The World, Dripping | Chapter Four: To The Brave We Come, For The Brave We Shall Die

dragosroua (74)in #steemit • 5 years ago

The thick, brown morning smog barely let the first rays of the rising sun to slide down the huge, gray facade of the Brave Police building, downtown the Northern Area. It was 6 AM, and nobody was walking on the empty streets, no pods hovering around and no music streaming in from the street speakers.

It was the time of the day defined by the Leader as "personal", which meant that, for half an hour, between 6 and 6:30 AM, all public activities were shut down.

It shouldn't have been any light coming out from the windows of the Brave Police offices, and yet, somewhere at the top of it, right where the building was losing itself in smog, there was one.

Te-Ka-Chiang, the chief of the Brave Police, was working.

Or at least that's how he set himself up in the system. As chief of the Brave Police, he was one of the few allowed to work during "personal" time.

He started very long ago to spend at least 2-3 nights at work each week, overlapping towards the "personal" time, so he could teach the algorithms about his habits. Since he was having this routine for more than 20 years (even before he was promoted, over the dead body of the former chief of the Brave Police, in a live-broadcasted ceremony officiated by the Leader), no anomaly algorithm was triggered. It was his time away from everything and everybody, in absolute loneliness.

He reached to the bottom of his desk and took his personal Ey, set it on and placed its biometric arm on the right ear, lens over the right eye. His office was probably the only one not monitored by any sensors, so wearing an Ey, even receiving live broadcasts with it, was completely safe. Receiving live broadcasts was actually part of his job, as he was supposed to know everything happening on the other side.

Te-Ko briefly touched the biometric arm, closed his eyes and started to calibrate the device on one of the many pirate frequencies he used to spy on the latest streams of Immediocracy. Activity was moderately high this morning, and preliminary data indicated that it was a peak yesterday, the AI cartridges didn't finish yet to process all the input.

"Might be just another one of their stupid influencer parties on Maui", thought Te-Ka, switching the stream on the adult frequencies. There was no adult live broadcast at this time, but there were at least 3 of his favorite models who had one during the last 24 hours. Te-Ka initiated the rip-off sequence and swept the feeds into his personal sticklet in a fraction of a second. He was never watching live adult broadcasts, he was always saving them first on a sticklet, as drops, then streamed them locally, until they were automatically exhausted.

AI cartridges were at about 47% processing, and the power consumption was just slightly over the averages. Petabytes of data were decrypted, analyzed and classified based on the Brave Police "threat detection" algorithms.

Te-Ka squinted a bit, looking at the numbers on the wall in front of him, and that specific face activity could have been interpreted sometimes as a sign of concentration. But he was doing it in such a contained way, that no facial algorithm could have tell what exactly he was feeling. Years of mental and physical training in the brutal Brave Police made him a perfect human "blank face". Even when he was watching his favorite adult models, there wasn't any heart rate modification that could tell if he was enjoying it or not.

"There might be still 10-12 minutes until I get the first report", he thought, and then he stopped the pirate streaming and switched to the local sticklet. He closed his eyes, picked a random number between 1 and 3 and started to stream. The Ey lens filled with the chocolate contours of one of his favorite creole model, who earlier broadcasted live sex with a caucasian. One of his favorite inter-racial action scenes.

And then, just when he was in the drop for 2 minutes, the wall in front of him turned red and the acute alert sound of threat detection filled the room. By reflex, he deleted the remaining droplets from the sticklet, before even looking at the wall and activated the full camouflage sequence of the office.

On the red screen, a few sentences written with white letters were blinking:

“Threat alert level: 87%.
Alert type: intrusion.
Time proximity: 24-48 hours.”

"It always has to happen while I watch my favorite inter-racial", complained Te-Ko, without moving a single part of his face.

He stopped the Ey, made sure once again the sticklet was empty, and then threw both devices in a box under his desktop.

"So it wasn't a stupid Maui party this time", he whispered, while browsing the main headers of the report. The most important part selected by the AI was a broadcast of an influencer, G-Remy, and one of his story-tellers, Kasia.

He got up of the chair, stretched his arms and legs and started to walk around the desk, in a slow, hypnotic circle. Every once in a while, he was stopping the alert report on the wall, fixating on G-Remy facial expression, or on Kasia voice nuances. He was replaying or forwarding the stream while trying to decode things not shown in one of the most popular streams ever in Immediocracy.

A stream that could have mean not only the end of his career as the chief of the Brave Police, but, most likely, the end of the Land of the Brave entirely.

2 hours later, Te-Ka stopped the alert stream for good, left himself fall on the chair and touched the Intercom, whispering:

-- Three hounds in my office now. Volunteers. Also, need two local networks set up, so start the logistics for level zero threat alert.

A few seconds after, the door opened and 3 Brave Police officers entered.

-- To the Brave we come, for the Brave we shall die, shouted them the traditional Brave Police salute and then kneeled in front of Te-Ka, heads down.
-- Who are you? asked Te-Ka, initiating the standard selection procedure for high risk missions.
-- We are the sons of the Brave, the lucky ones chosen to die for the Brave, answered all of them, in the perfect pitch, the perfect volume and the perfect intonation.

"Ok, those are quite good", thought Te-Ka.

-- Get up, hounds, he whispered.

The 3 officers raised their heads and remained kneeled, a sign of total submission, and also a total acceptance of the fact they were really ready to die for the Leader.

-- We have a high threat alert, he continued, starting to broadcast the mission report to them, on a secure frequency. I want two networks set up, areas to be announced in a few minutes. I need them set up in the next two hours.

-- We shall thrive, Chief, responded again the 3 officers, in standard Brave Police lingo. They were all trained since they were kids, and this kind of situation was what they were taught is their "once in a lifetime chance to die for the Leader".
-- I need a full report of the ground situation for the networks, broadcasted to me in 2 and a half hours. Here are the target areas, he added after a few seconds: Western Border and the Concrete Wave.
-- We shall thrive, Chief, answered again the 3 officers. Only one of them delayed with just a microsecond, this time.

"So there's only one of them really aware", thought Te-Ka, looking at the one who delayed, in the middle.

-- The left and right hounds, on your mission, he whispered again. The middle one, stay to serve!

The two officers on the flanks walked back, on their knees, as the procedure asked, and left the room with their heads down.

Te-Ka remained in silence, squinting at the middle officer. Standard stature, standard face, standard expression. They all looked alike, all coming from the same genetic program. All trained to defend the Leader with their own life.

-- Source? he asked.
-- Concrete Wave area is the place where I was sourced, Chief, responded the officer, this time in impeccable intonation and pitch.
-- That's why you hesitated when I asked a network to be deployed on the Concrete Wave?
-- Permission to die right now, Chief, shouted the officer, putting his head down and reaching to his shoulder gun. I will not live with the shame of hesitation before the Leader.
-- Permission denied, you may get up now, answered Te-Ko, more and more satisfied with how the discussion was unfolding. The officer was following all the standard procedures. Identifier? he added, after the officer raised his head again.
-- Ang-Thrung, ready to die for the Leader, responded the officer, looking straight into Te-Ka eyes.

For about a minute, nobody did anything but keeping their eyes on each other. Te-Ka was scanning Ang micro-expressions, trying to understand things that the officer was hiding, and Ang was showing his undeniable submission by letting himself scanned and watched.

Te-Ka took a deep breath, got up of this chair and turned his back to Ang, in an unexpected gesture of familiarity. Turning your back to an officer was a sign of complete trust, something that nobody should show towards a Brave soldier, let aside towards an officer.

Ang's face color changed for a second to a darker yellow, enough for the sensors to pick the emotional change. Te-Ka read the data on his Ey and started to talk non-formally:

-- We can move over now. I'm impressed with your training. Also, I'm quite satisfied with your reaction about deploying a network on the Concrete Wave area. But now I want you to tell me the rationale. Why do you think this is not a good idea?

Ang blinked briefly and started to talk, this time visibly emotional:

-- A myriad of years of service will not match the generosity you show towards me, Brave Chief. With my humble mind, always in service of the Leader, I thought for a second that nobody will try to enter the Land of the Brave from the Concrete Wave. This is the most surveilled area of the country. Highest density of sensors. Highest concentration of Leader troops, bless them for Eternity! Why would an Immediocracy streamer would want to enter from there? It's suicidal. Immediocracy streamers are weak, hollow and shallow, they’re never ready to die, like us. That's what I thought with my humble mind, always in service of the Leader.
-- You're right, Ang, said Te-Ko. It's a very high risk approach. It would be much safer to enter from the Western Border. And yet, the reports are showing high levels of emotional stability from one of the perpetrators, the influencer.

Ang blinked rapidly, as he was browsing the mission files on his Ey.

-- With my humble mind, always in service of the Leader, I cannot understand the meaning of this, he said, after a few seconds.

Te-Ka turned back, squinting again at Ang:

-- A part of your reasoning is good: they're not ready to die. So they will not. But that can mean only and only one thing. Remember the Leader's wise words: "When the most impossible thing is attempted…"
-- "…It will be achieved, if enough help will be provided", matched the phrase Ang, automatically.
-- And that means only one thing, whispered again Te-Ko, looking strangely tired.
-- My humble mind, always in service of the Leader, cannot see this thing, Brave Chief, mumbled Ang, breathing heavily.
-- They have an insider, Ang. They will probably sabotage the Concrete Wave grid, and they will attempt entering from there, while we will deploy all the troops on the Western Border, where they want us to believe they will make the attempt. That's why the influencer is so sure of himself.

Ang blinked again. His breath was still erratic.

-- And that's why I want You to take care of the network on the Concrete Wave, Ang. Are you willing to do this?
-- To the Brave I came, for the Brave I shall die, shouted Ang, finally happy that his role in the mission was clear. Brave Police officers weren't trained for uncertainty. Permission to start deploying, Chief!
-- Permission granted, whispered Te-Ka.

As Ang was walking backwards, on his knees, to the door, Te-Ka let a brief thought interfere with this long taught mental discipline: "You might as well die, Ang, if so you wish, you might as well die…"

As part of the launching of my novel, "The World, Dripping", I'm publishing the first 4 chapters here, on Steemit. The book is available on Amazon, in 2 formats:

If you do buy it, I would appreciate an honest review.

Previous chapters:

I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @dragosroua.