The Test

A sudden noise jerked Margit from sleep. She looked around, but it was too dark. She listened closely and heard muffled screams coming from the main hall, followed by loud noises. She crept to the hallway and peeked around the corner. Some of her new friends were kneeling with their hands on their heads, while others were lying down. She shivered as she saw dark wet puddles around some of them. There were police officers supervising them, aiming guns at them. More officers were patrolling around, making sure they found all dissidents. Before she was able to decide on a course of action she heard steps behind her.

“There’s one more. Get her. Stand still or we will fire. You are surrounded!” An officer shouted at her and soon at least three of them aimed their weapons at her. She got down to her knees and put her hands on her head. They bound her hands together and dragged her away. She was thrown into one of the small empty rooms and forced to her knees.

“If you want to leave here alive you better talk. Who is your leader, what is the next target and what other locations do you operate from?” One of the officers asked slowly and with a threatening intensity.

“We don’t have a leader, we are just a big happy family,” Margit responded innocently.

The officer questioning her looked at another one, that was aiming his gun at her head and the man hit her with the stock of his rifle. The pain felt very convincing to her as she fell to the ground. “Don’t waste our time. Even if you resist, someone else will speak. Your life is worth nothing to us.”

She got back to her knees, pain and dizziness both filled her head. “All right, I will speak. This was all planned by the mastermind Mushroom man.” She said and gave the officers a meaningful look.

The officer sighed. “Kill her.” The other one started lifting his rifle while the interrogator simply watched as if waiting for her to start begging for her life.

Margit stared back and said nothing. When the gun was aimed at her head suddenly everything stopped. She looked around and suddenly both the people and the warehouse itself began vanishing away. Soon after she began fading away as well she felt her body lying on the bed. She opened her eyes and saw people standing around her bed. Isaac stood the closest. She noticed a cable going from the side of her head and behind the cupboard next to the bed. Isaac unplugged it. She sat and looked around confused.

“What happened?”

“Good morning Margit. What you just experienced was a test. We needed to know for sure whether your resolve would remain strong even in the face of danger. You have proven yourself. Now you are truly one of us.” When Isaac stopped talking some of the others started cheering.

Margit still had a confused look on her face. “But wait. I thought we hated this technology. Why did you use it?”

“Oh we do hate it, however in our fight we cannot afford not to use every tool at our disposal. We sometimes have to go against our principles in order to make sure that in the future people like us will no longer have to.”

“I don’t know, it just feels wrong.”

“Don’t worry it is good you feel that way. Even if it necessary it does not mean we can grow comfortable with it.”

“Just the fact that I have this damn port in my head that enables others to use me like this without my knowledge makes me feel so guilty and terrified.” She cast her gaze downwards and let her words trail off.

Isaac looked at her for a while. “There is something I want to show you, come with me.” They went together towards the basement of the warehouse. “You know, there is nothing shameful about having this augmentation. We never had a choice, it was simply forced on all of us, but I promise you that after we succeed things will change. The next generations will live true natural lives.” He paused for a moment. “Some of us were unable to accept this though. The most devoted among us chose to live free even now. We are going to visit them.”

“How is that possible?” Margit asked in amazement.

“You will see soon enough.”

They went down the stairs and through a long corridor, finally arriving in a large room. There were around ten people there. Some stood in the middle of the room, others sat, while still others were kept in what looked like prison cells at the far wall of the room. They all wore simple old clothes and were all thin to the point that it looked seriously unhealthy. Not a single one responded to the newcomers. They made barely any movements in general. One man was dragging his hand up and down the wall and a woman was humming a tune to herself. Margit’s stomach wanted to empty itself on the spot. It was hard to display nothing more than wonder. She looked at Isaac, who watched the scene in reverence.

“They are the bravest and the most devoted of us. They tore out those obscene augmentations from their heads. They all knew the cost, but they did not stop. They are the only ones who are free right now, but soon people will be born free, not deprived of their choice.”

After a short discussion and showing their respect to the revered ones they went back to the ground floor. Oh no, they are completely mad, thought Margit. She thought back to the virtual test of loyalty. She was certain they really have someone backing them. The resources needed to force her into the VR simulation were provided by somebody. A super advanced AI was a possible answer. But they really don’t know it. Otherwise those poor people wouldn’t just rip out their augmentations. Isaac might know.

“Now that you have proven yourself, I can tell you that we really do have a mission, but the details are kept as secret as possible. I can assure you, that we will deliver a great blow this way. Come to this location next week,” he said and plugged a flash drive into the side of her head. The location and time was transferred to Margit. She made an uncomfortable face and he just smirked. “Good. I suggest you stop coming here until we set the plan into motion. We need to be as careful as possible.”

Margit left the warehouse, relieved that had probably been the final night she had spent among those people. Even though she had just got up she was already tired and hoped she wouldn’t have to interact with anyone for the rest of the day. She knew however that her hope was empty. She went to work. She didn’t see Gabor. Ever since the attack they talked less and less. She hated that she didn’t mind drifting apart much at that moment. Neither wanted to talk about the pain they were both feeling, so they just awkwardly avoided each other.

After work she finally went home. I can’t believe I’m actually homesick for a pod, she thought as she rode the subway. She got off one station earlier from the one closest to her pod and made her way through the narrow streets past the slums, making sure to throw off anyone, who had potentially followed her. When she finally reached the pod she immediately climbed inside and stretched herself on the bed even though it was still early and she had work to do. After a few minutes of comfortable rest she fished out a transmitter from the lining of her blankets and triggered it, informing Flora and her people that she needed to meet with her. She had exactly half of an hour to get into position on the street where they would pick her up.

On the way there she was lost in her own thoughts. The infiltration went just about as it was predicted by Flora’s team. The only thing they failed to predict was the fact that they would use VR to determine her devotion to their cause, but they did predict that some kind of a test of allegiance was possible. Even though she almost never used VR she was still able to determine that there were inconsistencies in the simulation. The most glaring one was that in the simulation the augmentations that supplanted some of her internal organs were not present. She was glad that Isaac hadn’t required a full scan.

Doing things in such a roundabout way like using transmitters instead of emails and taking longer ways home really made her feel like she had returned to her old ways.