Povesti scurte si idei

[CyBeR]

Asa, corectat textele precedente. Urmatoarea lucrare am vrut mereu sa o extind intr-o poveste mai mare, mai detaliata (aveam o limita de cuvinte cand a fost scris, de asta pare un pic ciopartita....fiindca asa a si fost), dar niciodata nu m-a ocupat serios de ea. Oricum, cred ca se descurca bine si ea singura la o adica.

Comentarii, pareri si opinii, mereu apreciate.

Lucrarea 3:
Gen: SF
Limba: Enlgeza
Restrictii de varsta: 16 ani, contine injuraturi si imagini violente
Perioada scrierii: februarie 2010

Clockwork

“Pick up the slack, you lazy drone! Or you can fry out there until you’re done with the whole lot…or well done! HAW!”
Old man Giuseppe. Never a dull moment with that madman howling in my headset. I despise him, completely loath that decrepit monster. Ancient pile of lard festering in that control cell, safe from this damn heat, snug under the air conditioning units. Animal that wobbles like a man, minuscule brain with a roach’s intellect Fucking animal…oh!
This is good, this I should keep. Doesn’t seem to want to come out of the socket though. Fucking elastomer, what in the name of Peecar made them think using this was ever a good idea?!
Ah! Came off. Finally. No fancy rubber resists a good, well placed cut with the ultrasonics tool. Who cares that it’s supposed to be used for welding or killing bacteria? Does the job; much cheaper than lasers too.
Beautiful arm, really. All the joints well put together, the synthetic skin and muscles still looking healthy, fingers appear in working condition after a few electroshocks. A healthy price bringer if I ever saw one.
Like I’ll ever get a dime extra from that tub of lard animal. ‘Ye get what the job pays ye to get’, and all that industrialist crap he’s always drudging on about.
For the company’s best interest?!
Bah!
For the industry’s best interest?!
Bah again!
For your fellow man?!
My fellow animal shouldn’t have expanded its shit field out of Clockwork City. My fellow animal that comes to me for its recycling needs. ME! That part of this great machine that has to go out into the searing heat, climb mountains of junk and dispossessed androids and find those precious little bits of technology that these idiots should never had thrown away.

“Stop admiring that piece of junk and get on with it!”
I wish so much I could see him sweltering and decomposing out here, all 200 kilos of him. Bald bastard, motherless piece of trash excreted, like this insufferable field of debris, by the mighty Clockwork.
City of our dreams, city of our hope…I hope to one day see you burn, Clockwork!
What did they promise all those decades ago? Science for the sake of science? Freedom for all? Good health for all? Life as was never lived before?
Please let me see the day when you burn, Clockwork! Weren’t you supposed to be greater than anything dreamt, and dreaded by the minds of Ford and Huxley, Orwell and Zamyatin? Where’s your greatness you pile of waste? When have you proven them wrong, oh pile-of-trash of my birth?
HA? Where’re your shiny promises and your ‘advanced technology’? Where’s my ‘good health’ when this cancer’s eating my skin away?
Androids and shuttles?! Those are the life changers?!
Keep them! Really, keep them all the Hell inside, not on this infinite field of obsolete machinery. Keep them away from my rusted, burning, scaring Hell! So I won’t have to walk out in this desert of twisted metal and boiling puddles of tar and rubber each single day, searching for damnation knows what out here.
“Pheeew”…that piece flew far. Don’t know my own strength these days.

“Listen here bum! If your heart rate starts going all over the place like that again, I’ll have the Morals cerebral scanners on you and see what’s ticking inside there.”
“Yes sir. I’ll behave.”
Bastard’s grinning out there, in that cell of his. I bet he just can’t wait for those wind-up toys to come and take a look at me. Probably get a nice bonus for sending another innocent man to the brain cleaners. No sir, you shouldn’t think bad thoughts of Clockwork. You need to remember the slogans from Morals. They don’t spend years hammering them in just for you to forget them.
‘Clockwork provides, Clockwork is mother, Clockwork is father. Clockwork bleeds for every son and daughter.’
Clockwork replaces your shinning personality if you get too far up theirs.
Nice hand on this one too. With a ceremonious middle finger raised at me even. Little bastard knew it was going to get recycled sooner or later.
Light’s almost gone and that blasted whistle’s taking its sweet…oh, it sounds. Giuseppe’s doesn’t howl at me; and he’s probably slummocking his sludge since half an hour before the end of shift. Bastard. Animal. Tub of lard.

I drag myself through the air lock just in time before it goes into night time lockdown. The hover cart follows me closely, docking with the first free unloading unit. Same procedures, day in and day out. It feels routine even when I catalogue the day’s haul.
Five arms in perfect condition, three hands, seven types of organs sealed in aseptic jars, a fuel cell that doesn’t leak – I can’t help but wonder how many seekers got melted when stepping into a corrosive puddle after one of these -, one skull neatly cleaned, bla bla blaaa…routine.
The mantle stays behind in the locker. My hard cocoon, ready for me tomorrow as well, still as filled with slime, and hardened with sand and sweat…it’s my cocoon from which I hatch every night; it’s my lovely cocoon in which I’ll be found hard boiled one day. Thank you Clockwork, for providing me the means to survive in the heat…you truly are kind to me every single day. I just wish you would provide me with a clean cloak once in a blue moon.
Night time air does a body good. Polluted, crowded, still hot but at least it’s free of sand and the smell of wreckage. Life and machines roar in the city, they walk upright as it should be. No whimpering and crawling like in Hell. It feels good to feel connected again.
Some skinny android walks by and knocks me aside, smiling a silicone smile between perfect pseudoskin lips designed to keep masses satisfied for nights on end. I imagine myself with her, with the hot false body against mine, slave to my every whim.
A junkie cuts open his wrists crouched between two buildings, just as I walk by. His…uh, her…girlfriend sucks on them with an expression of drug induced bliss. I hurry by. Staring in Clockwork city can easily free up your job position.
Some human pups throw another in front of a speeding tram. There’s little left afterwards and they laugh their guts out, foaming at the mouth. Others pick up the remains and hide them before the cleaning drones get dispatched. Some will eat better than others tonight.
Feels good to feel connected again and be reminded my fellow animal is a piece of crap; a semisentient, evolved, cannibalistic roach. And Clockwork is a warm, embracing nest for them all, towering over its petty ‘sons and daughters’ and their petty lives. Makes you wanna grate your teeth.

The world goes white for a moment in a blinding flash of light. The sound drains away as image returns, blurry, nauseating. For what seem like minutes, there’s just static shrilling…and then the explosion. It thunders above, raining fine shards of glass all around, impaling screaming bystanders.
I vomit, clenching helplessly at my gut. Sharp pain surges through me as the rain of shards hits the pavement again, and me, too slow to react. I’m half hidden beneath a canopy before I realize what’s happening.
Someone grabs at my arm, pulling me away, out of safety. I stare into the horrified face and realization hits me full force: it wants my safe spot. NO!
“GO AWAY!” I scream at the top of my lungs, pushing him away with all my strength, vomiting again in effort, stumbling forward like drunk. Everything’s wrong. Muffled screams echo somewhere in my skull but the nausea is too great to pay them attention.
Something’s wrong in me! I try and amble back to where I was hidden, inside one untouched building. Nothing makes sense. My attacker’s gone. I can’t concentrate enough to see what’s happening.
Something’s wrong, wrong, wrong! Shouldn’t feel like this, shouldn’t feel sick in Clockwork…Clockwork works for us, bleeds for us. Clockwork is impenetrable, unshakable, great and glorious.
“CLOCKWORK! Peecar save me!”
I must’ve screamed. I think I’ve screamed. I remember screaming something. Can’t remember what, though. The sense of vertigo envelops me and the world fades out again, along with its noises.

I wake up to the sound of electric sparks showering somewhere. Woke up but can’t move yet, feeling paralyzed on the cold pavement. Something throbs in my head and it feels as if it may just burst open any moment. The electric shocking slowly dies out…wherever it may have been.
Getting up has never been the adventure it is now. I can’t focus yet, but the pressure in my skull slowly fades away. And something feels different, strange. Images aren’t clear yet, hearing even less…but I can make out something I never noticed before.
The street’s clean. There’s devastation everywhere and robots fallen over and hover cars…but underneath it all, it’s clean. I amble slowly away as my vision returns fully. A few corpses, and a few people getting up, looking as disoriented as I think I do…but, damn me, it’s all different; no more slums, no improvised little dirty cottages at these outskirts, no mangled animals that would cherish the opportunity of the carnage.
It can’t be Clockwork. It’s too wrong to be Clockwork. But the gate’s still behind me…polished, like I’ve never seen it before; there’s even a maintenance android inactive on a ladder, contorted gruesomely. Was it an EMP blast?
I sit down and survey it all. People wake up, some of them with familiar faces, looking wide eyed around. Something’s wrong for them too, but who knows what?

It hits me like a kick in the groin and for a moment I’m sure I’ve lost my mind.
Blast me, it can’t be true. HOW CAN I NOT HATE THEM WITH PASSION ANYMORE?!
“Peecar forgive…” I mutter under my breath and look up for the first time since I’ve come to. It’s as wrong as everything else, different. No more twisted shapes, rising apologetically towards the sky as if they never meant to be there. No more grime and wear.
There are however giant glass and metal towers, glistening in the night lights. There’s some damage about halfway up, the superstructure of some having bent under the heat of the blast I think. I can make up silhouettes somewhere on the upper floors, stuck to the cracked glass up there, peering down. And I can’t think of any reason to hate them…I can’t. Not like before.
Something moves up there. I squint to make up the shapes as they seem to descend lower and lower towards us.

And my heart stops for a moment…

Silvery oval shapes descend at nightmarish high speed. I get up and run as fast as my feet can carry me, through narrow alleyways, so different from how I knew them. Not even a trashcan to hide in, no shrouded corners, and no foreboding metal doors that lead to who knows where…just slick wall, featureless, white even in dim light.
When the Cerebral Scanners come, it’s always bad news. I don’t want to disappear or end up with a new personality in my skull. I’d rather die outside, in the searing heat, than have my brain melted like that.
I duck inside a nearby store as one of the machines stops at the end of my alley, unpacking its two metallic arms and activating the sensors it needs. It’s a kind of humming you hear from far off…but it’s much less a warning and more the certainty of doom.
There’s less devastation around here; the owner looks at me curious, asking about what’s going on outside. I couldn’t tell him, I just get as far in the back of the store as I can, my heart nearly exploding in me. The infernal machine is outside, patiently scanning the inside. In the likeness of guilty men throughout history…I try and pretend to read something. The feeling of guilt over something is overpowering…and again, I can’t understand it.
The Scanner shakes and whirls past the window in a haze of silver light. I can hear a scream and I see it flying past again, gaining altitude whilst holding someone by the head. Poor bastard’s kicking and screaming…fat load of good that’s gonna do him. Three more pass by. One drops its captive; it returns pathetically and picks up the body.
“How much for the magazine?” I ask before heading out, the danger seemingly passed. I don’t even know what I’m holding.
“What do you mean how much?” I don’t know if the question amazes me more or his sincere expression.
“How much does it cost?” I try.
“It doesn’t cost a thing. I just need your ID tag to validate the acquirement.”
“What’s the point of you being here if nothing costs anything?” His expression of utter stupidity, and clear curiosity at my cuts and bruising, coupled with my shaken nerves, make my voice much higher than it should be.
“You bumped your head somewhere, haven’t you? In the accident, maybe?” His tone gets condescending as I hand over my identity card. “The announcement’s been running non-stop for days. Stores are just open until the synthesis stations are ready, city wide. Credits… are a thing of the past.”
The paper dollars in my battered coat seem heavy right now. Credits? Where the Hell am I?

There it is again. Still hovering at street level, another Scanner is moving about, switching positions every now and again, getting closer to people passing. Nobody pays it any mind though, walking idly away as if it weren’t there. I can’t go back inside or it may just become curious and slate me as erratic...and the other end of the street doubles back to the gate.
Oh no. No no no no! It comes my way now, antennae bent forward and the long metallic arms deployed on its sides.
I’ve never seen one close for long and I don’t plan on doing so now. I walk towards it and steel myself, trying to not show my trembling as I get closer, trying to pass it as calm as possible. The humming’s so loud now…
Walk. Just walk on by, as if nothing’s wrong. Just walk by, ignore the humming, ignore the sense of danger. Walk by as if it’s simply the end of the work shift and everything’s as it should be; Clockwork full of vermin, death and drugs in the streets, animals and mutants hiding in the alleyways, just drooling for a piece of you when you’re not careful. Act as if you’re where you should be, not in this aseptic tower of steel and glass.
Ignore the humming. Ignore the humming. Ignore the antennae. Ignore the silvery reflections. Ignore the green optical sensors and the three-clawed mechanical arm.
Ignore IT!
“Citizen”, distorted, metallic, the voice rises over the humming; my confidence collapses and I make a run for it before it speaks another word. Two women get knocked down as I try and elbow my way on the narrow sidewalk. The magazine drops far behind me and I don’t even know what was in it. I just try and run.
The bastard’s in front of me again, bearing down like an avalanche of debris outside, in Hell.
“Citizen, remain still for complete neural scan.” There it is again, the metallic voice with no inflexions. Some people look up at it amazed, then at me…as if it’s the first fucking time these toys attacked a simple man on the street. My body won’t move. There’s heat around me, as if it weren’t even nighttime…
…
Damn it all!
What was I THINKING?! City remains behind me, beneath me and my head afeels as if it’s about to get popped like a nut. Attacking a Morals Scanner? With bare hands?! Why didn’t those bastards do something? Run…help me…stop me…
Just watched as if I was entertainment, getting slapped around the street. ‘In accordance with Anti-Violence Regulation 132, you are hereby placed under arrest!’…damn hunk of junk, didn’t even flinch when it grabbed me.
…
I grab with my hands at the metal arm, pulling myself up a bit. Ahhh…my neck hurts less. I guess adding comfort for prisoner transportation was never in their plans. City’s a sea of lights beneath, jeweled now…almost peaceful. The Scanner ain’t flying too high; there should be screams in the night. Clockwork always screams at night.
But there’s just serenity. Traffic’s peaceful, people walk on the sidewalks, and they’re even walking pets…haven’t seen a pet in years.
I give. I’m feeling wrong, the city feels wrong, the Scanner feels wrong too. Maybe they’ll just execute me on the spot and all this can be over. If things were different…I’d probably be disgusted at how I’m looking right now, bloody and dirty. I’ve seen worse…it was just never me.

We land on the main tower of the Morals building, at the outskirt of Clockwork. If it were daytime, I could probably see the road leading out through Hell. I was never assigned there…seems like a waste now not to have seen it.
The air feels fresh up here, enough to get me coughing. It’s short lived as the machine grabs the back of my neck in its vice grip, pushing me into one of the aligned elevators on the roof. It’s glass and feels like it’ll break any moment but, to my relief, it holds as we’re descending somewhere down to the 40th floor.
“Can I get some water?” I ask and crack a smile, trying to turn my head. It stays as immobile as before, the low humming of the engines resonating in the glass cabin. Hoped it had a bit of personality…dumb hope.
The hall looks sanitized. White, with gentle lighting –I remember recuperating a whole cartload of neon lights, months back-, there’s no one around. It ushers me towards one of the white rooms on the side. For a moment I entertain the thought of becoming limp and get dragged…but that’s just stupid.
Wow! Never seen such a clean shower room before, not even way back in school where they used…rather not remember. A couple of other machines undress me and wash me, forcefully.
I’m not stupid. I know they’d break my arms or legs if I’d try to escape. Their grip is iron cast. The water’s nice though…and the smell of shampoo. Hadn’t had anything as good as this…ever –strange enough, never had lice either-.

The world’s become a daze. I drift in and out of consciousness, waking up with wires attached to me at one time, with my head shaved at another, a bandage on my arm again. I’ve lost all track of time.
And I drift out again.

“Ah, you’re finally coming to. Jolly good, jolly good…we can get the paperwork done.”
Light’s blinding in the room. Oddly enough, I reach out in search for my work goggles. Weirder still, I find them. And there’s a small, chubby man in a chair, behind a blue desk with a paper thin screen in front of him. His voice is too thin for that girth…reminds me of Giuseppe. Wonder if he’s realized he’s screaming in a set of empty headphones…which are apparently on my head.
“You’re in full equipment to get back to work. Just need to reactivate the chip and you’re good to go.”
I mutter a question, still under the influence of drugs I think.
“Where am I? When?”
He gets up and walks around the desk to my chair. Seems to be studying me.
“Ok, I think you’re good to go. Don’t look so concerned, this isn’t the point where we send you to brain washing or anything. We don’t do something as terrible as that here, in Clockwork.”
He smiles. Talks like Clockwork’s such a great place to live in.
“What’s happened?” another question I don’t think I’ll get answered. Surprisingly, I’m wrong.
“You’re in the Department of Morals, subsection Personality and Abilities Repair. There’s been a terrible accident a few days ago, concerning some electromagnetic technology. Clockwork had to do for a few days without quite a number of its wonderful maintenance machines and qualified staff.” He’s leaning on the desk, having taken out a cloth to clean his glasses.
“I’m not qualified staff. Just a sad sap doomed to work the fields outside forever.”
“Oh, but you are so wrong dear boy. You are a certified, qualified, Recovery Agent. Your data file says so right there, on my screen. Of course, no sane man would work out there of his own accord…we’ve taken liberties. The pulse fried your reality synthesizer chip.
We’ve had to take it out and implant a new one. You’ll be back to your familiar, hateful little place in no time. When your brain understands what’s happening, the chip can finally get to work.”
I try to jump at him and yell that’s so much crap. But somehow, it’s more compelling to listen and accept. Must be the drugs. The bastards drugged me to erase my personality…it’s so clear it hurts.
“Now now, stay calm, please. I know you think it inhumane and horrid…but let’s be honest here. You’re living a rather good life, you have natural sociopathic tendencies, you work badly with others and have some rather paranoid views about those around you. The chip simply takes all these things in you and molds for you a perfect fake world in which you feel comfortable. And it lets you do your job admirably, since it is the perfect job for one such as you.
Everyone’s happy in Clockwork. In everyone’s unique way.” He finishes and extends his arms, encompassing the imaginary crowd in the room.
“In a few hours I won’t realize anything ever happened. I’ll be content to hate Clockwork and not question reality as I keep to myself and my books at home. I guess this thing amplifies what I already feel. Right?”
He smiles and it makes me feel uneasy.
“In a few moments actually. You’ve understood what happens, so now your mind’s ready to be tricked. Confusion interferes with the synthesizer’s work. Good luck out there…our forefathers threw away some real treasure.”

I feel sick for a moment as the world fades out.
…and reality fades back in.’

Archive 0293470 of Morals Department
Extracted and converted to coherent information off RSC Serial No. 4283968255
Indexed for future reference.