My ears rang as my mind flooded with thoughts. My eyes adjusted to the bright light that shone from the outside. I stumbled out of my vehicle, grasping on it for support. Strange noises filled my ears. My head pounded. None of this would happen with the WWMC.
I looked at the road, which was full of debris and parts of my vehicle. People walked past in a straight line, not even glancing at the destruction. I limped toward one of the pedestrians who was looking straight ahead, giving me no attention. Her eyes were closed but her lips were moving, muttering something that I couldn’t understand.
From the corner of my eye, I saw movement. A figure walked through the intersection and searched the remains of the vehicle crash. The figure had the body of a human but the back of his head, from his forehead to his neck, was full of wires and gears.
“What-” I muttered before its white, piercing eyes aimed right at me. Before I could move something slammed into me, shoving me to the ground behind the second vehicle. She was a human. She was weak and thin with clothes stained with dirt and blood.
“Stay down,” she ordered, “Did it see you?”
“I am not sure. What is it?” I asked. She did not respond, but she peered over the vehicle and immediately dove back behind.
“Okay, do exactly as I say and you might survive. You might still have a tracker on you so we have to move fast.” She said.
“A tracker?”
She gestured for me to stay behind and slowly walked away from the vehicle with some kind of machine in her hand. She creeped away, avoiding the eyesight of the figure, sneaking behind it and jabbing it into the back of its head. The figure fell to the ground.
“Follow me, it can wake up any minute.”
We traveled through the city, avoiding the sight of anybody.
“When will you tell me what is happening? Who are you?” I asked.
“I will tell you when we get there,” She responded.
“Where?”
There was no response. We reached the edge of the city where there was only wasteland , as far as the horizon.
“We should be safe for now,” she said, starting to jog , “We are not far now.”
She finally stopped at a large stone.
“This is where you wanted to take me? To a rock?”
She reached under the rock and pulled her hand out after there was the click of something unlocking. She grabbed it and pulled it up revealing a tunnel. I followed her as she jumped in. My eyes caught a faint light as we exited the tunnel into a small room. One side of it was covered in computers, the other was full of weaponry that I had never seen before. All the people in the room had a red wire on their data slab, which must have been how they were not being controlled by the WWMC.
“What is your name?” She asked.
“I am called Tesha.”
“Well Tesha, we are the only others who escaped the WWMC. My name is Imara, this is Alinta,” She pointed toward a scarred female near the weaponry, “Vihan is the one working on the computers, and that is Bomin,” She gestured toward the person working with strange materials that I did not recognize, “He is great with medicine and repairing data slabs. And this is-”
“Sister! Where were you and who is this? You could bring the Sealed Mind right to us.” A voice said from the shadows.
“Aleric, we do not know if she has a tracker. We should run tests first,” Imara stuttered.
“We don’t have the time. They could be coming for us already. We do not have nearly the data we need. We should have left her behind.”
“I agree with Imara. We need help more than ever. Just look at us! We are starved here, weak and powerless. We need as many people as we can get if we want to survive until I can hack into their system,” Vihan said from behind his computer.
Aleric sighed, “Fine. Bomin, prepare to remove the tracker.”
Bomin immediately began searching through the bins of materials.
“What is happening?” I asked.
“We first must remove the tracker. If we don’t, the Sealed Mind will be able to find us.” Imara answered.
“What is a Sealed Mind?”
“It is that creature that was in the city. Most of them used humans until they disobeyed the WWMC. Their minds were wiped and their bodies are being used to search for more disobeyers. Most of them used to be one of us until they were captured and transformed into a Sealed Mind. My brother, Alaric and I were the only survivors in our family.”
“Is that what will happen to all of you if we are captured?” I asked. That must be why they are so worried about the tracker. What else was the WWMC lying about? This is the first time that I have ever been able to think my own thoughts or truly socialize with others. Maybe life with the WWMC is not quite as utopian as they describe.
“Yes, the machines use us as a tool. Use our bodies to do things that they cannot. That is why we will set the world free from their grasp. Vihan is trying to hack into their system and destroy them from within, and the rest of us are just trying to give him time. Eventually, everyone will be able to think their own thoughts without any computer stopping them. Will you join us?” Imara requested.
There was no time to consider the offer before Bomin finished the preparations for the extraction.
“Let’s finish this as quickly as possible,” Aleric told Bomin.
“Sit down on the ground. I will shut your data slab off for a moment, causing you to go unconscious, and then I will be able to remove the tracker.” Bomin told me.
A shiver went down my spine while I turned around and sat down. Right before Bomins could touch the back of my head, the ground shook. Dust fell from the ceiling.
“What was that?” I asked. There was a pounding sound coming from above us. More dust fell above Imara.
“Imara get away from there!” Aleric shouted. The pounding got louder. Aleric shoved Imara away as the ceiling collapsed right on him. The Sealed Mind jumped into the room.
Alana grabbed a device from the pile of weapons that she had and jabbed it into the back of the Sealed Mind’s head. Immediately it fell to the ground as if she shut it off. She did the same thing to two others until she was pinned into a wall. A Sealed Mind reached for her data slab, restarted it and she fell unconscious.
Vihan pulled something out of his computer which held its data, shouting, “We have to go!” He bolted for the exit only to be blocked by two more Sealed Minds. Before they could turn him off he passed the computer data to Imara.
The room was full of chaos as the others were being dragged off by the Sealed Minds. Imara was pinned down by a Sealed Mind, trying to shove it off. She was holding the data, the only way to free the world from the WWMC. In a split second, I found myself running toward the Sealed Mind which was wrestling her to the ground and slamming it into the wall, giving Imara the chance to run for the exit with the data.The Sealed Mind grabbed something on my data slab causing me to fall into darkness.
