DISCONTINUED

Chapter 21

*** A/N: Chapter / scene song from playlist - SHATTER ME (Lindsey Stirling) ***

Garreth and Luna sat and stared at the viewer which had been presenting the same information now on a loop for hours. They couldn't turn it off as it was being forced on them like the previous announcement had been, and while they could have walked away, they instead found themselves just sitting and watching and listening to it, over and over and over again.

Luna sat hugging her knees to her chest, expressionless. Garreth's face ached from clenching his jaw. He'd long ago stopped actually hearing the ridiculously pleasant voice that recited the announcement, and now he just sat and stared at the words on the screen. He was angrier than he could ever remember being. And he was terrified. He was absolutely terrified.

How in the world had they come to this point? How was this possible?

He thought about the gradual increasing of restrictions, the denial of human rights claims and freedom of speech incidents that they had explained away or had turned a blind eye to, and the basic, glaring inconsistencies between what they were being told and what they knew to be true. In hindsight they all now seemed to scream a warning of things to come.

But through it all they, like most people, had remained "comfortable". Minor restrictions imposed on their freedom here and there had been easy enough to ignore, and really, wasn't it all for the greater good anyway? I mean, surely they could trust that those in power ultimately had the best interests of the people in mind, right? He shook his head in disbelief and shame. He felt so foolish. How could they have fooled everyone like that? Well, not everyone he thought. Kenzie and her "crazy" friends had figured it out. So had Julia, at least enough to get herself killed. He understood that now.

Garreth looked over at Luna. She just sat there staring at the floor, her face and her body language emotionless and cold. Completely detached. He'd never seen her like this. This wasn't his Luna.

Everything being presented to them was an absolutely unacceptable violation of their rights - was that word even relevant anymore? But this part. This part no longer left any room for doubt as to their motivation. The sham and pretense of protection and care for the public was gone now as he once again turned his attention to the bizarrely British accented female voice as it continued.

"On their 17th birthday, each citizen will be informed as to the number of days remaining until their discontinuance. The days granted to each citizen will be a randomly generated number between 1 and 17,532, the latter taking any person granted such a number to the age of 65, at which time the law of mandatory discontinuance will apply."

"All citizens currently between the ages of 17 and 65 will soon be notified of their day of discontinuance. All citizens already 65 years of age and older will, as a courtesy, be granted a one-time 14-day reprieve before their mandatory discontinuance."

The voice cheerily continued on but Garreth had heard and seen enough. He badly needed some air, to go for a run or something, but they were in the middle of a 48-hour curfew, confined to their homes for the duration. He angrily wandered through the house but viewers in each room kept droning out the same crap. He finally found himself upstairs in his bathroom. At least there wasn't a viewer in there. He decided to have a scalding hot shower because he had no idea what else to do.

He stood in the shower, faced raised to the ceiling, and let the water rain down on him. The full details of the announcement, particularly regarding this notion of "discontinuance" - such a proper, highbrow term they'd come up with - were as thorough as they were diabolical.

As Kenzie and her friends had surmised, there was no virus but the threat of one and the "remedy" of an inoculation had afforded them the opportunity to administer everyone with an injection of lethal, remotely controllable nanobots. Nanobots that just floated in their bloodstream, dormant, until activated, at which time death of the host was immediate and unavoidable. Those in charge had first demonstrated their power in the killing of all pets that had been to the vet for shots within the preceding 6 months, those shots having been modified to include the nanobot serum. And as they had anticipated and hoped, they'd then been fortunate enough to be able to make a public human example of their control during the protests at city hall last night, triggering the nanobots in a number of those in the crowd.

Sure, some like the group Kenzie had spoken of had managed to escape the city before the mandatory inoculations, but this didn't really bother those in charge much. No one could shop or bank or take public transportation or access healthcare or any other organized, public service without first being inoculated. In time, some of those stragglers would return, realizing that they had no other choice. And what would in the long run come to be just a handful of renegades living somewhere off the grid in the woods wasn't going to pose any sort of significant threat.

There were mandatory check-ins required of everyone once every 3 months to ensure the nanobots remained functional, and those check-ins would also serve to learn of any pending births, allowing for the inoculation of the newborn.

If a host's nanobots were at any time to lose connection to the "control center", the nanobots were programmed to begin to slowly release a toxin into the body that would gradually incapacitate and, if left unchecked, eventually result in the death of the host. This made any thoughts of escape beyond their walls, however unlikely, pointless.

Garreth realized that his shower, once scalding, had now gone cold. It must have happened gradually, and he hadn't noticed. A lot of that sort of thing going on lately he thought. He glanced down at the arm he had pretended was sore from the shot he hadn't gotten as he turned the water off and reached for a towel. He had to talk to Luna.

Garreth got dressed and made his way back downstairs. The flipping announcement was still being broadcast over each viewer in the house, and any temporary relief he'd felt in the shower quickly faded. His shirt was already starting to stick to his chest again as he approached the living room, which, he realized, was oddly quiet.

He stood in the doorway and surveyed the room. Luna remained seated where she had been when he'd left, still blankly staring at the floor. But now it was a floor littered with tiny pieces of glass. He looked at his little girl, his Luna, with searching eyes. She knew he was standing there. He could tell. But it must have been a full minute or more before she said a word.

"It broke..." she said, still staring straight ahead.

"What? How did it..."

"...when my shoe hit it." She slowly turned her head towards Garreth and looked at him without a hint of remorse or shame or - or anything at all, really.

Garreth just stood and stared at this new dark version of his beautiful Luna. He opened his mouth to say something but didn't. He exhaled deeply. Now it was his turn to stare at the floor. More time passed in silence. Garreth had no idea how much.

Eventually he just turned and quietly left the room. That talk would have to wait. Until when, he had no idea, but now was clearly not the time.