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Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Chrysalids: Flash Fiction #2 - Michaels encounter

Michael’s Encounter
Michael was just chopping wood on the farm, when he heard a faint thought shout. He paused in his work and concentrated. He heard it again, only it was louder this time. He looked around to see if anybody was around, but could see nobody. I hope that this isn’t like Petra, he thought to himself. We nearly got caught that time.
The last time that they had heard a thought shout like this was when David’s younger sister Petra discovered her ability. They all had the compulsion to run toward her to help, and people were very suspicious about how they all knew about it. He decided to contact the others. Is anybody hearing that? he said. Usually when he sent out messages, he got at least one or two replies in the first few seconds. This time, there were no replies. He waited a bit longer, and tried again.
This happened for the next few minutes, and Michael tired of trying to reach them. He was a little frightened that they had all died, but he knew that the probability of that happening all at once was very slim. He then heard the thought scream again, this time a keening scream. He ran in the direction of it, but before he had gone 10 steps, he was stopped in his place. It was as if time had stopped. He couldn’t move a muscle. He then heard a voice saying, “Stop the simulation!”.
The landscape around him started to dissolve, and everything became a murky grey, until he realized that he was in a grey room. The walls were made of some kind of grey stone.
“Hello?” He called.
A thought voice came into his head, and said, You don’t need to use that crude method of communication. It had a curious lilting way of speaking, and a rhetoracle manor that was a little overwhelming. We just had to make sure that you were one of us before we brought you in to our civilization.
As Michael got more and more used to the language, it started to take the form of normal talking.
“Come out the door,” said the same voice. Outside the door, there was a small reception party. “Hello Michael,” one woman thought to him. “My name is Sylvie. I am the leader of this division,”. Michael didn’t know what ‘this division’ was, and was confused. “What’s a division?” he asked. This seemed to be the most pertinent question, but as he would soon find out, it was the least important. “We are going to give you that information shortly,” Sylvie said. “Just hold still while we calibrate the computer,”. Michael had not heard many of these words before, and was quite overwhelmed. He opened his mouth to speak, but Sylvie held up a hand. “Your questions will all be answered in three... two... o--”
Right that instant, he saw a map of the world, as he now knew it was, and on it was gigabytes of information. He had never heard the word gigabytes, but he now knew what it meant. He now knew a lot of things. He knew about the tribulation, and how it happened. Apparently, there was a large scale war between all the countries. Nuclear weapons damaged the human genome, and that was why everything was mutated.
At the end of it all, it seemed as if his brain had expanded tenfold. He came sharply back to reality. “--ne,” said Sylvie. She smiled. “Do you understand now?” She asked. “Yes, I understand.” He replied. “I understand a lot of things now,” “Lets hope so,” she said “Tell me, where are we right now?” I recalled the information instantly. “Right now, we are in Sealand, formerly known as New Zealand. You used a hallucinogenic drug to make me think that I am still in Waknuk, which is in Labrador, Canada. That was merely to test how strong my psychic abilities are. From what I could see of the test, I have mid range abilities by your standards. My other telepathic companions from Waknuk are currently in other test chamber undergoing similar te--” Michael was interrupted by Sylvie. “Yes, very good, Michael. We all get the point. You can see your friends now. They are in the room just beyond the door.” Michael hurried through the door to find most of the surviving telepaths. There was David, Rosalind, Sally, and the others, but Petra wasn’t there. “Where’s Petra?” Michael asked. David replied, “She had to have a longer test.” “I see,” replied Michael. Rosalind asked, “Did they give you all of the memories too?” “Yeah they did,” said Michael. “It is pretty cool, right?”
The information also included a thought dictionary, which could be access instantly as if they had known the words for their whole lives. This instantly enlarged their vocabulary and improved their grammar.
“Yeah it’s pretty awesome,” said Nicholas.
They started talking and devolved into the normal social groups that they had. Rosalind, Michael, David and Petra would be in one, and the rest of them were in another group. Petra finally came out of a door about fifteen minutes later.
“Your sister is very powerful,” said an official. “Keep her safe.” “We will,” Assured David. As soon as Petra walked over, she asked, “Have you tried going on Internet 2.0 yet?” “No what’s that?” Rosalind asked. “It’s awesome, it has all the information that the Sealanders have, and all you have to do it touch the floor and open your minds,” They all bent down, and they instantly could see every statistic, fact, figure, show, and video ever put on record. They could even add their own thought shapes to the mass of information.
“This is like the old internet,” said David, “Only with thoughts, right?”
“Yeah,” replied Michael. “I can’t wait to see this city.”
“Me too.” said Petra.




TO BE CONTINUED

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