<img src="http://www.peterkalu.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/SimmPrint01city.jpg" width="600" height="800" alt="hetcic city">
You are closer to the ring road now. You can hear the steel herds roaring and trumpeting under the overhanging message screens. You picture the glow of the screens’ digital letters:
WHITE IS RIGHT
Your breath slows down a bit, but don’t breathe too deeply. Never breathe too deeply, it encourages the gut. And the gut must not be trusted. Well, that’s what your head says. It was your gut that drove you to join the Small Circles’ protest against the Bloods, and look where that got you. It was your gut that wrenched you from the roof of the Foulway Correctional Facility during the riots, and out through the gates. And it was your gut that convinced you to follow the Small Circles’ symbols painted on the pavement, on the lampposts and on the trees leading into these woods.
And your head says you should not be here. A cold gust catches the sweat running down the inside of your left arm. Your teeth rattle. Your head wants to be back at the Facility. It was always warm in the Facility. The lights were always bright in the Facility, day and night. And everyone was always calm in the Facility. Until they weren’t.
Wiaaah!
What the fuck was that? The next few nanoseconds stretch out long enough to wonder if the noise was just in your head. Who knew what they could put in there with the chip? For most of the time you spent in MCF it was the same old messages:
CHRIST ONLY SAVES
WHITE IS RIGHT
Sometimes they had put a tweeting bird, loud and fast or a babbling river. And the noises would be played on repeat for hours, until the night voice returned:
BLOODS WILL PROTECT
Wiaaah! Shit, what is it? What is it? What is it?
You know what it is. You twist around. Looking for the sound. You stumble into a tree and cling to its rough bark. Brambles tug at your paper-thin Facility pants. The sound comes louder:
Wiaaah hah hah hah!
And then you see it. It’s swaddled in a blanket so white it seems to glow from the basket underneath the oak tree. You stare at the thing.
What the fuck do I do now? Your gut knows exactly what to do. But reasons not to track across your brain like ticker tape:
-IT’S BLACK -
Your gut knows it’s all bullshit. Bullshit planted in your brain by the chip, by the Facility, by the message boards, the bulletins, The Bloods. The bastards! The ticker tape keeps rolling:
-IT’S BUGGED –
You’ve heard stories in the Facility of people who’d been caught out by bugs left in random places: hotel rooms, pub toilets, train stations . . . But a baby in a wood? You’re still registering no sound, but its face looks like it might explode
-IT’S BOOBY TRAPPED –
‘That’s it,’ says your head. ‘Move on, quick.’
Pick up the baby, says your gut.
Stay alive, says your head.
What do you do? Choose now:
A. [[Pick up the baby]]
B. [[Leave the baby]]
<img src="http://www.peterkalu.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/SimmPrint02baby.jpg" width="600" height="800" alt="the baby">
A. PICK IT UP
Shh! You look into the baby’s face. Shh. Shh. You rest your hand on the baby’s forehead and feel its heat. Shh.
The baby jerks its head from side to side, as if searching inside its skull for a sign that says it’s safe with you.
Uh. Uh. Ahh, says the baby. It accepts you.
You smile. Hellooo.
Baby smiles back.
You loosen the swaddling slightly, take Baby into your arms, stand up, gently rock. You hum a tune you haven’t heard for years. You take in the milky smell of Baby’s head.
Your gut says it’s time to go. And, as you look up, you see it there, painted on a tree: the white circle with a dot in its centre: the symbol of the Small Circles.
You fly through the woods like you’re weightless, skipping over roots and rocks, skin bristling.
You easily take in every symbol on every tree until they end. Now there are only symbols on the ground, freshly made in the scattered detritus of the trees. The ground becomes concrete. Metal posts grow out of the darkening earth. You slow down to a creep.
This isn’t right, says your head.
Baby wriggles like it wants to escape. You loosen its swaddling blanket. The white linen falls away. And there it is, flashing bright as day from underneath the skin on the back of Baby’s wrist.
I knew it, says your head. It’s bugged.
In the Facility, you’ve heard about people with these bugs under their skin.
Why didn’t you check? says your head.
Your breath quickens. You think you can hear movement through the woods in your direction. You make out the next circle on the dark ground in front of the rusted gates of an abandoned barracks. You know what this means. They want you to go inside.
But do they want Baby?
Of course, they don’t want the fucking baby. The baby’s bugged. You’ll have to keep going now or everyone’s gonna get nicked.
Your gut tells you to get in there. Whoever is in there wants you to join them. They are confident that they can protect you and protect Baby.
How? says your head.
You don’t have to know how, says your gut.
What do you do?
C. [[Take Baby Inside]]
D. [[Keep Running]]
You are trying to run but your body feels like marble.
No matter how many times you stop, scan for the next symbol and carry on, you never lose the sound of the baby’s desperate screams.
And now there’s another sound. Boots coming through the woods in your direction.
You trudge on but it’s getting dark and almost impossible to see the symbols. You stumble across a symbol on the ground. And another. It looks like it’s been made recently, in the scattered detritus of trees. The ground becomes concrete. Metal posts grow out of the darkening earth. You slow down to a creep.
There is a circle on the ground in front of the rusted gates of an abandoned barracks. You know what this means. Someone wants you to go inside.
This isn’t right, says your head.
You gut tells you to get in there. Whoever is in there wants you to join them.
Why? says your head.
You don’t have to know why, says your gut.
Your heart stays silent.
What do you do?
E. [[Go Inside]]
F. [[Run on, run on]]
C. TAKE BABY INSIDE
In! In! They rush you through the steel doors and, Down. Down! The concrete steps.
There are three of them, all dressed in black.
Give me the baby, says the bloke.
You go to hand Baby to him but one of the women snatches it from you.
We haven’t got time for this, hisses the bloke.
She eyes him like, I dare you to tell me what to do.
She holds the baby close and cries.
Wrist, says the bloke.
He moves toward you as takes a small device that looks like a nutcracker from the inside pocket of his long black mac.
The second woman lowers her head and looks at you as if to let you know she sees your thoughts, and understands.
We work in very small units, she tells you. Like tiny cells. She shows you the bug under her skin. These help us connect to each other. And to the central hub: the Nucleus.
And we need you, says the bloke, grabbing your wrist.
It doesn’t hurt, says the second woman. We haven’t got time to explain it all now. They’re nearly here. Trust us. We put in the chip – it only takes a second – then you go.
Go where?
Down there, she says, pointing to a steel hatch in the floor.
Where does it go?
To the Nucleus.
And what about you three? you ask.
You will take Joshua: the baby. The universe has decided he will be saved.
What about you three?
We will stay here,”says the bloke, “and set the trap. We stay, you go.”
Do I have a choice in this?
Yeah, says the bloke. You can leave this building now and surrender yourself to the Bloods. There is always choice. But you decide now.
What do you do?
G. [[Go out again]]
H. [[Enter tunnel with bug]]
D. KEEP RUNNING
Baby seems to hold itself close to you as if it knows it has to help.
You follow the tangled mesh of fence and poison ivy around the perimeter and carry on in as straight a line as possible.
The sound of boots gets louder and louder until you think you can hear voices in the waves.
You scuttle underneath the roots of a toppled tree and pull some long branches and twigs over you and Baby. The boots approach. And Baby knows. Baby closes its eyes.
The boots walk past you.
Your eyelids drop and then . . . BOOM! The ground shakes. There are shouts and screams in the direction of the barracks.
You leave your shelter and run, following the symbols, knowing they all link up, so there is no escape, they lead to the same place. Back to the oak tree where you found Baby.
You raise your eyes past your mortal self to see if the sky gods might help. And there it is above the Small Circles’ symbol on the oak: a small note nailed to the tree that reads:
Bring Joshua.
Take the canopy bridge.
We’re waiting for you at the Nucleus.
Was that there before?
There is a rope ladder. It leads up to a rope bridge through the canopy.
And the voices are approaching again. Your head knows it’s time to give in.
What do you do?
I. [[Surrender]]
J. [[Climb Ladder to canopy bridge]]
You leave them. They let you go. You walk outside.H. INTO THE TUNNEL
You accept the bug in your wrist. You feel no change inside you. Your thoughts remain the same. You go down into the cellar and follow the symbols as the ground above you rumbles and shakes.
You wait for the Bloods to arrive.You take the baby in your arms, climb the ladder and take the bridge.
E. GO INSIDE
In! In! They rush you through the steel doors and, Down. Down! Down the concrete steps.
There are three of them, all dressed in black.
Joshua, says one of the women, hands held out, eyes wide.
The baby's been fucking abandoned, hasn't it? says the bloke.
The woman sobs and shakes her head, staring at you.
What now? says the second woman.
Now, you kill them, says the bloke looking at you.
The first woman cries louder, her head in her hands now.
No, says the second woman. I think you should go to the Nucleus.
They don’t need a selfish waster at the Nucleus, do they? A person who would leave a baby in the woods alone is not the person they are looking for, says the bloke.
I agree, sniffles the first woman.
It’s two to one then, says the bloke looking at you. Now you have a choice. We’re going down there, he says, pointing at a steel hatch in the floor. You’ll be left here with this. He hands you a mobile phone. The code is your date of birth.
How . . . ? But, why . . .?
If you’d have brought the baby, maybe you would’ve found out why the network put faith in you. As it happens, I’m not obliged to explain anything. Apart from how this works. Unlock it, go to the app with the Small Circle’s symbol. It has two options: A. Disarm and B. Detonate. Hit Detonate and this whole place will go up. Give them bastards out there enough time to get inside and you’ll take out a whole bunch of them. Then, at least you’ll have achieved something today. Or you can disarm it and go back to the Facility with them. Your Choice.”
Your thoughts are scattered. Your stomach is empty of feeling. Your heart knows there is a third way, if only you knew how to access it.
What do you do?
K. [[Detonate]]
L. [[Disarm]]
You open the app, wait until the Bloods arrive then tap Detonate.You open the app, tap Disarm, walk outside and wait for the Bloods.
F. Run on, run on
You follow the tangled mesh of fence and poison ivy around the perimeter and carry on in as straight a line as possible.
If the Bloods are following the symbols I followed, they must be coming in this direction.
The sound of boots gets louder. You can hear voices now.
I wonder . . .?
It’s dark but you squint and see more symbols on the trees. They seem to be spiralling in towards the centre or coming from every direction.
Which way, then? Ignore the symbols and go straight ahead.
Your heart sobs for the baby, for yourself, for the world. You trudge on forward.
As you stumble out of a tangle of bramble, the breeze blows your ripped pants and awakens your ankles. You look up and see it. The river. There is a boat heading to the shore. Someone in it, waving. You run up the riverbank towards the boat. It chugs toward you.
The baby? shouts the sailor.
You raise your hands as if you don’t even understand the question.
Where is your heart?
Bloods are closing. You’re not coming with me unless you’re bugged, says the man.
He pulls out a small device that looks like a nutcracker from the inside pocket of his green wax jacket. We all have them now, he says as he shows you his wrist. Glowing white through his skin is the symbol of the circle with the dot in the centre.
It’s up to you, he says. You let me put the bug in your arm and come with me to explain yourself to the Small Circles Resistance. Or you stay here, and explain yourself to the Bloods. You decide.
Your gut churns and your mind keeps repeating his question:
Where is your heart?
Where is your heart?
Where is your heart?
What do you do?
M. [[Accept being wrist-chipped and go with him]]
N. [[Refuse]]
You let him inject the chip into your wrist and get in the boat with him.
<img src="http://www.peterkalu.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/SimmPrint03boat.jpg" width="600" height="800" alt="boat away">You wait for the bloods to arrive.