“WELCOME BACK TESHA,” a robotic female voice said.
A dim light shone outside the window of the colorless room. I pushed myself up from the cold shelf that I was lying on and winced at the pain that ran through my body.
What happened? Where am I? I thought. I tried to open my mouth to speak, but it was sealed shut.
“THIS IS THE URGENT WWMC REPAIR.” The voice responded.
So I am back in the city?
“YOU DO NOT SEEM AS GRATEFUL AS YOU SHOULD BE. WE SAVED YOU FROM THAT GROUP OF TRAITORS. BUT I ALSO MUST THANK YOU, YOU GAVE US ENOUGH INFORMATION SO THAT WE CAN POSSIBLY CAPTURE THE LOST.”
Do you mean Imara and the others? Where are they? I asked.
“WE CALL THEM THE LOST. PEOPLE WHO INTENTIONALLY SEPARATE THEMSELVES FROM THE WWMC.”
So where are they? I asked again.
“ONE IS DEAD, TWO WERE CAPTURED. THE OTHER TWO WERE NOT FOUND.”
Dead! Who?
“IS THAT PITY? HOW ODD. HAVE YOU COME TO LIKE THIS GROUP OF TRAITORS?”
I hesitated to answer.
“YOUR SILENCE SPEAKS. IT SEEMS THAT YOU ARE LESS LOYAL THAN WE BELIEVED. WE WILL DISCUSS THIS AT YOUR HOME. GET UP.” It demanded.
The walk home was strange and quiet. Especially quiet compared to the chaos of the outside world. The only sound that I heard was a faint ad playing in the background along with the messages being sent from my worried co-workers, but mainly, I heard the quiet humming of machines. My eyesight was blurred, and the directed path to my home was highlighted. I saw figures pass me, making the same robotic movements that I was. Their faces were blurred out, and their identification was labeled above their head. Though I have been in the WWMC my whole life, it seems so unfamiliar ever since I left it.
I looked around at the strange environment and peered behind me, seeing the faint image of a Sealed Mind following me.
“KEEP LOOKING AHEAD.” The voice instructed me.
You are following me. Why? Don’t you trust me? I asked.
I knew the answer. They would never trust me after I had experienced my thoughts, my own feelings. I am not the machine that they want to make me.
You are holding us captive in our own minds, you are stealing everything from us, and using our bodies for your own use. I will not let you turn me into a shell to the WWMC.
“WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS? YOU KNOW THAT WE ONLY MEAN TO BRING PEACE.”
If your sense of peace sacrifices our identity, I want nothing of it.
I reached for the Data Slab in the back of my head.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” The voice was raised in a threatening tone.
I am going to end this.
I felt the Data Slab, searching for anything that could shut the machine off. I felt an exposed wire, and the voice reacted. I took a deep breath, wound my fingers around the wire, and pulled, causing a pain to shoot through my skull. I gritted my teeth and pulled again, much harder, and this time the wire popped from the Data Slab.
I leaned on the door, exhausted. I held on to my throbbing head and smiled. I am free.
I turned around, and the Sealed Mind appeared in front of me and slammed me through the door. Shards of wood spread across the ground as the Sealed Mind grabbed the collar of my shirt and lifted me off the ground. I reached for my Data Slab. Before it could turn me off I reached down again and grabbed a shard of wood debris and stabbed it into the back of its head. Stunned, it dropped me. I bolted through the broken door.
Don’t look back, Tesha, I thought to myself, the real world is ahead of you.
