The City is perfect. The City is perfect. Spires of perfect glass. The perfect sun with it’s perfect powers that we control perfectly.
Everything is OK.
The channel is flashing on my visor. An itinerary has been made. Tasks that I am to perform have been arranged. The sound… in my head… it is so loud. The radio is hissing. It never hisses. Must have this repaired. It is nice to know that everyone hears the voice of GOD thanks to the miracles of technology.
It is going to be OK.
One morning without the pills…….
One morning of many… mornings spilling forward into the future forever until at some time I finally die free. There is this feeling. Oh no… what is this feeling. My brain… it crackles and it pops and from my core…. oh no oh no blllleeeeeeccckkkkkk!
What is this coming out of me. My mouth. It tastes. Stop! What is this……
Everybody is looking at me… Why is everybody looking at me…… They want to know what has come out of my mouth.
Run.
I’m running through the glass City but the lights are no longer beautiful.
The Channel turns red in my visor.
WARNING! REPORT TO THE MENDERY IMMEDIATELY!
//————NothingElseFollows———–//
Oh No…….
Still I run.
I am at the Wall. Why did I come to the Wall?
Who is that?
She is beautiful. Everyone is beautiful. She is more beautiful than everyone. Why? What is it?
She holds herself cocked, angry, like the soldiers. She is dangerous. She is sharp. She is looking at me.
She is still looking at me.
And still.
What do you want?
“What do you want?” was that my mouth? My sound?
Yes, it was.
“You look like you are in trouble. Do you need assistance, Citizen?” It is a normal thing to say. It is what one ought to say. But there is something about how it was said. There is another question inside of her question. I am walking towards her now.
ISN 0258. She does not move.
“That is a SOLDIER’s ISN, Citizen.” my mouth says.
“It is.” her mouth says.
“You do not look like a SOLDIER.” mine.
“Citizen.” hers.
“Yes. Citizen.” mine.
“I am not a SOLDIER anymore, Citizen.” and then she just stares into my eyes. The glass city shines behind her. Her mouth again begins to move “and I can see that you’re not what you used to be either.”
“No… I am not. I did not intend for it to be this way… I can still go back now. I should go back now. I should take them. You know. I should go to the Mendery and explain what happened. I will say that I lost them.”
“They will not believe you. Nobody ever loses them unless they want to lose them. They will retire you. They will reconstitute your proteins and reintroduce a new HUMAN-0 in a matter of days. Your decision is made. But if you come with me now, and I do mean in the next thirty seconds, we might both live to figure out how to survive another day. Will you come with me?”
“Yes.” Wait. Think. Think. Think. WHY CAN’T I THINK? This radio is so loud. I must take this thing off of my head. The voice of the Controller is now in my ear.
“ISN 7237: You are Broken and you must be repaired. You are more than three minutes late for an appointment. Another Citizen has been dispatched and Shepherds have been dispatched to bring you to the Mender immediately. Please remain where you are.”
She grabs my arm and we are both moving along the wall. There is the sound of claxon and we begin to run. She is built to run. Her frame is perfect, her muscles perfect, her form perfect. She appears weightless.
I was made for machines. My hands are strong and dexterous and perfect. I am suprised at how well my own body runs. I have never run before. I enjoy it. I begin to smile. The pace quickens until the sun shining off the side of the buildings began to strobe beside of us.
We ran for a long time until we came to the PORT. SOLDIERS were standing rigidly around the one and only hole in the entire WALL. We were quickly amongst the soldiers and they had barely begun to react to our presence when she looked at me with her large eyes where there is something I have never seen before. She is holding a knife. And then she is gone with one quick thrust of her perfect legs and for several seconds there is only blood and sagging bodies as she moved in the special way that she was designed to move. Then they were all dead.
My arms are dead at my sides. My hands are fists. In my chest there is this beating and then… that feeling……. .bleeeeeccccckkk. There is a hand on my the back of my neck. It clamps down so hard and I am then lifted onto my feet and eye to eye with her. It is her hand.
“It will get worst…” She put me down, turned around and her perfect legs began again to run perfectly out of the portal and into the barrens. Then my legs too were running.
This is the first morning. Without them. This is the first of man mornings.
Everything is OK.
Everything will always be OK.
The Paper Trail 