The Aeye of Horus

Anti-nanotech riots lead to a startling revelation.

This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

This short story is presented for personal entertainment only. Commercial and all other use is expressly prohibited.

(c) 2012-2017 Robert Horseman, All rights reserved.

“Sir, your liver has been recalled.” I turned my head too quickly, and the leads from my neural shunt whipped up and around my head. “Excuse me?” The technician glanced up from her monitor, where readouts of my physiologic condition were displayed. “Mister Carlile, I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but your liver function has dropped by thirty-two percent, and there is a current recall pending on it. I recommend an immediate upgrade. Since it is a recall, there would be no charge to your account.” I studied her face for concern, but found none. “It’s not serious then?” She bit her lip. “Not serious, no, provided you take care of it quite soon. We can do it immediately if you like. All you need is a liver BIOS upgrade.” I sighed and considered, but there really wasn’t a choice. Getting old was a bitch. Only fifty-two, and already my liver had to be redone for the second time. “Sure let’s get it done, but please be gentle. I’m not as young as I look.” She smirked and said, “Oh please. I know how old you are, and I have a Master’s degree in nanotech. This liver problem may be making you feel lousy, but you’ll be back to feeling your youthful self in an hour or so. Lie back on the examination table, and I’ll get your upgrade started. As she went about her task, I studied her with interest. She resembled someone I once dated in college, but that had been over thirty years ago and this technician didn’t have a nano’s neural shunt. That meant she was unaugmented and aging normally. I, on the other hand, looked like I was around twenty-eight due to the various nanotech and implants in my system. I said, “If you have a Master’s degree in nanotech, I’m surprised you don’t have a shunt yourself.” “Oh, I probably will someday.” She replaced the diagnostic lead in my shunt with a lead to her programming station. “I’m not in any rush, and I want to enjoy my real youth while I can. It’s not like I have to yet. I’m still healthy.” “It doesn’t feel that much different, but I know what you mean. I really didn’t have much of a choice. I would have waited a lot longer if I could have.” It could have been my imagination, but a warm feeling in my chest suggested that the molecule-sized nano-machines were busy doing whatever it was they did. I said, “Miss, as long as you’re getting intimate with my insides, might I know your name? Calling you Tech or Miss just seems so impersonal.” Her short black hair shimmied with color as she laughed. She must have used one of those motion activated, color shifting dyes in her hair. She stepped over to the table and held out her hand. “I’m Signe Warner. Nice to meet you.” I got up on one elbow and took her hand. “Neil Carlile, but you already know that.” “Oh, I know a lot than that about you, Mr. Carlile.” “Only the good stuff, I hope.” She grinned, and her eyebrows rose. “I’m not telling.” Something clattered against the outside wall of the clinic, and she groaned under her breath. “Not again---” “What was that?” I asked. “Just the usual Tuesday protesters. You know the ones. They seem to get more than their fair share of press these days. They say that nanos are a waste of valuable resources, that they take more from society than they give, and that they will be the end of human civilization as we know it. The funny thing is, I’m not so sure that’s a bad thing.” “What do you mean?” “Just look at the protestors. Are they the model of a healthy society? Are they giving even a one percent effort to making our society better? Are they volunteering at food banks? Of course not. There has always been an element in society that has felt disenfranchised, and they are the current model. Will anyone remember them in a year or two? Probably not, and we’ll be on to the next protest group to grab headlines. In the meantime though, I have to deal with those idiots once a week.” I thought back to my days of disenfranchisement and felt a twinge of guilt over some of the tactics we had used. She was right - we had thought the world owed us something, when in fact the reverse was true. It’s funny how life adjusts your perspectives. “Have they caused you any problems?” She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, last week a group of five men chased me for half a mile. It was a good thing I’m in shape, although adrenaline probably had a lot to do with it.” She swallowed hard. “I’m not sure what they would have done had they caught me.” “Why don’t the cops keep order? Isn’t that what we pay them for?” “You’d think, but they’re way outnumbered, and an angry mob is far more dangerous than any pulse-baton wielding cop. A pulse-baton can only stun by direct contact, but a mob can kill. The cops are out there, but they generally keep their distance.” She put one hand on my head, and used the other to withdraw the plug. “There,” she said, “All done. How do you feel?” I sat up on the table, and rotated my head. “Not bad. A bit nauseous.” “That’s normal. It’ll pass in a few minutes.” I got up and carefully walked to the small examination room’s window. Four floors below, an oval courtyard in the middle of the medical complex was full of people shouting and chanting. I tried to estimate their number, but gave up counting at two hundred. “There are quite a few people out there. You’d think the cool weather would keep their numbers down.” “It doesn’t seem to, at least not so far.” I glanced at her, feeling concern growing in the pit of my stomach. “I must be your last appointment today. How will you get home?” She walked to the window and looked down. Her eyes widened. “My God, what a mob. That’s easily five times the size of last week’s group.” She let out a long breath and said, “I guess I’ll just have to wait them out, even if it means staying here until midnight. Then I can walk to the tube station and get home.” I queried my internal chronometer. “That’s quite a wait. Can I give you a lift? My coaster is in the basement garage. I’ll drop you anywhere you like. No trouble.” “You still need to get through the crowd, coaster or not.” “Not really. My coaster may be old, but that’s only on the surface. It has five-meter repulsors. I can put her way above their heads.” She knitted her eyebrows. “Isn’t that illegal? I mean, coasters aren’t supposed to go over one meter, are they.” “It’s not a legal limit, but it is a practical one. The required power increases with the square of the height. Using that much power is expensive, but I have to get out of here too, so why not take you along?” *** We took the stairs down to the garage, Signe leading the way. She had changed out of her technician’s white smock, and now wore a black blouse that matched her hair and iridescent blue skintight pants. As we descended, a complex tattoo peeked out from under the sleeve of her blouse. I said, “If you don’t mind my saying so, that’s quite an interesting tattoo. What is it?” She stopped in mid-stride and turned back to me. “Mr. Carlile, I would have to know you a lot better to tell you that. This is nothing more than a ride, right?” I took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. “Of course, of course. Just a ride. I’m a man of my word.” She nodded slowly, then turned and continued down the last few steps. Touchy girl, this one. My desire for young ladies had diminished many years back, a nanotech side effect, but this one intrigued me nonetheless. She paused just inside the garage to let me catch up, and I led her to my coaster. She said, “Are you sure this piece of rust can get off the ground? It looks more like a forgotten relic from a leaking barn.” In answer, I activated my temporal node and popped the hood. It rose silently on pneumatic cylinders, revealing the repulsor drive.” “Holy crap, you weren’t kidding,” she said. The last time I saw one this big was in a bus. How did you cram that thing in a coaster?” I chuckled, “It wasn’t easy. I had to extend the drive compartment an extra meter to make it fit. The hard part was making it match the rest of the beautiful body work.” Now it was her turn to laugh. “I must admit, it had me fooled.” I commanded the hood down and popped the doors open. “She said, “Hinged doors, how quaint. I suppose it has ashtrays too?” “Do you need one?” “No, but I like to keep my options open.” The worn seats gave off a carefully cultured smell of well used leather as we sat, and I caressed the old fashioned analog controls with the tips of my fingers. I said, “Okay Mabel, let’s get out of here.” A feminine voice purred from all around us. “Where to Neil?” Signe raised an eyebrow, and said, “That’s Mabel? Your coaster is named Mabel and she can talk to us?” “Of course. Does she make you jealous?” She rolled her eyes. “As if. You’re too old for me anyway. Just drive, will you?” I pulled on the collective, and the coaster rose silently to a meter above the concrete floor. A touch of the cyclic and we moved ahead and onto the ramp to the surface. *** “They’re on their way out,” said a voice in Senator Hiram Greely’s headset. Greely smiled in anticipation, and then scowled as he caught sight of his hawk-like reflection in the window pane. He focused his binoculars on the garage of the clinic across the street. It all came down to this carefully orchestrated moment, he thought. All his political maneuvering to eliminate the nanotech threat had come to nothing in the end, and now he was reduced to mob choreography. But it was exciting; that he couldn’t deny. It hadn’t been difficult to infiltrate a few agents into the small disorganized anti-nanotech movement, and orchestrate the weekly demonstrations. So what if he used leverage to get what he wanted; it was all for a righteous cause. Arranging for Carlile to be the last appointment of the day on this particular Tuesday with the bitch had been the easiest part. All he needed was a focal point for the mob to initiate a cultural revolution, and they were it. He smiled as the clinic’s garage door opened. *** The garage door slid aside with a pneumatic whoosh, and we rose to ground level. I wished we hadn’t. The mob had grown into a riot in the time Signe had changed clothes and we had made our way to the garage. Smoke now rose in dark columns, and I smelled the pungent aroma of burning plastic. Signe’s hands grabbed the crash bar on the dash and she screamed, “Go, go, go.” I didn’t need her encouragement. I simultaneously yanked on the collective and pushed the cyclic, and we roared off the garage apron. Our exit did not go unnoticed. Rocks and bottles arced overhead and rained down on us, clanking off the dented bodywork. Looking around I saw several burning coasters. There was a loud thump, and my coaster swayed drunkenly to the left. Mabel said, “Neil, we have a problem. The left rear repulsor is venting coolant. I recommend we descend immediately.” “That’s not an option, Mabel. Keep us airborne as long as you can.” “Rerouting coolant from the other repulsors.” To Signe I said, “That should get us away from the crowd, but it won’t last long. We have maybe a minute before we hit the ground.” Signe’s face had lost most of its color, and she redoubled her death grip on the crash bar. At my words she had clamped her eyes closed. I said, “Sorry, I meant settle gently to the ground.” We made it out of the medical plaza, but a crowd was running after us shouting taunts. With the coolant draining fast, the coaster could not keep altitude and its bottom was now only three meters above the ground. The ozone stench of overheating repulsors filled the cabin. Signe screamed, “Do something.” As calmly as I could muster I said, “Not to worry, Miss. I’ll have you safe in a jiffy.” After six blocks I swerved into an alley behind an aging office building in the Pioneer Square area. We grazed the alley sides, and bottomed out on the pavement. Our momentum carried us at thirty klicks toward the alley’s dead end, leaving a shower of sparks and hardware spinning off behind us. The garage door sensor at the end of the alley read my coaster’s transponder and opened automatically. We came to a spinning, gut-wrenching halt when we slammed trunk first into the far wall of the small garage. My heart raced painfully in my chest, and I breathed deeply to help ease my stress. As the garage door closed behind us, I said, “Here we are. You can open your eyes now.” Signe opened her eyes and looked around. “Where are we? “In my office building. We’ll be safe here. Mabel, are you still with us?” “Right here boss.” “Please interface with the building’s AI.” “Interface complete.” “Execute emergency lockdown. Authorization Carlile gamma-seven.” A moment passed, then, “Lockdown complete. Gamma level lockdown expires in twelve hours unless confirmed by the superintendent.” “Come on. It looks like we’ll be here for a while. We might as well go up to my office and be comfortable.” She was still panting and holding the crash bar. “You seem to have gone to quite a bit of trouble to get me alone.’ I chuckled. “Yeah. I even wrecked my coaster for you.” I got out, went around to the far side, and wrenched her crumpled door open. It fell off and landed on the concrete floor at my feet. I felt lousy. Ugly as she was, Mabel was a great coaster. A wolf in sheep’s clothing, as they used to say. A pounding began on the far side of the garage door, and gathered volume as more fists joined in. “This way,” I said. *** My office was on the forty-first floor, overlooking old Elliott Bay. Shipping in the Port of Seattle had declined markedly early in the century due to the widening of the Panama Canal, and had never fully recovered. Rusting and leaning container cranes pockmarked Harbor Island, the industrial area southwest of Seattle at the foot of the Duwamish River. Someday the politicians would get it cleaned up, but for now at least the eyesore remained. Signe walked to the window and surveyed the Seattle waterfront below us. “Impressive view. Too bad there’s nothing nice to look at.” “Come here, and I’ll show you how to take in the view properly.” I sat her down at a desk about thirty yards from the wall of west facing windows. “Now tell me what you see.” The distance from the window cleanly cut off the lower city view, and left only a view of the magnificent Olympic Mountains across Puget Sound. This late in the day, the autumn sky was an undulating carpet of orange and pink. She said, “Ah yes, I see. Gorgeous, but I can get the same effect from ground level with my hand.” I shook my head. “Some women are so hard to please. The point is that you don’t have to up here.” “Ah, I see. Um, you can take your hands off me now.” I pulled my hands off her shoulders, startled to find I had left them there when I had seated her. My face had turned crimson, even at my age. Amazing what this woman did to me. “Sorry.” I changed the subject. “Let’s check out the feeds. I’m sure the news-nets have their remotes all over the riot.” I walked back to my desk and touched the surface. The desktop illuminated, and I selected a local news feed that seemed to be carrying the story live. It appeared on the blank wall behind my desk, and we turned to watch. Small autonomous remote cameras roamed around the city, broadcasting their views. It was a full scale riot now. Crowds were running through the streets overturning coasters and setting fires. The police were huddled in small groups protecting themselves with force shields, but doing little else. Signe drew in a sharp breath and pointed. “See that building? That’s my clinic. They’ve torched it for god’s sake. Great. I can’t get home, and now I’m out of a fucking job as well.” “I wouldn’t worry about it too much. We’re safe up here, and Nanotech is in high demand. I’m sure you’ll land a better job in no time.” The news scene shifted, following a surge in the crowd down a side street. It was the one we had taken to my office. My stomach clenched. A voiceover reporter said, “The riot seems to have taken a new direction. A large group is now marching down Spring Street, following the track of the damaged coaster. If you are just tuning in, this was the scene some twenty-five minutes ago, as a coaster tried to escape from the medical complex.” An aerial shot clearly showed my coaster coming out of the clinic, then weaving above the crowd as I battled the loss of repulsor lift. “The coaster is registered to a Neil Carlile, a nano augment who we believe is the driver. We believe the other occupant is Signe Weaver, an unaugmented female technician in the employ of the nanotech clinic.” A high pitch vibration rose in volume, and I turned to the windows dreading what I would see. Signe put an arm around my waist, but I knew it was for comfort because I felt the same way. I swallowed a dry lump in my throat as a small cylindrical camera unit rose above the lip of the windows. From behind us, the reporter’s voice droned on. “Here, now, is a live shot from the Fischer Building, where we have identified the two occupants from the damaged coaster.” I looked behind us, and saw a slightly delayed news image of myself and Signe clutching each other. “Shit,” I said, and punched the window icon on my desktop. The exterior windows instantly opaqued to a translucent white. We both turned and looked at the news feed again. The remote had turned from our windows, and now looked down toward the riot below. Black oily smoke rose from a hundred small fires as the crowds burned anything and everything they could get their hands on. “Carlile, we have to get out of here. The riot down there is being inflamed by the news feeds. They’re after us now, and they’ll torch this building. Does this building connect with the underground?” “Underground?” She rolled her eyes. “How could you live in Seattle, and not know about the underground? When they rebuilt Pioneer Square after the Great Seattle Fire of 1889, they raised the street level, creating an underground warren of alleys under the new raised sidewalks. They’re still there.” I thought about it. “There is an ancient steel door in the basement near where we store some of our old paper files. I’ve never seen it open.” She grabbed my hand and dragged me toward the stair. I said, “Why don’t we take the elevator?” She glared at me. “How long do you think the power will last? You want to risk getting trapped in the elevator?” “Good point. Let’s go.” *** Senator Greely flipped up his ocular eyepiece, which had been displaying the scene from one of his camera bugs in Carlile’s office. Into his headset he said, “They are on their way. I’m on my way down. Make sure everything is ready.” *** The descent down the stair tower was a mind-numbing and thigh-aching adventure, one that my gym membership hadn’t prepared me for. Signe dragged me the whole way down. The fire door at lobby level was heavily warped, and it shuddered under thundering blows from the far side. As we hurried past, the tip of a fire axe blade pierced the inside of the door with a screech of metal on metal. We reached the uppermost basement level, and I palmed the door scanner. The door latch clicked, and I pulled the door open. As we hurried through, a final concussion boomed above us, followed by a cacophony of excited voices. I gently pulled the door closed behind us to avoid attracting the attention of the mob. “Where’s the access door?” whispered Signe. I looked around the musty smelling basement, but took only two steps before the lights went out. “Shit,” I said. I pulled my phone from my pocket, and activated the flashlight function. “Let’s get moving.” Using my light, we found the heavily rusted steel door behind a stacked row of boxes. A modern electronic lock was looped through the ancient hasp. Signe said, “Great, it’s got a security lock. Can you open it?” I looked at it closely. “No, but I don’t think we have to.” The hasp, like the rest of the old door, was crusted with rust scale. I kicked it with the heel of my shoe, and the hasp bent over forty-five degrees. The rust had made the remaining steel only a millimeter or so thick. It took six kicks from opposite sides to snap it off. I slotted a wooden plank that the boxes had been stacked on under the door’s handle, and pried it open. The hinges squealed in protest, but my leverage opened it far enough to slip through. “Ladies first,” I said, motioning her to go first. “Carlile, your manners are underwhelming. In cases such as this, I believe the man should go first, don’t you?” “Ah, right you are.” I pushed through the gap, my chest and back scraping the rusty door and frame. Signe’s slight form sipped through easily behind me. The underground stank like a sewer. As Signe showed the light around, several pairs of beady eyes glared back at us. “Rats. Damn, I hate rats. Which way is north?” asked Signe. “How should I know?” “You’re a man. Aren’t all men good with directions?” “Not all, and least of all me.” She sighed and said, “Access your temporal node, and select compass.” Chagrinned, I did as she suggested. A small compass appeared in the upper-left of my visual field. “Cool, I had no idea that was in there.” “You might try reading your nanotech owner’s manual sometime.” “What for? All I seem to need is you.” She rolled her eyes. “Listen, there are more buildings in the underground towards the north, and that raises our chances of getting into another building to get out.” I pointed toward the north, and we set out in that direction. The underground was a mess. Light trickled through glass blocks set into the sidewalks above our heads, casting a faint purplish glow. The floor was a hazardous combination of ancient cobbles, warped planks, and mud. Water dripped from slimy moss tendrils hanging from above. The underground was filled with broken furniture, toilets and sinks, a discarded sign advertising shaves for five cents, and even some ancient elevator machinery. At intersections in the streets above, rough broken holes in the walls of the underground led to other sections of the labyrinth. We pushed on, always trying to go north. After traversing seven blocks, Signe stopped. “I think I know where we are.” Gesturing to the building side of the tunnel, she said, “If we break through one of these old windows, we should be in the basement floor of the James Building. Then we can climb the stairs to street level. Come on.” Looking back on this comment later, I should have wondered how she could know that this was the James Building. It looked like every other former building storefront down here. But at the time I was more interested in getting out than anything else. I heaved an old sink through a half-broken window to get the rest of the glass out, and I followed her through into an empty storeroom. After a dozen paces she stopped in front of me and I stumbled into her back. She said, “We’re here.” “We’re what---“ The lights snapped on, blinding us. We covered our eyes and squinted ahead. A tall man stood ahead of us with two heavy-set men in suits. A third walked around behind us. The big men all held pulse batons. Adrenalin pumped into me, and I clenched my fists. “Who are you? What do you want?” I said. The man chuckled. “Mr. Carlile, I thank you for the services you have rendered today. Without your efforts, today would have been another dreary anti-nano rally.” My eyes finally adjusted. “Senator Greely?” “Yes, I see you recognize me. Miss Warner, please come here.” Signe walked forward until she stood directly in front of Greely. She said, “I gave you what you wanted. I brought Carlile here, and made the required spectacle. Now where is my niece?” My mind was spinning. She brought me here? I swallowed hard and said, “Signe, what’s going on here?” Greely’s deep laugh echoed off the walls of the empty storeroom. “She led you here, although it took a bit of coercion on my part. I knew you were a bleeding heart and would try to save her. You took Miss Warner for a little ride in your Coaster, and gave us the focal point we needed. The populace will be up in arms against the nanos now. Nanos should never fraternize with humans, you know.” Greely spoke to the suited thug behind us. “Carlos, I think Mister Carlile has served his purpose. Please dispose of him.” Signe yelled at Greely, “Wait, our business isn’t concluded yet. I fulfilled my end of the bargain. You fulfill yours. Where is my niece? I want to see her now.” A moment later I felt a heavy hand on my shoulder, but I was ready for it. I dropped to one knee and simultaneously whipped my elbow up into his groin with all my strength. Something popped under the force of the blow, and the man named Carlos howled. The pulse baton clattered to the floor at my feet as he reached for his groin with both hands. I grabbed the baton as I spun behind him, slipped him into a half-nelson, and placed the tip of the pulse baton against his neck. The big man squirmed in my grasp, but stilled when I mashed the tip of the baton into his carotid artery. When the other two thugs started forward, I said, “Easy boys, if I pulse him in the neck he’ll be dead.” Greely held up a hand and they stopped. “Very well. Marco, bring the girl.” One of the men turned and went out of the room. I said, “You’re facing re-election and needed something to rally around, didn’t you? Your anti-nano legislation was stuck in committee and going nowhere, so you manufactured this little melodrama for your own political career.” The senator smiled. “Of course.” Marco returned dragging a crying child of six or seven years. When the girl saw Signe, she pulled away from the thug and ran to her. Signe wrapped her in her arms and hugged her fiercely. She said, “You’re safe now, Camille.” She murmured something to the girl, and put her down. The girl stepped away from Signe, turned her back to her, and covered her eyes. Greely said, “Boys, this is getting tiresome. Get rid of them all. The girl too.” Signe flashed into a blur of motion, spinning across the room faster than I could follow. The thugs raised their pulse batons, but it was far too late. They flew back off their feet, impacted on the far wall with meaty thuds, and collapsed to the floor. I didn’t wait either. I quickly repositioned the tip of my baton to Carlo’s lower back and pressed the firing stud. He convulsed and dropped bonelessly to the floor at my feet. The Senator stood rooted to the floor, his eyes wide with shock. Signe walked slowly back to stand in front of him. In a quiet voice she said, “You’ve been sentenced for your crimes, Senator Greely.” The Senator huffed, “Oh? And who are you to pass judgment on me? I’m a United States Senator.” He punctuated his title with a spray of spittle. “You’re just a nanotech pusher. Without your kind…” Signe smiled and raised the edge of her blouse sleeve, exposing the tattoo. The Senator turned pale, and took a half step back. His voice came out in a barely audible whisper, “You’re---” Signe raised her right arm and rammed it through the Senator’s chest up to her elbow. Her hand protruded from his back, dripping blood and gore. The Senator stared wide-eyed at the arm driven through his chest, and gasped for breath. Blood tricked past his lips. “Horus,” he croaked, and slid off her arm to the floor. I turned away and vomited. *** Signe turned to the girl and escorted her out of the room, making sure that the girl’s eyes remained covered. A few moments later she was back. Blood dripped from her arm, but she seemed unconcerned about it. She said, “I’m sorry you were dragged into this, Neil. I am really starting to like you. You handled yourself quite well.” It took me a moment to find my voice. “What---, who are you.” “What and who are both good questions.” She rolled up her blouse sleeve and said, “Do you remember asking me about my tattoo?” “Yeah. You didn’t want to tell me.” It’s an ancient Egyptian symbol of protection called the Eye of Horus. It’s the symbol of our sect, although we spell the eye part A-E-Y-E, which itself stands for the letters A and I, as in artificial intelligence. We are known to intelligence circles, and since Greely sat on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, he must have known of our existence. Lucky for us, he didn’t know I was one of them. We protect humanity in all its forms, human, nanos, and higher forms.” I swallowed dryly. “What do you mean by higher forms?” “You nanos have barely scratched the surface of what can be done with the technology. Our augmentation includes many other capabilities, as well as A-I upgrades. It makes Greely’s anti-nano campaign look a bit ridiculous, don’t you think?” “I suppose it does, but this is a lot to take in. I’ve never seen anyone move like that. Or do those---” She shrugged, “Yeah, sorry it was so gruesome, but he left me little choice. In any case, sentence was passed on him last week after he kidnapped my niece and tried to blackmail me.” “What about them,” I asked, motioning toward the three unconscious men on the floor. “We’ll use some advanced nanotech to wipe their memories of the past few hours. They’ll probably have to spend some time in the hospital, especially Carlos after what you did to him. Nice moves, by the way.” “I thought a little leverage of our own would be useful. So what now?” “Good question,” she said, looking me up and down. “I can’t really let you walk around. You know and have seen too much. We can’t do our work if we were ever made public.” She paused, looking at me intently. “You have two choices. First, I can inject nanotech that will wipe your memory of the last several hours. You won’t remember me or this little affair.” “And my other option?” She smiled. “I hope you’ll join us. We made a good team. There are a lot of things you can do for us that don’t involve this kind of carnage, which, by the way, is extremely rare. Our objective is to keep the peace to the best of our ability. You have to decide within the next six hours, though. After that, wiping your memory becomes dangerous, and sometimes fatal. That would be a bad waste of talent.” I though back to our conversation at the clinic, and giving back to society. I wasn’t a protestor, but under normal circumstances I would have watched the news feeds in horror, all the while doing absolutely nothing. In some ways that was worse than protesting. At least they expressed themselves; they had made a choice. Society had become a spectator sport for me. The thought made me slightly nauseous. I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. “Do I get one of those cool tattoos?”

•••••The End •••••