The Society

Chapter 1: Alyss

Chapter 1:

Swirling darkness grasps at me like ghostly fingers determined to drag me into oblivion. Up ahead, barely visible through the mist, I see a light. The fingers have a pincer-grip on my arms and they're pulling me forward toward the glare. As I approach, propelled by my invisible captors, the light brightens until I can see a lone metal table standing beneath a solitary lightbulb. Six people in white lab coats and face masks stand around the table, and look up as I approach. All I can see are their eyes...eyes which blaze bright green and violet from beneath their white hoods.

"No!" I scream, and struggle. "I won't do it!"

There is no response, just the inexorable pull toward the table.

"I don't want it! I want to stay human!"

One of the masked figures speaks. "Nonconformity will not be tolerated." Then, one by one, the other figures begin to speak, until all six of them chant in a synchronous monotone. "Nonconformity will not be tolerated. Nonconformity will not be tolerated. Noncon..."

"No!" I shriek and try to pull away, but the fingers have a grip of iron on my upper arms, and I'm trapped. There is no escape. I will become an android. It is the will of the The Society, and The Society does not allow rebellion.

***

I live in a world with no mirrors.

Sure, if that was the worst the world had to offer, why care? After all, it's not like there are a lot of actual humans around to see me. The Nandroids don't care what I look like. They aren't like the HAs...human minds in android bodies. They're just human-shaped computers designed to raise us until we're old enough to leave our frail human bodies behind forever.

Two months. To be precise, 59 days, 17 hours, and 12 minutes. That's when it will hit midnight on the day of my eighteenth birthday. And, in the hours before dawn, I will be spirited away to be embedded in a perfect, beautiful body that will never age or suffer illness or pain.

I don't know why the idea terrifies me. Last night, I woke in a cold sweat, my heart pounding so fast that one of the Nandroids came wheeling in to check on me and make sure I wasn't sick. Which is silly, considering we live in a sealed compound and unless there's something they're not telling us about germs, there's no way for contagious illnesses to reach us here.

But the thought of having my mind in something made of wires and electricity and synthetic skin...I shudder and pull the gray blanket tighter around my shoulders. Out of everyone here, I seem to be the only one with such misgivings. The other girls are eagerly looking forward to the process of leaving their human bodies behind. I suppose the thought of never getting fat or growing chin hairs is appealing to most people my age.

I sit on the wide windowsill of the window that overlooks the exercise yard. Suddenly chilled, I draw my feet up onto the ledge with me and tuck the blanket around them. The yard is almost as featureless and gray as the rest of the compound, except for the lone mature tree in the center that grows out of a perfectly circular hole.

They say this tree is one of the last. The Society was formed to combat the rampant disease, hunger and poverty that gripped a world in its death-throes. War and pestilence reduced once-green lands to dusty wastelands, and only a few plants and animals still exist. Supposedly, this venerable oak is one of a mere five mature trees left in the whole country. Like us, children raised by the Society, there is a whole generation of trees out there being raised to help in rebuilding the world once they grow up.

A little Vacbot roams around, sweeping up the few leaves that dared to fall and mar the sterile concrete. A leaf flutters down, settling on the round little bot's back, and I chuckle as it spins in frantic circles, trying to escape the invisible threat.