here is the start of what will become a big si-fi story!
93406480. That is my cataloged name. It is year 2023. Everyone in the world is given a chip in their brain once they are born. That way everyone in the world is kept track of. They know where you are. Always. But I figured if I could somehow disable said chip in brain you would no longer be cataloged. You would no longer exist. This Idea came to me when I was twelve. I had always wanted to be a criminal. But it’s very hard when they know exactly what you are doing all the time. Steal a peach from a street vendor and as you start to walk away you gat an electrical shock. The bigger the crime, the bigger the shock. Hard to understand? Let me explain, since we are all cataloged by a small chip in your brain, if you disabled it you would technically not exist. Thus you could do anything because the crime could not be traced back to you. So, now at age sixteen I am a criminal in training and I know everything there is to know about the system. And soon I will be out of the system completely.
So, as I previously said my name, number, thing, is 93406480. Pronounced, yes pronounced 9 3 40 64 80. Hard to remember? Yes? No? Well anyway, only they, the government calls us by our numbers. My name is Freddiy Wolfe of just Fred. But anyway my idea for this cheat I guess you could call it was when I had to find myself in the catalogs. This is something they try to teach you in school but it is an infinitely hard thing to do. People are forever dying and being born so you name moves around so much it is almost impossible to find. But I had a major realization later that day when I attempted to steal a peach from yes a street vendor. It worked but I got a nasty little shock and it got me to thinking. Now I am almost ready to destroy my chip.
“Are you sure about this Freddiy?” Asked Jamison, my best friend and partner in crime. O.k. 5 7 93 8 65.
*sight*. “Yes Jami, I have been planning this since we were twelve.” Truth be told I was ready, but I was a bit nervous. My freedom would require the cutting open of my own head to remove the chip. That was where Jami came in. He has been in on my plan for four years now, the whole time I have been planning. He does not really like my idea but I need him. He has been illegally researching how one would go about removing a brain chip and now he can do it. Well I hope he can anyway.
“How about you?” I ask now I little worried. “Are you sure you know how to do it?
“Yes, yes. It’s quite a Bloody process but I am sure I can do it.”
“And if I die”?
“You won’t die” He say looking away from me while he unpacks his bag. He takes out a small white bottle and tosses it to me.
“Here, take one of these. It’ll knock you cold for a few hours.”
Looking at the pill it really hits me. In a few hours, when I wake up, I will other be dead, of free.
“Where did you get these?” He smiles.
“I made them” My eyes go wide with fear.
“You…made them?”
“Yes, oh, don’t worry”. He said seeing the look on my face.
“I tested it.”
“On what? Or, moreover, on whom?” Knowing Jami, it could be anyone from a hobo to his older brother.
“Ailyshia”. Alright, so I had been close. Ailyshia was his older sister.
“And?” I whispered nervous now.
“She was out cold in two minutes. For five hours.”
“Wow’. I breathed. Very potent. He pulled a bottle of water out of his bag and handed it to me. I dropped the pill into my mouth.
“Cheers.” And swallowed it.
Chapter one.
When I finally awoke, several hours later my head was absolutely killing me. Bandages were tightly wrapped around it but the sharp pain of the cut combined with a headache from the pills was almost too much. I looked around. Jami was asleep leaning up against the wall. His loud snoring not helping my head ache at all.
“Jami!” I hissed “wake up!” He blearily opened his eyes and yawned. Then jumped up.
“Oh! Good! You’re awake! And alive.” I narrowed my eyes.
“I thought you said there was no doubt I would live?”
“There never was any doubt. I am just glad it ended up being okay.” He said running his hands trough his messy blond hair and yawning again.
“Why? Did something go wrong?”
“Sort.”
“What”!? Uh-oh, this diffidently had me worried.
“Oh, it’s nothing much really.” I nodded motioning for him to continue.
“You see Freddiy. The chip didn’t actually come out.”
“What”!? I yelled. That was diffidently very bad.
“Don’t worry. It’s fine really.”
“So do I still exist?”
“Kind of”
“What do you mean “kind of””?
“Well it’s disabled, but….”
“But What”?
“But, you still have it. And it could, most likely be repaired.”
“So all that work down the drain”?
“Not entirely. It’s been broken. It worked. But when you commit this huge crime which you have in mind you may get a small shock and…
“And show up in the files! Damn it”! I said through clenched teeth. All that hard work. Now I could still be busted when I committed the crime.
“Maybe we could try again”?
“You mean cut open your head again? No, I may have learned a lot of good medical; skills from Luuk (Luuk, 15000684, His eldest brother and amazing Doctor.) but I am not doing that again. Look at this place”.
I looked around. Hum, he had a point. There was blood all over the floor. But, not a speck of blood on him. Or his clothes at all.
“You left”!? I said, very astonished.
“I had to.” Why”?
“Because it would have looked very suspicious if I walked down the road with you, whilst covered in blood.”
“Right”. I muttered. Only Jami would say something like “whilst” right now.
“Alright. When shall we go”?
“Well…..we can’t really go anywhere where the authorities might see you. Bandages wrapped around your head where your chip should be are bound to arouse suspicion.”
“No problem”. I anticipated this.” He looked questioningly at me as I pulled out of my bag, a hat. Actually, a toque. The one I wore during bad hair days or during the fall.
He laughed.
“That’s amazingly simple”
“Is’ in it though”? It was all so complex. The thought of using something as simple as a hat, well, it just seemed unbelievable. But, also rather frightening. Say, it fell off, or someone ordered me to take it off. We could be busted just like that. I looked over at Jami, and I could tell that he was thinking the same thing. He smiled weakly.
“Well, then, with that problem solved, we can go.”
I gingerly pulled the toque over my sore head, wincing with the pain.
“Ouch! That really does hurt. I see your point about re-cutting it. He nodded. I smiled.
“Shall we test it”?
“Yeah, alright. If you want to”.
“Hum, what shall I do for a test”?
“Nothing really big. Because if it did not work, well, the shock could damage your mind quite a bit.”
“Oh great. That’s just what I wanted to hear. I may, instead of gaining freedom and non-existence, become a vegetable? Fun, great one Jami.” He rolled his eyes at me.
“Stop worrying so much Freddiy.”
“My sanity is on the line here Jami; I have something to worry about. Now, let’s see. For my first act as a non-existent, I shall…..”
“Steal a peach”?
“No Jami, I do believe we have stolen enough peaches to last a few lifetimes.”
“True.”
“And anyway, I was thinking I could relive a vendor of his wares instead. Think that’s good enough.
“That would be good. Plus we need the cash if we are going to make a break for it. And commit the crime.”
“Um, Hum. We best get a move on then.” We departed. The noise outside was almost unbearable. I never knew there was so much noise. My head started aching the minute we left.
“I think our first stop will have to be the drug store. I need some painkillers. Desperately”.
“Don’t worry. I got some already. And these I didn't make.” He passed me the bottle of water. Re-filed I noticed. And a couple painkillers. I took them and immediately started to feel a bit better. We wandered around the shopping street, looking for someone with enough wares so that they would not immediately miss them.
“There, how about them Freddiy”? He pointed to some people selling fruits and
Vegetables. Beside them was a large metal box. Full of cash. And open.
“Excellent. You go and get them over to the far side of the stand alright? I do the lifting.” He nodded and walked over to the stand wandering down looking at the baskets of fruit and vegetables. Already he had attracted attention as a potential buyer. Then he suddenly ‘tripped’ and fell bringing a basket of carrots down with him. The vendors jumped up and hurried over to him, and I took the opportunity. I went over to the box looked around and careful picked some bills out, and putting them in my pocket. All at once I got a very painful but very minor shock to my head, causing my eyes to water. I hurriedly rearranged my face and looked to the vendors, who were now yelling at Jami. Once the vendors had sufficiently yelled at Jami and made him pick up the fallen carrots they came over to me.
“Would you like to buy something”? A lady with a strong American accent.
“Yes” I said, extracting a freshly lifted ten dollar bill from my pocket.
“I would like to buy two peaches, please.” I handed her the fiver and took two peaches. Then wandered over to where Jami was waiting.
“Well”? He asked. Sounding concerned.
“Any shock”?
“Yes a bit. But I am betting it won’t be as bad once the cut has healed. Come on. Let’s get out of here before they notice that they are missing some cash. It was getting rather late and we had to be out of Manchester before morning or our families would be looking for us. So as we planned we went to the train station to get a train to London. Jami checked his watch.
“Damn! Were going to miss the train! It leaves in ten minutes.”!
“Ten minutes? Oh no. We had better run. Fast. Let’s go”! So we ran. Through the swiftly darkening streets to a train we were highly likely to miss. We made it. Sort of. Just as we were coming up to the train it started going.
“No”! I yelled.
“We have to be on that train. The next one is not until noon tomorrow! What should we do”? I looked over at Jami, just in time to see something just short of being an evil grin spread across his face.
“We’ll jump.”
“Jump"? Are you totally mad”?
“It’s been mentioned. No, look we just run catch up with it and jump on the back of it.”
“Alright, fine, let’s go.” We started running, again. The train had only just started, so it was not going very fast but, it was still a train, thus faster than us. Jami, who was much taller than me got to it first and just managed to catch hold of the back railing and pull him up.
“Come on Freddiy. Faster”! But the train was going to fast and I was falling behind. I was tired and my head was beginning to pound again. I had to stop running. I looked up at Jami and yelled: “I can’t run anymore, I’ve got to stop”! He looked around franticly a moment, then; grabbing hold of the railing pulled himself back up and jumped, falling on his hand and knees on the train tracks.
“Jami”! I yelled out.
“You idiot! What did you do that for? You could have killed yourself.” I hurried over to his side helping him. Surprisingly enough though, he was barely hurt at all. His fingerless gloves had protected his palms, a bit anyway. They were still cut and bleeding. But, his jeans had protected his knees. Just a few tares and cuts. We sat down beside the train track and cleaned and bandaged his hands and knees.
“You should not have jumped. You coulda killed yourself.”
“And leave you make it all the way to London by yourself and on foot? I think not. Anyway, that was a poorly thought out plan. Jump on the train.” He said shaking his head. Then he looked up at me and I smiled.
“Not one of your better thought out plans. Oh well, now we have to walk. I figure it will take a while. Day or two maybe.”
“Well, we have no food and we are rapidly running out of water, so, we should probably just go back and catch the non train tomorrow morning.”
“You are forgetting, our parents will be looking for us.”
“Hmm. True, that will be a problem. But we can’t really keep going. We won’t make it all the way to London without food or water.”
“But it will be almost impossible to find a vendor at this time of night, Jami.”
“That does not matter. We have to go back. I know you really don’t want to but, I am putting my foot down. There is no way we will make it t London. So we have to at least try to find a vendor and diffidently get some sleep.” I was tiered. But sleeping back in our city would mean we would be sleeping like the hobos. Outside. Reluctantly I agreed. And we started back.
It did not take long. Five or ten minutes because we had to go slow. But we could not find a vendor anywere at all. So scomacs growling we sleept on the shopping street so we could get something the moment we woke up. when I did wake up it was not to the smell of fresh fruit and food in general but to someoe proding me in the side with their foot.
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