The Last Place to Stand by Aaron K. Redshaw Read Free Book Online Page A

information with the chip they did have which was encyclopedic and offered information as well as distractions such as games or learning puzzles. They were constantly looking up useful facts for the day or their job or just to know.
    Samuel and the four men watched for the cameras and occasional robots who paroled the streets. They were unable to move through the alleys, because that was where cameras were most likely to be stationed. They moved among the people without talking because others did not talk and such an activity would bring about clear suspicion. This part was not extremely risky. But then they came to the building.
    Techcorp was a jet black skyscraper of 435 floors, taking up a city block. It housed many different companies and many divisions of those companies. But every company had one thing in common: The advancing of technology. And all of the companies had one head: The government of the Solpaths. Since the government and the advancement of technology was so integral to each other, the government heads worked inside this building as well. Entry was bound to be difficult.
    They put on their disguises, which amounted to putting a dummy chip in the slot behind their right ears which each of them still had because they had each lived here at some point. This chip was the only real disguise they needed. Everyone in this building had feed technology. This technology not only increased productivity, and therefore value in their eyes, but it was the best of security systems.
    Only one thing kept this security from being foolproof. No one figured on Wallace. Not only had Wallace worked in that building, but he had worked on that project. His rejection of what the Feed Brain Interface (FBI) would do to society was the reason for him leaving it. Initially, however, he was in charge of the translation process between digital information and neural information transmission. He made sure the brain could understand what the feed was transmitting.
    Having Wallace gave them a huge advantage. He had spent the last few months working on creating “dummy transmitters.” These chips appeared to receive feeds because they transmitted back usage data, but they did not connect to the brain. Usage data told the company what feeds were being used, as there were thousands to utilize for every purpose, some secure, used only for companies that did not want their info available to others, and some for the general public. Receiving usage data let the system know who was there, who was missing, and who didn’t belong. Wallace had modified the chips to at first “listen” to the chips around them and mimic the chip ID of another worker.
    As employees received their feeds about work or entertainment, they also received another, more hidden feed. This feed did not consist of facts, but was a massaging of their minds into acceptance of ideals such as, “without technology, we would go back to the stone age. It is what distinguishes us from animals. It is what makes us human. Technology is the key to the future. If you contribute to the progress of technology, you contribute to the future of mankind. You are useful. You are worth-ful.”
    This was dangerous because Wallace said it really worked. People, even those violently opposed to such a way of life, often times could be turned because of this mind-altering process. It was at once subconscious and superconscious. For this reason, it was getting less common for people to turn to the Waldenese.
    Having these chips firmly in place and having peeled off their original garb to reveal the simple utilitarian clothes that others wore, they entered the building knowing they may never come back out.
     

Chapter 18
    X4287 wanted to explore. He had heard so many terrible stories about these Waldenese, or “Castaways,” as they had been called where he was from. But by the feeling he got from them, they could not all be true. For example, he heard that the Waldenese were all lazy, since they