I snuck up to ground level one night and broke into the local school’s time box to put this letter inside. Naturally you’re reading it one hundred years from now, which would be the year 2175 as it’s 2075 now. How’s the weather? Or do they control that too?
Ok I know you’re asking “who the hell is they?” Well who raises your taxes? Who closes hospitals and forces schools to run under funded? A lot of things will have changed but I just know that the government never will. The government is “them”. The word is perhaps too hard to spell but also it sends shivers down my spine so they are referred to as they/them.
How do I know all this? Ready for a long story? When my sister Shirley gave birth to little Jonathan the nurses took him away from Shirley and her husband Mark for six hours. “An ultrasound for possible heart defects,” they said. Now even I know an ultrasound doesn’t take six hours but at the time we didn’t take any notice.
I finally got to see him a day after he got home. I was busy with work, and being a lawyer that’s not unusual.
I was so excited but when I picked him up he just stared crying. I was disappointed. Shirley told me to move the hand behind his neck. The minute I did that he stopped crying. Being so wrapped up in my new nephew I didn’t think much more of it until later. Besides a friend’s child did the same thing. Babies have sensitive skulls you know. Well Jonathans’ neck got worse. After a week it was obviously a sore. We must have taken him to a thousand doctors but we were only given weird, almost scared looks.
Shirley was going crazy with it.
“What the hell is going on with doctors these days”, would have been the most common statement in their house over those few weeks. I went round one day and I told them if they were really worried about the local doctors to go to the Medical Association and ask them there. By this stage I was thinking something major was wrong.
We sweet talked our way into a meeting with Brian Hunter, the chief director of the Medical Association who just happened to be a big fan of Mark’s work. He’s a journalist. He checked out Jonathan’s neck and he gave us a look I can’t describe. He picked up the phone.
“Yes I have a pair of shoes here that don’t fit,” he said, ”Can I return them? Two hours. Okay see you then”.
“Two hours” squawked Shirley, ”For what? Shoes? What about our son?”.
“That was for your son Miss. I can’t say anything now but all will be revealed. You’ll just have to wait,” he replied gravely.
So we sat with a cup of coffee and waited, and waited.
“Something deep is going on here,” said Mark as he sat down.
We didn’t say another word throughout the waiting time. You could have cut the tension in the air with a knife.
A short chubby lady came in after what seemed like a year.
“Quickly. Follow me,” was all she said.
A black panel van was waiting outside for us. We were piled in the back where Brian sat waiting.
“Right,” Mark said, “Would you like to tell us just exactly is going on?”
“Okay, here goes,” he said, “I may take you to a secret place underground where my doctors will operate on Jonathan to save his life. He has an allergic reaction to a chip implanted in his neck.”
“A what!” burst Shirley. Jonathan started crying. Brain gave her a stern look as she settled him down.
“It’s a government thing. We don’t know much and we’re told even less. Every newborn baby must have one implanted and the public is not to know,” he replied.
Shirley was furious, Mark was just shocked. I was beginning to realize Brian was to good-guy in this film-like episode in our lives.
“Where are you taking us?” I asked.
“My headquarters, if you choose to go. There is of course a catch,” he said.
I groaned, “What?”
“It’s a proper city underground, schools, playing areas, doctors, the works. Once you are there you cannot leave though unless you’re assigned an above ground job, like I am.” “Which includes us right?” I questioned.
“Yes I deal with new cases like yours. I know it’s a huge catch but I can return any or all of you right now if you’d like. There’s a catch there too you know?”
“What’s that?” Shirley asked.
“Well as it’s a secret you cannot tell anyone without dire consequences and little Jonathan there would surely die without the chip removed.”
“I’m going with Jonathan,” said Mark. He didn’t have much family to stay for really.
“You can decide just like that?” I said horrified.
He looked at me, then at Jonathan and I knew.
“Me too!” I said.
“Shirley?” Brain prompted raising his eyebrows.
“First tell me more about these chips,” she said.
“Underground we have a team working on that. Everyone with the chips is somehow void of strong emotions. They feel no anger and they never get sad enough to cry. It’s like they’re only half human. It speaks to the brain somehow, but we don’t know exactly how yet,” he explained.
“And how many people know it exists?” she asked.
“Apart from our community, most doctors and nurses. We were instructed by a group from the government so we’re assuming the entire government and probably other government departments, police excreta.”
“Strangely I trust you Mr. Hunter and I wish for Jonathan to live. I also value my freedom,” she paused for a long time, deep in thought, “I would like to help with your research and if so I will join you.”
Brian smiled, ”Certainly” he said.
We sat in silence for the rest of the trip. We stepped out to find ourselves surrounded in desert.
Brian held out his hand, signaling the way, down a hatch.
“Now for the grand tour,” Brain said when we reached the bottom.
We walked through corridor after corridor of storage rooms, sleeping quarters, quiet rooms, game rooms etcetera. Then we saw the kitchens and dinning room and finally the laboratory where Shirley was given an office.
We were given rooms and our belongings arrived an hour later. I think we got lost about a thousand times in our first week there. There is music rooms, and rooms filled with computers, arts and craft stuff, pool tables, there are bars, and nightclubs, you name it and they had it.
“How do you fund all this?” Mark asked amazed.
“Well quite a lot of us have above ground jobs such as myself. All the chores are rostered so we don’t have to pay cooks etc and also if we arrange fake deaths for people who come here we inherit their properties etc. We also have things donated. Don’t worry there’s no crime involved.”
Mark and I were rostered to clean the laundry once a week and help serve meals. Shirley was roistered on as a babysitter that would be called when needed.
Over a delicious dinner we spoke to a lot of the residents. I was surprised how normal they were. I can’t really explain that comment it just seemed to me that a community living underground ought to be strange in some way.
Shirley and Jonathan had fake deaths arranged and Mark and I were told to keep working above ground. Brian wanted me to find out if anybody in the court system knew about the chips and he wanted Brain to make sure the press didn’t get a hold of a story on the chips.
Little Jonathan had the operation to remove the chip the next day. Shirley and Mark went crazy worrying. Jonathan was fine of course. Shirley was given the chip to take to the labs.
Days went by, people arrived nearly everyday. We soon had our own group of friends. It wasn’t like a prison or anything, more like a boarding school. I guess I tried not to think about how it would be my home for the rest of my life. Life was after all quite good. Jonathan grew up like any other kid. There were plenty of other children around. They taught him about the above ground world as well as normal school teachings.
Shirley told us about her work. They had one child there who still had a chip, Craig his name was. He was a weird child to me. He never seemed to play like the rest of them and it wasn’t that he wasn’t welcome. He did play, but not in the same way. He never seemed to enjoy himself like the rest of them.
One day I was umpiring a football game for the kids and Jan came out looking for Craig. I scanned the crowd. I didn’t really know what he looked like though. I saw a boy. I zoned out for a few seconds.
“There he is,” I pointed to the boy with the chip, “That boy just there, he has a chip.” “No that’s not him,” Jan said.
Somehow I knew the child had a chip though. It was like a sixth sense. I kept on at Jan about it and it turned out he did have a chip. They had only removed part of it and the other half was still working.
Brian rushed me into his office a while later when he spotted me nursing a garden I had growing in a recreation room.
“I understand you have an umm ability shall we say?” he said.
“Oh I wouldn’t say that,” I said, “It was just a hunch”.
Well he disagreed and from then on stopped working as a lawyer and started roaming the streets spotting people with and without chips and well just watching them, trying to pick differences in their behavior. It got easier and easier to pick the children with chips. Well it was my talent that discovered they were implanting the chips into adults as well as newborn babies. It was a scary thought. Nearly everyone that walked out of hospital had a chip.
The day of the government elections I went to vote. I sat there watching people lining up for the different boxes to vote. I noticed most of the people in the current governments line had a chip and everyone in the oppositions line did not have a chip. When I told Shirley she said, “By gosh they’re forcing people to vote for them so they keep their power”.
I hadn’t thought about it in that way and I admit it scared me a little. I guess up until then I’d hoped the government would be voted out or just disappear or something but then it sunk in that life was always going to be this way and nothing was going to change as far as the chips went.
When we discovered adults with the chips I assumed it was just because they could implant the chips in newborn babies without being caught. When the first adult came to us having problems with the chips we discovered the chip was slightly different.
Not being scientifically minded person I can’t explain why fully but the chips control the brain by somehow sending messages in the blood. The chips couldn’t “merge” with the blood of adults, only young children.
The chip was taken from John, the first adult we had with a chip. He was a lawyer and he took my job above ground.
My latest task was to estimate how many adults had the chips. Well the results weren’t good. In a day I was lucky to see two or three people without a chip.
Apart from the lack of strong personalities and voting choices in these people we could find no other effects of the chip. I was certain there was a more sinister motive behind the chips but maybe in your life that is obvious.
Ok, ok I’m boring you to tears. I will try to cut the story down a bit from here on.
It seemed like the whole world was infected with these chips, them against us in a way. John and I fell in love. I was hesitant about bringing a child into our world but two years after we were married I gave birth to our darling daughter Tracey. We kept her safely underground with us so she never got a chip.
Years went by, more research, more people with chips, more people with us, still no answers.
When Tracey turned sixteen she discovered she too had my powers. She took over my above ground tasks as by this stage I was quite an old lady.
Little Jonathan got married last year and Shirley is sick with cancer. Mark is, well he’s about four thousand miles away in his mind right now. It’s a tough time for them.
On my sixtieth birthday I decided to write my life’s story (well all the interesting bits) into a letter. You are reading it now. I don’t know what you are thinking or even if you have the ability to think for yourself. I’ll never know what turned out with the chips. Is the government of the United States running the whole world? Is slavery their motive? Or just to stay in power with no rebellions? I only know that tomorrow night I’m going to sneak up to the school and pry open their time box where I’ll place this letter.
After all our underground lives go on, even if my time is nearly up, life goes on. But is it uncontrolled?
THE END
I wrote this story this year (1999) and it's one of the Folio Pieces I put in to my C.A.T. (Common Assesment Task) for English.
It's my favorite story. It was originally a lot longer but I had to cut it down for the C.A.T.
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