Still having my visys, I had access to my games and the net, but I had hardly used them that whole month before “processing”, as it was called. Leaving a life of constant usage, I was only jacking in during the occasional evening to visit with friends back home, who were still in school. I recognized the smugness in their haughty tones after seeing the tent town backdrop and my physical changes. I was now fully transformed into a stalker in their eyes. Their unspoken judgments left me feeling poor and eventually angry with my parent’s decision. Back home, everyone was pretty similar, having essentially the same verse, visys, cars, homes, and ambitions. Any tiny imbalance in status was recognized and pounced upon. The lack of pouncing to my face made me acutely aware that I had fallen off the status map altogether.
It had been a short four and half weeks that we lived in the tent town before we were all set to enter the Hellmouth. My Mom and Dad had been to the gates a few times to take care of some business, but my brother and I had only seen it from a distance. It was too busy and chaotic to get any closer with the day and night stream of freight moving into the cavern. After one of his trips to the cave, my Dad and some of the other adults in the tent shared with us what they had learned about the deal.
I didn’t understand all of the rules, but Dad had explained it as a clean slate. Wanted criminals or people with legal obligations that would be violated were not permitted to enter. With the Global Unique Identifiers that had been put into each of us minutes after birth, it was a relatively simple task to track wealth, and debtors were required to zero their debts before passage was granted. Personal possessions, beyond what could be carried, likewise were not permitted. Any surplus wealth was to be turned over to Sub 42, and necessities would be provided upon entry, including the HOPE suits. There was no border enforcing territory, and we were free to leave whenever we wished with whatever we could carry. Our external belongings would not be returned after we entered, and we would not be allowed re-entry in less than one year, supposedly to keep people from creating a black market for the HOPE suits.
Naturally, this created all manner of knavery as people tried to hide their wealth while gaining entrance. Governments were big winners through taxing this growing source of transactions between strangers and family members. If you wanted to avoid taxes, you had to find someone you could trust, and even then it had to be an untraceable asset. I couldn’t imagine someone going through all the trouble to get to this remote border crossing between topside and the substation without having taken care of your business, but apparently, it was a pretty common occurrence. People would show up to processing and get the unwelcome news that they had some unresolved debt or hadn’t been as good at hiding their wealth as they thought they were. Some governments had even started an exit tax imposed on those crossing this particular border, literally taxing those with nothing. A pay-it-forward fund had been setup for pilgrims. Luckily, the US wasn’t one of those governments…yet.
My parents had resolved most of their debts before we left Utah and had taken care of the transfer of their global credits. It took some weeks for some legal documents to be completed, but that was all satisfied now, so we were free to enter any time we liked. I found out that we would be entering the following evening around dusk. It was better to travel outside before or after the sun was in full shine. Dad had reassured us many times that we would not lose contact, and that it was not a path of no return, but I don’t think Mom fully believed it, and she wanted a final day topside to soak up the surface and talk with friends back home. She had appeared melancholy that final day. It was nearly dusk before I found her walking back to the tent from a stroll around the late evening camp outskirts carrying a sunbrella. She never went out in the daytime without a good reason. My father was stoic and likely would have been less disconnected had it not been for Mom’s depression.
My brother and I, on the other hand, were swept up in the excitement consuming the camp. We didn’t know what it meant to go down, but the rumors of the horrors and treasures that were to be found down there had captured our imaginations. After more than a century of Hollywood, we couldn’t wait to find giant snakes or trolls picking over gem-encrusted walls. Looking around camp, I had a tinge of sadness. There were things I had come to think of as, mine. My bunk would have another expectedly unexpected guest in it by tomorrow. My dismantled sunsuit and sunglasses would no longer be needed, they would stay here too.
The actual entry was far less spectacular though. We walked 300 yards through the arching dirt streets by dusk to the lamplight at the boarding station. I had expected banners and crowds, but found only a solitary double-decker tourist bus with broad un-tinted windows that were barely transparent beneath a film of fine dust. The air was still, and the highway drone of large engines could be heard off in the distance as they hurled toward the Hellmouth. We paused for a second to take in the bus, then continued to a semi-permanent structure just inside the circle of light.
Inside, a cordial Arab man and two medical droids sat before a bank of 16 pristine white cylinders. Each was about a man and a half tall, and two men wide. The medical droids approached my brother and me first, their motions were flowing and unthreatening. They explained that I was to leave my clothes and possessions in a numbered plastic tub and step into the far left cylinder labeled #1, where I would remain for the next two hours while I underwent a “screening”. My brother looked unsure of all this and cut his eyes towards me. Being the older sibling, I was used to taking the lead and reassuring him. It was easier to be brave when I saw the fear in his eyes, so I stepped into my pod with a backward glance at my parents.
Upon entering the cylinder, the air was chilly and the lights a dim yellow-orange tone. The walls were solid and featureless white poly. I looked back at my father, as he gave me a sheepish grin, his hair still messed up from taking his shirt off for his own screening. My mother had bulging tears perched on her lower lids. She stiffened her lower lip in a half-hearted smile.
The door closed solidly behind me, and I looked around for something to focus on as the “front”. There was none, it was featureless.
“Hello, dear,” a calm and pleasant voice emerged from no particular source. “You seem alarmed,” it continued. “You can leave at any time, just ask for release or hit the wall and I will gladly open the door for you. But, you will need to complete the entire screening before we can allow you to enter the bus for the substation,” the voice ended on an up note, trying to sound very positive.
I closed my eyes and thought about T-roy in his own pod less than a meter away. I clenched my teeth hard and resolved myself to continue, “I’m ok, thanks.”
The voice then went on to lay out the agenda for the next couple of hours, where I would give blood, urine, stool, breath, and tissue samples, and answer some questions. Finally, I would shower and continue on to the bus. If I was unable to give any particular sample, the screening could continue, or I could return when I was able to produce.
“Could you now provide a stool sample?” the voice asked in a pleasant, even tone that reminded me of the stewardess on the plane coming over.
“Excuse me?” I stuttered. “I don’t know what you mean.” I couldn’t find a stool anywhere in the tiny pod.
“Do you feel that you could defecate now?” was the clarification, which didn’t make matters any clearer. Now I was picturing stools and some sort of duck, duck, goose game, and gave a long confused pause. “Number two?” the pod eventually prodded and it finally dawned on me what we were talking about.
“Yeah,” I responded more to myself, thankful for my eventual comprehension, and a small silver pedestal toilet appeared from behind the poly panel on my right. Quickly feeling the sinking feeling in my stomach, I retracted “No, I can’t”, and the toilet again disappeared.
Stolen story; please report.
“That’s fine. We can start with something else. Would you prefer to just talk for a while, or give tissue and breath samples?”
“Uh, talk?” I was becoming increasingly uncomfortable with my cramped surroundings.
The voice picked up with a human briskness in its response to body language, tone, and silence. “How often in the past few weeks have you felt the future was bleak?” the disembodied voice asked.
I considered the question for a moment. I had been sad to leave home. Sad? No, not sad. “I was anxious to leave home and come here. I didn’t know what was going to happen to us. It has taken A LOT of adjustments to this way of life. But I wouldn’t say bleak. So…not at all.” I wonder how mom answered that question.
The pod turned and pulled answers from me like an expert human investigator, though the consistency of its voice told me that I was talking to a machine. It asked questions of me like “Was I afraid of the dark?” and “Had I ever killed an animal?” There were dozens of questions in all, and each turned into a small discussion, never settling for a simple yes or no answer. After a while, I had become comfortable with the process. The pod intermixed taking samples with the continuing questions. I gave tissue samples by rubbing my forearm across what looked like a palm-sized safety razor, a cheek swab on a Q-tip, and a hair plucked from my head. A tube appeared from behind another hidden poly panel for me to breathe into while the pod told me interesting factoids about life underground in Sub 42, which quite in fact dispelled some of the rumors that I had picked up from the other kids around the camp. Occasionally there was visual information displayed on the poly wall in front of me, whichever direction I was facing, such as diagrams of a cross-section of the travel route we would be taking that evening on the bus and various landmarks of the tunnel system beneath. This was the first of several “processing stations” that we would eventually suffer.
“Could you draw me a picture of how you feel since leaving home?”, the pod asked. The panel I was facing lit up and suggested for me to draw with my finger.
“Well, at the moment I’m feeling like I’m crammed in a roomy coffin,” I said sarcastically.
My attempt at humor was lost on the AI inquisitor. “Oh dear! What about this current…”
“No, no, no. It was a joke,” I interrupted. I shrugged my shoulders and rolled my eyes. I wasn’t an artist. I could communicate, but real artistry takes practice. I didn’t practice.
I raised my index finger and started sketching with my nail. The legend on the wall showed how to do basic operations, such as drawing thin lines with your nail. Thick lines with the top of your finger and erasing with the pad of your finger.
“Damn,” I said subconsciously. The proportions weren’t right. I erased it with my thumb and started again. I didn’t start with the end in mind. I just started drawing. I revealed a rough sketch of me standing heroically with my hands on my hips. My sunsuit ripped off to a sleeveless short suit. My hair was drawn back and a determined look on my face. I carefully sketched the muscle definition on my exposed arms and legs. I was kind of proud of that. I may have embellished a bit.
I continued with T-roy, a zipping blur with the ball and a wicked grin on his face as his opponents tumbled after him. I drew Dad, sitting in a ring of people, discussing things, his arms animated about him. I stopped and considered for a moment. Then began again, with Mom, walking around the camp on one of her daily walks. I drew her from a back angle, with her arms folded behind her back in quiet contemplation.
I then went back to the destination of my heroic glance. I sketched the tunnel entrance, looming large off the edge of the ‘canvas’.
With an almost human empathy, the pod sensed I was done. “Very nice. I could tell you were uneasy to start, based on your biometrics. But you really seemed to settle into it. Is there anything else you want to add?”
“No. I’m good,” my drawing disappeared as the lit panel went dark and transitioned into a mirror. I was looking into a reflection of my face. I realized I had a smile on my face.
“One more question before we conclude here. On a scale of 1 to 10, how happy would you say you are right now?”, the pod asked.
“Happy? Oh geez, I don’t know. You mentioned, ‘conclude’. That makes me happy. I’m in AFRICA! That makes me anxious, but not sad. Mom is upset, and that makes me sad. Dad is optimistic, that makes me happy…”
“You, dear”, the pod interrupted. “On a scale of 1 to 10, how happy would you say you are, right now?”
I pursed my lips and thought for a moment, “3, I am going to have to go with a 3 right now. I am concerned about what the heck is gonna …”
“Thank you! I do not intend to interrupt you needlessly”, the pod interrupted again. “But, In your opinion, what one thing needs to occur for your score to move to move from a 3 to a 10?”
I sat there in silence for a few moments. What would move me from a 3 to a 10? What do I want most? To go back home to Salt Lake? To see my friends again? To smash T-Roy with a crushing left hook? The tent city was far from the creature comforts I was used to, but that’s not what was dragging me down. Was it the food? The clean clothes? The lack of visys? No…”To see my family…my Mom… on board with this decision to go to Sub 42. If we were all on the same page, I could be very happy with where I am,” I answered confidently.
“Thank you, Sam”, the pod answered confirmed.
After all of my samples were complete and I had showered, the pod provided a simple set of kaki-colored pants that converted into shorts, a green T-shirt, and sneakers, all of which were the perfect fit. When I had dressed, the door opened, and the cool confines of the pod melted away as the warm office air entered my nose, leaving me wishing that I had been a bit less efficient with my answers. I learned from Dad, who was already dressed and waiting patiently for me, that I had already been in for two and a half hours, having gotten carried away with the conversation. My brother and mother were yet to emerge, but he was hopeful that they would be coming shortly now that I had.
My mother came out less than ten minutes after me, but my brother took a full extra hour, apparently unable to perform the “number two” requirement until my father’s voice was piped in through the capsule speakers to reassure him. I couldn’t hear their conversation, but I could read Dad’s body language switch from rigid concern to concealed and repressed laughter. Somehow they managed to do the deed, eventually.
We had all “passed” and retrieved our visyss and other items from the bins we had put them into hours before entering the pods. Another man did not look to be so lucky. His brow furrowed sharply as he spoke with the Arab doctor in the corner. His voice was agitated and hard as he moved with quick jerking gestures, and I recall wondering if I was the lucky one, or if he was. Several other people had entered the station after I had completed my screening, though there was never a standing queue. Upon leaving the building, I recognized that it was now a different bus, similar in style, but parked differently and with subtle differences in the grime patterns on the windows.
The bus was un-crowded and comfortable. The sand had found its way inside here as well, and everything seemed to have a layer of grit, which was more apparent to me after my fresh shower and clothes. The buzz of the bus was almost unbearable. Excitement, mixed with fear, the fight or flight instinct was engaging each of us in a personal battle to remain composed and calm on the surface, waiting in the dim cabin lights for those still undergoing their screening.
T-roy and I teased each other about the screening and the “stool” sample. “That psych profile was completely useless,” I teased him. “It couldn’t even detect your deranged mental state!” I jeered and earned a smart blow to my shoulder for my trouble. He had gotten stronger in the last month, too. I admired the ache in my arm for a second, and then we were lost in excited comparisons of our pod experiences.
Our attentions were returned to the cabin as the bus door closed behind the last passenger, and we lurched forward and out of the white circle of lamplight. Another person had just entered the light from the screening station, and I thought it was coarse of the driver-less bus to pull away from their approach. I was mildly relieved a few seconds later as we passed another bus heading to the screening station like clockwork. It would probably be there before the latecomer even had to pause to wait.
Leaving the dirt-packed road we accelerated quickly on the eight-lane freeway, merging smoothly with the un-hesitating, steady freight traffic heading heedlessly into the Hellmouth.