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"Ah, you are finally here," a man in a bloodstained lab coat replies, relieved at our intrusion.
"Not a second too late. It seems you're just overzealous in putting our plan into action, doctor," my comrade replies in a snappy tone. There are fresh blood and lifeless, still warm bodies of several people around us.
"I only did what was necessary." The man in the lab coat throws his improvised killing tool to the ground with shaking hand. Then, he points to the back of his neck. "Now get this chip out of me before the AI catches me and turns me off."
"All right." My comrade scurries to him and prepares for the special treatment. Meanwhile, I play it safe and study the bodies lying on the ground at close range.
Our counterpart becomes seriously worried when my comrade pulls out a tool that looks like one of the modern pistols. "And you are really sure that this procedure works without any problems?"
"We've done this several times before. What you see here is nothing more than a handgun of the latest model converted into an electric pulse device. A little shock and a numbing feeling afterwards, and it's done," I explain to him. I look at his last victim then and can hardly believe how he has mangled it. "I guess you don't have to worry."
He senses my discomfort and then looks at his bloodied hands. "Maybe it was all a mistake."
My comrade raises his eyebrow in a condemning manner. "We thought you wanted to break out of the system as well, doctor. Don't tell me you want to puss out now. Don't you realise that even freedom comes at a price?"
"I –" His sentence breaks off abruptly, and something tells me that he really wanted to say something quite different from what follows. "I'm not a doctor. I'm a murderer."
"Quick, Viktor!" I call out to my comrade immediately. "He's out of time!"
Instead of heeding my call, Viktor takes a step back and shakes his head. We hear a shrill beep shortly thereafter, whereupon the back of the doctor's head is suddenly dismantled into its individual parts by a small explosion inside. His body collapses like a sack of potatoes.
I have watched it spellbound and am still in a state of powerlessness. Viktor, on the other hand, casts one last derogatory glance at him and then raises his voice, "I really thought he had quite the balls after seeing his bloody deed here." He sighs. "What a disappointment."
I look at him in disbelief, and he just shrugs his shoulders.
"Anyway. We don't need him to accomplish our mission." Viktor walks to a big desk with several computers on it and takes a seat there. "Let's get it over with, Nedachnik," he urges me in a calm tone.
I approach him without words and then look over his shoulder. Our plan has been to infiltrate this research station with the help of our now-dead contact and use its recently developed nuclear weapon for liberating a part of humanity. Indeed, this sounds contradictory. But you have to know that any electronics that are not protected by a Faraday cage will be destroyed if you detonate a nuclear explosive device in the atmosphere. In our case, that would mean incapacitating the computer chips in nearly two million people in one fell swoop.
But as I now realise, my comrade has something else in mind. "What are you doing, Viktor?!"
He continues to program undisturbed while replying, "Do you really think I'm risking radiation to our homeland just to save these worthless sheep?"
"You don't intend to ... No, I can't let that happen." Just as I am about to raise my assault rifle against him, a loud bang rings out. I look down right after that. My blood gushes out from several unsightly openings. My legs suddenly become weak, causing me to stagger backwards and then fall to the floor with my back to the wall.
Viktor turns to me and now aims his sawn-off shotgun at my head. "Can't you remember what got us into this situation in the first place?"
I can remember exactly how this dystopian world began. Information technology, artificial intelligence, computer chips – all these things have existed decades before and have been used to make life easier for mankind. But a change began one day, the consequences of which were unimaginable, especially for the average citizen.
People have begun to voluntarily transplant microscopic chips into their fingertips. With these, there was the option to store all the personal and business information on it. More and more people have embraced this technology. One day, any other possibility of moving in society has been discontinued.
Step by step, all the nations of the world have created a global system of total control thereupon. All rules, no matter how absurd, have become an inescapable duty. Minor offences lead to the blocking of digital payment transactions for a certain period. Major crimes lead to exclusion from social life.
Artificial intelligences have been chosen as the supreme surveillance tool of the middle and lower social classes, and have now also been given full power over them. And the further development of information technology has only been accelerated in recent decades in order to enable this completely digitised dystopia, which is monitored right down to the last detail.
Of course, there are still a few people in it who are not part of it. But they live either far away from civilisation or in isolated slums where life could not be harder and dirtier. All the others are integrated into this sick system at birth by transplanting a special computer chip near the brainstem. That one basically includes everything that is required for the regulated life in modern society. A so-called kill switch is also part of it, which allows the system to take out any person at the push of a button.
"Viktor, we worked together in this system. You –" I'm coughing up blood, which keeps me from speaking for a moment. "You should know that at least the current generation is not to blame for all this. We –" More blood is cutting its way through my mouth. My whole body feels so numb all of a sudden.
He turns back to the computers. His voice remains strangely calm as he speaks, "Most of those who know that their world is not normal don't even want to think about escaping. And you can't expect more from those who have been indoctrinated since childhood. I knew that we would not come to terms in this regard, Nedachnik."
So that's why you're taking my life just like that? Is freedom truly worth the price of inhumanity?
With my last breaths, I experience how Viktor succeeds with his project. And I even get to see it on the screens – tons of people being blasted out of life by hacked kill switches.
It's like fireworks. One tyranny gives way to another. The world truly belongs to the wolves.
