SF in The City Anthology (33 page)

             
You begin to see life a bit differently than before. Like all the other children in The City, you played a simulation of “Manhunt” when you were a young man first getting used to the nanotube matrix inserted in your brain. Police protect the populace from the “bad guys.” That’s what everyone knew and believed. The more time you spend with the so called bad guys, the more you realize that they aren’t purely evil monsters, nor are the guards who watch you day and night without their corrupt streaks.

             
After you have seen five months within Prefecture 83’s prison, a man by the name of Ualan Kinlan arrives with the “fresh meat.” Word travels fast in a confined environment, and it doesn’t take long for you and your fellow prisoners to figure out that he had been responsible for running
Pedastyle
– a sick Covert Net series that catered to the perverted members of the upper class. With such a famous pornographer amongst your prison system, it doesn’t take long for him to get stabbed with an improvised shank. At the same time that you wonder at the code of honor present in the hearts of murderous and thieving men and women, you also find yourself pitying Ualan, though you won’t share this sentiment with anyone else. You never would have imagined feeling sorry for such a sick freak, but prison has given you new insight into the nature of man, whether you want it or not.

             
Finally your first anniversary arrives. You can hardly believe that you’ve spent a year in this pit, but even more unbearable is the fact that Daiyu hasn’t visited you once since your incarceration. Honestly, you probably wouldn’t visit her if you were in the same situation. She doesn’t want to be suspected of witnessing your crime and landing whatever charges the authorities could conjure up to put her in here too.

             
By your fourteenth month in prison, you suddenly find yourself summoned to the warden’s office. You really can’t imagine what he wants to talk to you about, considering you have a stellar record of being a good little prisoner and doing what you’re told. Given that he never makes himself visible to the inmates and communicates with them only by way of speakers in the common area, you feel glad in a strange way to come face to face with the man responsible for overseeing your “rehabilitation.”

             
Escorted to Warden Sérgio Nayar’s office by your least favorite guard, Officer Aetius, you marvel at the inside of this spacious room. An obelisk as tall as you rests by the doorway, and numerous statues of Egyptian deities rest throughout the room. He even has a Marotte 2000 Interactive Work Desk. 

             
“Who’s you’re interior decorator?” you smirk as Aetius sits you down forcefully in front of the warden.

             
“Are you familiar with the concept of Ma’at?” Mr. Nayar asks you.

             
“No, I can’t say that I am.”

             
“I’m not surprised of course,” he has a satisfied expression on his face. “Ma’at was essentially a goddess who represented truth to the ancient Egyptians. This civilization valued rationality and balance in the universe, which was only achievable through
order
. After death, if a person hadn’t followed the proper balance of Ma’at in life, the god Thoth could tell as much with his scales, and the demon Ammut would consume that person’s soul. This is just a summary of a far more interesting system, and I hope you’ll look further into this remarkable legal structure for yourself.”

             
You nervously clear your throat and ask, “Am I in some kind of trouble?”                 

             
“Of course not dear boy,” he has an unsettling laugh. “I was merely explaining my fetish for all things representing ancient Egypt – the greatest kingdom to walk the face of this world. If only we had the same rationality in our world today!”

             
“Well…what did you need to see me about?” you ask.

             
“I’m sure you’ve noticed by now the gender balancing in our prison?”

             
“Gender…
balancing
?”

             
“Yes, the feminization of the men and masculinization of the women,” he crosses his hands in a meditative fashion. “Statistics have demonstrated for ages that men are far more likely to commit violent crimes than women. You see, there was the misconception that arose a century ago that still persists today – the belief that violence is the result of neurological issues. We have enough data these days to prove this assumption is not entirely true.”

             
“How have you been changing people in here?” you ask carefully. “How have you changed me?”

             
“Hormone therapy. You never wondered why men and women go to lunch at different times on the schedule, when you’re allowed to mix every other time of the day? We’ve been putting a specific cocktail into the men’s’ food and a different one in th females’. It stands to reason that a more feminized male will be less likely to engage in aggressive behavior, while masculinized females will be better able to protect themselves from the men.”

             
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not,” you feel a rage inside you that’s difficult to suppress, “but people are violent in here no matter what you do to their bodies. You haven’t solved the problem of crime, and you never will because people don’t work like puppets. They make their own decisions for good or bad. You can’t change that.”

             
“See this is where you come in,” the warden rubs his hands together eagerly. “The CA has given me permission to perform experiments on behavior modification
without restraint
. While the pathetic wardens in the other prefectures play around with aversion therapy and brain surgery, I’m on the cutting edge. I will be responsible for the next stage in human evolution, with your help of course.”

             
“My help?”

“Why yes, I’m going to create the first truly genderless being. You should be thrilled. We will one day become gods, heck, better than gods, and you will be the first step in that direction.
What an honor this is for you!”

             
“You know,” you try to stand up only to be forced back into your seat by Aetius, “I have a pretty firm grasp on the concept of honor, and this isn’t an experiment I would care to take part in.”

             
“Well that’s a shame,” Nayar glowers at you. “Since you show the strongest resistance to the hormones you’ve consumed thus far, you’ll make for the best test subject. Aetius!”

             
Before you can fight back, you find that the big dumb brute his lifted you onto an examination table and started to tie you down with leather straps. You struggle, but the warden levels a pistol at you.

             
“Have you ever heard of a Heart Attack Gun or HAG as we like to call it?” he asks menacingly.

             
“I can’t say that I have,” you respond with a catch in your voice.

             
“It’s really quite brilliant,” he asserts with a gleam in his eye. “The HAG uses a self-dissolving dart, to prevent detection, which carries a swarm of toxin distributing nanomachines. Within mere seconds of exposure, every drop of blood in your body will clot. Not a bad device to have around in a prison, eh?”

             
You look over and see that Aetius is bringing a small wheeled tray table next to you. A large syringe with a pale white substance inside it rests on this metallic table. The bed to which you are restrained is lifted by Aetius until you can look straight ahead at the painting behind Mr. Nayar’s desk. Your left wrist restraint isn’t quite as tight as you first imagined, so you start working on freeing that limb.

             
“We’ll start first with this simple injection and then proceed to surgical procedures in the future,” the warden picks up the needle and taps it. “Aetius, you stick him in his arm. I can’t do it myself. I hate needles.”

             
The beastly guard takes the syringe in his meaty hands and prepares to inject the serum in your right arm, but suddenly he stops. You managed to free your left arm in time, and catching Aetius off guard, you thrust the syringe into his own body.

“You imbecile!” Warden Nayar screams as he sees blood trickling out of his assistant’s nose and ears. “That substance was tailored to his genetics. Do you realize h
ow long it took to make that?”

             
Nayar seems to have forgotten how much trouble you can present him with. You’ve already freed your right hand when he turns back to point the HAG at you. He seems to debate with himself whether he should just kill you now or not.

             
“You’ve caused me far more trouble than a person ought to endure,” he wipes sweat from his forehead as he speaks. “Keeping those grandparents and that girlfriend of yours from visiting during the specified hours raised public relations issues. Now you kill my assistant. Lay back down or I swear I’ll kill you and find another test subject.”

             
Maintaining eye contact with the insane warden, you slowly reach for the lever behind the table that Aetius had used to raise it to an upright position. “No,” you respond firmly.

             
Fortunately, Mr. Nayar has little experience with guns. He pulls the trigger, but not forcefully enough to make it move until you pull the table’s lever, causing you and the bed to fall back into a reclining position as he finally fires the weapon. The HAG’s dart ricochets off of the doorway’s obelisk and embeds in the warden’s throat. Within a moment, he lies dead alongside the prison’s head guard.

             
After freeing your legs and walking about the office, you ponder the best method for escape. Aetius had a hand gun, but you really don’t want to shoot your way out of prison. Despite your new found appreciation for the honor prisoners could have and the lack of humanity the authorities could demonstrate, you also realize that at least half the people locked up in here actually should be kept off the streets, and not all of the guards treated you unkindly.

             
Pulling the rubber cap off of your head, you remember that the code to reactivate your access to the Net probably lies in the warden’s office. These official types always keep important information on paper media as well as in digital form, just in case something comprises their nanotube’s security. You throw the large picture off of the warden’s wall and see a safe behind it, just like you expected.

             
A thought suddenly comes into your mind – the prison never took your Everlast Contacts away, since you had them as a prescription. Unbeknownst to them, you had these vision enhancers upgraded to record whatever you saw and upload this data to your matrix’s memory banks. The second your nanotube matrix would go back online, over a year’s worth of visual data would be available for posting on the Net. You originally used this function as a way to record your dusketeering matches, but now you had a way to prove the warden’s treachery to the world.

Sifting through Nayar’s paperwork, you find the code to reactivate your brain’s matrix. Doing so, you immediately begin uploading all of the collected video data to the Net. Then the alarms start sounding. Apparently the prison has some means of detecting the transmission of data to the Net from authorized personnel withi
n its walls.

             
It doesn’t take long for a small army of guards to show up in front of the office door with guns drawn. You decide to mentally access the prison’s stereo system: the very means the warden used to give his daily piece of advice to the inmates. Accessing a playlist of your favorite songs, you broadcast “Fight Test” by The Flaming Lips to not only your own ears, but also to those of your fellow prisoners. The way you see it, you might as well enjoy some tunes as you leave this world. Why not share this sentiment with some new friends.

             
The guards break down the door and take aim and open fire on you, even though there’s no weapon in your hands. Looking down, you’re shocked to see blood exiting your body through a dozen or so perforations. “At least I died a man,” you say as darkness overtakes you and the last words you hear from the matrix in your brain are: “Upload Complete.”

Bonus Episode 3: “
The Sewer Rat”

            
 
For better or worse, the events put forth by this encrypted file actually occurred to me several years ago. You can choose to believe what I write down in this brief history or not. The choice is all yours. My name was Ambrose Tang, though I changed it recently following an altercation with Central Authority, and this is my story.              

             
Two years ago, I worked a soul crushing 8:00 - 8:00 job like the majority of people in this decaying metropolis. Onofrio Prevodorant Incorporated had employed me for nearly ten years before they asked me to cover up their criminal behavior. You see, prevodorant was a new product when I first started working for Onofrio. Who would have thought that you could rub a stick of chemicals under your arms and you wouldn’t have body odor for a month. It was waterproof and long lasting, the perfect no hassle product.