EHuman Dawn Read online

  “Adam,” the image spoke, “I’m sorry. Please forgive me. This isn’t your fault. I simply need a change. Perhaps we’ll meet again. Forever is a long time. Anything is possible.”

  Adam stood in silence, disabling his wireless so Jill couldn’t read his mind. He didn’t want her to know the anguish he felt at that moment. Then he turned and strode out the door.

  “Close,” he called out loud, as the door shut behind him.

  “Good morning, Master Adam,” the elevator spoke to him as he approached.

  “Garage,” Adam replied. Conversation was quite simple when working with machines. Every elevator, train, car, computer, airplane, EC, and eHuman was on Neuro, a massive operating system and computer network. Controlled by eHuman thought. eHumans think and Neuro responds.

  If Adam wanted to use Neuro for communication, information sharing and mining, or any one of the various applications Neuro offered, he would need to go online, which automatically happened when he plugged in for a recharge. During this time he had full access to the network and all its offerings.

  He also had a wireless card, located in the head. This was a selectable setting and Adam kept this feature disabled for the most part because he found constant networking overwhelming. Were he to enable it, he would be connected with Neuro and every device, including all other wireless eHumans in the network, which was the ultimate cyberspace experience and allowed eHumans to work with the machines and each other without speaking aloud.

  Most eHumans enjoyed the wireless feature, but Adam was different. He didn’t like strangers reading his thoughts or sneaking into his conversations. Keeping the wireless off gave him a sense of security. However, he was completely misguided. Whatever safety measures Adam thought he was taking were useless, due to the existence of the Guardians. They designed Neuro and managed the data that flowed within the network. They operated the LMOs and had access to every network device. Whenever Adam plugged in, which he had to do for survival, they traced and tracked everything he did.

  The elevator doors opened and Adam found he wasn’t alone. Among the several people, he recognized a blonde woman standing toward the back. He couldn’t place her, but was sure he had seen her around. While gazing at her, he found himself yearning to live in another place and time where he would be free to investigate the world for what it really was. Perhaps this beautiful woman would admire him for his work, or think him a genius. He smiled at her, but she ignored him, instantly killing his fantasy.

  He wasn’t in another world, he was here, in the eHuman world.

  When the elevator stopped at the garage, Adam stood at the curbside line behind the others queuing up for a ride in a Personal Transportation Device, small one seat vehicles which drove around the cities transporting people from point A to point B. He watched despondently as the blonde woman from the elevator quickly entered a PTD and drove off into the traffic.

  He wondered why she had affected him so deeply. After two hundred years of being himself, Adam wasn’t surprised with his constant cravings for women. He loved them as a rule. Yet this woman seemed so familiar, it almost drove him mad. He desperately wished he could place her with some memory in his database, but he found no record of her.

  A few moments later, a PTD arrived in front of him to take him on his way. In a moment of insanity, he almost requested that the vehicle follow the woman. Shaking his head as if to clear his thoughts, he focused on his job instead.

  “2600 Q Street,” he told the vehicle as he climbed in. He was due for his appointment at Borgman Headquarters.

  “Yes Master Winter,” the PTD replied. The vehicle began to coast on its three wheels towards the exit and onto the highway, successfully joining the hundreds of other perfect, orderly vehicles on the smooth road, driving their eHumans around their immaculate city.

  Fifteen minutes later, Adam found himself in front of the Borgman business office, a gleaming tower of glass and steel. Columned fifty foot tall figures carved from white marble flanked the entrance, each one a woman with plaited hair piled high upon her head, wearing long, flowing robes and holding what looked like baskets full of coins. Adam found this to be an old-fashioned notion, as coins hadn’t been seen on Earth since long before the Great Shift.

  The door opened for Adam and greeted him as he crossed the threshold. The place was deserted and all the lights were out.

  An elevator at the end of the corridor opened and spoke, “This way Mr. Winter. Mr. Abramhoff is waiting for you.” Adam noted in his memory file that only the doors, elevators and the machines needed to run Neuro were on. The rest of the office was in Conserve Mode. The place was grim.

  Adam accepted the invitation and rode the machine up to the two hundredth floor. He exited into a large circular room that was more like an observation deck than a CEO’s business office. The shining city glared at him from every direction through the floor-to-ceiling windows.

  “Welcome, Adam Winter,” a man said huskily. “I am a big fan of your Newsreel.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Adam answered while turning to see who had spoken.

  A man stood behind the desk opposite Adam. In spite of his crisp, clean gray suit, he portrayed a shambolic and unhinged man alone in his dark office. It was Douglas Abramhoff, founder and CEO of Borgman’s Department Stores. He shook slightly, desperately clutching a tiny electronic device in both of his hands.

  Douglas had been a figure in the New Omaha business community for almost a century, running the most successful local business at that time. But now that success had run out, and Douglas was no longer the confident, commanding business leader he had once been. The two men spent a few awkward, silent moments, sizing each other up. Adam decided he would strike up the conversation.

  “So, Mr. Abramhoff, Anthony Westfield, sent me here to interview you. He let you know I would be coming?”

  Douglas looked distracted. He didn’t answer immediately. He walked to his desk and picked up something thin and yellow that Adam didn’t recognize. Adam began to get impatient with his interviewee.

  “Listen, Mr. Abramhoff, I’m here to get some input from you about your reduced hours. The official statement from the company is that your workforce has reduced. My job at the Friend’s Network is to tell the people why and make sure they feel at ease with the news.” Adam forced a smiled at the man.

  Douglas gazed at him. “Really?” he asked, “You want me to give you a reason why I have a work shortage? That’s all?”

  “Yes,” Adam shrugged.

  Douglas sat down behind his desk, still holding both the yellow item and his electronic display unit.

  “Mr. Winter, the official line is that we have a reduced workforce. No longer satisfied with what New Omaha has to offer, people are Jumping into new lives and going off to new places. No one is Jumping into New Omaha.”

  “What’s your plan for recruiting new hires? And how can we, the people of New Omaha, help you?” Adam asked.

  Douglas began to laugh.

  “How can you help? Ha!” He held up the electronic device in his hand. Adam knew what it was: a Jump Request, just like the one Miranda had shown him the night before. Douglas’ new body was displayed on the small monitor. Adam felt a sense of dejá vu.

  “You’re planning a Jump, are you Mr. Abramhoff? Who’ll be your replacement?”

  “I haven’t informed my management. As a matter of fact—you’re the first to hear of my decision. Do you like my new body?”

  Adam looked at the lovely female form rotating for display. He felt uncomfortable being told this information. Why give him a scoop like this?

  “Sure,” he answered hesitantly.

  “Don’t you want to know why I’m Jumping?” Douglas challenged him.

  “You’re bored with New Omaha?” Adam guessed.

  “Wrong!” Douglas exclaimed.

  The two men stared at each other in silence.

  “I’m afraid to disappoint you, Mr. Winter,” Douglas continued, “But you’re no
t getting the story you wanted. The truth is, there isn’t a labor shortage. The real reason Borgman’s only operates four of the seven days a week is that I was betrayed.”

  “I don’t understand,” Adam replied.

  “The WG has received information that I’ve been in contact with Hactivists,” Douglas answered.

  “You’re telling me that you’ve been involved with terrorists?” Adam was astonished. The Hactivists were criminals who hacked into Neuro and set up anti-WG information sites, bulletins and Newsreels of their own, which the Guardians were constantly trying to block from public access.

  The Hactivist message was clear: the WG was manipulative and controlled the eHuman population. In order to retaliate, people needed to refrain from plugging into Neuro and fight for their freedom. The WG officially labeled anyone tampering with Neuro a terrorist of the state, while the terrorist’s supporters had dubbed them with the term Hactivist.

  Adam had delivered several anti-Hactivist Newsreels in his career. Yet recently, he too had begun downloading Hactivist propaganda and venturing to their information sites. Adam felt drawn to their anti-government messages. Were the Guardians on to him as well? Fear and foreboding began to cloud his thoughts the way storm clouds darken the sky on a hot summer’s night.

  “Yes, and the WG found out,” Douglas continued, “They cut power to my home, my business office, and my department stores. They’re sending me a message—surrender the Hactivists or surrender your life.”

  “The other stores and businesses that have reduced hours, are their owners involved with the Hactivists as well?” Adam queried.

  Douglas answered with a nod, “This is our first warning. The WG is letting all those harboring and aiding any Hactivist know that they’ve been discovered. We have one month to turn the renegades in. If we don’t, they’ll escalate.”

  “Exactly how will they escalate?” Adam panicked. He didn’t want the man’s honest answer. Douglas Abramhoff knew too much, which was why he was Jumping.

  “A friend asked me to give this to you,” Douglas said, handing the flimsy, yellow item to Adam.

  Adam took it.

  “What is it?” Adam asked.

  “It’s a paper envelope,” Douglas answered.

  “A what?” Adam scanned his memory. Paper...he quickly found an entry in his database. Paper existed before the Great Shift, before people could see everything within their minds. All information now was shared and transferred directly to his CPU via Neuro.

  “A paper envelope,” Douglas continued, “And inside of it is a document that answers all your questions, Adam Winter.”

  “Why are you giving this to me?” Adam asked.

  “Because a friend of mine wants you to have it,” Douglas replied. He turned his back on Adam and gazed out his window at the city. It was sparkling again under a bright sun.

  “The sun is lovely, isn’t it? Especially when the blessed winds blow the pollution away for a while,” Douglas murmured.

  Adam could tell the interview was over. He began to open the envelope when Douglas exclaimed, “Don’t open it here!”

  Adam stopped what he was doing.

  “Open it privately, in your recharge room. Don’t share the information with anyone! See what sort of bullshit story you can spin for the people after you read it. I’d love to hear it, but I’ll be someone else by then. I Jump tomorrow.”

  Adam nodded. Douglas gestured him towards the door. “Goodbye, Mr. Winter. Just remember—our world is a lie.”

  “Good bye,” Adam muttered as he left the office.

  Adam didn’t quite understand what had just transpired. But one thing was for sure—he didn’t get the story Anthony had sent him to retrieve.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “Our world is a lie,” Adam sighed, tapping his fist on the steel desk in his office. He’d been sitting there for almost a half of an hour, nervously strumming his fingers and rocking back and forth in his chair.

  Scattered about his desktop were the contents of the mysterious envelope. In spite of Douglas’ request to read it in private, Adam had instead brought the envelope to his office at the Friend’s Network to investigate further. The information was still private, but the instant he logged on to Neuro, the Guardians would know what Adam had been reading.

  The envelope contained three photos and several pages of written text. They were different from anything Adam had ever seen. One photo revealed the haunting images of eHumans screaming and clawing at one another to get inside their local Resource Management Office. A second photo displayed hundreds of bodies, lifeless and strewn about the streets, doorsteps, and railways of a city block. The third showed automated bulldozers, pushing piles of bodies into a huge pit, positioned at the edge of a city.

  The accompanying documentation described each photo, taken just a week ago in Chengdu, a city in China, one of the seven Provinces of the World.

  After the Great Shift, the world had been divided, a great lumping together of the existing countries of the time by the newly created WG. Each of the seven Provinces was ruled by ten elected representatives, totaling seventy people, who together formed the World Government. The WG assembled in the Golden Hall, in the city of Gematria, formerly Krahule of Slovakia, located at the exact geographical center point of the European Province. The WG set global standards, law and policy. They collected taxes and maintained order. Every fifty years, they choose from amongst themselves a World Leader.

  Even though the WG had been designed and sold to the public as the “Smallest World Government” one could ever imagine, Adam found dealing with the WG and its various agencies a form of pain so unique, he’d created his own code name for such interactions. If his work brought him to one of the three WG departments; the Revenue Network, the Transportation Network, or a local RMO, he’d label his work “Wanton Gluttony” in his report to Anthony.

  It’s not that Adam didn’t appreciate the well managed intra-city roads on which the PTDs sailed, or the elegant HyperTrains and HyperPlanes that were the only means of inter-city or global transport. He loved them because they enabled him to get around easily with nothing more than a simple plan in his head. And of course the RMOs, which maintained the Energy Grid within the city’s limits were priceless. But after centuries in the Newsreel business, Adam knew better than most eHumans that while the WG might look simple on paper, the inner workings were bureaucracy at its finest. Yet he’d never considered the “Wanton Gluttony” of the WG to be anything more than simple self-serving policies—until now.

  In exchange for global taxes being collected and paid on time, the WG grants the RMOs access to the global Energy Grid. Yet, according to the document Douglas had given Adam, the citizens of Chengdu had been informed via their local Newsreel that their city’s leadership had been found guilty of harboring Hactivists. Therefore, access to the Energy Grid and Neuro had been shut down indefinitely within the Chengdu city limits. As a result, the people of Chengdu had immediately stormed their local RMO, demanding that power be restored. To their astonishment, they found the office locked and empty, not a single WG employee in sight.

  Without power Neuro, nothing ran, including the HyperTrains and HyperPlanes. Unfortunately, no two eHuman cities were built close enough to walk to in less than forty-eight hours; the critical time an eHuman has to get to a power source and recharge. After that, if the eHuman didn’t connect to the Energy Grid, the body would put itself into Sleep Mode for another twenty-four hours, running only the Chi-Regulator, which continues to emit the specific electromagnetic field needed to keep the Lux attached to the eHuman body. When the Chi-Regulator stops, the electromagnetic field that the Lux needs to remain attached to material plane disappears. Lux abandons the body, leaving it lifeless.

  For two days the people of Chengdu slowly died out, one after the other dropping where they stood, depending on how much energy they had stored prior to the shutdown. The photo of inactive bodies strewn haphazardly about the street, over one million
of them, had been taken two days after the last of them had died. Some tried to flee, but to no avail. They simply couldn’t cover the distance fast enough. Their bodies, found scattered upon the rail lines, had been quickly and quietly disposed of by WG drones.

  Adam stared at the dead eHumans, their bodies of plasticine and metal cleared from the streets by the hundreds of bulldozers and drones that took to the city, tossing bodies out the buildings via the windows and pushing these bodies into huge pits created outside of the city. Adam zoomed his eyes in on the photo to read the writing on the side of a bulldozer. “WG.”

  New Omaha wasn’t experiencing a labor shortage. The world was experiencing a government crackdown. Right now in Adam’s city the WG was shutting down businesses. How soon before they shut down New Omaha entirely? Would people supporting the Hactivists turn them in, or would New Omaha soon go the way of Chengdu? Adam’s thoughts were interrupted as he jumped at the sudden sound of a knock. He glanced up to see Anthony opening his office door.

  “Excuse me,” Anthony said, eyeing the items on Adam’s desk with suspicion, “I opened the door when you didn’t answer my second knock.”

  “I only heard you knock once,” Adam said, returning the suspicious look.

  “What do you have there?” Anthony demanded, nodding at the mess on Adam’s desk, “How did the interview with Abramhoff go? The WG wants a Newsreel by the end of the day. The people are starting to chat on Neuro about the closings. Not only Borgmans is running on reduced hours, but also the theaters, art galleries, and dance halls, as well as some nightclubs. We need to quell their panic.” Anthony never took his eyes off of the papers on Adam’s desk.

  Adam scooped up the documents and pictures and put them in the envelope Douglas had given him.

  “The interview didn’t go as we’d planned,” he informed his boss.

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah, Douglas didn’t seem interested in discussing the issue at hand.”