Pandora's Box

November 16th, 3033. It was morning, but not an ordinary morning. Something felt different. I sat up in bed and looked out the window, then realized what the problem was. It was much too light out for 6 o’clock in the morning. I glanced over at the timepiece on my bedside table. 7 AM. Impossible. I glanced over again and then looked down at my wrist. My chip was still imbedded in it, and everything looked normal. So why hadn’t I been woken up? The chips did that for us. Confused as to the apparent malfunction in my chip, I glanced around my room for a solution to the problem, feeling somewhat like a criminal. Unable to find clarity in my bedroom I quickly dressed and made my way downstairs.

Every day before this one had always been exactly the same for me. That was how it was for everyone, and that was what was right. That was the way to be. People woke up in the morning, went to work, came home, ate, and slept. Everybody toiled their lives away meaninglessly, regardless of race or gender. It was the right way to do things. The government told us so, and they knew best. Today was different though. I could feel it, and I could see it. The house didn’t look the same as it always had before. It looked like it needed to be painted. It appeared to be vaguely yellow in color, and I knew that all houses were white. I shook my head. I felt terribly confused without the chip to explain things to my brain.

Giving up on logic and reason, I decided that getting to work was the most important thing, and I stepped out of my now yellow doorway onto the wet pavement. It was always wet in the morning, always dull and drab and thick feeling. The wet snakes that were the streets were always cloaked in soggy cardboard boxes and plastic wrap, flyers and papers and dull brown shopping bags. I knew somehow that I had always felt this way about the mornings, but my memory told me that it had never seemed to bother me before. I had always just thought that that was the way it was and that there was no use questioning it. Now, though, I seemed to be questioning everything. My head felt odd, as though I had thought that it was full, but was suddenly realizing that it was completely empty and was trying frantically to fill it before someone caught me at it. For then I would have to go back to viewing the world the way I had before, as though it was through fogged up glasses. I didn’t think I could do that.

I continued along the street, gazing up at the sky like a newborn. The sky wasn’t blue like I’d always thought it was. It was actually a rather dirty gray. The clouds were also somewhat less attractive than I’d been led to believe, but that wasn’t what was currently occupying me. Among the clouds were dozens of sleek forms. I
squinted upwards. They were planes. In fact, they were bombers. I blinked. That was impossible. The government had told us the war was over, and the government never lied.

Just as I was beginning to wonder if I’d ever arrive at work I saw my office building looming just ahead. I hurried, almost running the last block of my journey, and was relieved, without knowing why, when I made it to the doors. I took a final glance upwards and the planes were still slinking through the clouds.

Inside, I hurried up the stairs to my office, avoiding anyone who I might say something suspicious to. I worked in the research department, and specialized in insanity. I was currently working on a theory, which would help explain why the chip didn’t work as well on the insane. Every now and then someone would be caught on the streets ranting about government conspiracy and a lack of free thought, or other ridiculous ideas. Obviously these people were insane. My current project involved trying to figure out how to adapt their brains so that they would be able to benefit from the chip like everyone else.

“Please send in the patient,” I called over to an idle looking lab attendant. He looked like he wanted to ask why I was so late, but he restrained himself and left to retrieve my newest test case. A moment later he returned, with an elderly man in tow. The man was tall and thin with white hair sprouting wildly from his head like some sort of exotic plant. He wore a tweed suit and clutched a bowler in one hand and a book in the other. The attendant punched a code into the secure chamber I was going to interview the man in and pushed the gentleman in. I followed, and I used the inside keypad to seal the room.

“Now, sir, please listen carefully while I explain what we’re going to be talking about.”

The man leapt up from the seat I’d ushered him into, looking quite indignant. Then he sat again, looking dejected, as though he had crushed his own argument.

“Please. Just listen to me. How can you be so blind?”

He sighed heavily.

“We’re being brainwashed by the government. Isn’t it obvious? We are in the midst of an enormous war in which we are blowing ourselves to smithereens. I know it seems like that can’t be possible, but it is possible, and not just possible, it’s happening. Please. We must do something. We simply have to!”

He looked as though he might burst into tears. I told my self that he was just another crazy old man.

“Oh God, why can’t you understand me? It’s that chip. It’s poisoning you, you know. It’s whispering nasty little secrets into your blood, and your blood is telling your brain that those little whispers in the dark are God’s truth, and you’re believing it. You have to listen, girl! Any moment now, one of those big airplanes stuffed with bombs could be sent our way, and the next thing you know, or rather don’t know, we don’t exist anymore. It happens every day. What do you think happened to Old Boston? What about Old London? One day they simply ceased existing?”
He took a moment to calm himself, then continued.
“Please, please, Ma’am, you must at least try to consider what I’m saying! Didn’t you ever doubt anything the government told you? What about when they banned fairy tales? Didn’t that outrage you? You must have just been a little girl. What was your favorite fairy tale when you were a child?"

I stared at the man in shock. Logic told me that he had to be insane. His story was ridiculous. Maybe, but what about the bomber from the morning? I looked over at the man again. His story didn’t seem as far-fetched as I wanted it to be.

“Sir, what is your name?” I said weakly.
“Alfred Willis, now answer the question.
What was your favorite childhood story?”

“I…I didn’t have a favorite story. Stories are just lies made up by the enemy to frighten us.”

There was no reason for him to believe me because I didn’t believe myself anymore.

Willis stared at me. “You do understand me,” he said. “You are comprehending what I’m saying.”
He half stood, as though he was going to move closer to me, then thought better of it and sat again.

“You know, we can fix this mess. Well, we can at least help it out.”

I didn’t want to know, but I asked anyway. “What are you talking about?”

The man looked at me like I was incredibly stupid.

“You were safely under the government’s influence. They didn’t think you were a danger to their system, so you were given a position of power here. That means that you know all of the building’s maintenance codes, correct?”

I nodded somewhat dumbly.

“Fantastic. Did you know that one of those codes is not what it seems?” He didn’t give me time to answer. “Well it isn’t. Your lockdown code, the one you’re never authorized to use, shuts off more than the building’s power. It also deactivates any chips in a 1-mile radius. It’s used for repairing a damaged chip. Can you imagine what would happen if you deactivated all of your co-workers’ chips? Free thought! An end to the madness that is the government!”

“I hardly think one building of people could do that,” I said stiffly.

“Of course not, but you could start the revolution. If you can do this who knows what else can be done. God! Do you want to go back to being half blind and deaf the way you were?”

“I must be crazy,” I said softly. “I think that I may be starting to believe you.”

I stood up, looking around me as though I thought someone might be listening in on our conversation. I walked over to the keypad on the wall. This keypad didn’t give me direct control over the building settings, but it allowed me access to the real keypad that did. I turned to Alfred Willis.
“I don’t know just why I’m doing this, but I am. Understand that this is an unauthorized use of the codes, I’m not going to be allowed to get away with it. Probably as soon as I touch this keypad with the intent of revealing the master control the attendants are going to stop me. However, for a reason I’m unsure of, I’m going to do it anyway.”

With that, I turned and swiftly punched a code into the keypad. I knew before I started that I was insane and that this would never work, but my fingers never wavered. As I finished the code, the wall began to shimmer. As the master keypad began to take shape I heard a pounding of footsteps. I turned to Willis, just as the attendants managed to open the door to our small room and began to pour in. My left hand rested at the keypad, waiting for it to solidify.

An attendant aimed some sort of weapon at me and fired. There was a burning in my gut, but I hardly noticed it. I punched the code in easily, then touched my stomach. I had been shot. As the world began to whirl about me, all I could think about was the fact that my favorite story as a child had been that of Pandora’s Box.


The end.