In the year 2050, Earth had become a place where the line between man and machine was not blurred. It had been erased. The concept of humanity had thinned into something abstract, something theoretical, dissolving into the social climate like smoke.
The flying cars had never arrived.
But tech based implants, inserted into volunteers willing and unwilling, had become the norm. At least in New America.
In an unassuming home in the backend of New Detroit was where the story of Redael began.
A young man, untouched by human interference in divine design, lay asleep in his room. His mind was mirrored by the chaos around him. Clothes slumped over chairs like abandoned ambitions. Empty cups crusted at the edges. Wires coiled across the floor like nervous systems ripped out and left exposed.
Made redundant.
The ripple effects of that single word clung to him. They showed in his posture, in the stale air of the room, in the way the curtains never fully opened.
Dead end job after dead end job.
And now this.
Redael had confined himself to his parents' home. The idea of starting his own life had felt distant. Financial independence was non existent. The marriage he once anticipated was gone. The engagement had ended a year ago, quietly, clinically.
It was only in his dreams that he found peace.
Even then, not always.
Sometimes the dreams were darker.
Sometimes they were something else entirely.
Redael found himself standing in the midst of a dense jungle.
The air was thick with humidity, pressing against his lungs. Vibrant calls of unseen birds fractured the silence. The canopy above swallowed most of the sky.
He looked down.
His hands were stained with dirt. And blood.
Not splattered. Worked in. Embedded.
Evidence of struggle.
A surge of purpose coursed through him, sharp, electric, undeniable. Stronger than anything he had felt in waking life.
Ahead, a narrow path opened into a vast clearing. In the centre stood a large, weathered stone platform. Surrounding it was an assembly of Congolese Azande people.
Their faces were stern. Their eyes sharp. Resilience sat on them like armor.
Redael felt a pull toward the platform. Not curiosity. Gravity.
As he stepped onto the stone, the murmurs quieted.
He scanned the sea of faces. Men of all ages. Some held guns. Others gripped farming tools. The weapons gleamed beneath the heat of the sun, not polished for show, but maintained for necessity. The tools fractured the light differently. Work and war sharing the same reflection.
A young boy near the front stepped forward. In his hands was a scale.
One side was lowered by a pure white liquid.
The imbalance was obvious.
From the edge of the crowd, an elder stepped forward.
His presence commanded stillness. His eyes were ancient and unflinching.
"Redael," the elder said, his voice resonant and steady. "We have been waiting."
Redael's heart pounded, not from fear, but recognition.
A ripple moved through the crowd.
They leaned in.
Then the cheers erupted.
Weapons rose into the air. Sunlight caught metal, scattering brightness in hard angles. The sound grew, layered, unified, shaking the ground itself.
A ray of light cut upward through the sky, piercing cloud.
As the dream began to dissolve, the last thing Redael saw was not the weapons.
It was the faces.
Expectation. Determination. Faith.
He woke with a start.
His heart was still racing.
And it was only the distant arrival of the bombs that pulled him fully back into the real world.
Redael blinked.
His messy bedroom returned, dull, stale, unmoving. A stark contrast to the jungle's heat and breath.
His mind replayed the dream. The elder. The scale. The liquid.
Then sleep took him again.
Morning eventually came.
Or perhaps afternoon.
Long stretches of unemployment had dismantled his circadian rhythm. Time had become something that happened to him, not something he commanded.
His eyes split open against the piercing light.
He reached for his phone.
12:30 p.m.
"Oh sugar!" he blurted, the word half swallowed.
Every Thursday he had to report to the Department for Human Improvement and Work.
After the Great War of 2042, much of New America's male workforce had been gone. Slain. Expended.
The Department had been created to fill the gap and reduce the population of those neither in work nor employment.
Rumour held that failure to cooperate resulted in reassignment to an Improvement Camp.
Electronic implants. Behavioural correction.
A modern day lobotomy.
Only worse.
Underground reports spoke of belief alteration. Personality shifts. Submission where resistance once stood.
Redael had no intention of being modified.
He did not yet know what he was willing to become.
But he knew what he would not allow.
He dressed quickly and made the journey to the Department.
He needed his monthly allowance.
It was not much. But it kept him fed.
Better than leeching off mum and dad, he thought.
The building was larger than it needed to be. Neo brutalist in design, all concrete severity and sharp angles. It did not welcome. It loomed.
Inside, he approached the AI holographic receptionist.
Its form flickered. Perfect smile. Perfect posture.
"Room 54-D please, Sir," it uttered monotonously.
He complied.
The corridors were sterile and grey. The air smelled faintly of antiseptic. His footsteps echoed longer than they should have.
The jungle flickered behind his eyes.
What had it meant?
Why had he felt connected to them?
Redael entered Room 54-D.
A dour looking clerk sat behind a desk, tapping at a tablet.
"Name?"
"Redael," he replied.
"ID?"
He handed it over.
The clerk scanned it, then finally looked up.
"You missed your last appointment."
"I know, I—"
"Miss another, and you'll be flagged for non compliance. Any attempts to find work since your last visit?"
"I'd applied to a few places, but no luck yet."
"You need to show more effort, Mr Redael. The Department doesn't tolerate laziness."
Redael clenched his fists beneath the desk. The tendons tightened.
"I understand," he said, through controlled teeth.
"Your allowance has been approved for another month. Try harder, Mr Redael. We don't want to see you in an Improvement Camp."
He took the card.
"Thank you," he replied quietly, staring past the clerk for a moment too long.
"Something the matter, Sir?"
There was a pause.
It stretched.
"I'm just tired, man, you know?"
"Tired?" the clerk asked.
"It was the same cycle. Apply, get rejected, come back here. Even if you landed a job, you were wageslaving until you got replaced. Rent was unaffordable. Inflation everywhere. There was no end to the humiliation. There had to be a better way of living than that."
The clerk removed his glasses and polished them deliberately.
"Mr Redael, count your blessings. You were living in the land of the free. You had ample opportunity. It was better than some backwater nation pulling up shiny things from the ground for the big tech giants. It was simple. Get a job, find escape, and work like the good little worker ant you were. Save up. Craft your own paradise. Look at me. Cushy government job. No wife, no kids. Just friends and firewater. If I wanted physical wahoo, I saw a girl Friday. If I needed something mental, I had my holographic cutie." He tapped his phone. "Find your place. Find your escape. Or you'll implode."
Redael thought of the broken.
The homeless.
The implanted.
The receptionist.
Where was she now?
"Then it was the internment camp?" he asked, insolently.
"Internment camp? Where did you hear that from?"
Panic flickered, quick, then buried.
"You know where they put the implant—" Redael gestured toward his head. "Never mind. Forget I said anything."
"We'd better conclude, Mr Redael. Remember. Escape or implode. See you next month."
Redael left.
The conversation clung to him.
Where would a penniless, unskilled man go?
New Freedonia?
A utopia built from the spoils of The Great Gold War.
He felt the old friend stirring.
Worry.
Not paralyzing. Motivating. But sharp enough to summon the fear of the future.
It was time to call Hakeem.11Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcqPBRKIsAs
and then Add to home screen.