Questions

One day had passed. And then two. Then three. There was no sign that anyone had picked up on what I had been doing. Or perhaps my confusion and shock didn’t count towards the defamation law. The defamation law: we were prohibited from speaking ill about our leaders and those above us in standing. Meaning that Ergasia could not talk bad about the Arbiters nor our leaders and the Arbiters could not talk bad about our leaders. Those with G-Len’s ought to be more careful since it’s not only our speech being monitored, but also our thoughts. It’s a straight forward law, but I never thought about what would and wouldn’t be considered breaking it; I’ve had no reason to think about it before.

You know, just a heads up and all, but be careful what you think now, okay?

Stephen’s words from two years ago suddenly came back to me. Why would he warn me about the defamation law? What did he know? What about the dream I had the day that Dog was cured? It felt too real to be my subconscious making things up. But something in my gut told me not to ponder on that question for too long.

“Are you okay, Ephialtes?” Mr. Dolion’s voice sounded, drawing my attention to him.

“Sorry, I’m fine.”

Mr. Dolion hummed, his dull, gray eyes examining my demeanor for things that could give away my inner thoughts. “Okay, kid, whatever you say. Help me with these documents, will you?”

I nodded, “Of course. Do they need to be signed?”

Mr. Dolion shook his head, “No, just read through to make sure the details are correct. Even though we don’t have the medicines in place, we can go ahead and start construction on the facilities and start housing elders who can’t live on their own any more. This is just paperwork for that.”

I took a stack from the desk and began to read, “Do you want it to line up with what we discussed last, or are there any changes you were thinking of making?”

“No changes, just what we talked about.”

A fully automated home with AI caretakers. We’d start small, just needing enough space to house 25-50 people. Sufficient facilities including private bathrooms, adjustable living spaces for the client to create their ideal space, at least two caretakers per unit of six to eight people, community rooms, outdoor space, a clinic attached… This home would have everything someone living on their own would need and more. Mr. Dolion had worked hard to gather sponsors and even saved and spent his own money on this project. Although my reason for working with him was solely to work on medicines, I had grown rather attached to this project as well. But at the speed we were moving, it may take another ten years to get the right medicines prepared. By that time, Mr. Dolion may be the age to apply to live there as well.

We read through papers for a while, a soft humming of music playing gently in the background. Mr. Dolion often played music while we worked, his favorite seeming to be Jazz. However, today it was something I had never heard before. I listened closely to the new sounds: drums, guitar, and some SFX I had never heard in other songs.

“It’s an old song.” Mr. Dolion broke our silence, “It’s written on your face that you were curious.”

I shrugged, “Just a little curious.”

Mr. Dolion smiled, “Your curiosity is what made me hire you.”

“Not my resume?”

“That helped me convince others to hire you.”

He took the papers from my hand and began to file them away. I sat back in my chair, “Speaking of curiosity, can I ask a question?”

“Of course.”

Mr. Dolion has always been a great source of information whenever I ran across an issue. If I could phrase my questions right, I could get answers I was looking for without getting either one of us into trouble, starting with my Lens. “Do you know how the G-Lens was invented?”

He nodded, “I know a good bit, what made you curious about that?”

“Nothing in particular.”

He sat across from me with a sigh, “Well, here’s what I know: a little over a hundred years ago, a scientist had an idea: what if we could complete simple, daily tasks by simply thinking? It took him years to develop it, but once he had the prototype done our world began to change forever.”

“I know,” I commented, “This is what we learned as kids.”

“Do you know the process of how it was made?”

I shook my head. No one in my family had been able to go to school, so we only knew the basics. But the basics didn’t include the details.

“To put it simply and concisely, it took a lot of figuring out how we could connect our brain waves to a piece of tech that could respond to them rather than simply tracking them. Getting the program onto a small enough device to install onto a retina was the easy part. I can give you a book concerning the process so you can read all the details.”

“That would be great, thank you.”

“Of course, anything for my favorite student.”

I chuckled, “Only student.”

Mr. Dolion simply offered a shrug in response.

“Do you happen to know if there were any known bugs in the Lens?”

He was visibly caught off guard, but didn’t ask any questions, “The only one’s I know of have been results of poor health or poor vision of the recipient. Do you know those?”

“I only know that they can occur, but I don’t know what they are.”

“I guess it’s not really a secret, it’s just not talked about. There are three main bugs that can occur: first, it can simply just not work at all; second, the cloud can fail and your information cannot be stored properly; and third, the connection to other Lens’ can be disturbed meaning wrong information can be sent and received.”

I did not have to worry about the first bug, but potentially the second and definitely the third seemed like what I was experiencing. If my information wasn’t being stored, that could be the reason why my vision disability has yet to be discovered. That could also explain why I had yet to be questioned concerning the experimenting I had done.

“Don’t dig around too much on bugs, though. Curiosity is good, but it can lead to bad places if you’re not careful.”

I kept my eyes on him, trying to decipher a deeper meaning to his words. Why would I be warned against learning about the G-Lens and its bugs?

Mr. Dolion smiled, “I like you kid, but the most I can do for you is keep your secret.”

That one sentence sent my mind into a spiral. He knew. He knew and he wasn’t going to report it. The danger he was in by not reporting was just as high as mine. Why would he do something like that? To my knowledge, Arbiter’s would never keep something a secret concerning an Ergasia if it meant risking themselves, that’s not how society functions. But I’d have to ignore Dolion’s words and intentions for now until I learned more, learned enough to keep him safe.

Keep him safe?

What made me use those words? The same feeling I had when I heard Stephen’s voice in my dream overcame me. It felt surreal, like my surroundings had slowed down and the world around me became muted.

“Known… thoughts… careful.”

Breaking through the silence came Mr. Dolion’s voice, quiet and filled with fear. Looking at his face, I saw his lips not moving and eyes focused on reading. Once again, my Lens seemed to be glitching, but this time I felt different. I strangely felt in control. Of what, I wasn’t quite sure yet.

“Focus.”

Focus?

“Stop letting it show on your face.”

I quickly diverted my gaze to the papers that remained on the desk. Was Mr. Dolion aware of the glitching that was currently occurring?

“I’m filtering my thoughts so I don’t say anything to trigger the higher ups, but you probably don’t have to worry about that.”

I picked up a pen and began to write what I wanted to ask. It felt that it would be better to not say anything out loud at the moment and, until I had a better understanding of what was going on, I would continue to trust that instinct for now. I quickly wrote down the words: ‘I missed what you said in the beginning.’

I could hear his chuckle in my head, it sounded a lot more free when it was in his thoughts. Whenever he laughed out loud, it was cautiously, on guard. I never would have noticed if I didn’t hear his unfiltered laugh just now.

“A known glitch is hearing thoughts. That’s dangerous, so be careful. Don’t let what you hear show on your face, you’ll hear some crazy things from Arbiter’s but you must not let it show that you can hear what they’re thinking.”

I sighed and began speaking out loud once again, “We’ve sorted through the new documents, anything else you had planned for the day?”

He shook his head, “Nothing else. Feel free to join me for dinner if you have time, it’s always more fun to eat with someone.”

“I always appreciate the offer, but-”

“You can’t.”

I gave a small smile, “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be, you’re bound to be uncomfortable eating with someone like me.”

I quickly denied his statement, “Not at all, it’s not me that’s uncomfortable. Rather, aren’t you? People whisper about you and why you would let me work under you. I’ve already received enough from you by having this job, I don’t need to be treated to meals outside of work hours too.”

He patted my shoulder and gave that strained laugh, “You’re a good kid, you’re going to be something big one day, I can feel it. Me taking you out to eat is my own personal claim to fame, so one day I can say that I worked and dined with the Von Ephialtes.”

I shook my head again, “You flatter me too much. I don’t know what you’re expecting me to be able to accomplish, but I can’t do anything without you anyway.”

He didn’t respond, but the sly smile that Dolion gave made me think he wasn’t done “talking” just yet. That feeling I got, the one where it seemed like I was in control, I tried to bring that back. How could I turn on the glitch?

On.

Activate.

Start?

Listen…?

Was there a keyword to activate this? If there was, I had no idea what it could be. But I wanted to hear what Mr. Dolion could be thinking at the moment.

“… on your own. Because you were able to get this far thanks to the, let’s call it errors, I think you can bring the change I’ve always wanted. I don’t know if you’re listening right now, but if you are, just know that I’m on your side.”

What change could he have always wanted?

“7628 Guevara Street.”

I waited for him to say more, but he didn’t. He said his goodbyes and made his way to his car and I turned the other direction and began to walk home. What could be on Guevara Street? It was in a forgotten neighborhood not too far from where I was currently living. Those without Lenses tended to gather there to do construction and assembling work. What business could Mr. Dolion have there? Unless he wanted to ask for their assistance on our current project. There were a couple well known craftsmen that lived in the outskirts with no Lens.

I pulled up information I had on Guevara Street on my Lens. What kind of people lived there? Did any of the famous craftsmen live on that street? I scrolled through public documents which contained the names of the known residents. None of the names stood out to me, but rather a social media post. A photo of a family that seemed to have just moved to that area, the teenage son looking off to the side of the Lens that had taken the picture. The next picture included the same boy now talking to someone who didn’t appear to be a family member. They donned a long, black cloak and kept their face away from the camera. The young boy seemed to be very interested in what the cloaked figure had to say. The third and final picture in the post included a scene with four people, all in the same black cloak, bidding their farewells to the teenager. After checking multiple profiles from different families that lived around Guevara Street, I found those figures in a handful of pictures always with their faces hidden. When they were facing the camera, their faces were still hidden behind a mask that covered their eyes. Each mask I had seen so far had been themed after a different animal. What kind of organization could they be if they were determined to hide their appearance, especially if it was around those with a Lens? Guevara Street was worth paying a visit after all, regardless of what Mr. Dolion’s intentions were in sharing the name with me.

I stopped by my home, dropping off my bag containing some of the paperwork that should be filed into mine and Mr. Dolion’s Lens memory. However, doing so was put on the back burner. I patted Dog’s head as he greeted me, tail wagging. I had expected him to leave shortly after he had been cured, but he stuck around. Maybe now would be a good time to drop him off with a family that would want a dog, maybe even a family that lived on or near Guevara Street. “Want to go for a little walk?”

The two of us began to walk around, my eyes on the lookout for families with small kids. They seem to like having a dog around the most. I tried out turning on my glitch again to see if I could read any of the thoughts of those I was passing, but it ended up being too loud. It was difficult to focus in on one person's thoughts. I quickly scrapped that idea as I walked around, deciding it would be better to work on it in smaller settings first, and thought back to the time when I was able to access information about people and places that I shouldn’t have been able to access. Could that be something I could turn on and off too?

I paused and stared at the building across from me. It was obvious that it was a restaurant and I could probably pull up a good amount of information on it normally, but what if I could get more? I pulled open information that was accessible to the public: the address, menu, founder, current owner, staff, ratings, and the like. I searched through all of it without finding anything that seemed to lead to something more, something restricted. I turned and began to walk away, but a small, red exclamation mark flickered in the corner of my vision causing me to pause once again.

I focused in on the exclamation mark, and as I did so, new windows popped open. This was it, this was the glitch. Live footage from security cameras began playing in front of me. How did I trigger this? Does it come from my thoughts? My desire to view more? Do I need to think of something specifically for it to occur? I looked at the person next to me. Who is this person? Something I had never even asked myself before. But as I asked, the exclamation point flashed before giving me their name, family history, occupational history, educational background, and more. It was a full report.

I looked at another man across the street. Who is he? Another full report was presented before me.

The house I was passing, who lives here? A single mom and her daughter had lived there for the past eight years. They moved in after the parents got a divorce. The mom’s job wasn’t going well and they were behind on rent. I didn’t know people still struggled with money in our society, but looking at this woman’s history it was obvious it was still an issue.

I sighed and looked down at the dog happily prancing beside me, “I don’t think this family can take you, but someone will.” And hopefully we’ll run across someone in a black cloak and mask while we’re at it.