Freedom Is A Peculiar Thing

This is a short story I wrote and I thought I'd share it with you. I see this is where our society is heading through the symbology of this story.

As the man sat on the hood of his late model Chevrolet he contemplated the necessity of the bloody tracking module that sat in his upraised hand that he had dug out of the back of his left hand. "I don't see the point of being tracked everywhere I go." he said to no one in particular. Picking up the illegal nine millimeter Glock handgun, a relic of the "Gun Control Wars" of the year 2010 and an heirloom passed on to him from his great-grandfather, Jack looked at the smooth matte black finish and contemplated what it meant to be free. Freedom, what an odd word Jack thought to himself. To be free of the machine that is the system that tracks a person from the embryo state within the womb of a pregnant woman. What's next he thought to himself, tracking the seed before it leaves the male body?

Jack watched closely as a pack of mangey looking dogs that looked more like scruffy terriers than anything threatening. He wondered if he should shoot the dogs before they came closer and tried to surround him. Before Jack even moved his handgun a machine similar to a 1990's street sweeper floated out of the sky to stop and hover over the pack of dogs while shining a spotlight. The spotlight momentarily halted the animals in place as a high-pitched whining noise emanted from the white machine that was marked "Animal Protection Unit."

The man in control of the A.P.U. watched the man sitting on the hood of the vehicle as he turned a knob slightly to the left and flipped a switch as the animals with the spotlight shrieked when the spotlight turned from a brilliant white to a menacing shade of violet. The pack of dogs were immobilized by the beam as the hairs on their backs began to sizzle and fry off their bodies, the whining of the machinery almost but not quite drowning out the whimpering and whining of the wild pack of dogs that had up until then been roaming the streets of the city named Freedom. The man utilizing the "neutralization ray" as it was so inanely named watched curiously from the relative freedom and protection of the machine hovering ten feet off the ground as man on the hood of the vehicle and walked towards him. Amused by this mans seemingly silent cries of agony for the animals who were being "neutralized" he did not know what to think when the man pointed some strange small item in his direction. The bullet impacted his skull killing him instantly without recognition of what had killed him.

Jack looked at the gun that he had just fired and then looked as the wild pack of dogs scattered to the four corners of the city ironically called "Freedom." "This must be what freedom means." Jack said to himself. As he turned to leave the area of the crime he had commited, Jack realized the error he had made. He looked up at the tall metal poles that were fixed throughout the city with cameras and listening devices and realized he had been caught committing what other people would call murder on video. He didn't see it as murder just as much as the animals wouldn't have been committing murder if they had attacked and eaten him. Quite simply put in Jack's terms it was one word. Survival.

Throwing down the handgun and the tracking device that he had been clutching Jack turned to run in what he thought was a futile attempt to escape. Looking up in the city square he saw his face plastered on a television screen the size of an old-fashioned movie screen with the words "MURDERER" and "TERMINATION WARRANT" above and below his picture from a few moments ago from when he had the gun raised to fire at the man killing those dogs. What he could not figure out was how they had gotten his name so quickly. He knew the facial recognition computers were fast but he had no clue they were that fast and especially not that fast at eleven o'clock on a weekday.

The "Termination Squad Enforcers" showed up within thirty seconds of the gun having been fired since the city was wired with high-sensory hearing equipment but Jack didn't know they were there. The robots that had replaced Law Enforcement back in the year 2025 had gotten quieter when they went to stealth tracking mode. The machines were waiting to see what the "Termination Target" would do next. Would the man run like the ninety-five percent predictability of all other perpetrators had? It really didn't matter to the machines since their programming was ensured to calculate what the perpetrator would do exaclty with the next five movements of his body like one of those electronic chess games of the 1990's.


[edit on 20-3-2007 by SpartanKingLeonidas]

I just thought I'd stop by and see if anyone liked My story. I may expand on it later. Hope someone likes it and I'd be interested to hear people's thoughts on it.

I find it quite Orwellian... what with the cradle to grave tracking, the cameras mounted on poles, insensitive government employees and a seemingly sociopathic 'hero' fighting a despised system (if only for 30 seconds)

You could easily expand on the futuristic society in this story by moving through different scenes... like vignettes. Expose the depth of the surveillance through the eyes of different characters. The thoughts of the controllers at Cop Central, or what's happening on the outskirts of the cities, or even the empty spaces still hidden in the wilderness... what's happening there? Who's playing the pawns and what are the opposing knights up to?

You can go a long way with such a topic.

Anyways, bottom line is I liked it

Thanks masqua. I appreciate the input and always enjoy critiques so I know how to write better for the future. I know I can always add to the beginning and end of this story and compound on the entire thing.

Anyone got any suggestion? What about ideas?

WOW

SKL!!!

Great short story....

If it were me, i would expand it with some sort of divine intervention that assists the man in getting away temporarily, but leaves him on the run...\
Mind you, I have 0 talent, but I do love to read...

Have you ever heard of the "Survivalist" series by Jerry Ahern?


You have some real talent there my friend...

Semper

[edit on 3/25/2007 by semperfortis]

Thanks for the kind comments and suggestions. My biggest hurdle now is to find the time to write more of this but I've left it open to additional beginnings and endings and I can expand on all of the information in what I've already got in this too to add more realism and direction.

I think I may have found My calling in being an author now. I am after all a write on here. Conspiracies aside, story writing had become a passion for Me since I've read stories about most of things ATS is about to begin with My entire life.

Okay, any ideas or suggestions in how to improve My story writing abilities? I made the story so it can be added to, changed around, and expanded in many different ways.

Great Story. Would love to see more shorts stories from you in the future. I have never been able to write very good short stories. I have been an avid poetry writer for years, yet my short stories are, well, sub par (to say the least)

Great story, but it is really just the tip of the iceberg. I felt that the ending was incomplete, even for a short story.
You definitely have talent, but would love to see you add some dialog as that adds to characterization.
Look forward to seeing more.

Originally posted by RaineShynne
Great story, but it is really just the tip of the iceberg. I felt that the ending was incomplete, even for a short story.
You definitely have talent, but would love to see you add some dialog as that adds to characterization.
Look forward to seeing more.

Thanks for the comment. Of course it's incomplete, it's a short story that I deliberately left open-ended both the begining and end so I could ad to it if I wanted to. Thanks again for the comment, keep them coming.

Originally posted by SpartanKingLeonidas

Originally posted by RaineShynne
Great story, but it is really just the tip of the iceberg. I felt that the ending was incomplete, even for a short story.
You definitely have talent, but would love to see you add some dialog as that adds to characterization.
Look forward to seeing more.

Thanks for the comment. Of course it's incomplete, it's a short story that I deliberately left open-ended both the begining and end so I could ad to it if I wanted to. Thanks again for the comment, keep them coming.

I'm trying to get more interest in this thread so that I can get comments, critiques, and general ideas of how to improve it. Thanks for any kind of comment.

Top story Spartan, interesting read, you write well, also looking forward to other stories you have to offer

Thx

Thanks for the positive input. I began the story in the middle like George Lucas did with Star Wars. No, I am not saying I'm as good as Lucas, just that I used the same way to initiate the story line. When I find the time, I will write the ending and go back to the beginning.