Mirrorman just hopes that he can tell his story before this hot sauce "burns again."
"Well, here goes
I walked into my luxury suite (I obviously got to live in the best room of my hotel) and sat down on the sofa. I put on my broadcast glasses. I saw very few things that caught my interest; a soap opera, a news report on some unidentified thing going to strike Earth sometime in the next few months, but nothing really good was showing on any of the 300 American Channels. I was incredibly bored, so I asked my storage space to open and decided to organize my old belongings. To be honest, there werent many old belongings. The gov had already taken anything of trading value and some things of pure sentimental value just to make me angry. I found my great-grandfathers WWIV anti-matter pistol (without a charge), a few worthless odds and ends, a nighttime heating unit that I had managed to hide, and other various pieces of junk.
Then, my eyes fell upon my mothers old tele-chain, the chip that was implanted into her brain by the gov to have some control over her mind. My eyes filled with tears as I recalled that terrible night when the gov came to my apartment so many years ago
My mother and father were the best people in the world back when I was young. I remember back when I was 6 years old in 2972. I didnt have a care in the world. My dad never really did like the government that much, and when back in 2969 when the current gov first took over, my father hardly ever complied with the laws.
That was normal, but when my mom got mugged on the street, my dad started teaching her to stand up for herself. And because of my mothers secret rebellious nature, she started breaking more and more laws. First it was just cutting off work early and taking showers at non-regulated times, but it soon progressed into sabotaging gov plans, smuggling supplies into New York and attending secret rebellion meetings.
But the gov had been trailing Mom for a while and had finally figured out where she was living. Now I could say that it was a dark and stormy night with thunder and lightning and dark shapes like all other hideous gov stories, but thats simply not true. It hardly ever even rains in New York anymore since the shield was put up in 2843.
It was actually a hot humid day and our climate control was not working, like usual. I remember how I heard the federal door-knock on our door. Ive never understood why they have a special door-knock pattern, because it was the only thing that gave my mom enough warning to hide me. Dad, like usual was working late to support the family. I had to hide in the cramped, smelly storage space in the floor, but I could still see what was going on above me by looking through the cracks.
I saw the black-hooded govies rush in and surround the room. 5 of them went straight for my mother, held her down, and forced the pain boot on her. For those of you who are not acquainted with pain-boots, they are the ultimate torture devices because they hurt as much as any other torture device, but do no damage to the actual body. If one is strapped onto you, it injects a needle into your skin. From that needle, a chemical can be introduced into your bloodstream. Once this chemical, known only as Pain, reaches your brain, it stimulates a certain percentage of nerve cells. The effect can be anywhere from irritating to white-hot, searing, horrible pain in every last part of your body. No one has ever stood up to level 25, although almost 1/3 of Level 25ers go mad from the excruciating pain.
This technique would not work except for the tele-chain, which weakens the immune system enough to let the drug through, facilitates the stimulation of the nerve cells, and keeps the victim from having free enough movement to try rip the boot (or the leg) off.
They set my mother on Level 5, which is just kind of irritating, much like being warmer then youd like to be. "Would you like to know what youre being held for?" the head govie asked in a disgustingly innocent tone.
"Yes, I would," my mother answered in a mocking and superior way. The man set her boot to 6.
"Im sure you know the policy; another level for any act of belligerence or any answers received," the man stated with a wicked grin.
"Answer anyway."
"Lets see; one for belligerence," the man counted on his fingers, "one for the answer, and one just because I happen to like you so much." He set it to 9, which was starting to hurt. "I love to give away presents. Im really quite generous, dont you agree?"
"No," came the reply without hesitation.
"Then Ill just have to be more generous." He set the dial to 12. I could see my mother sweating.
"You havent answered my question yet," said my mother.
"Ooh, one more for belligerence." 13. "Its because youre being a very bad girl. Youre not following your daddys instructions, and that makes him very mad." I think he was talking about the Tyrant of NY, not her actual father. "You know, that was such a long answer, I think Ill charge you extra for it." He set the dial to 14, then 15, then 16. My mother whimpered pitifully and I could tell that she was struggling with her tele-chain to let her move, but it kept her mentally restrained.
"You already charged me two for that question." My mother replied through clenched teeth.
"Are you contradicting me? That has a very large penalty." Then the man turned the dial quickly up to 23 ad back down to 16. My mother let forth a horrible, gut-wrenching scream. Part of me wanted to burst through the floor and take on all 12 men, while part of me wanted to sit down and cry in despair at the realization of how cruel people could be, while the last part of me suppressed both of these other notions, knowing they would not help at all. "Will you come peacefully now?" asked the man.
"Never." Up to 17
"No." 18
"No!" 19
"No!!!!!!" 20
"No!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" 22, 23
"Yes!, Yes!!!, Yes!!!!!!, anything just turn it off please just turn it off and Ill do anything you want anything you need confess anything just turn it off I beg of you please just turn it off turn it off turn it off!!!"
"Thats more like it," the man said, turning the dial slowly down to 10. "OK, come with us."
"No!" 23
"Yes!!!!" 20, 16, 12, 11, 10 again.
"Good. Im glad you could see it from my point of view." They walked away, and I had that urge to save my mother again. But again, I forced my brain to realize there was no way I could fight all of those men.
From outside in the hallway I heard a series of sounds. First, a shout "Hey!", then a grunt of pain, a zap of a death ray, a horrific female scream, then the sound of people running away, and finally about 15 seconds later, the sound of a vehicle blasting off.
I climbed up out of the storage space, rushing to the door. I remember I was appalled at how insensitive and just plain cruel people could be; I couldnt understand how someones conscience could let them come into someones home, take the food and possessions they worked so hard to get, hurt a person as much as they want to just for fun, then make that person come with them. It was beyond me.
I walked out the door. There, I saw my mother lying on the ground with a large spot of red around her. I stood there dumbfounded, unable to accept what my eyes were telling me had just happened, yelling at my brain for lying to me. I lay down on my mothers stomach like I had done so many times in the past before bedtime. Then, there was only one thing left to do; I cried and cried and cried.
Looking back, the worst part of the memory was not the fact that a boy of just 6 years old was crying in the hallway of a dilapidated old apartment building in New York City. It was horrible for me, but the worst part is that no one else cared. People walked past me, pretending they couldnt see me or my mother, not caring about the fact that a human life had been taken. But that was just how NYC, and for that matter, most of the human race had become-totally uncaring. That was the worst part.
What do you think? Good?"
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If I take a cookie, and you take a cookie, how long will it take me to beat you down for stealing my cookie?