Survived

It is difficult not to be detected as a free mind, but I have managed for almost twenty years. I’m not sure if there are any more of us left. Of course, there was a surplus of us when it began. We were stronger than they expected, I’m sure. The gnawing feeling of having your thoughts chewed upon by invading consciousness was enough to drive some people mad and kill still others. But some of us were strong. Ten years ago, however, their methods were significantly more developed and they returned with new machines. It had to be nanites or picites that allowed them to take root in our bodies as well as our minds, and I’m sure I’m swarming with those little things. But mentally I am clean. Franz and I had the right idea from the beginning. It was classic and almost too simple; pretend you’re one of them. They might not notice. And so far, no one’s noticed me.

Well, that’s sort of a lie. They’ve noticed me, but I killed them. Ran away. Their little spindly webs reach out towards me, but I’ve gotten away fast enough every time. That’s mostly thanks to them. Their own technology aids me in moving like lightning. I flutter over the crowds in the semi-state for only seconds- being that open makes a free mind vulnerable. Then I’m back at my feet, the wide London streets letting me fold through the people.

Then again, they’re not people.

The silence in New York was deafening the last time I was there. No one talks anymore; no one has to. Big cities, even with all the activity, are virtually without noise. The silence resounds painfully in my free mind. Freedom, fullness. Things to cherish which they cannot.

I managed to supplement one of the Vocal Adapter Devices to make me sound very much like them. The VADs are usually used to change the voice of a male or female to that of the opposite when they request gender change surgery because they ended up in a body that they did not like. It took about two hours of tinkering to get that hollow ring of the second consciousness that pulls the vocal strings in their throats. Once in a while I might have to talk, and I don’t want my voice to give it away. But, as I said before, mostly it’s quiet.

I think about Franz from time to time. She was supposed to marry me, before all of this happened and the world went to hell. We were planning on vacationing to the Bahamas for the honeymoon. They were blasted out of existence in the First Armageddon, along with Hawaii and New Zealand and Papua New Guinea and all kinds of other places. I’ve never seen a map of New Earth, but I’m pretty sure that half of the original landmass is gone by now. Franz was an avid animal lover and an astrophysicist. Smarter than me by a long shot. I don’t know how she put up with my stupid questions. I guess she loved me as much as I loved her.

The people are done folding, the bar stands before me. I go in, the metal detector picking up my watch and blipping at a doorman who mechanically turned it off. The smooth chrome of the bar’s surface is frictionless beneath my fingers as I touch it, observing my reflection. The bartender is mixing a martini, dry, with three olives for a lady in red down at the far end of the bar.

“Black Russian,” I say, the voice itching my own ears. The bartender is wordless as he mentally nods at me. He starts on the drink with mechanical precision.

The lady is prodding my mind, something I am in no way comfortable about. She’s looking for a mate, but her eyes have that strange underglow of paleness that means she’s one of them and not one of me. I’ve rubbed paint in my own eyes to achieve the same effect, and had to perform several hundred cornea-replacement surgeries on myself these twenty years.

She says hello.

I reply with an icy goodbye.

She wants to get to know me.

My emotion can distort my thoughts, and since they have none they cannot pick up on me. I angrily tell her to shove off.

She persists.

I look at her now, warning.

Her prodding fades for a moment, and I try to close her off. The bartender puts my drink in front of me and I take a sip. The cool of the fluid clashes with the warmth of the alcohol and my throat. She’s trying to prod me again. I point my finger in her direction and then upwards. The tiny needle of artificially created poison pushes out of my fingertip, poised as a threat to her. But she’s already moving towards me and then I realize- she’s discovered me. I swallow the rest of my drink and get off of the stool, casually walking towards the door. Her footsteps are mechanically beating the floor behind me; I feel that she’s drawn her own needle. Just as I am finished calculating the distance between her steps and mine, drawing a few figures, and applying the physics to our locations as best I can, my semi-switcher lights up. One minute I am three yards ahead of her, the next I am beside her with the needle buried two inches through her skull in the cerebral cortex. She collapses instantly.

There is a moment of silence in the bar. All of them look at me, eyeing my coldly with their pale expressions and pale gazes.

Then they all turn away, and a droid glides out to take care of her body.

That’s the most wonderful thing about living among them. They have no sense of morals, so when someone is killed, no one asks why. Her red dress snags on the floor as she is dragged away, a couple of hands reach down to fondle her breasts as she slides by. I watch her out of the corner of my eye, and then step out to the smoggy air of the street.

Oh yes, I have survived.