Chapter Twelve

Marc stayed hidden in his small, box-shaped apartment until the crush of cabin fever made him feel like his head would explode. On a random Wednesday, he applied a disguise, slipped into a comfortable pair of gym shoes and went on a very long walk across Manhattan. The chip-hacking device went into his pocket for protection. He wore a bulky ‘I ♥ NY’ sweatshirt and New York Yankees cap bought at a significant discount from the ailing tourist shop in his building. Oversized sunglasses concealed his eyes.

He proceeded west on East 23rd Street until he got to Broadway, and then he headed north through the heart of the Big Apple. In the beginning, he watched faces, paranoid about being discovered. He was a wanted man, accused of pushing a government agent off a balcony to his death.

The rollout of mandatory chipping was moving full steam ahead after a rapid approval in the House and Senate. As he walked the city streets, Marc observed several pop-up chip installation clinics with long lines of eager New Yorkers. Many of the anxious customers appeared to be economically challenged – unable to afford the chip when it was a luxury, thrilled to receive it free from the government, indifferent to or ignorant of the implications of allowing Washington access into their heads.

He wanted to warn these people about the irreversible nature of the chip and the inability to ‘turn it off’ or ‘unsubscribe’ once the feed was activated. Looking into their simple, hopeful faces, he felt tremendous guilt knowing he had helped create this monster.

Back at the beginning, he was proud. He was on the team that introduced a thrilling technological breakthrough that could help combat pain and depression while offering innocent entertainment pleasures inside the user’s imagination. Marc had built an enormously successful marketing campaign.

“I’m sorry,” he now wanted to tell the world.

Marc felt consumed with angst and anxiety, feelings that he previously suppressed with his own mood manipulation through the chip. He knew that if he still had the chip, he would inevitably give in to tapping a few commands on a controller and triggering instant relief.

The chip was addictive. It appealed to impulses, not rational thought. It was too easy, too convenient. The government had already promised free health clinics to rehabilitate people who became hooked on unproductive chipfeeds – like the popular Stoned and Chill Out offerings that held steady in the Top Ten.

When Marc was employed at Dynamica, the leadership team held numerous meetings to discuss how they would fight accusations that the chip was addictive in the same destructive manner as alcohol, cocaine, opiates and heroin. A massive public relations effort was activated to overwhelm the members of the medical community who made the case for psychological dependency even if the biological effects were minimal.

Marc’s role in protecting Dynamica simply felt like a job back then: now he felt like he had let down the human race.

As he headed toward Midtown, the numbers of homeless grew. One grizzled man in particular, sitting on a soiled blanket on the sidewalk and begging for change, grabbed Marc’s attention.

His cardboard sign said: Can’t Afford Painumb.

Painumb was a subscription-based chipfeed that fed signals to the brain to block sensations of physical pain.

As Marc stopped to stare at him for a moment, an older woman in a long dress strolled past hurriedly, exclaiming, “Don’t give him any money. It’s not for pain, he’ll spend it on Intox.”

Marc was taken aback by the unsympathetic tone of her voice.

Intox was a chipfeed selection that imitated the feelings of being drunk – or intoxicated.

The liquor industry hated it.

“No, it’s for the pain in my legs!” the homeless man tried to shout after her in a rough, hoarse voice, but she was already far enough away not to hear him.

Marc turned, facing away from the man.

“Hey, buddy…” the man mumbled from his blanket.

Marc pulled out his controller. He selected the nearest person to him and sent signals for Painumb, choosing the maximum time period.

“Ohhh,” said the homeless man, experiencing instant relief. “Oh God. How did that—?”

Marc resumed walking.

He reached Times Square, which had slowly slipped back into a seventies-era seediness, no longer a tourist, shopping or entertainment destination. The sidewalks were messy with gritty characters filling his path. They were chipping under coats and blankets; lurking in front of shuttered storefronts, begging for change; or loudly hawking stolen chipfeed codes or – with brazen descriptions – illegal chipfeed experiences in the extreme sex and violence categories.

Marc walked a zigzag around them, trying not to look into their eyes, but unable to escape the pungent smell. Up ahead, he saw another chip installation clinic with people lined up to have Big Brother inserted into their neck. However, an organized opposition had entered the scene – anti-chip protesters with signs, led by an angry young black woman with a bullhorn.

“Don’t surrender your soul!” she shouted. “Keep the government out! Say no to the chip!”

One of the signs read: We demand the right to choose. My body, my choice.

Another said: Take your chip and shove it!

Marc wanted to join them. He was thrilled to see an uprising against the government mandate. His immediate urge was to approach the woman with the megaphone and offer his services – and deep marketing experience – for the good fight.

But he knew he couldn’t. He had to stay on the sidelines, anonymous, or risk being discovered and captured and then God knows what.

He was an enemy of the state.

He had to stay away from gatherings such as this one. It was probably being watched at this very moment, and it was only a matter of time before the police arrived to break it up – and maybe break open a few heads in the process.

He could imagine the woman with the megaphone being clobbered unconscious and then waking up in a hospital with the chip installed at the base of her noggin.

After all, it was the law now.

An enormous, animated advertisement for Dynamica played in a loop on the Times Square Jumbotron overhead. Once a source of pride, the oversized promotion now embarrassed him. It was garish, tacky and obnoxiously bright, like a second sun. He averted his eyes from it.

Marc kept walking, a meandering path, going a few blocks in one direction, then a few blocks in another direction, and so on.

Even with people spending more time indoors indulging in chipfeeds, the New York sidewalks remained fairly busy with pedestrians, though perhaps at half the volume of five years ago.

It felt good to be immersed with flesh and blood human beings, but it also made Marc feel profoundly lonely.

He knew he couldn’t – shouldn’t – engage with anyone. He had cut ties with all of his friends and even his family.

He had texted his parents in Oregon to tell them not to worry about him but he would be ‘dropping out of society’ for a while. He disconnected his phone service before they had a chance to reply. He shut down all of his social media accounts. He erased his online presence the best he could.

He needed to steer clear of human interaction.

It made him sad, but then a fortuitous opportunity showed up in his path.

The sign read: VOLUNTEERS NEEDED! The lettering was big and desperate.

Marc stopped to stare into the doorway of a pet rescue center. He could hear an assortment of dogs barking inside.

“I can do this,” he said quietly to himself. “It’s just animals.”

He felt better almost immediately – and it didn’t require streaming Happy from a transmission tower.

* * *

Marc met with Kathryn Sedak, the manager of the pet shelter, and liked her right away. He gave her a fake name and job history, and she was so anxious to enroll his help that she barely paid any attention to his credentials as she filled out a simple paper form.

“We are in crisis mode,” she told him in the back office, her voice permanently loud from always yelling above the cacophony of barking dogs. “This chip phenomena has basically been a disaster for pets. People feel they can get the stimulus, the same emotional fulfillment they would get from owning a pet from some signal sent to their brain cells. There are even some feeds out there that are like Dog Play or Dog Walk – how great, you can play with an imaginary dog or cat and not have to feed or clean up after them. This means real pets get screwed. People are so caught up in their own heads these days – they don’t want to bother with an actual living pet. There’s been a huge surge in abandoned dogs and cats. They abandon them on the streets of the city, for God’s sake. I’m sorry. You might love the chip. I don’t mean to rant. But it’s been horrible for these animals – they’re victims of this technology. Hey, I get the attraction. I have the chip. But I use it sparingly, you know? I don’t get all consumed in it. Sorry, I’m doing all the talking. Let’s just fill out this form so we can get you started. Question one, I’m sorry I gotta ask this, it’s the law now – you’re chipped, right?”

Marc nodded. “Of course. I mean – I’m like you. I don’t use it a lot. Sometimes if I have a headache or trouble sleeping….”

“Good,” Kathryn said quickly, and she checked a box on her sheet. “Technically, we can’t hire unchipped workers. The government is supposed to be providing a list at some point, I don’t know when that’s gonna come. Maybe a couple of months. They’re developing a database.”

“I see,” Marc said, rather than the two words in his head: Oh shit.

“Bob, we’re excited to have you join us,” said Kathryn, and it took Marc a moment to respond because he had already forgotten the fake name he had hastily given her at the start of the conversation: Bob Nielsen.

“I’m glad to be here. I’m happy to do whatever I can to help.”

Marc looked past Kathryn to the wall behind her, which was covered in photographs of cute, sad-eyed dogs and cats with their names written beneath in marker. His eyes started to tear up because he felt partly responsible for the abandoned pet crisis, yet another tragic outcome of Dynamica’s enormous success.

The photographs were assembled under three category headings: ADOPTED, PRESENT, LOST.

“Lost…?” Marc said.

“Euthanized,” Kathryn said. “I have to be honest with you. We used to be one hundred percent kill-free. But the numbers are out of control. At a certain point, if we can’t place an animal, they’re put to sleep.”

Marc covered his eyes with his hand. He felt nauseous.

“I know,” said Kathryn. “It’s horrible. Sometimes I go home and cry. I could turn off the crying and the sadness with the chip, I suppose. But I feel like that wouldn’t be fair to the departed. They deserve a good cry.”

Marc started working at the pet rescue center the next day.

The strays spent most of their time in numbered cages with water bowls and disintegrating toys. The cats were quiet but the dogs regularly barked, yipped and howled. Every time Marc stepped into their general vicinity, the noise volume elevated. The dogs wagged their tails, eager for short walks or play periods. When he wasn’t interacting with the animals, Marc was cleaning the kennels, taking photos and writing bios for the adoption website, and assisting visitors with adoption counseling. Fortunately, big-hearted people came in every day to open up their homes to abandoned pets. Unfortunately, the number of animals coming in overwhelmed the numbers going out. Some of the latest arrivals had been badly neglected, or even abused, requiring extra time to regain their trust in humans.

Marc worked alongside another volunteer, a portly, pouty teenage girl named Regan, who clearly did not want to be there. She wrinkled her nose at the animals, complained about their smell and called them names like ‘shithead’ and ‘spaz’. She made her involuntary volunteering clear: “My parents forced me to be here. They’re stodgy old farts who think I spend too much time chipping. This is their way of making me deal with the real world.” She bragged about how she had turned her bedroom closet into a pod space. “There’s nothing I like better than to go in there, shut the door, shut out the real world and go on a trip. Because this planet Earth, maybe it used to be something back in the day, but right now, it ain’t worth living.”

“If it’s such a mess, you could do something about it,” Marc told her. “Be an activist. Don’t just sit in your closet.”

“Like I’m going to be able to fix this screwed-up planet? Yeah, right. The older generations had all the fun and left the rest of us a big mess – a shitty economy, climate change, corruption everywhere…. I’m not dealing with somebody else’s shit.”

Her efforts to help around the pet shelter were half-hearted, slow and draggy with the disdain of unwanted obligation. She did not cope well with animals that were extra anxious or frisky.

“Too bad we can’t just chip ’em, you know?” she told Marc. “They start getting all crazy and noisy, we could send them ‘shut the hell up’ signals.”

Marc often wanted to send Regan shut the hell up signals and he was empowered to do so – but restrained himself from wielding his hacking abilities, until one day he couldn’t hold back any further.

During an extra busy day, while Kathryn was out in the van picking up more lost pets, Marc discovered Regan slumped in a corner of the office, eye mask covering the top half of her face. She was gripping her pink, decorated handheld device, zoned out in a chipfeed experience.

She had a relaxed expression and gentle smile.

Meanwhile, the dogs needed socialization and time away from their cages. They were growing noisy as their inner clocks sensed the time for play.

“You lousy bitch,” Marc grumbled. He pulled out his hacking device, selected her chip and found something to give her a harsh jolt – a popular chipfeed signal called ‘Roller-coaster Thrills’.

Marc jammed her feed with the new signal.

Regan bolted out of her relaxed position, tearing off her eye cover. She stumbled around for a moment, exclaiming, “What the hell!”

“Is something wrong?” Marc asked innocently, pocketing his device.

“Jesus,” she said, breathing hard. “I was all chill and then all of a sudden it’s like I’m plunging straight down on a roller-coaster – like I got somebody else’s feed.”

“Yeah, I heard they’ve been having problems with the transmission tower in this part of town. Signals get crossed.”

“What the hell?” said Regan, pacing angrily. “Who can we sue about that? I just about had a heart attack.”

“It’s time to walk the dogs. They need us.”

“Yeah, yeah, all right,” Regan grumbled.

Marc soon lost himself in playtime with the dogs, and even Regan appeared to be enjoying herself. In the absence of human companionship – outside of working with Kathryn and Regan – Marc was becoming close with several of the dogs, frequently talking to them and sharing his feelings, as if in therapy. The dogs listened, nonjudgmental.

Marc’s close circle of friends included Mack, a black lab; Tessa, a golden retriever; Winnie, a French bulldog; and Carl, a Rottweiler. He didn’t need artificial triggers sent to his brain to give him comfort – these dogs were doing just fine.

While Regan joined Marc in playing with the dogs, she couldn’t remove herself entirely from outside distractions. She turned on an old flat-screen television monitor installed on the wall.

A news network popped on. Regan declared her intentions to change the channel to something more entertaining, but Marc shouted at her to leave it on.

His tone was a bit more aggressive than necessary, but it did the trick and she put down the remote. “Jesus,” she muttered.

Congressman Dale Sheridan was being interviewed. Sheridan was a major opponent of the government’s chip initiative. Marc wanted to hear what Sheridan had to say. He stroked the head of Floyd, a springer spaniel, and locked his attention on the broadcast.

“The administration cannot be trusted to do the right thing with this technology,” said Sheridan. “It will become a means to spy on the American people. It is an intrusion on our freedoms, an unparalleled invasion of privacy. Big Brother just got a whole lot bigger. Well, we need to keep an eye on Big Brother.”

“I hate this guy,” Regan said. “It’s the same asshole who wanted to make pot illegal again.”

Marc shushed her loudly. “I’m listening to this.”

“The government lures people in by offering free surgery and a free ‘basic pleasures’ kit,” Sheridan said. “Nothing is free. You will pay for it through higher taxes – and you won’t mind paying higher taxes because the government will send signals to your head that paying more taxes is a good thing!”

“What a paranoid,” said Regan. “I bet he believes in space aliens too.”

“No,” Marc said, “he’s right. You can’t underestimate the power of this chip.” Then he had to bite his tongue to stop from continuing with: “I should know, I worked for Dynamica for ten years.”

Instead, Marc turned his attention to Floyd, who watched the television with him, pink tongue hanging out, seated on his back legs.

Marc was jealous of Floyd’s obliviousness over the chip epidemic. Floyd didn’t demand fancy technologies to keep him happy. All he needed was someone to pat his head, toss a rubber ball and give him a space to run around in.

People had lost the art of simple pleasures, thought Marc. It was something animals could still teach to society.

* * *

Brandyn Handley sat in total darkness on a hard chair, the fog gradually lifting from his head.

He didn’t know where he was.

He didn’t know how he got here.

He didn’t know who he was dealing with.

“Don’t stand up,” instructed an unseen voice. “Stay seated.”

Brandyn stared through his glasses into the pitch black, hoping to see something, anything, that could ground him. He felt like he was floating.

“What’s going on?” he asked. The acoustics in the room sounded closed, confined.

“You have been brought here for questioning.”

“What is…here?”

The question hung in the air, unanswered.

Brandyn tried to recall his last memory. He had been in his office, simply working, alone, late afternoon….

Then something filled his head, quickly, like a mental drowning. His senses faded and his head dropped onto his desk.

“How long have I been unconscious?” he asked when he came round.

Again, no answer.

So he gave it some thought and offered his own conclusions.

“You did something to me…through the chip. Right? You knocked me out.”

“I can assure you, you have not been harmed,” came the reply.

Brandyn tried to identify the steady male voice. He couldn’t. It was dry, articulate and unemotional.

“Are you going to tell me who you are?”

“Our individual identities? No. Those cannot be disclosed for security reasons. However, you should know our collective cause and who we represent. You are familiar with the U.S. Department of Citizen Affairs?”

“Of course,” Brandyn said. “We have a partnership. I’m with Dynamica, I’m part of the partnership.”

“We know who you are.”

“We’re allies.”

“That’s right,” said the voice. “And we are here to protect that alliance. You are speaking with the Office of Conflict Resolution.”

“The Office of…?”

“Conflict Resolution. We are a unit of the Department of Citizen Affairs. We make sure everything runs smoothly. We’re dedicated to special cases that require elevated attention, where there’s a viable threat to national compliance. We investigate anti-government forces that are potentially harmful to America’s future. We take it as seriously as terrorism. Mr. Handley, are you familiar with anyone who might play a role in such a rebellion?”

“A rebellion?”

“An organized threat to the implementation of the chip program.”

“No. I mean, isn’t it obvious…? I’m on your side.”

“How well do you know Marc Tefteller?”

Brandyn felt a shudder run up his spine. He had feared the conversation was leading to this. He had already been on the receiving end of numerous questions about his former colleague, who abruptly quit Dynamica following the announcement of the government partnership.

“Marc and I worked together for many years,” he said carefully.

“He left the company rather quickly, didn’t he? Were you surprised?”

“Yes. Yes, I was.”

“Did he discuss his reasons for leaving with you?”

“No. It was quick. It caught all of us off-guard.”

“Have you seen him since he left the company?”

Brandyn swallowed and offered up his most casual tone. “No. No, not at all.”

“Are you aware that he broke a contract agreement?”

“I heard…something to that effect.”

“Are you aware he stole company property?”

At that moment, Brandyn was grateful the chip in his head only accepted signals in and did not send them out to reveal his current mindset: panic.

He confined the panic to his brain and maintained a calm exterior.

“He stole something?”

“A prototype for law enforcement authorities. A device that can transmit signals to a third party. Surely you’re familiar…?”

“Yes, of course. I didn’t know one was missing. Are you sure it was him?”

“Yes. He has used it as a weapon.”

“Really?”

“Mr. Handley, we have placed Marc Tefteller on the Red Alert list. He is wanted for questioning. He is accused of treason.”

“Oh my God.”

“Anything you could do to support our efforts to find him would be greatly appreciated. On the flip side, if you are protecting him and not divulging information that would be useful to our investigation, your lack of cooperation would result in your arrest and prosecution.”

“I understand. I don’t know where he is. I don’t know what his intentions are.”

“Did he ever talk with you about joining a resistance movement?”

“No. Never.”

“Where did you last see him?”

“In the office. Just an ordinary day at the office.”

“What was the last thing he said to you?”

Brandyn shut his eyes. “I don’t know. I don’t remember. Nothing that would be useful to you….”

“Mr. Handley, you have a wife and two children, correct?”

Brandyn opened his eyes and stared forward into the pitch black. “Yes. Why?”

“You understand the seriousness of treason?”

“Yes. Of course.”

“And you understand the penalty for lying would be quite severe?”

Brandyn stated firmly, “I’m not lying.” His heart pounded in his chest.

“Good. I hope not. For your sake and the sake of your family.”