Bad Bad Brain
author: mgb


I groaned, but there was no sense in complaining. The pain was excruciating and relentless for all of the Bonded.  It was hard to think or plan in any kind of a rational way.  Even so, this was our big day and I wanted to make sure things would end well.  Finally, our opportunity came. One of the younger thralls began hemorrhaging cerebral spinal fluid and the Master’s brief distraction was all it took.  As the Master kicked the young girl for creating a mess, Fritz fired a brief pattern in his primary visual cortex, ripping the tube connecting his abdomen port with condenser 22.  I instantly popped my port free as well. It made a disgusting sucking noise as the slime filled contraption fell to the floor.  I stood up on wobbly legs and motioned to the rest of the thralls, “C’mon, guys!”

The Master turned around, “What the h…?”  The anger in his eyes turned to fear.  He reached for the nearest safety controller but it was too late.  Newly liberated members of the Bonded dragged him off behind condenser 4.  I didn’t really want to watch what happened next.

Some of the thralls had been born indentured to the United Control System.  The older members, though, like myself, had vague memories of freedom. The world had been a grim place, with our autonomy and rights slowly being taken away, little by little.

Some of the humans who remained at that point went underground.  They furtively packed what they could and disappeared into the sewers and tunnels below the surface.  Others, though, like me, were unable to make the move.  My aging father needed to be taken care of and there was no way to get him and his assortment of medical supplies to a safe place.  In the end, it didn’t matter.  My father died as the UCS came through the neighborhoods, Bonding those young enough to be useful and terminating those who were not.

The Bonded were dispersed throughout the United Control System, their biophysical responses orchestrated and harnessed to serve Sovereign Pmurtza and the ruling class.  The thralls were occasionally allowed to reproduce, making them a conveniently renewable resource. 

Fritz ran up the stairs to the Main Control Room.  It would be important to connect to the control systems at other plants immediately.  I ran up with him, a grotesque but necessary biometric trophy in hand.  I held up the Master’s finger to the sensor and the Control Room door slid open.  The PAC was locked, in accordance with UCS regulations.  A quick glance through the sticky notes on the screen bezel (“Autumn2038”) were enough to get us in, luckily.

I had been a Systems Engineer before the Sovereign’s Reutilization Program had gone into effect.  Fritz had been a Plant Operations Manager at a different facility in a neighboring city.  The UCS interface was different than what we were used to, but not unmanageable.  The tricky part would be to free the thralls at all the distributed plants without killing them or alerting the government. 
 
“You ready for me?” Delta walked in through the Control Room door.  Fritz and I needed someone who had mastered the nanotechnology required to free the Bonded at the other plants.  Delta had managed to learn this better than anyone we knew. She sat down at the Master’s station and put on his headset.  The sensors engaged and her eyes rolled back in her head.  It was illegal for the thralls to perform any sort of biotechnology, much less impersonating an individual of the Master Class.  Delta was not only impersonating the Master, but injecting commands into his cached memory module.  

Fritz and I watched the control screen for any alarms coming from the distributed plants throughout the UCS.  Delta had planned to disable the Safety System first and then release all the thralls.  It would be up to the Bonded at each plant to deal with any Masters that were on premise.
 
Delta was a key part of our plan.  Our Masters had been underestimating us for too long, using us as a disposable component of their production system.  Neuroplasticity was going to be their downfall, though.  The thralls were neurologically connected throughout the entire United Control System plants.  The interconnected nature of the UCS facilities gave the masters an efficient and standardized way to control the Bonded and produce the maximum resources out of each thrall.  That connection also had given us a way to communicate with one another.

Fritz and I had been the first to test the link.  It was rudimentary at first, but we managed to transmit simple messages to each other without triggering any notice or alerts from the control system.  Gradually, we added other Bonded to our network.  Our big breakthrough was the jump to other facilities.  It had not seemed like a particularly useful skill at first.  To be sure, it was nice to feel a little of the togetherness we remembered from our days outside the facility.  For the younger ones, though, it was their first experience of humanity. 
 
As our neural communications grew in frequency, we found a greater purpose.  We had been so accustomed to feeling hopeless and defeated.  Together, we were stronger.  Our anger and determination led to many much debated planning sessions.  FInally, we had our game plan.
Delta opened her eyes.  “It has begun….”.  We all looked up at the set of monitors above the desk.   The Safety System showed had a green check and no alarms or feeds were showing up on the screen.  “Yep.” Delta nodded, “Disengaged.”

On the monitor next to the first, we could see production slowing.  Fritz toggled down into the details and we could see facility after facility shutting down.   There was a very antiquated video surveillance system in the next room over from the Master’s office.   I clicked from screen to screen, hoping to catch a glimpse of any events at the other facilities.   At the plant in East Central, I could see the front doors opening.  A frail older woman in the faded yellow uniform of the Bonded peered out.  Soon many thralls came swarming out, some blinking timidly in the sunlight.

That scenario repeated itself at many of the other facilities.  There were some unfortunate exceptions.  In the Southern Quadrant, we lost a huge number of our members in a fight with the Master at that site.  In the end, fortunately, that Master was put down and disposed of.

Our next step would be more complicated and time consuming.  Each facility would make their way to the nearest Safe Zone.  The Safe Zones were not just a rumor.  The ruling class and the Sovereign had been trying to wipe out these communities. Despite that effort,they were thriving- some of them underground, some of them deep in the wilderness, some of them in the midst of cities.  From the little we could glean, the Sovereign and the government were starting to panic.  The “Descendants”, as the rebels called themselves, were starting to perform offensive maneuvers against the government.  Key infrastructure had been damaged, everything from a hydroelectric dam to underseas cabling.
Our group was headed to the Safe Zone in Las Vegas.  The underground tunnels beneath the city had been built as storm drains.  Even before the UCS takeover, the disenfranchised had lived beneath Las Vegas in the tangle of tunnels.  Now, this maze had become an underground haven for the humans who had managed to stay free.

I won’t say the next few weeks were extremely easy.  After years of being used for our biological resources, there were quite a few people unable to walk more than a few feet.  We stole the transport vehicles at the facility, plus anything we could find in the near vicinity.  We were short on food, even after raiding the cafeteria.  All of us, though, were still happy to be free.  Without the constant drain on our neurobiology, we grew stronger and more determined to make it to a Safe Zone.
Late one evening, we approached Las Vegas.  It had changed in the decades since I  had been there, but the lights were still as bright as I remembered.  They were still miles away but lit up the desert with their glow. “Hold up!” Fritz shouted. He was the one with the map of the underground tunnels of Vegas imprinted in his brain.  “We’re getting closer.”  

We were still in the tumbled down mess that was Old Las Vegas.  “Here. Stop!”.  We got our makeshift caravan pulled over to the side of the dirt road.  Fritz was pretty sure the main entrance to the tunnel was here, but couldn’t pinpoint exactly where it was.  In one direction was a mass of old traffic lights and piles of broken concrete blocks.  To the north of us was a row of decrepit buildings, some standing but most in ruins.  To our left, was a dried up and filthy swimming pool of sorts and broken tile scattered in every direction.  Crumbled concrete and stucco covered the ground, along with giant red letters.  “This is Caesar’s Palace…” I shook my head in denial. I knew the world had changed but this was unbelievable.

“This is where we need to be.” Fritz confirmed, and then motioned everyone out of their vehicles.  We put the most vulnerable of us in the middle, with the strongest at the front and rear.  We slowly made our way through the empty doorway in front of us.  It was dim inside, with turned over chairs and broken glass everywhere.  Paper littered the floor, and signs and literature for something called Defcon 26 were strewn about.

We slowly made our way through the front of the building, nervously wading through piles of broken tables and shattered electronics.  I was in the front and felt a whisper of cool air before anyone else did.  I paused and looked back, almost running into the hooded figure that appeared in front of me. I jumped back, trying not to scream.
“Greetings, voyagers.”  The figure in the black hooded jacket spoke softly.  He took of his sunglasses and grinned.  His face was covered with tattoos of indecipherable script. One eye was distorted by a mass of red scar tissue but the other one glinted with humor.  I should have been more intimidated, but it was hard to fight the good nature radiating from him.

“I’m Chuck. Come on down.” He motioned with his hand and headed through a doorway and started down a set of grimy concrete stairs.  At the bottom of the stairwell was a dingy metal door with a surprisingly modern looking sensor embedded in it.  Chuck moved forward and the door opened.  He stood just past the doorway and made sure the our weather-beaten group made it through.  Fritz was the last to go through the door and he glanced at me with doubt in his eyes.  I shrugged in response.  It was too late to change our minds now.

Chuck got back in front of our troop and led the way down a hall and around a corner.  I was second in line, after Chuck, so I was the first of our group to see.  Children!  Children laughing and playing!  I hadn’t heard happy children for so long that it brought tears to my eyes.  A dog even played among the children; a lab mix of some sort that chased after a giggling little girl.

We walked further into the room.  The was a giant cafeteria off to the right side and an assortment of people were seated at the tables, relaxed and talking.  Some desks were set up to the left, a variety of gear set up on them and several people working together in a group.  The children ran around the central area, some of them reading old fashioned paper books in a patch of sunlight streaming in from high recessed lunette windows.  We all looked around, getting some nods of kindness and recognition from the people in the cafeteria and at the workstations.  Chuck gathered us all together in an informal circle. “We are the Descendants, the Descendants of Defcon.  You are welcome here.”