Sci Fi Short Story: "Paper"
This is a non-anthro sci-fi dystopian story about an alternate reality and the memories of the people in that time. Please read and enjoy, and let me know what you think.
Paper
I strolled slowly along one of the small side streets of Manhattan. The sidewalks and streets were wet and lustrous due to a recent rainstorm. It was late and everything was calm. The air was muggy. I took my time and enjoyed this quiet peaceful walk home from work. I enjoyed life and everything it had to offer, and I could not imagine of a better world. The skies were always cloudy, the air always warm. Small machines installed at intervals along the streets emitted all the fresh oxygen we needed. Everything was a beautiful shade of gray. All of the streets were lit with the soft light of blue-white nitrogen lamps and air screens displaying advertisements and information. The streets were always clean with thanks to the help of droids that the company I worked for had developed. I could not have asked for a better life, but curiously, others in the city seemed to have different views.
A few people, mostly older folks, spoke of how times used to be several generations ago. These people were one of the few things in this world that did get on my nerves. People said that there use to be something up in the sky called the Sun. I remembered the paper notebook my grandfather gave me years ago. The notebook held several accounts from times when the world was supposedly a different place. It spoke of an era when there used to be a sun in the sky, a nearby star that kept our world in tact. It said that it provided us with warmth, energy, and allowed for the growth of green organisms it referred to as "trees" and "plants", which in turn would provide us with all the fresh oxygen we needed. According to the entries in this notebook, human population growth got out of control and rapid industrialization and pollution formed a permanent cloud cover over the Earth. This blocked out the sun and killed all forms of life except for humans, who where able to survive through synthesizing resources.
My grandfather was a nearing one hundred years old and he had a great span of knowledge. He was the quiet and wise type of old man, but he did want everyone to see the world the way he saw it. He was short and skinny, standing at only a little over five feet and had short hair like mine, but gray instead of black. My grandfather said the notebook was written by his grandfather and handed down and kept safe to help everyone remember what the world used to be like. I never would understand why my grandfather believed so strongly in these old legends, but I kept the notebook in my sweatshirt pocket because my grandfather made it seem so important.
I rounded the corner onto the street of my apartment. A couple of hover cars zipped down the road and then exited upwards into the skyways. An air screen above the street displayed the time: 11:28 on July 9, 2298. I walked up to the front door of my apartment and put my right eye up to a tiny hole in the center of the door. My retina was scanned and analyzed, and the door slid open. The retina scanners were a new required security standard. Crime rates had been on the rise the last few years. Not just in Manhattan, but numerous parts of the world, groups of people had tried to strike out against the government, but they had been unsuccessful. I thought they were ridiculous for even trying.
As I walked into my apartment, all of the lights automatically turned on. The air screen above the glass table that was against the wall in my living room turned on, displaying the news, and my hover chair drifted over to where I was standing. I had not eaten since about noon, so I pushed my chair into the kitchen to sit down and get something to eat.
As I was nearing the end of my dinner, I heard what sounded like footsteps and a door opening, and I looked up. I peered across the room and into the hallway where the bathroom door had just swung open. It seemed that I was not alone. I quietly got up from my chair and proceeded into the hallway with caution, wondering how someone could have possibly gotten into my house.
"Hey. Who's there?" I called out quietly. There was no answer.
"Show yourself." I said, raising my voice a little. I could have been imagining things and there may have been nothing there at all. I turned around and began to walk slowly into my bedroom when I heard footsteps behind me.
I jumped and turned quickly around, frightened and angry. There was a tall man standing there dressed completely in black. Even his faced was covered.
"How did you get in here?" I said angrily. I heard a click and looked down. He had a tranquilizer pistol aimed at my leg and had already shot me. I looked back up and stared at the man with blank eyes. I felt myself drifting away from the world. All of my senses left me and the last thing I remembered was my head hitting the hard wood floor and thinking, it was always the lives of normal people like me who took the world for granted that were suddenly turned upside down.
I awoke and found myself in an aluminum chair in a blank gray room with no windows and no doors, feeling very confused and, as one might guess, trapped. The room was lit by a single lamp, which emanated a soft blue-white light. I tried to get up, but found that my hands and feet were bound to the chair. I had no idea of my location or what the time was. I quickly became restless. Then, I heard a scraping noise. I tried to turn my head around to see what it was.
A section of the wall that had appeared to be completely uniform slid open with the greatest of ease. The same tall man dressed in black stepped through, but he had removed his black facemask. He looked to be in his sixties. He had a roughly-shaved beard, and messy, but short, dark gray hair. However, he had almost no wrinkles in his face.
"We've had our eyes on you for a very long time." He spoke to me in a very calm collected manner.
I just looked around in confusion. "Look, where am I? What time is it?" I asked.
"Your location and the time are not important right now. We need to get down to business."
I went deeper into confusion and bordered on the edge of frustration. I looked at the man with a stern face. "I want to know where I am and why I am here."
"Like I said, your location is not important right now." The man remained cool and collected. "But, you are here because we have a task for you."
"I want to know where I am," I said stubbornly.
The man leaned towards me and spoke in a serious and calm tone. "This will be quick and easy if you cooperate."
My temper was rising quickly, but I shut my mouth for the time being because I could tell he was not going to answer my questions.
"You are our test subject for the latest technology that we have created"
"What is it?" I asked apprehensively.
"A visor"
"And... that's it? Just a visor?"
"Allow me to show you." The man took a portable air screen device out of his pocket and loaded it in front of him. He then pressed a button on the screen and placed it back into his pocket. The wall in front of me, also appearing uniform at first, was sliding open just like the one behind me. "It's more like a headpiece that you can see into. Someone just said the name 'visor' and it stuck." Behind the door was a display case under a small spotlight. In the display case on a stand was a dark chrome headpiece. Blue lights traveled across what appeared to be a screen on the front, and the back was a thick heavy black strap with wires running along it. The man walked over and took the headpiece out of the display case. At the site of its aparent complexity I became immediately anxious and even more apprehensive.
"What does it do?"
"I am not entirely sure. It is your job to find out."
"Do you know what is it supposed to do?"
"We have a general idea," he said, still quietly and calmly.
There was a moment of silence, and then I spoke in frustration. "Your lack of detail must drive people crazy."
"No one has ever said anything, and right now it's part of my job. So, are you ready?"
During the conversation I had been pulling hard with my hands to break them free of the bindings on the chair. I heard them snap free, but I kept them perfectly still and kept the same frustrated look on my face. The man didn't seem to notice, and I now had a glimmer of hope.
The man began to place the headpiece on me. I was ready to force some information out of him. With one swift movement of my hand, I snatched the visor out of his hands and threw it across the room.
"You're not putting that thing on my head until I know what it is! But first, you're gonna tell me the fucking time and where I am! " I yelled.
A look of anger swept across the man's face. His mouth sloped downwards into a frown, dimples deep, and his eyebrows tightened. I began to get up, but he punched me in the chest back down into the chair. Before I could catch my breath, he shoved the chair and me backwards into a wall with his foot. He then whipped out an air pistol and jabbed it into my neck. With his face right up to mine he spoke in a harsh, but still somewhat calm whisper.
"You're making this difficult for me. Now listen, you don't have a choice. You are going to wear that visor no matter how much you know or don't know about it, and you are going to do exactly as I say."
I was in no position to argue. I could barely breathe and had a pistol pointed at my neck.
The man whispered harshly. "Now, do you want me to end your life now, or would you like to try the visor?"
I had no choice. I reluctantly pointed to the headpiece. The man leaned over and picked it up with one hand while keeping the pistol jabbed into my neck.
"I guarantee that this will change your life forever." A smirk appeared on the man's face as he stared at me with wide eyes.
"I doubt it," I muttered reluctantly.
"By the way, my name is Barry. You'll be seeing a lot of me in the future."
"I don't intend to," I muttered out the side of my mouth.
The headpiece fell around my head. I felt it tighten and adjust itself. I could not see a thing. Everything was black. Restlessness flowed into me once again.
"Before I activate the visor, let me tell you what I do know."
"Why didn't you tell me before?"
He ignored my question. "This visor uses the latest in nuerotechnology to control your thoughts and your senses. You will only be able to control the physical aspects of your body. We think that it even has the ability to change the patterns and pathways of your mind, and therefore your opinions. Basically, it's the newest and best in brainwashing technology. You are our test subject to see how well it works. If I had told you before, you probably would have struggled more."
Struggling was exactly what I was trying to do. I was furious and restless and struggled to break the headpiece off of my head.
"Don't bother struggling. You're not going anywhere. Once the visor is put on, it bonds to the user and will not loosen until I take it off."
I reluctantly stopped my useless struggling. "Why am I testing this technology?"
"You have been personally requested."
"By who, you?"
"Oh, I didn't choose you. Your grandfather did. He's our leader."
I was struck with complete shock. I was almost speechless. My frustration morphed abruptly into surprise. "What? How? Leader of what?"
"Stop asking questions. I'm doing the talking," Barry continued calmly.
All of a sudden I felt a sharp pain. Barry had activated the visor and it pierced into my skull. My vision began to slowly return but not to the gray room I was sitting in. I tried to close my eyes to what I was seeing, but it made no difference. The device on my head was in control. Barry continued talking.
"I am part of a secret underground organization known as the OEP, or Old Earth Project. It is made up of people that remember old Earth, people who were missed when the government brainwashed the planet. This world used to be a different place. It used to be covered in lush green plants and when you looked up you saw a clear blue sky. The planet was not always like this. You are going to help me and the others change the world back to the way it used to be. Your grandfather wanted you to be by his side. He wanted you to finally see things his way."
After hearing the man's words, my head jolted in surprised confusion toward the man's voice. He must have noticed my sudden movement as he continued to speak.
"You thought the government was here to protect the people and help keep this world clean. Oh no, they were covering up a mistake, a mistake they made. They did nothing while the world became overpopulated, and they let the atmosphere fall into decay. Everyone knew that the world was falling apart and they began to strike out against the government. The government put an end to the commotion by brainwashing the entire world in one stroke with a powerful shockwave, but for whatever reason not everyone was affected.
"I don't believe a word of that rubbish" I said, angry, but confused.
"Your loss. You'll believe it soon enough. Before you know it, you'll be one of us."
The man's voice began to fade away. All of my senses began to focus towards what I was seeing through the visor. The image had become crystal clear. I could see it, I could feel it, and I could touch it. There was green everywhere. Up in a blue sky I could see a bright glowing ball. I could feel the warmth coming from it. The air was fresh and easy to breathe.
A machine can't change my mind. I wanted to fight back, but with what? The headpiece was in control. I could not shut out that beautiful world. I saw mountains, but they were full of other life. I began to see unfamiliar life forms scatter about my feet. My mind slipped further. I lay down on the soft green carpet that I was standing on. It was so soft. I got up and walked over to what I believed to be a tree and touched its rough bark, admiring its intricate designs. That world made mine seem like a joke, but I couldn't abandon my world; the world in which I had found comfort for so long. I did not want to allow this machine to take over my mind. That was the world before the government screwed up according to Barry, but I couldn't believe Barry, could I? The colors were bright and beautiful. I could feel the soft wind. I could hear small chirping and rustling noises. That world seemed too beautiful to be true. Then, something in my mind snapped. Something got past my barrier of stubbornness. I believed Barry's story. I believed my grandfather's story. That had to be what the old world used to be like and Barry was right, we had to change it back. Barry was right. My life did change. I fell onto the soft green carpet and into a deep renewing sleep.
I awoke in another blank gray room, but this time I was in a comfortable bed, the room had a visible door, and that headpiece was gone. I got up as Barry opened the door and walked in. He stared at me and there was a moment of silence before he spoke. I was trying to recollect my thoughts. I felt a deep peace when I thought of the way the world used to be, and I suddenly felt anger towards the government and the world in which I used to find comfort. Somehow I knew that I had to help change the world back to its former self.
Barry could apparently see how I felt and he was the first to talk. "It appears as though the visor was successful. We were not sure how well it would actually work. It is the first brainwashing technology that has been built outside the government"
I stared blankly at the ground. "I can't believe I've been living so ignorantly all this time. I never thought that the government would conspire against the people. I guess I should thank you for showing me the truth." I looked up at Barry.
"Your grandfather hid blueprints of the government headquarters building in your apartment many years ago. I have no idea where he got them, but that is another reason why he wanted to bring you into our organization." There was a brief pause, and then Barry began to walk out of the room. "Come. Follow me. It's time to get down to business."
I got up and followed Barry out of the room. Even though the experiment had been a complete success, Barry still had the same calm look on his face. He had a plan that he was following. We turned left down a long gray hallway and we went in the first door on the right, entering into a large conference room. In the middle of the gray room there was a large, oval, black table with about a dozen people sitting around it. There was a large air screen in the back of the room and another one over the center of the table displaying blueprints of the government headquarters. One woman with curly brown hair looked up at me and spoke in a cheery yet professional manner.
"Ah, you're finally here. Welcome to the OEP. Let's go over the mission plans." I sat down and the conference began
The conference lasted for several hours. The blueprints revealed the location of the brainwashing machine that the government once used to wipe the memory of Earth. The plan was to use the machine against the government and give everyone back the memories of how beautiful the world used to be by using the same program that had been used on me. However, getting to the machine was not going to be easy. All twenty-four hours of every day, the government headquarters was crawling with security androids. It was also surrounded by a thirty-foot-high wall on the ground and a large, electro-magnetic, dome-shaped barrier in the air, shutting down any machine that tried to get in from above. Anything else that tried to invade from above was simply shot down. Even the sewer systems and ventilation systems had security cameras or some form of an impassable barrier. So, once we got into the headquarters, the plan would fairly simple, but it was how we were getting in that I had not been told by the end of the conference.
I wandered through the maze of gray underground hallways, thinking about how the mission, ways we could get into the headquarters, and in the end how the world would be changed. I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around quickly to see that is was Barry. He gestured for me to follow him. As we were walking down the hallway, Barry began asked me a question.
"So, you're still confused about something, am I right?"
"Yeah, I was curious. They made it sound like this place is impossible to get into, so how are we getting into it?" I had tried to think of a way, but that place was much harder to get into than I had even thought.
Barry grinned for a second and then returned to his standard calm and said, "There is a way, and it's actually rather simple."
We turned a corner and Barry opened the door that was immediately in front of us. It was a small supply closet. Inside the small gray area there were a few firearms, some ammunition scattered about, and lots of other supplies, not all of which I could identify. Barry reached up to the top shelf and retrieved a small circular device. It was only about 4 inches in diameter, and other than a small blue button in the center on one side, it was all chrome silver.
"Here, take this." Barry placed the small electronic device it in my hand. "That is how we are getting into the headquarters."
I looked at it curiously. "What is it?" I continued staring at it as I rotated it around in my hand.
Barry left a short pause before answering. "It is an invisibility cloaking device. Whoever is holding it will be made invisible, along with whatever they are wearing." Barry looked over at me. My mouth was open wide and I was fascinated. I was amazed that invisibility had been made possible and I wondered how it worked. I focused back on Barry who continued speaking after I took my eyes off the device. "However, we still have to be quiet and careful."
I thought about everything for a moment. "But, what about the walls and 'impassable barriers'?"
"Well, if you think about it, no one can stay locked up in isolation forever. There has to be some traffic in and out of that place for food and supplies, at least."
"That makes sense."
"There are two gates on opposite sides of the wall. They have to open them occasionally to let the traffic in and out, but they don't appear to follow a schedule, so there might be some waiting. It is a rather simple method of infiltration, but it might be the only way that will work."
I closed my hands around the cloaking device and put it in my pocket and looked up at Barry. "A high-tech cloaking device is hardly simple, but I'm ready. When do we go?"
"First thing tomorrow morning. Go to your room and get some rest so you're ready."
"Alright then, see you in the morning." I walked back to my room to write in my notebook and get some rest.
The next morning we went to a side alley about three hundred yards from the southern gate of the headquarters complex and waited. We had enough food and supplies to last us for almost four days, just in case. We parked our hover truck in a remote side alley hundreds of meters away from were we planned to hide just to be safe. By the end of the first day, traffic had not entered or left the headquarters. It was at the end of this day that distressing news was delivered to us from our own underground headquarters.
Barry reached into his pocket and pulled out his vibrating communicator, indicating an incoming message. Barry turned it on and spoke in a whisper.
"Yes? Speak quietly."
It sounded like the woman who had originally greeted me in the conference room.
"Barry, I have bad news. Do you remember the underground area under the HQ building?"
"Yeah, why?"
"We thought it was storage space, but it's not." She paused.
"Well, then what is it?" asked Barry with rising anticipation in his voice.
"It's all manufacturing plants, enough to support themselves. There doesn't ever need to be any traffic in or out of that place. Barry...."
The woman paused again. Everyone could hear her staggered breathing and everyone could hear the distress in her voice.
"What?" said Barry more anxiously.
The rest just tumbled out of the woman's mouth. "There's not a living soul in that place anymore. There are no humans. It's all robots and androids. Our world is being governed by robots! They've been covering more than just mistakes, they've been covering up their identity."
"Wait, what?" said Barry completely shocked.
"Right after the government brainwashed the world, they were killed off. I don't know why; maybe the androids were trying to get rid of all the old memories...I just don't know."
For once, the calm look on Barry's face faded away into a look of both shock and anger. Everyone was in shock. A young lady in our group spoke up, her voice also staggered.
"What are we supposed to do?"
"I don't know," said Barry with now a look of plain and empty confusion. "Just because they can support themselves doesn't mean that there won't be traffic in and out of there," said Barry with a glimmer of hope. "They don't know we're coming. They don't even know our organization exists."
The communicator was still on and the woman interjected. "Barry, they do know." Her voice was slow and grave. "They know everything."
Barry's face was stricken with horror. "What!?"
"I don't know how they knew, but they've invaded our base and captured everyone, and we're all being shipped back to their headquarters. A bunch of us are all in the back of a big cargo vehicle headed in your direction. I'm lucky that I was even able to sneak this communicator by them. Listen, you need to get out of there fast. You don't stand a chance against these guys."
"But..."
"Barry, please stay safe and..."
There was a bang and the communicator fell silent. Barry looked up at what I imagine was a group of hopeless faces. The calm returned to Barry's face. He grinned, and looked at everyone, and spoke.
"You all have cloaking devices, right?"
"Yes, but I thought she said to get out of here," said the young lady who had spoken before. She sounded restless, and I myself would have rather moved somewhere safe, but Barry seemed to have a plan as always.
"That might be easier, but this could be our one chance. They may not know specifically about our little group and that cargo vehicle might be the key that opens up that gate. I'm not giving up yet. Everybody get ready. This could be our one and only chance. Listen for each other's footsteps and try to stay close together. Let's move quickly." said Barry quietly.
Barry looked around the corner of the building. The coast was clear. We all began to run across the street. The street was wide, with an even wider shoulder and sidewalk. The landscape was barren and gray. We had made it halfway across the street when we saw the lights of the cargo vehicle appear around the corner.
"Keep moving, quickly and quietly," Barry whispered to everybody.
We reached the edge of the street. I was at the back of the group. I felt my left foot hit the curb. I tripped and the cloaking device fell out of my pocket and shattered. I had suddenly become visible. I looked up and saw the cargo vehicle halt to a stop. I had been seen.
Two androids covered in black armor jumped out of the truck and began to head in my direction. The armor covered everything from their shins all the way up over their heads. One of them was carrying a sniper rifle and the other was carrying a high-power air blaster that, based on the size, could probably produce tornado strength wind gusts. I got up and started to run.
Barry turned and saw the guards. He was looking at the black and red visors that the androids were wearing around their heads.
"Damn, they have thermal visors," muttered Barry under his breath. "They would have seen us anyways. Everybody scatter!"
Everyone began to scatter as I heard the one guard fire his air blaster. We weren't fast enough. I watched as a powerful wave of air barreled across the sidewalk, kicking up dust and even denting the sidewalk as it plowed toward us. It had blown the android off his feet and it blew us all into the side of a nearby building. Two out of five of us had instantly been knocked out. I was lying on the ground. I was dizzy and my vision was fuzzy. I saw one of the androids point at Barry.
"He matches the ID of one of the leaders. Kill him!" one of the guards shouted.
He raised the sniper rifle and aimed at Barry. I saw Barry struggle to get up and run. My vision quickly became fuzzier. I heard two gunshots. I saw a bullet go through the back of Barry's head, and then another through the left side of his chest. The force of the bullets knocked him over on to the ground. He was unmistakably dead. My vision faded to black and I lost all consciousness to the world. We had failed.
I awoke in yet another dull gray room. This time however, my back was bound uncomfortably to a wall. The androids found all the leaders of the OEP and killed them. I assumed that this means my grandfather is dead. I could not figure out why I never saw him while I was in the OEP headquarters. The government's plan was to brainwash everyone to finally get rid of all the human memories. I didn't want to forget what the world used to look like, and I knew this time there would be no one left to remind anyone about the beauty of the old world. I then remembered the small notebook my grandfather gave me. I felt around in my sweatshirt pocket where I always kept it, but it was gone. I figured someone in the OEP took it, leaving me with little hope of remembering anything.
An android approached my room. It was time for my brainwashing; I hoped that I would remember.
I got up out of a strange seat and an android official escorted me out of the room and out of the building onto the street. I am not sure how I came to be in that building, but I did not want to question it. I took a deep refreshing breath of air and looked around. The world around me made me conten, and walking through it brought me peace. It was all so gray and so beautiful. I strolled down a small side street of Manhattan. The sidewalks were wet and lustrous. The air was warm and muggy and water dripped down my black sweatshirt. The damp breezes softly caressed my face.
I love the world I live in. I have never met anyone who thought differently. The skies were always cloudy and the air was always warm. I put my hands in my empty pockets and for a brief moment felt like there was something missing. Then, that feeling passed and I continued to enjoy the walk home.
I climbed up the few stairs to the door of my apartment. I put my eye up to a small opening, the door opened, and I walked in. There was an old man sitting at my kitchen table. He looked like my grandfather.
"Grandfather?" I asked very confused.
"Hello there, grandson."
"But how? I though you were-"
"Yes, I know." The man slowly got up from the table. "They missed me again."
"Missed you? Who? What are you talking about?"
The old man sighed and paused for a moment and then looked back at me. "Did you know that this world used to be different?" He walked over to me and handed me an old paper notebook. I flipped through and started reading accounts of what the world supposedly looked like several generations ago. All the writing seemed so familiar, as if I had read it all before. Then I remembered, and I placed the notebook back in my sweatshirt pocket. My grandfather looked at me and smiled.