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Secrets (Part 2)
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Secrets (Part 2) |
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openthoughts Member
since 2006-01-16
Posts 94Where the child can be free |
“So how did it go?” My wife asked. “Can I walk in the door first?” “I’m sorry dear.” She said, pausing to take a breath. “Go ahead. Get settled first.” “Thank you.” I did not understand her anxiousness at all. After closing the door slowly behind me and setting my desk up for its charge, I embraced her, allowing our lips to touch gently, if only for a moment. “So?” “So what?” I smiled into her eyes so that she would know my obliviousness was only a game. “How did it go?” “How did what go?” She returned my smile with her laugh. I adored her laugh to no end. When Sara laughed, all is right with the world. I could feel the dull throb in my brain lessen. “The installation, silly! How did the installation go?” “Oh, that?” It was fine. Great, in fact. I think I’ll have three more installed. Oh, Mal. You finally got it. You have no idea how much better this makes me feel. I have never been fond of the chip-phone. It is fear and always has been. It is not by any means an irrational feeling and of that I am certain. My mind is not necessarily a happy place but it is mine and by nature, the most secure place for any secrets I want to remain kept, as that remains their origin. I am…unsettled—to say the very least—at the idea of having another person join me, despite Sara’s consistent and determined reassurance that only the areas in the brain that related to reception and transmission of sound and communication would be touched in the installation. This did nothing to settle my nerves however, as I understood none of it. So many things could go wrong. I have no knowledge of the inner workings and structure of the human mind, even one as personal as my own and therefore had no basis of understanding with which to refute her arguments scientifically. It is concept, the idea of having strangers, especially ones from a company as powerful as a phone company such as ThoughtSpeak, toying with and rewiring my brain. If anyone was going to muck about my mind, it would be me and not some nameless white coated tool working for a giant more powerful than Evil. Maybe it was all my reading. My reading conditioned me to fear power and organization and especially those who had it. I had not expected Sara to discover my torn and tattered copy of A Clockwork Orange in its hiding place beneath the third plank from the right underneath the bed that we shared. No matter. Alex was long etched into my memory by that time. It was Alex’s fate I feared. The fate of being taken and turned from who I am to who they want me to be. Whoever either of those are. Were. Whatever. Alex was free in mind and body until they got him and turned him into a slave to their purposes. Not that I condone Alex’s violence but at least he was free to choose violence. Well that was Burgess’s government. The phone companies are ours, and I would never be Alex. I had no need to be. The chip-phone was not necessary in the least. My old hand phone was quite suitable. I could make calls and I could receive calls. Whatever I wanted to say would travel the normal path that it would in conversation, with only a medium other than air to carry the vibrations. It seemed natural and no more difficult than a chip-phone. I saw no disadvantages. And things would have remained that way if it were not for the pattern of businesses of technology. Slowly kill the old technology with the new. At first, the chip-phones were a new novelty, a vain pleasure in communication technology but not a necessity. Then, gradually, the appliances for hand-phones were discontinued until the chip-phone was the only logical decision if you ever wanted to call anyone ever again. I was able to cling to my ancient phone for as long as I could, hiding my paranoia behind a guise of rebelliousness. Until my accident. My night to close the office so I was alone and it was late. And dark. And I was careless. And and and. Well, to borrow an old colloquialism and make a long story short, I tripped and fell down the stairs. Careless. The fall broke both ankles, somehow. It wouldn’t have been as disastrous if I hadn’t left my hand-phone in my office. Unable to stand or call for help, I resolved to spend the night in the office, there alone on the floor at the foot of the staircase, until I was found the next day. The chip-phone was invented for emergencies such as this. So now I am connected to the population of the world via a chip in the brain, a telepathic wire. I am protected in case of emergencies and my secrets are protected inside my mind, supposedly. And yet I cannot shake my paranoia. I lay awake in bed that night, unable to sleep. The installation was over and yet I could still feel that dull hum. Good dog. A chill travelled up my spine, like icy hands had suddenly made a grab for my insides. I sat up in bed and ran my fingers through my hair. I had heard those words without my ears, but I that was impossible. I could choose to ignore any call, just like I could with a hand-phone. Sara sat up beside me and rested her chin on my shoulder. My breath had been trapped inside my lungs for far too long and I had not even noticed. It escaped with a loud “whoosh” noise. “What’s wrong?” Sara asked. “Nothing. Just—it’s nothing, don’t worry about it.” I said. “Funny. Nothing you’re saying matches anything you’re doing.” “What do you mean?” “Look at yourself. You’re shaking. You’re sweating. I’ve never seen you in such a state.” I shook my head. “If I told you, you’d think I was crazy.” Sara pressed her lips to cheek. “It’s far, far too late for that dear. I knew you were crazy when I married you.” I allowed myself to force a laugh. “If I tell you, you promise you won’t think any less of me?” “There’s nothing that could make me think less of you.” “And you will keep it between us and only us?” Her brow lowered while her eyes remained focused and motionless in an expression that I have never seen from any other person, man or woman, in all my life. “Ok, I’m sorry. It’s a little embarrassing. I think I just got a call.” “Wait, you think you got a call?” The way she said “think” one would have been tempted to believe it was French and not English. “I don’t know. I didn’t allow it.” She was sitting straight up now, just as I was. “That’s impossible.” “Is it? Is it impossible, or simply unheard of?” “I fail to see the difference.” “I told you. You think I’m crazy now.” I turned on my side, away from Sara’s judgment. “No, no. I don’t think you’re crazy. You were probably just dreaming. I wouldn’t be too concerned about it.” “You’re probably right.” I didn’t want start the old argument about my fear of the government again. Why start an argument you don’t want to win? Sara smiled, misreading my submission as she kissed my cheek and settled back into the comfort of her pillow and her trust. I did the same, without the trust. What would I do if somehow, somehow, I was right in all my fears? What could I do? Would I become Guy Montag, going underground to fight a system he once believed in? No, that was ridiculous. I never worked for the government or the ThoughtSpeak and I certainly never trusted either. Besides, there was no resistance like the one Montag found in Fahrenheit 451. Ray Bradbury must have known when he wrote his dark tale that that was not how people behave. Burning books, as tragic as it was, was not a violation of the wishes of the masses. Too many people were happy to have their books burned away into ash and lost memories. If these chips were indeed wrong or, in the very least, abused, the masses would not rebel. We were all far too comfortable in our ways to notice. Besides, there was no conspiracy here. That was preposterous. This was America. That kind of thing didn’t happen. We have a system to prevent it. And yet, the nagging remained with that dull and chronic hum. I couldn’t help but feel that I had burned my freedom with a chip in my brain. |
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JamesMichael Member Empyrean
since 1999-11-16
Posts 33336Kapolei, Hawaii, USA |
What if the government said you could'nt buy or sell without a chip in the brain or a mark on the forehead...Revelation 13:17...James |
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fractal007 Senior Member
since 2000-06-01
Posts 1958 |
Wow. As I read this story there were so many thoughts racing through my mind, so many places you might take this idea. The phones supposedly do not transmit anything other than "verbal" thoughts. Of course those thoughts can be revealing enough. But suppose your multinational corp ThoughtSpeak were to forge a partnership with Google? Suppose then that the verbal thoughts could be transferred into text, rendering the thoughts of "the masses" crawlable by Google's search engines! Wait, I'm only on part II. Maybe you've already thought of this for part III. Something else to think of -- actually you seem to be using it implicitly. If a technology like the one you are describing existed then the boundary between what is presently called sanity and what is presently insanity might shift. "Hearing voices" as the common term goes, would become more commonplace. Indeed, today when one claims to hear voices it is never entirely impossible that she is telling the truth. For example, suppose telepathy really does exist? Yet your thought-phone and the scenario in which the protagonist thinks he is receiving a call are all too fun philosophically. Suppose you heard a voice one day telling you to kill the president. In a world in which the thoughtphone existed, one could never entirely rule out the possibility that some cyberterrorist was trying to enslave you. Of course, the only way to be sure would be to trace the call, as it were. Any idiot can see that the result is true. |
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