Digital Living His entire life ran by a computer
Digital Living
His entire life ran by a computer, chords invading his brain, impeding information directly into the yellowish sponge and then squeezing it back out to be replaced by more.
Everything was bland, bare and covered in grime. Millions… billions of others ruled by computers, an entire life washed over there brains and then retrieved only to be replaced by another. It seemed in his control.
It seems so… real.
His eyes adjust to the slit of light dazzling through the metal blind that is ‘conveniently’ shining across his eyes. His mind slowly returns to what IS real. Clearing his throat and running his fingers through his long greasy hair he stumbles from the warm, inviting sheets into the hallway. Still feeling half- asleep his vision suddenly freezes, eerily still feeling the sensations of walking, the floor beneath him, the movement of foot in front of foot and yet he could not see any of that, only chipped and cracked plaster. An abrupt thud ends his confusions as his vision returns. He is now on the floor, probably as the result of walking into a wall, explained by the small forehead sized dent that is now a part of the wall.
Feeling disorientated and shaken, he opens his mouth to call his mum, stopping himself as he remembers the fact that she is at work. Climbing to his feet he walks the last few metres to the kitchen table, pulling out one of the chairs that his grandfather made, they were not very comfortable but they did what they were supposed to do.
Realising school is in 20 minutes he swiftly leaves his spot on the table and opens the pantry door, grabbing out a nearly empty box of weet-bix. He unfolds the box and peers down to the remaining weet-bix
“huh, only 4” he mutters as he takes 2, reaching for the fridge handle he notices the pantry door snap shut, then snap back open, intrigued yet intimidated he approaches the door, it suddenly repeats the same movements this time a little faster. He backs away from the door. Keeping both eyes on it as he sits back down. The door flaps again, this time it repeats straight away. Now knowing that this isn’t an illusion he lunges for the two weet-bix but only manages to grasp one, and bolts out of the front of the small house.
Finding safety upon streets, he begins to nibble at his singular now noticeably stale weet-bic as he gradually makes his way to his school.
Whilst savouring the last bite of his breakfast he notices a man walking, but something seemed off, it didn’t make sense. This man was moving forward but his legs were stuck in one position. Disturbed, he stops walking and stares at the man gliding down the street.
The man passes a lady, not noticing that a mans legs were not moving she strolled right passed him.
Now petrified and weak he continues on his way to school, not turning his head nor looking at anyone who he passes. Now arriving at the street on which his school stands a crackling sound starts engulfing his ears, his vision turns to static and he loses all feeling of his body, all feelings of life. The crackling continues to get louder until almost unbearable, then it stops, beeps replace the crackle and his vision flashes to black, coding starts to be typed in sync with the beeps, like Morse code.
‘ERROR//ERROR;;#455//..:()//PATIENT;;#66751//PROJECT;;EBONEY..//SYSTEM;;SHUTDOWN’
‘110100111110100110111011101100011011100101’
The beeps stop along with the codes. The silence is stopped by a long beep and the codes vanish. A soothing yet strange metallic voice echoes over the beep.
“Error number 455, code 110100111110100110111011101100011011100101.”
A logo fades into the middle of his vision along with a little jingle.
‘Eboney’
The logo disappears and the black fades away. What he sees is finally through his own eyes but still blurred. The sensations of a body return to him; he is sitting.
Disorientated and scared he tries to stand up but his head is yanked back onto the head rest, a searing pain pulses through his head. He raises his hands to his head and feels multiple cold ropes, chords protruding from each side his head, panicking he thrashes his head, the only result of this is more pain. He stops and rests his head back onto the hard chair. He feels tears leaving an icy trail down his face. He touches the chords again this time following them away from his head, he quickly hits a wall and starts to feel around looking for something that might help him, he finds a panel of buttons, not knowing which one will help he runs his hand over all of them. The chords loosen, he tugs on one, it slides out from his skull. He grasps the rest of them and slowly pulls them away from his brain. As the last parasite like chord detached itself from his brain his vision cleared, he was in a tiny room, everything was layered in dust and grime.
“Welcome back to the real world leader Houston, you have spent the last 1360 years in an induced neural coma. You were woken by a malfunction in your computer processor resulting in a complete shutdown of your system. As a result your memory has been severely affected. If medical assistance is needed just ask.”
The voice crackles out and a doorway appears in front of Houston, he slowly stands up and stumbles out into a control room, immediately recognising it from the ‘dream’ he had.
He runs to the glass panels and looks down, he sees people stacked upon each other all connected by chords to a computer, he could see the chords pulsing, pumping information into the brain.
An unnerving feeling hit leader Houston
“Did I do this!” he yelled.
The voice crackles back into life.
“You are leader James Houston, you created project Eboney, and made the E-22 a highly advanced computer that puts information directly into the brain allowing people to live without thinking. The downside is, every decision that a person makes whilst living their ‘life is pumped into their brains. Ultimately meaning they don’t have any control over what they do.”
“You didn’t answer, I said did I do this!”
The voice stutters, and then says in a sharp, cold voice,
“Yes.”
