Mechanics peep. Red measured words on the X-display screen – “Your account is empty. Please replenish your balance”. Damn ! The end …
Slowly unhooked from a body sensors and controls, the nejro-pulse helmet, removed from his head. That’s all. Game over …
A lonely thought, spinning in the head : “eat”. So … where is a food here ? He has turned his head around. Oh, here … just near the terminal. A needle, inserted into a vein … very soon nutritious liquor will be soaked up and carried by blood through the organism – it should suffice for some days. Should suffice … a shrill sound signal … done. He has pulled out a needle.
So …. he has rummaged around his pockets. Twenty credits … not enough … only for sixty-seventy hours … heck … no matter.
A helmet, being dressed again. Heaps of wires and connections, fitted to a body. A token, put into a machine, which has greedily grasped it… Satisfied mechanics peep.
Start. The virtual world never waits.
City streets, lightened with lanterns. A signboard over one of many buildings – “Salon of virtual findings”. Hundreds of terminals over the walls. People, sitting in them.
Next terminal … a twitching man, braided by mechanics. A stream of saliva, slowly flowing down on a floor … The face is not visible – it’s being covered by a small helmet. Peeps of equipment …
He was the head of the largest mafia organization …
World on the horizon
That was disgusting. Nay, that was terrible. Only four hours after “officially legislatively approved dates of time of rest” has passed, and all shops have been closed. Not a single one from those necessary to him, worked so early … or late – whatever is proper to each one … Damn !
He needed one shop … just a single shop, trading the necessary stuff. All those twenty ones familiar to him, which he has flown by on flycar, “have been closed due to upcoming professional holiday of sexual minorities in accordance with the official decree of the capital’s mayor'. All of them !
Damn !
Such legislative citizens … such angels. Wolves in the sheep skins. Three out of twenty of these downtown- shops traded dreamcatcher, nineteen out of twenty traded kayfan, ten out of twenty – lisben. It’s, of course, the informal statistics – according to official reports, contained in the central database of the State department, everything was clear. Crystal-clear. Too clear to be truth.
And this are those, who should in every possible way to “help and assist in every manner” of preservation of citizens’ health … wolves in sheep skins.
And yet that very dreamcatcher has been forbidden for application, manufacturing or any use in the collateral purposes in all state’s territory. The strongest possible drug, made about five years ago as a by-product of some super confidential research of scientific laboratories of Pharmatheuticals United, it was capable to change human’s brain completely. Not some weak hallucinogen – it completely changed person’s vision of his surroundings after the injection of only one milligram into the blood. It was, actually, nicknamed as such, “a dream catcher” – all deep layers of human’s sub consciousness were revived, ten, twenty, thirty years-old memory came to life – all in one instant, all like a raging stream … and this was even better than VR – for no additional equipment was necessary anymore, no electrodes … human’s brain could do everything – it was simply necessary to aid a little.
Who of us did not dream ? And dreams of how many did come to life ? This devil’s drug made this possibility absolute – and you have been living through all your twenty, thirty, or forty years in these several days … in the world of your illusions, though, but was this really important ? All your dreams came true – all those, provided by deep memory. And approximately a month later a human died – his brain was simply “burnt down”. The brain simply did not survived.
Really, that was a very fascinating death. To die, feeling with the rest of your fading consciousness, that you are happy – for you are fulfilled. For your dreams – here they are, all in front of you, – all came to life, and who the hell cares what sort of dreams were these. To die with a blissful smile on your face …
It was supposed to be given to dying people, whose chances of survival were equal to zero. But they have miscalculated. Two-three percent of the state’s population died of its usage annually – and they were not doomed people. Fifty percent of these ones were not even thirty years old …
And then they sounded the alarm. And then they have published their decrees. And then they have mobilized that Liberty Security State Police Department … late. Too late.
“The love has come – die, love, oh damn !”, - a phrase from recently seen interactive movie has emerged from sub consciousness. Yet this love lived on. And internal security service could no nothing.
It’s like a plague, like pestilence – it will not stop until almost all are left dead. And these were just the florets.
Almost an hour has passed since the moment of the begging of his searches – and he has not even found a single shop, trading in preparations, lowering level of testosterone, adrenaline and related hormones in blood – something, that could save his body when a radio channel’s video stream of information will be transmitted to his nejro-pulse helmet – information, of whose “content’s purity” he has ceased to dream a long time ago. To rescue his body at the very least … he had no more hopes of rescuing his soul.
And all of this is just by a holiday of sexual minorities.
How have you though it over … how predicted. Sexual minorities … oh, sure ! A real orgies will take place there, and not only those of minorities. And there have been no signs of any “contraceptive toolkit” for two years already after the publishing of resolution “Of the termination of distribution of contraceptives and preparations with purposes of increasing of birth rate in the country” of our oh-so-beloved president.
Still hoping to compensate natural losses, aye? Two percent of “dreamcatchers”, one percent of the military men, one percent of the 'accidents', half percent of murders, the one third of percent of 'unidentified deaths”, the one sixth of percent of those, who nevertheless has not managed to emigrate away from here … and this is not the full list by any means.
You will not recover that way – your disease has gone too far. You are too sick to become healthy once again. And those who understand cannot tell it anymore – for the global Mass Media Interactive Network is not for them anymore … never was for them. Only for the government, only for multinational corporations under their “giving hand”. And you could even participate in all this – take, for instance, that interactive sex-orgies that will be broadcasted on all channels “with a purpose of familiarizing of the population with sexual culture and stimulation of natural needs of men and women”.
What idiot has issued this resolution ?! … even its name is idiotic. Bless you, it surely must have been a big person – too big to “stimulate his natural needs” together with mad people crowds in the upcoming day …
Never forget a hand that feeds you … providers of Mass Media content did not forget.
A chip on the right hand has emitted a high-frequency sound impulse and has confirmed it with predefined sequence of IR-signals.
Damn ! This was dangerous ! This means that he has left the edge of his quadrant in today’s night patrol. This means that after ten minutes this very chip, built into his left hand, - and now also serving as universal biopassport, such a “smart-human-card” in a minitiature, - will send a series of radio signals in Liberty Security
