A Price Too High?

He had done it! Charlie had accomplished what they said couldn’t be done. He had hacked his way “off“ the grid. From here on out, he was a free man; so far as he knew, the only one in the entire world. It had not been easy subverting the billions of lines of coded intelligence that ruled his, and everyone's lives; but he had succeeded!

Charlie spent the first afternoon just walking through the city, enjoying the boundless delight that came from knowing that of all the multitudes of people walking from point A to point B, only he was free to go where he pleased. No more FATHER. No more electronic umbilical cord connecting his every move to the patriarchal artificial intelligence that controlled everything, everywhere.

Things will be different from now on, Charlie thought with confidence.

It was hours later when he first noticed two things: he was getting hungry and he had absolutely no idea where he was. For the ordinary citizen, neither of these posed a problem. An iris scan would get him access to food, transportation, information and basically anything else he wanted; and it was all free.

Therein lay the catch, the reason for Charlie’s exodus from the realm of FATHER; the price for the free life was the complete surrender of freedom. “On the link” meant that an artificial intelligence known as FATHER controlled everything in your life. “On the link” meant you would want for nothing, save freedom.

Charlie spent the first night huddling under a tree in one of the city’s beautiful parks. Sunrise found him cold, tired, hungry and still a determined free man. The second day found him standing at a public kiosk, logging onto FATHER with his Iris.

“Welcome back, Charlie. Let’s get you some food.”

Word count 298