Random Freestyle Writing

The Decoder Pt1My parents dreamed of owning their own home. We lived in the Florence apartments. It was not a nice place to live because there were no building codes there - indeed, one time when my mother jumped to swat a fly, the floor almost broke right through to the people living beneath us. My mother's ankle didn't recover for weeks. Florence, like all apartments, was also an organised gang, seeking to loot homes, save up some money, and then escape the apartments. In practice, the only people who really benefitted were gang leaders, so I never participated, nor did my parents (although of course, once the gang leaders did get houses they became house-dwellers and as such were soon attacked by gangs). My parents often told me that if I was good to the corporations, they would be good to me. However, when I was thirteen, both were mistaken for Florence gang activists and killed by a corporate police drone.As I was raised outside of the official facility for children, I appealed to the Florence gang leader to help me get work. Although Greg offered me a very good job in the apartment (manufacturing drugs to sell to vassal gangs) I explained that I really wanted to work for a corporation. Despite his personal convictions that corporations were bad, Greg helped me more than anybody else did in my life. I soon found work as a programmer at Terra, who built robots. The corporate bosses - who worked in a seperate office from us lowly programmers, always liked to give us lots of work to do and little time to do it. We had to work for very long hours, while the corporate bosses didn't give us much pay. But I believed in them. I could work my way out - my path to freedom, my sole hope, my religion, was Terra.Years went by. The Florence gang grew stronger, although that meant our apartment had to house more people. My small room had three families in it, and still nobody had repaired the large dent in the floor that my mother had made. I, for one, was spending too much time at work. I didn't really see Greg after he helped me, but I did become very good friends with Margrita, a woman from one of the families living with me. Margrita was a drug smuggler who took Florence drugs to other markets. When she was home, she would entertain me in the evenings with stories of distant lands. When she was not home, we would all fear for her safety. She would tell us of other corporate controlled democracies like our own (or CCDs, as she called them). She would tell us about CCD vassals, who lived even worse than we did in Florence. She told us about fundamentalist dictatorships and so-called "closed-market" states. Nobody understood what a closed-market state was, including Margrita. Margrita had heard it was to do with something called "economics", a word that had been censored in the apartment edition of the dictionary. One day, Margrita promised to smuggle us a house-dweller dictionary.Things weren't always this way. My parents were both raised in homes. They lived well. That was before the government building codes changed to deem their home "unsafe", primarily because it was difficult for law enforcement to raid if need be (despite the fact my parents were the nicest, most law-abiding people in the world, of course). The reconstruction would have costed more than the value of their property, so they were forced to move into the apartment buildings not covered by the codes. And that's how they met.This was day in, day out for me. But my life would not be normal forever.I was working late at Terra one evening, when an elderly co-worker - not a superior, a co-worker - approached me. This was naturally highly illegal, although I had seen this particular man before working at a terminal. Company rules said to ignore and report it. So that's what I intended to do."Hey" said the co-worker a little nervously "I'm Jacob."I didn't answer. I was trained not to answer.Jacob seemed to relax a bit. "I see you're working late. Even the bosses have gone home.""You know they're always watching" I stated plainly. That was within the rules, I was sure. Reminding a co-worker to obey the rules."I'm off the hook" said the man "I live in a house. I guess you're from one of those gangs then?"I was done. Saving my work, I turned off the computer. "I live at the Florence. Nothing more. And your address, sir?" That was bound to be useful when I report him.Jacob laughed. "I told you, I'm a house-dweller." The rich didn't tell the apartments which house belonged to whom. Still I did not believe him."The house dwellers are in the corporate office, not the programming division, sir.""That's because I'm a government spy" said Jacob casually while flashing me an ID card rapidly."Well, I've done nothing wrong" I said, and walked away from my terminal. Jacob did not follow, but I could hear him clearly as the office echoed unbelievably."That's not why I'm here. Let's talk.""I have the right to remain silent.""I don't think you'll want to, Adam."I stopped. "Why?" I asked.Jacob smiled and walked over slowly to where I was, right by the exit. "As a spy here, you get a lot of downtime. And I've been studying your code. You're very gifted."There is a pause. "Thanks" I uttered slowly. My computer's fan stopped whirring."I wanted to repay the favor by showing you a program that I've written."I totally lost it. There was not a reason in the world why I shouldn't hate this man. "And why should I want that? Don't you house-dwellers know how hard life is for us!? I've got three families I need to cook for tonight and the only food the apartment shops stock right now is celery because you guys eat the rest! There a dent in my floor that has gone unfixed for twenty years! We don't have electricity! We get shot at every day, by you guys, by the police, and by other apartments! And you think I have time to look at your little programming experiments!?""Because my program can change all that. You translate virtual worlds to reality. Well, my program just does the opposite. It's a virtual world, encoded not in a virtual system, but in reality.""Dream on" I said, leaving and slamming the door in his face."I've made it already" said Jacob.Hang on - wasn't he just inside the building? Yet here he was, standing right in front of me. How did he do that? Probably a spy thing. Must have had some gadget."Get out of my way" I said calmly, pushing him aside as I walked. We from the apartments didn't have cars or buses or trains. We walked."If not that" called Jacob "How about going to the beach this weekend? I'll take you and the families you care for."I had never been to the beach. I had heard that it was nice but I didn't trust Jacob. Not for one moment. His lot had killed my parents and many of my friends. He himself was a spy for them."Forget it!" I called "Go away!"The walk home was tedious as ever. I walked quickly past the derilict company buildings towards the huge, sprawling apartments, like menacing monsters threatening to eat up the few corporate offices and factories that remained for us apartment people. We mostly made our money off killing each other with drugs or guns. We had no choice. It was that or the long, slow and painful journey of starvation. Trash was everywhere. Luckily, acid drizzle was streaming from the sky in slow motion. It made the walk less depressing, as it gave something to listen to. When nobody watched, I sometimes liked to engage in little childish pleasures, like jumping in the acid puddles. That was all I had.After buying some celery and heading to my apartment, the young child of one of the families who lived with me almost knocked me over with a warm, genuine hug and smile. The highlight of my day."I can't believe you convinced a house-dweller to take us to the beach!" called her mother from the other room "Jess is SO excited!""Wait - what?" I shoved the kid aside."They reconnected our power and phone just to tell us you've been invited! Oh, I just can't wait to go! Can't you?"