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Smart City Alpha.3 (short story)

~ MKW Publishing ~ 4 Comments

From my new book of short stories – A Short Walk and other dark short stories, I thought I would share this one with you for free in case you fancy a little read today…

‘Dear Ms Malone,

Congratulations, your application has been accepted for an apartment in Smart City Alpha.3’

She couldn’t believe it, and such good timing too. The application had been so easy, so they must have had loads of people to choose from she thought, maybe her luck was changing. It had asked a few family questions and one about what work experience you had. All very easy to answer, newly orphaned and estranged from remaining family. And one previous job as a waitress. Since the recent upheavals had closed all the hospitality outlets and they weren’t a thing anymore, it seemed irrelevant.

But these new cities were to be a safe haven from the madness that had overtaken what used to be society. The new normal was anything but. Selected individuals would be allowed to be separated from ‘the rabble’ as they called it. The daily briefings were enough for you to see how unstable everything had become. Pockets of rioting always breaking out, high unemployment, addictions were rife and it seemed on a downward spiral with only one way out for a shot at a decent future. The smart cities.

The letter went on to give her new apartment number, moving date and even that they would send a vehicle and driver to collect her. Rent payments would be low and work provided to pay for bills and food.

Both her parents had succumbed to the new virus that had crept through the population, causing confusion, economic collapse and varying degrees of illness and mortality throughout the population. She had ended up in a high-rise block of flats in a deprived area of the city, with banging doors, sirens and shouting at all hours. People coming and going all the time, and although the illness had mostly passed, it still loomed in the background of everyday life. Where there were people, there could be a threat. The idea of a nice quiet secure life was appealing. Especially with it only being selected people, maybe they wouldn’t let in any undesirables. It seemed so unfair that they survived and her parents didn’t.

There wasn’t much to pack, having only been a student living in halls when the emergency measures started, and had to stay there for the best part of a year. It was only after the cure had been introduced that the students were released. Her parents passed away shortly after and the family home had to be sold to pay for bills and costs, neither her or her brother could afford the upkeep or to pay for anything. At least the authorities had helped, otherwise she probably would have ended up on the street. Her first two nights had been in a hospital as that was the only emergency accommodation available until they could find somewhere. She still had nightmares about that place, and occasionally flashbacks during the day, remembering how odd it all seemed. Faintly hearing distant screams, screeching and scraping of trolley’s being pushed around in echoing hallways.

Three days later and it was time to move. Luckily the driver app she had been asked to download informed her he’d arrived and would assist with her bags and personal effects. A picture of the driver came through, showing only a facemask, pair of eyes and a hat. It would have to do as an ID she guessed. Hopefully you didn’t have to wear masks in the city, she hadn’t thought to ask and the information didn’t specify. It was such a part of her life now but the idea of not having to wear one was appealing.

She took a last look at the dingey flat that had been her home for the last couple of months and felt relief it was over now and a new phase could begin. A knock at the door and a few bags handed to the pair of green eyes. Door closed and gone. Not even a glance back, just looking forwards trying not to look at anyone or their pitiful lives on a downward spiral. If she had looked back though, she would have seen another lonely person with a few bags in hand, being shown into her old flat. Now to be their temporary home until their application gets approved.

It was about 20 minutes out of the old city they had built the new one. A massive fortified city with huge walls, security checkpoints and scanning technology to get in. It seemed to be the only way to ensure you would be safe, the adverts showed how much easier everything was in there. Friendly happy people, helping each other realise a new safer future. A new normal, where you could minimise risk and live better. She didn’t understand why the people outside wanted to live like the old way. It seemed so far away now. There was no way to tell who was going to be ok, millions had perished. But safety beckoned and knowing the madness of the old world was being left behind was a relaxing one. It was a shame she hadn’t told her brother she was leaving, but he wasn’t himself anymore.

They hadn’t spoken since the funerals. He kept insisting their parents were killed by the cure and wouldn’t accept it was the illness. Maybe he would come round and see that the news and media were right after all. That humanity was going to fall into ruin over the next decade, more people would be lost and the smart cities were the only way to build a new way forward. Technology would keep up safe.

As the car pulled up, vast metal fences surrounding the outer walls. There was a tunnel leading to the entrance so you couldn’t see into the city from outside at all. No guards, just screens and scanners, the driver removed his mask and turned to face the screen by his window. It beeped and turned green, the screen then slid to her window and flashed up the logo for a QR code. She suddenly realised it was on her acceptance letter and fumbled through her bag for it, suddenly flustered at not being prepared. A panic that they might not let her in after all, what if they had made a mistake and she wasn’t wanted in there after all? It beeped and turned green, nothing to worry about, she was fine.

As they started to drive through the tunnel, she looked at the lights lining the walls. Suddenly they flickered, and a long white hallway was in the place of the tunnel. Voices and hurried whispers, yet still the feeling of moving forward. The scene switched back to the car and tunnel, but the voices remained.

“We’ve got to get her out of here before she wakes up fully. They’ll know as soon as she knows, as long as we can get her out, we’re good”.

None of it made any sense. Maybe the radio was on, or maybe she was just tired, it had been a few months of sleepless nights and worry. Finally due to be over and a new life to begin. And with those thoughts drifted off into sleep, no longer worried what the driver might think, he could wake her when they arrived.

She woke with a start, a vague awareness of being someone tapping her info consciousness. But when she opened her eyes, wasn’t where she thought she would be. Her brother sat on the edge of the bed she was in and a couple of people she didn’t know hung back in the corner. She was so confused.

“What’s going on, where am I? How did I get here? Is this the city and you were here all along?”

He shook his head.

“No, this is just normal life now, I’ve been looking for you for two weeks after you went missing”.

Now it was her turn to shake her head.

“Weeks? Missing? What are you talking about! I haven’t seen you for months and was moving to the new smart city Alpha 9”.

She still couldn’t understand what was going on.

“I saw you three weeks ago at our parent’s funeral. I know this is going to be hard to take in, but you’ve been missing for two weeks and I just had to bust you out of a facility”.

She was dumbstruck and could only sit in silence as he unravelled where she had been.

It was called the Alpha Project but went under the name SMART – Serial Monitoring Augmented Reality Trials. People were being taken and drugged to alter their alpha waves to induce a switched state of reality where the REM state seems real and your body and mind react as if it is. But the whole time hooked up to machines keeping you in a comatose state and giving you a new concept of time, safety and reality. Weeks being turned into months and even years for some people.

“So, none of it happened? I wasn’t in a terrible flat for months feeling depressed and lonely? How can they do that, why would they do that to me? How do I know you are telling me the truth?”.

But deep down she knew he didn’t need to lie. It was written all over his face what he had been through, and suddenly the tunnel made sense now and the white corridor. That was her getting out. There was so much to work through and understand.

“I wasn’t going to let them take you as well, we’ve all lost too much to let them keep taking more”.

She felt extremely grateful to have a brother like him at that moment and leaned in to give him a hug, the emotion of it all creeping in and a bit of a tear started to form. She motioned for his two friends to come of the shadows and join them.

“I presume you guys helped? Just as well you three were there to come and save me! I owe you all one”.

They glanced at each other and back to her.

“It wasn’t just us three, there are others and being honest, we could use all the help we can get. Are you in?”

(c) K Wicks

Pond and snails

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I realise I forgot to do a proper post about my new little pond. A spur of the moment idea which is now about a month in, everything has settled and I’m making around the edge look OK with a few bits here and there.

Today I decided to move two of my five pond snails over as they have been doing well since I got them about a month ago now too. Not that easy to photograph, but I have tried. They are awesome to watch.

And today while checking the numbers, I lifted the small solar powered pump in the first tub pond, and what do I find? Small batches of eggs! There may be more snails very soon 😬

Also not so easy to photograph. But these have also been moved to the new pond. They are incredible at cleaning up, and have made the water crystal clear, and have helped clear all the algae that was forming round the growing plants.

These are the relocated two, as you can see, they have their work cut out for them here. Lots of algae there already, that may have come with the plant I moved to start it off though. Hoping for more wildlife, so far the birds have been using it as a bird bath too, so it has their approval, even using the little steps to hop down to the lawn on one occasion!

(c) K Wicks

So Simple

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It’s not hard to convince people of how you want them to see something, or how easy it is to lose the truth, as we have seen of late. But what of the ones who don’t forget, or blindly believe and follow the official narrative? I have been hearing some very compelling theories about history, and what has been done to erase and rewrite large parts of it already. I am not here to say whether it is true or not as I like the rest of you, don’t know, but only to speculate on how one might achieve that collective loss of knowledge and gain control of our social consciousness.

If you aren’t familiar with some of the alternative ideas, check out Mud flood theory, the crater theory, and Tartarian history. They all tie in to me and form a bigger picture that even I hadn’t considered in all my wonderings.

If you want to get rid of what came before and erase it, you would need to take steps to ensure that knowledge wasn’t able to be passed down, that it was smashed and overwritten, language and meanings changed so that confusion takes over. Wars and immigration seem to do that well and you don’t have to look too far back in our recent history (and currently) to see we displaced thousands of children and adults by sending them to ‘colonies’. But what of those people who got given new lives, histories and futures. Many lied to and told their parents had died, and they were treated awfully once there.

That paves the way for a very controllable society. Formed from people who were robbed of security and roots, and were taken to this new world. Not forgetting a systematic breakdown on the local inhabitants to achieve the same. Displace and disrupt the flow of self and sense of community. Seems to be part of their MO. This appears to have happened time and again.

It may sound wild on the face of it, but having thought it through it actually seems quite logical and an easy way to disrupt things. It all seems to tie back to and start around the 1850s. The industrial revolution seems to be part of it, and marks the real start of their drive for changing everything. Another reset if you will. Whatever the cause for this reset (some speculate there was a catastrophe around a mudflood and nefarious people’s seized control), it changed everything. But there is so much I didn’t know and things that I did I hadn’t questioned, just accepted. So now I question it all and wonder what other purpose the actions and events may have had, if thought of from a new perspective.

I’ll mention the mud flood here with more details as it’s a starting point. No date for it or full details, but the evidence they say remains. And the multitude of buildings we have that appear to be submerged by at least a floor underground are there. Everywhere in fact, but only ones of a certain age, pre-1850. Seems odd to build houses that far unground with windows, because that’s the giveaway, the tops of the windows show still. There are an awful lot of buildings that seem to have been founded, rather than have a built date as well. So, make of that what you will. And when you start looking at The Old World and buildings, you start to see a big difference. It seems ‘neoclassical’ was the go-to style for every country in the world, large spectacular buildings some of which we still have and are in use today. Unfortunately, a huge amount of them have been demolished and destroyed in the last 150 years. By way of wars, development and colonisation.

So, you rob a country of its heritage, steal its wealth, replace its children, change signage and names. Replace the language. How would you ever know what it was within 50 years? A good film for a view of how quickly we can forget is Book of Eli. A good watch.

It seems around the Time of Change as I will call it, we had things in the US called orphan trains. To remove children from the cities and distribute them around the country. What an easy way to move children, and possibly lose some too. Trafficking is big business. We also sent loads from the UK to Australia as well, and Denmark took them from Greenland to move them. There’s been a lot of people moving. It also strikes me as an easy way to literally replace people, if you say had an amount of people you wanted to insert into a population unnoticed. Another good cover for that I realised would be the world’s fairs. Now there is a subject worth attention. Until watching information on the above, I will admit, I had never heard of a world’s fair happening. It was never mentioned in history lessons and doesn’t seem to have popped up at all, until now. And when I saw the splendour and grandness of them, I was instantly confused as to what the hell happened! They make no sense at all, costing vast sums (at a time when apparently we had wars and hardships), made losses, they built all the incredible buildings in record time over huge areas, only to demolish nearly all of them straight away. More mysteriously being lost to fire soon after if not destroyed.

Also, around the 1850s came the drive to suddenly ‘build’ a mental asylum in every town in England, usually a massive Victorian style spectacular building. And schools, a huge number of similar buildings became schools, despite literacy not really becoming a big thing until 1900. Why did they need to suddenly lock away lots of people, or label them mental? Were they remnants of the old time who needed removing? Quietly. Then the need to educate everyone and get them in line for the weird society based around industry and profit. Not for our benefit or profit mind you, for the powers that be.

It may not be as above, and there may be nothing to see if you look closer, but most official narratives are lies, covering the real purpose, so why would we assume anything different for the past. As they say ‘whoever controls the past, controls the future’…

(c) K Wicks

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