Vashlov tapped me on the shoulder. “Got a news report coming in on Network 24. Check it out.”
I called up a media channel in one corner of my field of vision. I linked to Network 24 and immediately saw the emergency news report tag. A newscaster with a nervous look on his face began reading from the prompter on his AR.
“Good day, this is Edison Carter. What we are about to broadcast is the contents of a memorycel we received at our news bureau just moments ago. The memorycel contains a message from a person claiming responsibility for the recent mass suicide incident.”
“What’s this all about?” I asked Vashlov.
He shook his head in disbelief. “I wish I knew. We’ll just have to watch.”
The self-review committee at Network 24 had a reputation for being a little looser than other media outlets. A short while earlier, the image of a dead soldier appearing in a corner of one frame during a report on the violence in Chechnya had sparked an outcry against the station. Most other media outlets subjected everything they showed to an AI editor before broadcast in order to prevent any possibility of showing something emotionally traumatic. Relatively speaking, then, Network 24 was pretty extreme and as such not entirely worthless as a news source.
“We will begin playback now,” Edison Carter said. The screen went black.
<log:media=Network24:id=225-78495hu6ryti5h23j-09>
I’m not sure when they’ll play this, so let me wish you a good morning, a good day, and a good evening.
</log>
It was a female voice, heavily modulated.
There was no picture. Only the words voice only in the middle of the screen.
I closed my eyes. Maybe that way I could hear a kernel of the real person—which could very well have been Miach Mihie.Besides, if there were no picture, what was the point of looking at it?
<log:media=Network24:id=225-78495hu6r-yti5h23j-09>
A lot of people have died.
A lot of people ended their own lives all at the same time.
I’m sure it was shocking.
I’m sure you’re frightened at the possibility of seeing someone die before your eyes.
We did this.
Our methods are, at present, a secret.
However, the framework for the method is already inside you, inside each of your brains.
It’s too late to take it out now.
You are all our hostages.
</log>
I tried to listen through the warbling blips of whatever masking process had been applied to the voice for a trace of Miach Mihie and was unsuccessful.
<log:media=Network24:id=225-78495hu6r-yti5h23j-09>
You already know what we are capable of.
You’re frightened. You’re angry. You are experiencing many emotions.
These emotions are real. Treasure them.
Our society has been engineered to suppress your emotions.
You are being crushed beneath words of kindness.
This is not written anywhere. It is not the law.
Yet it binds you all the same. Never has there been a generation so self-regulated. Never has there been a civilization so weighted down by rules not generated from within, but without.
No one can say what’s really on their mind. Since we were children, we have been told that we are vital resources to our society. Our bodies do not belong to us, they belong to society at large. They are public property.
Haven’t you had enough of it?
I am sure you have all heard about the rise in the suicide rate. You’re not the only one who wants to escape.
</log>
The message was a familiar one.
Miach’s words to me and Cian echoed in my head.
Words that had given a clear shape to our suffering.
<log:media=Network24:id=225-78495hu6r-yti5h23j-09>
We are going to create a new world.
In order to do that, we need to know who is capable of making change.
Within the next week, I want you each to kill at least one other person.
I don’t care what means you have to use.
I want you to prove that you’re capable of doing anything to serve your own ends. Prove that other people don’t matter.
Accept the fact that your life is the most important.Revel in it.
Those who are unable or unwilling to perform this small task will die.
You know we can follow through with this threat. You have seen what we can do.
If you should hesitate to take someone else’s life, even if it means saving yourself, then we will kill you without mercy.
That is, you will kill yourself.
We can do this with the press of a button.
For those who do not yet believe us, we will show you proof.
You will be able to see it for only a moment.
Watch closely.
</log>
“That is all the voice data we have received at Network 24.”The screen switched back to Edison Carter. He was reading from an AR script again. “We traced the origin of the message, however. The person or people who sent it used the ID of one of the recent mass suicide victims.” At that point, the star reporter of Network 24 casually reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out a pen, and slammed it into his right eye.
Vashlov covered his eyes.
The AI censor kicked in.
Before Carter began scrambling his own brains on a global feed, the image cut out, replaced by scrolling text apologizing for the emotionally traumatic visuals, and urging all viewers to seek appropriate therapy as soon as possible. They even displayed the ID of the nearest therapeutic center. Like therapy would negate the fact that Carter had just committed suicide in front of the world.
“Shit, I can’t believe I just saw that. Shit!”
Vashlov was muttering under his breath.
On the battlefield, I had seen bodies with their heads blown off, abandoned corpses in advanced states of decay. As such, the image wasn’t a particularly shocking one, but the circumstances were more than enough to give me pause.
If this really was Miach’s doing, the girl needed serious therapy.She needed enough pharmaceuticals and counseling to rewire her brain.
I raced the car on to the airport. There was no time to waste.I had to get to Baghdad before the monster lurking beneath the heavy clouds of kindness awoke and bared its fangs.
02
<recollection>
I don’t belong in this world.
The first time I had that thought was during an admedistration morality session. I was still in middle school, so I went as an observer with my parents. I say “went,” but the session was in AR. The topics on the table began with some very nuanced, hard to define, and frankly meaningless points about the propriety of certain advertisements.Gradually though—I don’t recall the particulars of how it happened now—the discussion shifted to moral concerns about the use of caffeine.