Erstwhile Urban Wanderer

January 11, 2009 – A dark short story, inspired by a dream.

By Dave Eriqat

My hands trembled as I delicately fingered the envelope addressed so formally to me, incorporating the title of “Mr.,” followed by my full name. My mind raced through all the possible reasons why I might have received a letter from the dreaded Council of Luminaries. My blog posts are carefully restrained, cognizant as I am of what happens to people who run afoul of those in power. It occurred to me, though, that not long ago on another blog I made a comment that reflected somewhat unflatteringly upon the emperor, mocking his economic policies as unsophisticated and likely to fail. Surely that tepid comment wouldn’t have precipitated a letter from the Luminaries, would it?

I sat down on a nearby chair and cradled the envelope in my lap, attempting to summon up the courage to open it. Perhaps its contents was innocuous, I thought hopefully. Maybe it’s just to inform me of some new rules or something, knowing full well that the standard way to announce new rules within the empire was by publishing them in print and on airing them television, not by mailing them directly to people. I was hoping against hope that the contents of the envelope was innocuous. I knew only one other person who ever received such a letter directly from the Luminaries, and he is gone, disappeared.

After my respiration and heart rate settled down a bit, I got up from my chair, gingerly set the still unopened envelope on a table and walked over to the liquor cabinet. Removing the solitary bottle of liquor from the cabinet, a dusty old bottle of vodka, I poured myself a healthy dose to steady my nerves. It was only eleven in the morning, far too early to drink under normal circumstances, and liquor was too darned expensive in those days to drink any old time. But that was one of those rare, special occasions for which I kept this bottle handy, so I availed myself of it.

Finally summoning up enough courage, I neatly cut the envelope open with my letter opener, as if to avoid antagonizing its contents, as if my showing it solemn respect would somehow ameliorate the message within. To my surprise and partial relief, the note within was exceedingly brief and didn’t sound terribly ominous, reading simply,

Dear Mr. David James Fulton,

Your presence is requested at 11030 Montgomery Street, Suite 5A, on March 12, 2012, at 11:30 AM.

Sincerely,
M. Pierce, Secretary, Council of Luminaries

“Your presence is requested”? That’s empire-speak for “you are ordered to appear.” The empire never makes demands of the people that sound like demands. All orders are phrased as “requests” because all such requests are implicitly backed by the threat of overwhelming force in the event of noncompliance. A citizen declines such a “request” at his own peril, which will likely be his abrupt disappearance.

March 12? That was three days away, another common tactic of the empire: let the citizen have a few days to wrestle with his own conscience over whether or not to comply with the “request.” Ninety-nine percent of the time, the citizen decides that submitting to the request is the path of least resistance.

The empire doesn’t hesitate to employ heavy-handed force when necessary, however. In fact, every now and then it makes a spectacular show of force, such as blowing up an entire building while it’s occupied by the squatters who have taken it over, in order to remind the citizens just how powerful the empire is. But force is a funny thing. The threat of force is more frightening than the application of force. Were the empire to rely excessively on force for mundane things, such as compelling citizens to appear at the “request” of the Council of Luminaries, the citizens’ fear of force would be diluted by its banal application. Better to let the majority of people permit their own imaginations to convince them to submit to the will of the empire, and reserve the actual use of force for spectacles and the truly recalcitrant citizens whose public displays of defiance would undermine the authority of the empire.

Ruminating thus, I managed to convince myself that this letter was not innocuous after all, but in fact, rather ominous. Reaching again for my bottle, I poured myself a second generous glass of vodka to calm my nerves. As I calmed down a bit, now a little woozy from two stiff drinks on an empty stomach, I realized that Montgomery Street was familiar to me. I drove down that street about once a month, but never recalled seeing any government buildings along it. My recollection was that it was mostly populated by sterile office buildings and industrial parks.

Since I had three days until I had to appear before the Council, I figured I might as well pay an advance visit to the address cited in the letter. Plucking my car keys from the basket on the kitchen counter, I realized that I was a bit too tipsy to drive, so I decided to eat something and embark on my mission after lunch.

After forcing some toasted bread and hot soup down my constricted throat, and with my inebriation somewhat abated, I headed out the door to locate the address cited in the letter. Montgomery Street was a good five miles across town and the easiest way to get there was by traveling along the city streets, one traffic light at a time. I made tedious progress in the dense traffic, but it afforded me plenty of time for contemplation and observation. The implicit threat to my own wellbeing posed by the letter I received heightened my powers of observation, making me keenly aware of everything around me: the myriad police units in armored vehicles, in cars, on bicycles, on foot, all covered in body armor and carrying both automatic rifles and sidearms; the multiple cameras monitoring every intersection, rapidly pirouetting to scan the cars stopped at the traffic lights, employing facial recognition software to search for wanted persons; the massive billboards and signs all around proclaiming the innate goodness of the emperor, the empire and its soldiers, and admonishing us to be attentive to “threats” from our various “enemies.”

While stopped for the light at one intersection, I observed in my rear view mirror the police swarming a car about three cars back. Evidently some wanted soul in that car had been identified by one of the intersection cameras, which then notified the police waiting nearby, hopeful for any action whatsoever to relieve their boredom. I instinctively looked furtively around me to make sure I wasn’t their next target. After all, I would soon become a wanted man too if I didn’t willingly appear before the authorities. Thankfully, no police converged on my car and I eased discretely through the intersection when the light turned green.

After an anxious half hour of inching through the city’s intersections, I finally arrived at the north end of Montgomery Street, a four-lane boulevard running north and south. I assumed address 11030 was to the south, since there wasn’t much development to the north, so I headed south. Address 11030 was probably going to be on my right side, so I kept my eye on that side, and since the addresses were in the 40000 range, I figure it was going to be a while until I got to 11030.

During the long drive down Montgomery Street it was just as I remembered it, consisting of building after building reflecting the same cold and sterile demeanor. Despite all the cars on the road and all the cars parked around the buildings, the entire street and all its buildings seemed lifeless. I knew from past experience that on weekends, the street was even more lifeless than on weekdays like today. On weekends, one could drive a whole mile down Montgomery Street without seeing another moving car, and all the parking lots would be empty, save the odd car belonging to the misguided worker believing that his or her dedication would be recognized and appreciated. I felt sorry for such people. I had learned first hand that such exemplary work habits are seldom even recognized, let alone rewarded. And the managers of these companies wouldn’t hesitate to capitulate on even a good worker if necessary to save money or appease the empire’s capricious demands. No, it was better to do one’s duty to earn a paycheck and no more. Most of all, it was best that one not draw attention to oneself.

One might wonder, if avoiding attention was so prudent, why I hosted a blog or posted comments on other blogs, particularly comments critical of the empire. I don’t have a ready answer. I am certainly not the type who enjoys flirting with danger or attracting official scrutiny. But somehow it seemed that participating in the blogosphere was the last flicker of personal liberty still burning within me, which at least made me feel alive, unlike the vast mass of people who long ago relinquished any semblance of living in exchange for life. To give up communicating with my fellow independently minded thinkers in the blogosphere would be to acknowledge that I was dead, just like the majority of the citizens. Participating in the blogosphere was simply a risk worth taking since it proved I was still alive.

I didn’t merely write blog posts and comments. I also clandestinely operated a relay node of The People’s Net, which developed after the original internet was taken over – or rather, reclaimed – by the imperial government. After the government reclaimed control over the internet and began ruthlessly censoring its information content and using it to ferret out “dissidents,” a grassroots effort emerged to create a new internet, called The People’s Net (TPN). Not surprisingly, the imperial government launched a War on Subverse in response and began arresting participants in TPN, which then led to its going “underground” and its participants employing alias names and other techniques to obfuscate their identities. (The perpetrators of the War on Subverse initially wanted to call it the War on Subversion, but the emperor himself decided that phrase, War on Subverse, was more consistent with the earlier phrase, War on Terror.) The fact that I used an alias within the blogosphere is the reason I found it difficult to believe my insolent blog comment could have precipitated the letter from the Council. On the other hand, there was ample reason to believe that the government had successfully infiltrated TPN, so one of those infiltrators may have identified me.

When TPN was first established we used old-fashioned analog modems over telephone lines to connect the network. However, since the government was monitoring all telephone calls, it became easy for it to recognize the multi-frequency tones made by analog modems and not merely identify the users of such equipment, but also tap into the data stream. So we had to develop some clever countermeasures, such as using steganography to embed data within prerecorded voice data. That concealed our activities for a while, until the government began scanning every telephone call for hidden data, which forced us to find another way to communicate. One good consequence of using steganography to conceal data within voice data is that it significantly reduced the government’s efficiency in monitoring ordinary voice telephone calls. Eventually we developed a highly encrypted hard-wired and low-power, point-to-point microwave relay system as the backbone of TPN, which the government has not been able to impede, so far. Once in a while the government would find one of us operating a relay node and a grand public show trial would ensue, followed by the disappearance of the “subversive.” Whenever that occurred, the network would be quickly reconfigured to segregate the compromised node so that it led nowhere. Those practices enabled us to keep TPN operating and its users communicating.

Address 12010 – I was getting close to my destination and the buildings still looked the same: bland, looming, glass-encased edifices, their only differentiating feature being the tint of their mirrored facades. Address 11030 – aside from having eight floors instead of four, it looked like all the rest of the buildings along Montgomery Street. I could not believe this was a government building. In fact, it had a high-tech sounding name on the sign in front, which made it appear to be some kind of engineering company. I didn’t realize my car had slowed to a crawl in front of the building, until the car behind me blared its horn. Not wanting to draw attention to myself, I abruptly turned into the parking lot of 11030 and found a discrete place to park, in between a couple of larger vehicles.

From my car I noticed the cameras stationed at the top corners of the building and recoiled from my car’s windows, so as to not be seen by the cameras. The cameras were a bit of a problem. I wanted to approach and enter the building and see the interior, but I was afraid that my presence there, three days before my appointment, might somehow be incriminating. See how effective the empire’s techniques are? By merely sending a single, terse letter the empire can make the recipient feel like a criminal and start questioning their every action, no matter how innocuous. Few people can stand up to the self-imposed character assassination caused by receiving such a letter, and most will quickly come forth, naively seeking absolution from the empire, even if it leads to imprisonment. Even being in prison is a relief from the self-doubt, crushing anxiety and fear of eventual arrest generated by receiving one of these letters.

Reflecting on the nature of the empire’s tactics gave me the courage to exit my car and stride boldly into the lobby of the building, which looked like any other: a security guard podium off to one side, manned by a guard; a couple of elevators; a directory. I purposefully walked to the directory to see what was on floor five, the floor mentioned in my letter. But scanning the directory, nothing at all was listed as residing on floor five or higher, nor did a “Suite 5A” appear anywhere on the directory. Alarmed by this discovery, I froze in front of the directory, perhaps longer than I should have because the security guard walked over slowly, eying me suspiciously.

“Can I help you find something?”, he asked politely, but authoritatively.

Stammering, I attempted to reply as innocuously as possible. Recalling the name of one of the companies I had passed on the way here, I said, “Uh, uh, I’m looking for Tachydyne.”

“Oh, that’s down the block,” the guard said, pointing back in the direction from which I had driven.

“Oh, really?”, I replied, pretending to be surprised. “OK, thanks,” I said, swiftly turning back toward the exit.

Relieved to be back inside my car, but disappointed and a little bit concerned at failing to ascertain the nature of this government office, I headed home. As I drove, my mind kept wondering what was this “Suite 5A” which didn’t even appear on the directory. The tension ensuing from my escapade got my mental juices flowing, and I recalled that the building I just visited had only four floors at one time. In fact, I realized that other buildings in the area had undergone a similar metamorphosis of acquiring additional floors in recent years. I recalled seeing them being remodeled from time to time, but such mundane activity didn’t make much of an impression on me at the time. Now, however, a pattern seemed evident, but what sort of pattern?

The two days following my daring visit to my eventual rendezvous point were hell! I could barely eat, even though I was quite hungry. I don’t know if I slept at all, despite draining my solitary bottle of vodka in an effort to knock myself unconscious. I paced nervously around my apartment, mulling over and over the letter, the building and the possible reasons why I might be of interest. I even neglected responding to e-mail messages, that is, until people started expressing concern that I may have been disappeared, at which point I felt obliged to reassure them that I was still here, at least for the time being. I didn’t tell anyone about my having received a letter from the Council, although perhaps I should have.

By the day of my “appointment” I was a mess. My eyes were bloodshot and dark bags hung heavily underneath, my hair was unkempt, my beard unshaven. I hadn’t eaten properly in days and my stomach was in knots and my fingers were nervous and unsteady. I wondered if imperial psychologists had discovered that three days was the optimum amount of time to let someone stew in their own fears. If so, it certainly worked on me, as I was now a bowl of jelly, and I still had several hours until my 11:30 appointment.

I figured I might as well clean up a bit, so I showered and shaved and selected a suit and tie to wear. Maybe looking good would help my “case,” whatever that was. I also forced down a big bowl of cereal and milk to help calm my stomach, skipping my usual cup of strong coffee since my hands were already trembling. I had a glass of orange juice instead of coffee because I read that it perks up the mind, and I felt I needed to be alert today.

I paced anxiously around my apartment in my suit and tie for another two hours, until shortly before 11 AM, when it was finally time to go. What a relief. Days of waiting and wondering would finally be answered.

Following the same torturous, tedious and time-consuming route as before, I wended my way through the heavy city traffic toward my destination. In contrast to the last time I made the trip, this time I didn’t feel “guilty,” as my presence was “requested” that day. I even brought along the letter I received from the Council just in case I was stopped by a police officer. In fact, I kind of hoped I would be stopped just so I could prove I had a legitimate reason for being on the streets, and perhaps to demonstrate to the officer that I was “important” enough to be contacted directly by the Council.

Our modern system of oppression warps our psychology. We become so accustomed to being treated as puny, insignificant and contemptible creatures, that any official interest in us elevates our self-esteem! It makes no difference if the “interest” the state takes in us is benevolent or prejudicial. All that matters is that the state takes an interest in us, which temporarily negates our insignificance. How utterly twisted and bizarre, like the way long-term hostages come to bond with their captors.

Despite the normal heavy traffic, my second trip seemed briefer than the first, and before long the building loomed up directly ahead on the right. I suppose knowing exactly where I was headed made the trip seem quicker, but also, when one wishes to avoid something, it always seems to arrive much too soon.

I parked in almost exactly the same spot as before and unhesitatingly strode into the building and right up to the security guard podium.

“Good morning,” I said, trying to sound confident and cheerful. “I have an appointment in Suite 5A. Can you tell me which elevator will take me there?”

The guard eyed me for a long time, until I started to feel my resolve disintegrating, and then replied, “Do you have any paperwork?”

Unsure what he was referring to, I nervously presented my letter from the Council. “I have this.”

The guard meticulously unfolded it and read the sparse words printed on it. He then refolded it just as meticulously and handed it back to me without comment. Getting up from his chair, he said, “Follow me.”

Walking past the elevators, the guard led me to a nondescript door, a door which I failed to notice during my first visit. He inserted a key from the key chain on his belt and pushed the door open for me. “In here, take the elevator up to the fifth floor.”

The elevator door was already open, reminiscent of the patient, waiting leaves of a Venus Flytrap. I entered and found a single button, labeled “5,” which I promptly pressed – there was no sense delaying the inevitable. The elevator lurched smoothly and forcefully upward, pressing my feet firmly to the floor. The elevator’s powerful motion struck me as a metaphor of the government’s power and authority, as if I were in the grip of a powerful hand lifting me toward the mouth of a giant beast.

Oddly enough, when the elevator reached its destination and its doors opened, what lay before me was unexpectedly ordinary: a small reception area, staffed by a neatly dressed lady sitting behind a small counter. Walking toward the counter, I started to reach into my breast pocket to retrieve my letter. But before I reached the counter a door abruptly burst open and an authoritative man walked out briskly and right up to me.

“You must be Morgan. I’m Dr. Octavian,” he said, extending his hand. Without waiting for a reply from me, he continued, “Thank goodness you’re here. We’re really shorthanded.” I started to open my mouth to speak, but the impatient, animated man kept talking. “Come. Let me give you a quick tour of the facility and then I’ll show you to your new office.”

Obviously, he had me mistaken for a Mr. Morgan, probably on account of my suit and tie. I wanted to correct his mistaken impression lest I get into trouble, but I was curious about his “facility” and thought that by playing along for a while I might learn something about it. Forgetting all about my 11:30 appointment, I followed the doctor as we embarked on our tour.

“The fifth floor,” the doctor began, spreading his hands expansively around him, “is our administrative floor. This is where your office is.” Then, walking over to the elevator from which I just arrived, he continued, “Let’s go to the top floor. I think you’ll find that an interesting place to start.”

We entered the elevator and the doctor waved his identity badge in front of the elevator’s control panel which evidently harbored some kind of sensor, whereupon the elevator doors closed and the elevator lurched strongly upward. Stepping out of the elevator onto the eighth floor, we encountered the same kind of reception area as on the fifth floor, but completely empty, lacking any plants, chairs, counter or receptionist.

Walking through the door in the reception area was like entering another world. On the other side of the door it was “nighttime,” or at least simulated nighttime. The center of the building consisted of a huge atrium, which was covered by a dark ceiling that showed simulated stars. Noticing my fascination with the elaborate artificial sky, Dr. Octavian explained.

“Ah, I see you are enchanted with our sky. You may recall one of my papers in which I explained how we can increase worker productivity by manipulating their circadian rhythm. A ‘day’ in this facility is 28 hours. In order to accomplish that, we produce artificial cycles of daytime and nighttime, as well as slow down all the clocks. The workers here ‘sense’ that 24 hours has elapsed, when in reality 28 hours has elapsed. Similarly, their 12-hour shifts are really 14-hour shifts. We haven’t yet experimented with longer days, but we may if we need to increase our productivity further. For now, their altered circadian rhythm, combined with the special drug cocktail we add to their food and water, which makes them productive but docile, is sufficient.”

Walking along, with the atrium to our left, we passed what appeared to be dormitories on our right. Only they afforded the occupants little privacy because the walls were entirely made of a blue-tinted glass, which created a glowing, bluish, television-like view of the inside. The doctor proudly continued.

“Yes, we like to keep an eye on our workers. They get used to the lack of privacy. Actually, they don’t really notice because from the inside the walls look opaque, which gives them an illusory sense of privacy.”

Fascinated, I watched the people in the dormitories socializing, dining, watching television, relaxing, all oblivious to their naked exposure. Perhaps because of the doctor’s mention of a drug cocktail, I noticed something else, too. Although they enacted the motions of living, the people didn’t quite seem alive. They seemed robotic, mechanical, docile. I also noticed that one of the clocks in one of the dormitories read 9:30 PM, even though my watch indicated that it was only 11:30 AM. Realizing that I was late for my appointment, I suddenly wanted the tour to end, but the doctor kept walking along the row of dormitories, immensely proud of his domain.

Continuing, the doctor said, “The seventh and eighth floors are dormitories. The sixth is our production center. We do mostly final assembly here in this facility, using components from some of the other facilities in this area.”

As the doctor prattled on, I paused involuntarily at one dormitory. Was that…? No, it couldn’t be. But it was. Alan Wilkerson, my friend, and one of the founders of TPN. I’d recognize that long beard of his anywhere. We all thought he had been disappeared, and sure enough, he had been, to here! A chill of horror swept down my spine as I realized that many of the people I saw in the dormitories we passed looked like “dissident” types. Looked like, but no longer acted like. Now they were docile, obedient workers – robots – too doped up to realize that their entire world was being manipulated to maximize their productivity.

All those office buildings, uninteresting, sterile and ponderous from the outside, were but facades concealing a network of slave labor factories, staffed by former “dissidents” who now robotically manufactured unidentified goods, probably specialized electronic equipment required by the empire. I realized what I had to do: get the heck out of building 11030, disappear underground and warn people about what I had seen here.

Realizing that he had gotten far ahead of me, the doctor turned around and walked back toward me.

“Do you recognize someone?”

“Uh, no. No,” I said, not wanting to betray my true identity.

“Come. I want to show you something,” the doctor said calmly as he resumed the tour.

Arriving at an empty dormitory in one corner of the building, the doctor said, “Would you like to see what one looks like from the inside?”

“Sure,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant, but still deeply disturbed from recognizing my old friend.

Walking into the dormitory, the doctor motioned with his hand and said, “Come on.”

I obediently followed, even though I suddenly felt vulnerable and threatened.

“You see? The dormitories are quite nice. Notice how the window looks perfectly opaque from the inside? All the dormitories have a spacious bedroom, a nice bathroom and a living room with plenty of furniture so our workers can socialize. Until 10 PM, that is. That is, 10 PM, their time. That’s their bedtime.”

“Do you like it?”, the doctor asked.

“Oh, yes, it seems quite comfortable,” I replied, feeling sleepy all of a sudden, even though it wasn’t even noon.

“You look a little tired, Mr. Fulton. Would you like to try out your new bed?”

Failing to immediately grasp that the doctor addressed me as Mr. Fulton instead of Mr. Morgan, and feeling overcome with the urge to sleep, I replied, “Yeah, that does sound nice,” and heavily trudged toward the bedroom. Suddenly I realized that the doctor had also said, “your new bed.” My bed? My brain was getting so foggy and my body felt so heavy that I couldn’t concentrate on these troubling questions. My only interest at the moment was lying down on a nice, soft bed.

Taking my arm and guiding me to the bed, the doctor said, “That’s it. Don’t fight it. Rest. When I shook your hand earlier, Mr. Fulton, I dosed you with a powerful tranquilizer. When you wake up you won’t remember a thing, not this tour, not me, nor your former life as a dissident.”

“Here, let me make you comfortable,” the doctor said as he removed my shoes, loosened my tie and covered me with the blankets, before continuing with his self-congratulatory stream of blather.

“Did you really think we didn’t know who you were? You were identified by the cameras before you even got out of your car. By the way, we also know you were here three days ago, which confirmed our psychological profile of you which anticipated that you would make such an advance visit. My ‘Mr. Morgan’ skit was merely to put you at ease. Did you like it? I’ve been working on it for a while, and I think it’s getting pretty good now. What do you think, does it need some work? You don’t have to answer. I know the drug is kicking in pretty strongly now. Good night, Mr. Fulton.”

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Chapter 2 – The Reluctant Revolutionary >>>