass through the towers at various levels and never seem to ease the traffic in the metropolis. Suddenly a yellow hovercar comes and honk for the people on the platform. Nathan quickly runs into the vehicle and sits in the back seat. He would say the destination when he sees another man sitting next to him.
- What is it? I'm in the wrong cab?
- Excuse me, sir. We have few hovercars in traffic. With these terrorist attacks, many drivers are afraid to work.
Keeping to himself the nuisance, he nods, then says:
- Take me to the residential district Verdun.
- Yes sir. But first I’ll drop this citizen at the Phalanx industrial district, if you don’t mind.
Nathan replies:
- You cannot take me first?
- Excuse me, sir. This passenger was here before you.
There’s no more privacy in Sonata, there’s no more peace. Those who usually isolate themselves stay in their apartments, hidden and safe from the chaotic world outside. At least until the police show up and arrest them for vagrancy and job abandonment.
The taxi moves and aligns itself with the virtual paths of the urban airspace. Annoyed, Nathan is silent and wants to be silent all the time. Then the man, the other passenger besides him, asks:
- You work in corporations?
The boy looks at the man besides him. He has a pale, clean-shaved face. His eyes are black, as if demonstrating surveillance. Strangely he wears a jacket too bulky on a hot day like that.
- Yes.
- Bio Protesis ...?
- Electro Core.
The man nods, seeming to think of something.
- Did you finish college studies?
- Yes.
- Congratulations. Not everyone can afford or have the skills to study at a college today. And those who cannot, as I call them ... inept and unfortunate ... end up working the rest of their lives in heavy manual services, being forced to install bioprosthesis members in their bodies, arm by arm, leg by leg, until its true organic essence disappear in those degrading industrial production lines, being eroded and crushed by stress and pain until the day they die.
With the strange answer Nathan faces away, ending the conversation.
- Nice to meet you. - Says the man, offering his hand.
Nathan extends his hand, displaying his biomechanical arm. The man sees it and makes a disgusted expression.
- You are young, and to work in the corporations I must deduce that you are smart too. The organization I belong to would benefit greatly from new recruits like you.
- Recruit? What organization is this?
The man is obscure to respond.
- Our organization believes that the prolonged use of prostheses and implants have an adverse effect on the neural user, weakening his reason. These chips destroy the user, body and mind get used to their presence increasingly obligatory and essential. The body no longer rejects them, on the contrary, it even more accept them. It is a slow and silent process of symbiosis, much stronger than any drug.
- Are you saying that bioprosthesis implants that heal people and save lives are... Symbiotic...?
- The neural and body fusion works best if the user believes that, in fact, implants can help you. Then the symbiosis will be complete.
- Blinds seeing, deaf hearing and wheelchair users walking is harmful to your organization?
- Slavery is a fair price to pay?
- Are we slaves?
- You do work in a corporation, doesn’t you?
And then Nathan shuts himself.
The taxi continues flying over the metropolis. The beautiful urban towers switch to the robust pipeline of the industrial landscape.
- Do you know the Phalanx industrial district where am I going?
- No.
The boy knows indeed. It is in Sector K, next to the famous Containment wall to around the metropolis.
- In this sector are some of those who I spoke to you about, the robotic laborers, half machine, half human, condemned to die here.
- I think you're exaggerating.
- And also ... - he continues, ignoring the boy - ... those manipulated, exposed for too long for the implants to brainwash them. These are the tainted ones, the cancer of the new world, the last threat that must be destroyed.
- Destroy the workers? That discrimination really makes any sense to you?
- Oh no, young man. I think I was not clear. Their work is not to produce consumer goods for this rotten corporate society. They do not see the damage that the cybernetic implants produce ... These defend it.
Then the man opens his jacket and pulls out a pistol from his waist. Nathan panic, the man has a belt of bombs around his body.
Pointing the gun at the driver's head, he says:
- Drive the hovercar to the compound of the Trans-humanists!
- What?! The compound of the Trans-humanists? I don’t know what you're talking about!
- So I’ll drive it myself... - the man unlocks the gun.
- Wait! Okay, I’ll do what you want, but don’t shoot!
The driver drives over the pipes and chimneys. There are some compounds on the concrete megastructures, but the driver has no idea where he's going.
- Quickly! - Shouts the man.
Nathan is paralyzed. Now he can see the terrorist at his side. The man has no apparent bioprosthetic member, as if his body were purely made of flesh and bones, a rarity nowadays. Definitely he is a member of a radical and violent faction of Sonata, the bloody Purist Resistence.
The driver sharply turns the steering wheel, making the terrorist loses balance. In a flash, the driver attacks and tries hard to disarm him. Nathan is scared and does not know what to do. The hovercar is ungoverned and flies dangerously between the tracks and the nearby buildings. The man's gun shoots off, making several holes in the vehicle bodywork. As if it were all a nightmare or a bad movie, the driver grasps the hands of terrorist and tries to point the gun to his chin. The hovercar hits something and distract him. Now the terrorist forces his hands and tries point it back to the driver.
The hovercar hits again. Nathan hears a shot. The driver is shot in the chest and falls in the front seat. The terrorist leans over the seat and tries to get behind the wheel. The grenades in his jacket swing, Nathan can see dozens of them. Blood flows to the boy's feet when he hears:
- Hey, asshole.
The terrorist looks down and sees the driver holding a pin in his hand. The man despairs. While he's distracted, Nathan presses a button on the hovercar's dashboard and the doors open. In a very unlikely courage of those who only wants to survive, Nathan pushes the terrorist with his feet, kicking him out of the vehicle. The man is thrown out but manages to hold on the opening. Nathan is surprised, the seconds before detonation are taking too long!
Gathering his strength, the driver gets up and steps on the man's hand, crushing his fingers. The terrorist screams and let it go, freely falling by the high sky of Sonata. Nathan looks out and sees the falling man, strangely he seems to smile. Suddenly the explosion shakes the air, dismembering his body "pure and unsullied by the symbiosis of the machines" into thousands of pieces.
Breathing relieved, he feels something bothering his knee. Nathan looks at the seat and sees another grenade, the pin was missing. Jumping into the driver's seat, he shouts:
- Take cover!
The explosion of the impact is fascinating, almost hallucinogenic. The boy loses hearing, time seems to slow down. Between long and confusing seconds, he sees the fire burning the upholstery and part of the bodywork detachs from the rest of the vehicle. And paradoxically it all seems so ... peaceful.
The hearing and the time slowly return to normal, accompanied by a terrible physical pain. Nathan looks at what's left of the windshield and see the colossal wall of Containment approaching. On the wall is written "City limits. Go back". Firmly pulling the steering wheel, the air car begins to rise as it approaches dangerously the wall. Nathan has the impression of climbing up a dam of a hydroelectric plant, something extinct nowadays.
The air car reaches the top, but exhausted after the effort, begins to fall again, this time on the other side of Containment. Above the wall he sees a very wide and deserted avenue, with barbed wire around it. Nathan shakes. His body is flooded with adrenaline and surprise, what he sees before his eyes is unbelievable!
The outside world is real!
The boundary between worlds, the gulf between life and death, Nathan feels as a god seeing hell beneath him, sitting on his throne floating in Paradise. The gray, ruined and dead city, the remains of the ancient metropolis pulsing life years ago. The same rich and populous city that today harbors in the dark bitter memories of an inglorious past.
The hovercar goes down quickly. The landscape defines itself when he sees huge buildings in ruins surrounded by a thin layer of haze. Nathan fears seeing all those dark and empty places, nothing inviting in a place so inhospitable.
Falling on the street, the impact reverberates in his head and he faints.
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