EHuman Dawn (3 page)

“I don’t understand,” Adam replied.

“The WG has received information that I’ve been in contact with Hactivists,” Douglas answered.

“You’re telling me that you’ve been involved with terrorists?” Adam was astonished. The Hactivists were criminals who hacked into Neuro and set up anti-WG information sites, bulletins and Newsreels of their own, which the Guardians were constantly trying to block from public access.

The Hactivist message was clear: the WG was manipulative and controlled the eHuman population. In order to retaliate, people needed to refrain from plugging into Neuro and fight for their freedom. The WG officially labeled anyone tampering with Neuro a terrorist of the state, while the terrorist’s supporters had dubbed them with the term Hactivist.

Adam had delivered several anti-Hactivist Newsreels in his career. Yet recently, he too had begun downloading Hactivist propaganda and venturing to their information sites. Adam felt drawn to their anti-government messages. Were the Guardians on to him as well? Fear and
foreboding began to cloud his thoughts the way storm clouds darken the sky on a hot summer’s night.

“Yes, and the WG found out,” Douglas continued, “They cut power to my home, my business office, and my department stores. They’re sending me a message—surrender the Hactivists or surrender your life.”

“The other stores and businesses that have reduced hours, are their owners involved with the Hactivists as well?” Adam queried.

Douglas answered with a nod, “This is our first warning. The WG is letting all those harboring and aiding any Hactivist know that they’ve been discovered. We have one month to turn the renegades in. If we don’t, they’ll escalate.”

“Exactly how will they escalate?” Adam panicked. He didn’t want the man’s honest answer. Douglas Abramhoff knew too much, which was why he was Jumping.

“A friend asked me to give this to you,” Douglas said, handing the flimsy, yellow item to Adam.

Adam took it.

“What is it?” Adam asked.

“It’s a paper envelope,” Douglas answered.

“A what?” Adam scanned his memory. Paper...he quickly found an entry in his database. Paper existed before the Great Shift, before people could see everything within their minds. All information now was shared and transferred directly to his CPU via Neuro.

“A paper envelope,” Douglas continued, “And inside of it is a document that answers all your questions, Adam Winter.”

“Why are you giving this to me?” Adam asked.

“Because a friend of mine wants you to have it,” Douglas replied. He turned his back on Adam and gazed out his window at the city. It was sparkling again under a bright sun.

“The sun is lovely, isn’t it? Especially when the blessed winds blow the pollution away for a while,” Douglas murmured.

Adam could tell the interview was over. He began to open the envelope when Douglas exclaimed, “Don’t open it here!”

Adam stopped what he was doing.

“Open it privately, in your recharge room. Don’t share the information with anyone! See what sort of bullshit story you can spin for the people after you read it. I’d love to hear it, but I’ll be someone else by then. I Jump tomorrow.”

Adam nodded. Douglas gestured him towards the door. “Goodbye, Mr. Winter. Just remember—our world is a lie.”

“Good bye,” Adam muttered as he left the office.

Adam didn’t quite understand what had just transpired. But one thing was for sure—he didn’t get the story Anthony had sent him to retrieve.

CHAPTER THREE

“Our world is a lie,” Adam sighed, tapping his fist on the steel desk in his office. He’d been sitting there for almost a half of an hour, nervously strumming his fingers and rocking back and forth in his chair.

Scattered about his desktop were the contents of the mysterious envelope. In spite of Douglas’ request to read it in private, Adam had instead brought the envelope to his office at the Friend’s Network to investigate further. The information was still private, but the instant he logged on to Neuro, the Guardians would know what Adam had been reading.

The envelope contained three photos and several pages of written text. They were different from anything Adam had ever seen. One photo revealed the haunting images of eHumans screaming and clawing at one another to get inside their local Resource Management Office. A second photo displayed hundreds of bodies, lifeless and strewn about the streets, doorsteps, and railways of a city block. The third showed automated bulldozers, pushing piles of bodies into a huge pit, positioned at the edge of a city.

The accompanying documentation described each photo, taken just a week ago in Chengdu, a city in China, one of the seven Provinces of the World.

After the Great Shift, the world had been divided, a great lumping together of the existing countries of the time by the newly created WG. Each of the seven Provinces was ruled by ten elected representatives, totaling seventy people, who together formed the World Government. The WG assembled in the Golden Hall, in the city of Gematria, formerly Krahule of Slovakia, located at the exact geographical center point of the European Province. The WG set global
standards, law and policy. They collected taxes and maintained order. Every fifty years, they choose from amongst themselves a World Leader.

Even though the WG had been designed and sold to the public as the “Smallest World Government” one could ever imagine, Adam found dealing with the WG and its various agencies a form of pain so unique, he’d created his own code name for such interactions. If his work brought him to one of the three WG departments; the Revenue Network, the Transportation Network, or a local RMO, he’d label his work “Wanton Gluttony” in his report to Anthony.

It’s not that Adam didn’t appreciate the well managed intra-city roads on which the PTDs sailed, or the elegant HyperTrains and HyperPlanes that were the only means of inter-city or global transport. He loved them because they enabled him to get around easily with nothing more than a simple plan in his head. And of course the RMOs, which maintained the Energy Grid within the city’s limits were priceless. But after centuries in the Newsreel business, Adam knew better than most eHumans that while the WG might look simple on paper, the inner workings were bureaucracy at its finest. Yet he’d never considered the “Wanton Gluttony” of the WG to be anything more than simple self-serving policies—until now.

In exchange for global taxes being collected and paid on time, the WG grants the RMOs access to the global Energy Grid. Yet, according to the document Douglas had given Adam, the citizens of Chengdu had been informed via their local Newsreel that their city’s leadership had been found guilty of harboring Hactivists. Therefore, access to the Energy Grid and Neuro had been shut down indefinitely within the Chengdu city limits. As a result, the people of Chengdu had immediately stormed their local RMO, demanding that power be restored. To their astonishment, they found the office locked and empty, not a single WG employee in sight.

Without power Neuro, nothing ran, including the HyperTrains and HyperPlanes. Unfortunately, no two eHuman cities were built close enough to walk to in less than forty-eight hours; the critical time an eHuman has to get to a power source and recharge. After that, if the eHuman didn’t connect to the Energy Grid, the body would put itself into Sleep Mode for another twenty-four hours, running only the Chi-Regulator, which continues to emit the specific electromagnetic field needed to keep the Lux attached to the eHuman body. When the Chi-Regulator stops, the electromagnetic field that the Lux needs to remain attached to material plane disappears. Lux abandons the body, leaving it lifeless.

For two days the people of Chengdu slowly died out, one after the other dropping where they stood, depending on how much energy they had stored prior to the shutdown. The photo of inactive bodies strewn haphazardly about the street, over one million of them, had been taken two days after the last of them had died. Some tried to flee, but to no avail. They simply couldn’t cover the distance fast enough. Their bodies, found scattered upon the rail lines, had been quickly and quietly disposed of by WG drones.

Adam stared at the dead eHumans, their bodies of plasticine and metal cleared from the streets by the hundreds of bulldozers and drones that took to the city, tossing bodies out the buildings via the windows and pushing these bodies into huge pits created outside of the city. Adam zoomed his eyes in on the photo to read the writing on the side of a bulldozer. “WG.”

New Omaha wasn’t experiencing a labor shortage. The world was experiencing a government crackdown. Right now in Adam’s city the WG was shutting down businesses. How soon before they shut down New Omaha entirely? Would people supporting the Hactivists turn them in, or would New Omaha soon go the way of Chengdu? Adam’s thoughts were interrupted
as he jumped at the sudden sound of a knock. He glanced up to see Anthony opening his office door.

“Excuse me,” Anthony said, eyeing the items on Adam’s desk with suspicion, “I opened the door when you didn’t answer my second knock.”

“I only heard you knock once,” Adam said, returning the suspicious look.

“What do you have there?” Anthony demanded, nodding at the mess on Adam’s desk, “How did the interview with Abramhoff go? The WG wants a Newsreel by the end of the day. The people are starting to chat on Neuro about the closings. Not only Borgmans is running on reduced hours, but also the theaters, art galleries, and dance halls, as well as some nightclubs. We need to quell their panic.” Anthony never took his eyes off of the papers on Adam’s desk.

Adam scooped up the documents and pictures and put them in the envelope Douglas had given him.

“The interview didn’t go as we’d planned,” he informed his boss.

“Oh?”

“Yeah, Douglas didn’t seem interested in discussing the issue at hand.”

“You mean the reduced hours due to New Omaha’s labor shortage?”

“He wasn’t interested in talking about the labor shortage at all. He wanted to talk about the fact that the WG is trying to keep people from listening to the Hactivist’s message of freedom from government control.”

Anthony winced as Adam spoke the words, “He also informed me that he’s stepping down from his position as CEO and Jumping tomorrow.”

Anthony remained lurking in the doorway, his expression momentarily nonplussed and eyes vacant as if powered off. Then he twitched and came back to life.

“Request for one-to-one communication,” Anthony hissed.

“Denied,” Adam responded tersely.

“You have no right to deny my request,” Anthony retorted.

“Yes, I do. I don’t have to grant anyone access if I choose not to. Why are you so uptight about it? Just close the door behind you and I’ll tell you anything you want,” Adam stood up and pointed to the door that had swung open at Anthony’s request.

Anthony stepped forward and fully entered the office, muttering the word, “Secure,” as he slowly and deliberately slunk toward Adam. The door slid shut while Adam remained behind his desk, clutching the envelope close to his chest.

“Why are you so paranoid, Adam?” Anthony purred smoothly, “I simply want to discuss things man-to-man.”

“I’m not paranoid,” Adam replied, “I don’t like people messing around in my head!” Anthony gave a suppressed smile at the comment. Adam continued, “Anyway, as I said, the interview didn’t go as planned. Abramhoff was distant, confused, and angry. He told me he was stepping down and that I was the first to know. Then he gave me this envelope and dismissed me.”

“What’s in it?” Anthony asked, raising one eyebrow.

“He told me not to share it with anyone,” Adam replied.

“Then why did you bring it to the office?” Anthony sneered.

Why hadn’t he listened to Douglas? Perhaps it was his naiveté, as Adam had long trusted the WG. Perhaps it was because Adam, even in his wildest dreams, couldn’t have imagined the terrible story the documents would tell.

“Give me the envelope, Adam,” Anthony said in a harsh tone.

Adam shrugged and handed it over. Immediately Anthony tore open the envelope and held up a picture in his hand. Like an animal that had just fallen into a trap, Adam suddenly felt the urge get the hell out of his small office.

“When you read it, you’ll see I don’t have an angle, or least not the one you want. I’m not even sure I can do a Newsreel today. I’m all confused,” Adam confessed.

Laughing, Anthony held up a hand to interrupt him.

“Oh, this explains a lot. Neuro traffic said Douglas was losing it. Couldn’t handle that Borgmans wasn’t the powerful company it had once been. Anyway, looks like he is not only losing it—he’s cracked! This is complete nonsense. I wonder where he got the paper to create this farce?”

Adam stared incredulously at Anthony. Farce? He cringed at Anthony’s amused reaction.

“Cracked?” Adam muttered.

“Exactly! How about I keep these and make sure they’re fake? If I find out anything, we can TeleConnect. You seem pretty shaken. Go home and get this off your mind. Perhaps log in and participate in a few Virtual Programs. I’ll have Tiffany do the Newsreel tonight. I think our new angle will be the sudden insanity of Mr. Douglas Abramhoff and his decision to Jump. Did you happen to get a description of who he’s going to be next?”

Adam gave him the details he had seen on the Jump Request device. Satisfied, Anthony stood silently in front of Adam for a moment, staring him with an intense interest. His coal-black eyes bore into Adam’s soul, focusing on him as if to take a picture, or register the moment permanently in his data file. Adam had never noticed how dark his boss’s eyes were before. Finally, Anthony turned on his heel and left Adam’s office singing “Time is On My Side” by the ancient rock band, The Rolling Stones.

Adam took Anthony’s advice and headed straight home. He found himself confused yet again. On one hand, his relief was enormous. The story Douglas had given him was terrifying beyond comprehension. For Anthony to prove it a farce would be salve to Adam’s anxious mind. The idea of the WG whimsically killing citizens seemed too sinister, even to Adam. Yet on the other hand, if the events in Chengdu proved to be true, then Adam had just been given the story of a lifetime: his chance to show his quality. By revealing such treachery, he’d no longer be a mere local newscaster regurgitating the news written by the Guardians. The Chengdu story would make him an international hero. eHumans all over the world would take notice of him. Lost in his thoughts yet again, Adam slugged his way out of the building to catch a ride home.