**WARNING: This story contains explicit content. The language and graphic content may not be suitable for most readers. Please use caution**
“Next video, next video, next video” he thought to himself as he scrolled through the videos on YouTube in his mind.
“What are you doing? You look like a zombie, in a trance”
“You should really get this ‘Mind Link Chip’, it’s unbelievable! EVERYTHING I could do on my phone, I can do just standing here thinking. YouTube, boom. Lost? Bring up the GPS, RIGHT IN MY EYES Nancy! You don’t even need a screen. You really need that, the way you’re lost all the time, HA!” Ray says sarcastically.
“Hmm..all that and no mute button. Shame. HA!” Nancy shot back.
“Ya, but while you’re over there yap yapping, I can be laughing at cute little puppies in my head” Ray smirked.
“You did that before, without the chip. Now shut it down, and let’s get to the market”
As Ray and Nancy were leaving for the market, they saw their elderly neighbor Barbara.
“Hey Barb!” They say in unison.
“Hmm, she didn’t wave back, that was weird” Nancy says, a little puzzled.
“Well did you see those glasses she had on?! It’s a miracle she can see at all!” Ray teased.
“Stop! That’s not nice. I hope she’s not having another stroke. She looked frozen…in place. Kinda like you did this morning.” Nancy said, glancing at Ray.
“Maybe she got the chip too! Way to go Barb!” cheered Ray.
Ray and Nancy drove off, while Nancy watched Barb in the rearview mirror, never moving. The market was just 10 minutes away, yet in those few short minutes, Nancy saw a few more people seemingly frozen. Not the “doped” type of frozen Nancy was used to seeing, you know the kind of people so doped up, they are seemingly defying gravity. This seemed more like a glitch. Ray said they were just other people who got the chip and are probably changing screens in their mind. I guess this is the “new norm”, she thought to herself.
“Good morning” Nancy said to the greeter as she and Ray entered the market.
“Welcome ter me giggle gaggle glee” the greeter responded robotically.
Ray tried to suppress a giggle, Nancy made a funny face in disbelief as she blurted out a “Huh?” in response.
“Giggedy czar te say way” the greeter says enthusiastically.
“Ok, we’re making up languages now” Nancy says under her breath as she nods politely at the greeter and continues on.
“Do you mind if I run over to electronics while you shop around? I wanna see if they have any new gadgets in.” Ray pleaded like a child.
“Please do” Nancy teases and shoos him away.
As Ray scurries off, she notices another person, seemingly frozen. She tried to study them as she pulled her cart to the side and pretended to look at a product. It was a middle aged woman with a blue and green paisley suit and matching purse. She looked like she was staring off in space, yet her eyes were bouncing up and down. That’s not a stroke, but is it really the chip? Suddenly, the sound of the woman’s voice startled her.
“You’re watching me. But did you know I’ve been watching you” the woman said, not moving. Nancy looked around, confused and embarrassed. She didn’t know the woman could see her staring.
“I’ve been watching you.” The strange woman repeats. Nancy, still in shock and embarrassment, apologizes and starts to walk away. “I watch you sleep. I watch you fuck. I watch you change. I’m always watching you”
Normally Nancy would defend herself, but this was something else. This was just creepy. Nancy quickly glanced around, but no one else was seeing this. Nancy quickly did an about face and headed to the opposite end of the store, away from that woman. She was flustered and so confused. Had someone really been watching her? She looked back toward the direction where the woman was and BAM! She ran her carriage into someone.
“WATCH WHERE THE FUCK YOU’RE GOING! YOU CRAZY ASS BITCH! WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING HERE?” a market employee with a bright yellow vest was yelling at her. Startled and flustered once again, Nancy apologized profusely. Tears started to well up in her eyes. At this point she didn’t even want to be at the market anymore. She just wanted to go home. She could still hear the worker swearing at her in the background. She’d never seen a worker so mad at her before, and so fast. What was going on? She headed over to electronics looking for Ray. She could see him a few aisles down testing out headphones. She made a beeline straight for him when a giant wall of a man stood in front of her, blocking her way.
“Ma’am you need to stop.” Said the man.
“Excuse me?” said Nancy, again confused.
“We have a policy on non-loyalty members shopping in our establishment. You need to leave”
“What? Since when do you have a loyalty program and how do you know I’m not a member”
“It’s a new policy ma’am, you need to leave” the man said aggressively. Moving closer to her. Something in his eyes were creeping her out.
“Fine!” Nancy started pulling back with the carriage to turn around.
“Leave the carriage” the man said with a firm grip on the carriage. Feeling humiliated, Nancy left the carriage and Ray, figuring she’d just text him from the car. As she headed toward the door, she passes the creepy woman from earlier.
“Always watching…” the woman said, this time with an eerie grin. Nancy quickened her pace for the door, damn near sprinting. She sees the greeter, who is now talking to another employee in the same made up language.
“This is like a fucked up dream” Nancy says and sprints to her car. She gets to her car, fumbles with the keys while trying to get her phone out at the same time. She grabs her keys, gets in the car and starts to text Ray. No service. What? She tries to call, “Sorry this call cannot be completed as-” Nancy hung up frustrated. Suddenly the car turned on by itself. Nancy looks around frantically in case it was Ray playing a joke. No Ray. She didn’t hit the key. She didn’t do anything. The car then shifts itself into reverse. Nancy’s eyes widened as the car is floored in reverse, sending a handful of carriages across the parking lot and coming to a stop.
“Oh my god! Oh my god! What the fuccckkkk!” Nancy screams frantically, while grabbing at the door handle, trying to get out. She was locked in. “HEELLPP!!” The car then shifts into drive. “Nooooo!” The car is propelled forward at maximum speed as Nancy tried to secure her seat belt. BOOM! Her car slammed into two other parked cars, setting off airbags, breaking her nose, and sending blood and powder from the air bags everywhere. The crowd started growing as her car once more shifted into reverse. Nancy was still dazed when the car plowed through a crowd of people behind her, narrowly missing Ray who came out to see the commotion.
“That’s my fucking car! Someone stole my fucking car!” Ray yells, not knowing Nancy is inside. He pulls out his phone to call the cops, no service. He frantically looks around for Nancy while telling people to clear the area and call the cops. A woman’s leg was severed as she lay on the ground in agony, the other part of her leg just feet away. An older man was laying on the ground holding his back in pain. Another man’s shoes were knocked right off him. Ray was still trying to take it in, when he heard the tires of his car spinning and what sounded like Nancy’s screams coming from the car. He watched in disbelief as the car sped past him, he caught a slight glimpse of Nancy’s blonde hair before the car was smashed into a brick wall. The car looked like an accordion. It was clear Nancy didn’t survive. Ray let out a primal scream, startling bystanders. Ray needed to get away from there. He suddenly burst out into a jog. Running on adrenaline and impulse. Ray didn’t know what to do, he just ran.
Ray didn’t know how long he’d been running before he seemingly snapped back into reality. He started to notice a pattern. A pattern Nancy pointed out before all this happened. People were seemingly stuck in a frozen state, or talking gibberish, acting robotic. His jog turned into a slow trot, before he stopped all together, trying to focus his eyes. He looked around. He felt like a character in a Twilight Zone episode. People looked like either aliens or zombies. They were either in a trance or talking gibberish, acting strange. A woman startled him as she approached him quickly.
“Hi sweety, where have you been?” the woman sounded like Nancy, but clearly wasn’t.
She came in for a hug and Ray pushed her off asking “Who the fuck are you?!”
Ray backed away confused. “C’mon baby, gimme a hug, you know you miss me” said the strange woman in Nancy’s voice.
“What the fucking fuck?” said Ray. “Ma’am I don’t know you. Please get away” Ray tried to give her the benefit of the doubt, maybe she was sick or confused.
“C’MON RAY DON’T YOU KNOW WHO THE FUCK I AM! I’M ALWAYS WATCHING YOU!”
Now Ray was real nervous. What was really going on? He pushed the woman back and sprinted in the other direction. I need to go home where I’m safe, Ray thought to himself as he jogged back to his house. This time, he paid no mind to anyone. He just went straight home.
At home he was met with memories of Nancy. These memories made him break down. Suddenly videos of Nancy started playing in his eyes, uncontrollably.
“No stop! Stop playing!” yelled Ray. He didn’t not want to see Nancy, just not right now, not out of his control. The videos kept playing, only changing faster and fast. Flashes of years with Nancy flashing before his eyes involuntarily. He closed his eyes tight, but it didn’t matter.
“STOPPPP!” He yelled, hitting himself in his head.
Instantaneously, clips of Ray’s worst nightmares start playing, making him want to gouge his eyes out. Somehow in that moment, Ray remembered the chip. He felt around his head and just behind his left ear, he could feel a small bump. With videos of snakes, spiders and gruesome things playing in his eyes, he reached around for something sharp. Keys…maybe. Screwdriver… Shears! He bunched up his shirt in his mouth and used the shears to pry the chip out. As he dug in his skin, he bit down on his shirt so hard he thought his teeth would shatter. He screamed intensely into his shirt. His eyes flashed white like a strobe light. Suddenly, like a lodged bullet, the chip shot out. The videos stopped instantly. Ray collapsed in exhaustion.
Ray woke up to pounding on the door. He looked around to the shears and dried up blood. The chip was stuck to the floor with dried blood. He pulled the chip out of the blood, put it in his pocket and wrapped his shirt around his head, dried blood still streaking the side of his face like war paint. He looked through the peephole real quick, and noticed what looked like the “Men in Black” at his door . Two “official” looking men with dark glasses, suits and ties. Ray patted the chip in his pocket, “Oh shit” he thought.
“Mr. Leduc we need to speak with you. We can hear you inside” the men said abruptly.
Shit, they heard me, Ray thought to himself. What now? He looked around, spotting the fire escape. Too obvious, they’d have it covered.
“Who needs to speak with me?” Asked Ray, trying to buy some more time. He spots the trash chute. Fuck, he sighs.
“We’ll let you know, when you let us in” responds one of the men.
Ray quickly grabs a few things, quietly of course, then says one last “Sorry stranger danger!” before he puts a trash bag on like a potato sack and hops down the trash chute. His THUD was masked by the men kicking his door in. Noone heard him go down the chute. Meanwhile, Ray layed there quietly, hoping no other trash would be coming down soon. When he didn’t hear anything, he moved to the side of the giant compactor. COMPACTOR. He needed to get out of there fast. The trash was just full enough that he could climb out. He hopped out and found himself in the utility area in the basement. Still no one around. He found an exit where they take the trash out from. He peeked out first, no one. He tried using shadows to help mask his escape. He had no idea where he could go or who to turn to. Anyone close would be monitored. He didn’t trust many people to explain something so crazy.
Suddenly his phone started buzzing and alarming like crazy. He didn’t have service, so what was it? It was an Emergency alert. A BOLO was put out accusing Ray of being armed and dangerous, and killing Nancy. Completely untrue, but now he was a wanted man. Even worse, they can track him through his phone. But his phone had everything he needed on it. He had to leave the phone. He reluctantly tossed his phone down a sewer and decided to head toward a nearby wooded area to seek shelter. Along the way, he would steal materials like a tarp off a bike, a bottle of water, some discarded food and other little essentials. Along a tree line of a nearby park was a homeless camp. He would hide here for now. He made a quick shelter with his tarp, made a bed with leaves and a cinder block fireplace. Nobody really bothered him or asked him questions as he set up, however at night time, at least 3 people asked him for a "light". And one crazy woman offered sex for a rock. Crack rock he assumed. Needless to say he didn’t sleep much. One guy offered him a bread roll, but fearing it came with a catch, Ray declined. Ray bought a burner phone off of one of the bums and came up with a plan. He scribbled a note to the only friend he could think of and paid one of his tent neighbors to put it on his friend’s car. The note read “under the light he swings on 10th and 34th st -ApexAssasin 2000.” ApexAssasin was Ray’s gaming handle. 2000 meant 20:00 or 8pm. A playground was on the corner of 10th and 34th streets. Ray wanted to meet Chris under the light near the swings. Trees lined the playground, so Ray would wait there to see if he shows, and shows alone. Meantime, Ray made a video back at his camp. He set up his burner phone on a tree branch and recorded this video: “Dear viewers, my name is Ray Leduc, as you may have seen on TV. What you didn’t see on TV was that I didn’t kill my wife. I am not crazy. My wife was killed when A.I. took over a vehicle she was driving and drove the vehicle into a wall. Like a lot of you, I voluntarily got the new ‘Mind Link Chip’. At first it was great, I could do so many things just using my mind. But then a virus or something corrupted my chip, causing me to see and do things I wouldn’t normally do. EXCEPT KILL MY WIFE. I DID NOT KILL MY WIFE! This same chip right here yall!” Ray pulled the chip out, showing it to the camera. “Look! It even says ‘Property of the US Government’! This chip was controlling my thoughts and actions. The government is trying to control us! When you get a virus, it’s even worse! If you have this chip, remove it immediately! I am not crazy! Listen to me! If I disappear, the government was behind it. Please believe me! This is Ray Leduc, signing off.”
“Ray Leduc? Like the guy on the news?” one of the “campers” says as he pops out from the side of my camp.
“Mind your fuckin’ business” Ray said startled.
“Not for $20,000 I won’t”
Ray had a puzzled look on his face.
“That’s right. $20,000 reward for your whereabouts. Sounds like my kinda business to me.” The man said with a phone in one hand and a knife in the other.
Ray had no choice. He snatched up his phone and started running. Minutes later a drone was on him. The city had “facial recognition” drones to “catch criminals”. It was only a matter of time before the law was on him too. No matter where Ray ran, the drone was on him. These drones were said to have heat sensors, movement sensors, everything. Ray bobbed and weaved, hoping the drone would hit a power line or wall. Finally the drone got low enough for Ray to catch it. He caught the drone, dropping the phone in the action. Ray felt a little relief, but kept running with the drone in his hands. He realized the cops or whoever could probably track the drone, so he threw the drone to the ground. BOOM! The drone exploded sending body parts and shrapnel everywhere. The explosion rocked neighborhoods and could be felt miles away. Ray never got to get his story out there, but somewhere out there is a phone with his confessional video on it.
To Be Continued . . .
