Chapter Eight
As Willie walked home she went over what she had to do to get dinner ready, but as she’d already planned it thoroughly that morning she was left with a good chunk of time to just walk and enjoy the evening. The clouds had completely blown away, and the spring sun was low in the sky, casting a dusky golden glow over everything that wasn’t already in shadow.
A bus whizzed quietly by her, full of people going home from work. It was the same gray as the eevees and somehow seemed impervious to the golden light, almost managing to suck the light into itself rather than reflecting it. Willie wondered if they had chosen that particular color for that reason. Someone must have decided on it, she thought, but it was an odd choice, especially for buses. Wouldn’t you want them to stand out, so people could see them from far away? She guessed it didn’t matter now, though. There were so few vehicles it didn’t matter that they were all the same drab gray.
Willie suddenly remembered driving. She had enjoyed it very much, the sense of freedom and endless possibilities it had given her, even when she didn’t really plan on going far. She and Andy had used to go on drives in the country when they were young, to see the fall colors, or go for hikes in the mountains, or just to visit different little towns and villages. They loved to go to little towns on the coast, especially in the off season when it was quiet, and walk along the beach or just sit bundled up watching the storms roll in. Even once the kids were born they would often go on road trips around the state. Then it became too dangerous.
The Deniers had encampments in the countryside and they had started to take tourists as hostages. There were car bombings and attacks on campsites. It was all over the news for months. Finally someone in government, Willie thought it must have been one of the Fathers and Mothers of the Change, insisted they close off the roads into and out of the cities, to keep people safe. Rural residents were relocated to the safety of the city and only the bravest drivers with high security clearance were allowed to be on the highways. Most of the smaller roads had been closed permanently and huge trenches were dug right through them.
That was when things really escalated, Willie remembered. It might also have been when they started with the chips, she thought, but couldn’t quite recall. It was around that time anyway. They were very dark and fearful days. Deniers had infiltrated many cities and exploded bombs, always in places where people gathered like shopping malls, concerts and sporting events. Willie shivered, remembering the pervasive terror of the time. All because they opposed the Change.
Willie recalled how the people in the government who had been against the Change had been forced to resign in disgrace. Others denounced the Deniers and decided to support the Change, but most of those eventually were found out to be secretly sympathetic to the Deniers and imprisoned. Still, even with the entire government being for the Change, it hadn’t been easy. The Deniers almost destroyed the country. By the time it was over, most people were terrified and completely exhausted by the struggle to stay alive. They were deliriously happy when the authorities finally managed to take control.
Willie and Andy were just glad it was over. They had managed okay, with great effort, but Willie especially empathized with those who were not as innately industrious and self-sufficient as she and Andy were. She was happy to have things safe and peaceful again. When the Change was implemented fully, through the Reallocation, Willy was positive about it, although she didn’t express as much to Andy. Andy had made it clear to her he thought it was a fool’s errand, and that the idea of perfect fairness and equality was a pipe dream.
“Wherever there are humans there is human nature,” he would say puffing on his pipe on the back patio of their first house together, “and the Change doesn’t account for human nature. If it actually happens it won’t work like they say it will, but maybe that’s by design.”
That must have been before the chip, Willie thought. Tobacco had been outlawed soon after the chip, as the chip was able to synthesize nicotine and eliminate withdrawal symptoms. Andy absolutely hated having the chip. He tried reprogramming it many times, but each time ended with a visit from the SJD and an admonishment not to tamper with it again. Finally he gave up and bitterly accepted that the chip was a fact of life.
He envied Willy for her body’s steadfast rejection of the chip. As various versions were developed, she was injected with them and one after another they simply worked their way back out through her skin. Each time it would start with an itchy bump on the back of her neck which turned into a pimple-like nodule which would burst and eject the chip. She had thorough medical work-ups done to try and discover why her body reacted that way to the chip, and various injections and oral supplements were tried but nothing worked, and eventually she was left alone and ordered to carry her chip with her, embedded in a small plastic card.
Andy was fascinated by the whole process and would pore over her medical test results. As a biochemist he understood them infinitely better than she did. Perhaps realizing this, they soon stopped sending the test results home. Andy also took a keen interest in the supplements and injections they gave her. When they stopped labeling the bottles and refused to tell him what was in the injections he began drawing her blood at home and analyzing it in a basement lab he cobbled together from some of his old university gear and various instruments salvaged from his job as a garbage collector.
“Well, as far as I can tell they’re not doing you any harm, thank God,” he said one day after doing his analysis, “but I can’t understand why your body rejects the chip any more than they can, unfortunately.”
“I thought you were happy I couldn’t be chipped,” she exclaimed in surprise.
“Of course I am. Oh, hang on.” He motioned to her to come into the kitchen. Following him, she watched him write on the children’s chalkboard, “Maybe there is a way to make EVERYONE reject the chip, if I can figure out why you reject it,” and immediately erase what he had written.
Willie nodded, and smiled, but couldn’t resist a quick paranoid glance back over her shoulder. Walking to the chalkboard she wrote, “Just be careful.”
“I always am,” he said, as she erased what she had written.
It must have been true, because they never bothered about the work he did at home. In fact, they never bothered him much at all, compared to others she had heard about. When books were confiscated, ostensibly because they were to be placed in local micro-libraries and available for all but which were never actually built, Andy insisted on keeping theirs, and when the SJD swept their house, they simply gave the office a cursory glance, and didn’t bother opening any of the boxes stored in the cabinet. They didn’t even go down to the basement, where his lab was set up, and his reference books sat neatly stacked in boxes.
Willie was very glad that their books had been overlooked. She disliked having to use SAM to read a book. The little devices the SJD gave out were a little better, but she could never shake the feeling that the device was watching her as she read, or at least taking note of what she read. As their book collection was not exhaustive, she had resorted to the device once or twice, but many of her favorite classics were not available when she asked, and after trying some of the ones that were, she gave up, as they had been edited to the point of no longer making any sense at all. It was no wonder that no one read them anymore.
Willie had tried to get her children interested in the old classics, but hadn’t had much success. When they were small, they loved the old picture books that Willie had saved from her own childhood, and which she read to them every night. As they got older, she would sit in the evenings and read to them from Charles Dickens, answering their many questions about that era as well as she could. Eventually though, they began to tire of the old stories and wanted the faster paced, more exciting contemporary books they could read on their devices. They began to think her and her books hopelessly old fashioned, and frowned on their parents for defying the ban.
Well, isn’t that always the way with children, Willie thought. It’s their job to turn into their own people, and as a parent you just have to hope you like who they turn into. Luckily, she was happy enough with the people her children had grown up to be, and was looking forward to seeing them that night very much.
She had reached her front door. Shifting her bag to free her hand, she pressed her palm on the plate in the center of the door. The lock clicked and she went inside, walking briskly to the kitchen with the lights turning on as she went.
“SAM, instrumental jazz,” she called to the screen as she set her bag down on the kitchen counter.
“Good boy,” she said under her breath as a silky smooth rhythm filled the air.