The thought patrol

The outside world was unknown to her, but she could see glimpses of it through the window in his room. Who “he” was she had no idea, where she was she had no clue, but she knew what was going on and how she got there. Her name was Christine, a 22-year-old woman with long blonde hair, at least it once was, before all of the dirt and the like had set in. It was cold outside, the temperature had dropped to below 30 degrees Fahrenheit, and her clothes were the same clothes she first threw on when she went on the run six months earlier, back in July 2025 when she had celebrated the 4th with her twin sister, enjoying the fireworks on the Whitehouse lawn.

Little did she know that drinking beer and enjoying patriotic music at that place would be the last act of freedom that was allotted to her. The leader of the so-called free country interrupted the celebration while the singer was singing “I’m Proud to be an American” and had him shot on the spot.

“Fucking idiots.” The president waved his hands in the air as if it were to gain some sort of control over the panicking crowds. “Freedom is an illusion. An illusion that must come to an end right this minute. Certain scientists which will remain unnamed for the moment, but I think you will have an idea after I tell you what they invented. It’s a very special chip that can be inserted in either on the wrist or in the temple. It’s perfectly harmless, not even the size of a sesame seed. But what it can do is powerful stuff, very powerful stuff.”

“And what can it do?” A random heckler called out.

“I’ll tell you; it shuts people like you the fuck up,” the President said with a menacing smile, that came to his fat face he looked the heckler straight in the eyes, as a twinkle came to his, “you see it inhibits certain… unwanted… free thinking and enables you to think the way we…more to the point the way I want you to think.”

“You’re turning us into mindless drones,” the heckler barked out.

“Shut the fuck up!” the President grabbed an AK-47 from one of the armored police that were with him and shot the heckler through the head. “You made your choice.”

Christine looked up at the President with a look of horror, she had just witnessed the President of the United States murder two people in front of masses of people, and on camera being televised life to billions of other homes via live TV, while the armored police that were with him cheered him on.

“That’s right. He had a choice and he made it. I give you the freedom to make this choice; it’s the last one you’ll ever have, so use it wisely,” the President waved his arms out, each one held an object, “in one hand I hold an AK-47, in the other a hand held device that would insert the microchip under the skin, either a harmless shot from the device, or a quick and hopefully painless (but maybe not, who knows) shot in the head from the AK-47.

“Now I have certain people dispersed throughout the crowd who I’ve already had the chip inserted earlier in the day, some of them unbeknownst to even them, the chips are being activated as we speak,” he laughed manically as he watched as people began to scatter, “don’t bother running! You don’t know who has the chip and who doesn’t, but I do!”

“Come on,” Christine grabbed her sister’s hand and began to lead her through the crowds, “let’s get out of here!”

“They could be anybody.” The President pushed back the shock of red hair from his fat face. “The person next to you, or behind you.”

Christine looked around to see why her twin sister wasn’t following her and in fact was pulling her in the opposite direction to which she was trying to go.

The president chuckled. “They can even be your own flesh and blood!”

“NO! NO! NO!” Christine looked at her sister who was only a few minutes younger with a look of horror. “Don’t let that part be true.”

“I’m afraid it is!” Judy, Christine’s sister smiled with a far-away look in her eyes that seemed to be activated like someone flipping a switch, or in this case activating a program. She raised the device that was placed into her backpack to Christine’s head. “This won’t hurt a bit!”

“This will!” Christine curled up her fist and hit her sister square in the face, causing her to stagger back and drop the device.

“Was that necessary?” Judy looked up at her sister as she wiped blood from her lip. “But it’s OK. You still have the chance to join us. You won’t even feel a thing. I promise. I know.”

Christine picked the device from off the ground and held it in her hand.

“We can work together,” Judy held her hand out for the device, “of that I promise. Just give me the device.”

“I would never work with you,” Christine quickly stripped the device apart and placed the broken pieces into Judy’s hand, at that she took off into the darkness, picked a random direction and ran.

“I don’t want you to stop looking for her until she is either turned or killed!” The President barked out as he looked Judy in the eye. “That is an order!”

That was six months ago. And Christine was on the run from her own sister ever since. She didn’t dare go home, as she had no idea how many people in her own family had their freedom of thought taken away from them or who took a bullet in the head. She looked at the man who stood beside her. Friend or foe, of that she wasn’t certain.

It was only a few short hours before that she came across the house in hopes that it was abandoned like so many houses that she came across were. She had learned so many tricks to survival, precured weapons, clothing like the coat that was thrown across the couch she had managed to spend a few hours sleeping on and devices that helped her on her quest to live in freedom for just one more minute. The minutes turned into hours, and the hours days…. One of the stops gave her an edge in and presented her with a modified EMP gun that was supposed to be modified to take out very specific microchips with a localized shot. However, it was never field tested, at least not to her knowledge and it took time to charge it up, while she had power cells that could be recharged for it, she couldn’t use it infinitely and needed to be within a certain range of the target.

She had the chance to field test it the night before when she got to the house and was there for some time before she realized the place was occupied. The man had entered the house after she was there for a while, helping herself to what food was there. She found all of the food to be fresh, and even found an unopened pack of cigarettes she immediately began smoking after having a substantially sized dinner.

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

Christine looked up to see the angry man who was easily twice her age and size. “I’m sorry, is this your place?”

“Of course, this is my place, who else’s place would you expect it to be?”

“I was kind of hoping it would be abandoned!”

“Oh, I see. You were expecting me to be one of those freethinkers who the President is having shot if they don’t turn?”

“Err--.” Christine looked at the man, he was one of those microchipped drones, probably “programmed” to keep an eye out for people like her.

“Let me see your scar!” He looked for one on the side of the head first but he could see none there.

“I--. I have lots of scars.” Christine presented her arms, which had about a dozen or so scars from knife fights to people biting her. “See?”

“Not those scars,” the man turned his wrist up to show a small almost unperceivable scar, but it was there, “one of these scars.”

“Oh,”

“I see none on your forehead,”

“You really don’t have to look!”

“Shut up freethinker!”

“Wow,” Christine sighed, she had the EMP gun hidden under the table where she was sitting, but had hoped not to use it, as she was still learning how to use it. She flipped the switch on, and was prepared to use it, but didn’t let the guy see it, “listen, I’ll be on my way. You can just pretend you never saw me.”

“I must report you,” the man pulled out his cellphone and began to call a special number. “Hello, I have a freethinker cornered in--.”

Christine pointed the gun at the man and fired. A massive field of electricity wrapped around his hand, it took out his cellphone, and most certainly should have taken out the sesame seed sized microchip that was in his arm. At any rate, the shock knocked him out hopefully for a few hours. She moved the man to the couch so he could sleep it off.

She kept watch out the living room window for any activity out there, as well as activity from the man who was beginning to stir behind her when she noticed that he began to stir.

“What are you still doing here?”

“I…uh.” She looked at the man’s wrist, then the man. There were no guarantees that even if she had disabled the microchip that he would act any kindlier to her intrusion.

“And what the hell did you do?”

“Hopefully I deactivated the microchip.”

“I see, but it’s still there, under the skin.”

“Yes, but is it active?”

“I’m thinking on my own if that’s what you mean,” the tiny sesame seed sized microchip was beginning to bother him, “and maybe you should have found some way to remove it.”

“I’m not sure if I can, even if I had the tools to do it.”

“Just use a knife,” the man presented a long butcher’s knife.

Christine looked at the knife. “It would be like using an elephant gun to take out a fly.”

“Speaking of which, what setting did you use that EMP gun on?”

Christine looked at the gun, not realizing that there were intensity settings. It was set to the highest intensity.

“No wonder it took me out for so long,” the man sighed, he reached out for the gun, “I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to reset the intensity.”

“Can I trust you?” Christine pulled out the pack of cigarettes and lit one up. “Should I trust you?”

“You came into my home, ate my food stole my cigarettes. By right I should treat you like any intruder.”

“If you would have done that,” Christine looked at the butcher’s knife in the man’s hand, “you would have a long time ago instead of talking to me like we were friends.”

“Get this right. We are not friends.”

“But we are at least allies,” Christine looked out the window at the street, a military truck came to a stop and about a dozen men in military garb climbed out and lined up, “right?”

Judy was one of the drones that stepped out of the truck. The phone call that was cut off came from this area, of that she was certain, the exact address however she was not certain of. The call was about her sister; it had to be, she was practically the last free thinker who hadn’t either been turned or killed, or at least that’s what they wanted her to blindly believe. She had been able to track her all the way from D.C. always one step behind her, and these houses fall in the route her sister was taking. She scanned all of the windows up and down the block, finally at the last window she looked in she saw her sister’s face.

“Got you!” Judy muttered more to herself than the dozen other drones that were with her she began to move towards the house, and the soldier drones began to follow. “You guys stay here.”

“Our orders are to take the freethinker out.”

“Just give me one more chance to confront her alone. If I can get her to take the chip, all is good.”

“Our orders are to take her out!”

“Wrong!” Judy barked back. “Our orders are to try to turn her first; then if that fails then take her out!”

“Understood,” the 12 soldier drones all stood in line literally waiting on the next order.

Christine watched out the window as her sister pulled out a handgun and proceeded to come directly to the house.

“Don’t bother trying to run,” Judy forced the door open with a kick, “you won’t get far.”

“I don’t intend to,” Christine said wearily, as she looked at her sister, “I’m getting tired of running!”

“Ok, I’ll give you a choice, yes, I’m extending the choice that the President gave us on the Whitehouse Lawn to you one more time.”

“Why? So that I can become a mindless drone like you. Like those soldiers dutifully lined up in front of the house just waiting for a word from you like mindless drones?”

“They’re…not…mindless,” Judy began to look out at the soldiers that were put under her command, “they are just waiting for a command from me.”

“Like the Borg or the Cybermen from those science fiction shows.”

“It’s not like that.”

“Really,” Christine pointed out the window, “look at them.”

“I commanded them to stand that way.”

“So, what does that make you, their Cyberleader?”

“Please you’re making it seem like you not being able to think for yourself is a bad thing!”

“What’s so good about having your freedom of thought taken away from you?”

“It simplifies everything. Think about it, no more making bad decisions.”

“Judy, some of what you call bad decisions lead to some of the best moments of my life, yours too if I recall!”

“There were consequences to those decisions!”

“But they were ours to make. Not made by some puppet president who hides away in the Whitehouse because even his own people despised him.”

“That was a long time ago, with everybody thinking the same, he doesn’t have to hide away!”

“Whatever. Besides think about it, what may be a good decision for one person may be an incredibly bad one for the next. That is why I am resistant of having other people make my decisions for me!”

“Resistance is futile!”

“Oh my god, will you listen to yourself?”

“The time for talk is over.” Judy raised the device that would insert the microchip in one hand and a handgun in the other. “You have two choices--.”

“I’ll take the third choice!”

“There is no third choice.”

“Wanna bet?” Christine fired the EMP gun at her sister, hoping that this time she had it on the right setting, after all, she just had to fire just enough of a charge at her sister to deactivate the microchip and not to knock her out for the next few hours. She didn’t have that luxury, not this time.

“What have you done?” Judy looked up at her sister as she fell to the floor.

“Hopefully the right thing!” Christine guided her sister’s fall to the floor, she noticed that she was down but not out

“Ok,” the man came out of the kitchen holding a penknife, “while you two were talking, I figured out the quickest way to remove the chip from my arm.”

“Not exactly surgeon precision there,” Christine looked at the man’s arm, it looks like he made a few attempts before getting it right, and he was bleeding a lot. “But if it gets the job done.”

The man looked at Christine with a shrug.

Christine looked at her sister, her microchip was inserted into the temple. “We can’t do a hack job like you did to yourself. Got to be a little bit more delicate .”

“Oh, it’s not exactly brain surgery!”

“Uh,” Christine looked at the point where the microchip was inserted, her temple, “are you trying to be funny?”

“Sorry,” the man winced.

“OK. Need to concentrate for just a minute.” Christine made a small incision, just enough to draw blood. The microchip drained out with the blood. “There, hopefully in a few minutes my sister will be thinking for herself again.”

Judy turned her head and looked at Christine, who looked back at her with a nervous look. “In a few minutes--?”

“We OK?”

“I feel like I have a big old hangover.”

“What do you remember?”

“Every minute of this living nightmare.”

“Guys,” the man looked at the two sisters, “I think you two will have to save your sibling reunion for a little later.”

“Why?” Judy got up and looked out the window, she could see the 12 soldiers lined up. Each one had heavy body armor on, and their faces were covered with facemasks. “My God they do look like a bunch of Cybermen.”

“Told ya!”

Judy looked at the EMP gun. “How many charges do you have for that thing?”

“Two.” Christine said as she put a fresh cell into the gun. Each cell allowed her two shots before she had to replace them.

“Two? Then we’re going to have to get in really close to them.”

“How close?”

“Very. We’re going to have to work together on this!” Judy looked her sister in the eyes. “And you’re going to have to trust me on a few things until I can explain something to you.”

“So, what’s your plan?”

A few long moments later, Judy led Christine out of the house. As she did, every soldier raised their guns in Christine’s direction.

“It’s okay,” Judy barked out, “Christine and I are thinking alike now.”

“She took the chip?” One of the soldiers asked.

“What do you think?”

“I’m not here to think! I am here to follow your commands!”

“This is truer than you realize,” Judy tried to suppress her smirk. “The mission is finally over.”

“So, what is your next command?”

“Everybody get back into the back of the truck.”

“Understood,” at that all 12 soldiers got back into the back of the truck without saying a word.

“So far, so good.” Christine said with a mumble.

“SHHH!” Judy hissed, then waited for the last soldier to get into the back of the truck, and their weapons were secured back in their proper racks. Finally, she secured the gate, then turned to Christine. “OK you’re up!”

Christine fired the two shots at full intensity into the back of the truck, so that the entire interior was filled with the lightening blue streaks of energy, taking out all 12 microchips.

“I don’t think too many of them are going to be none too happy about what you two just did,” the man squawked as he approached the truck, “I mean for some of them it may be the first time in their lives they’ll be thinking for themselves.”

“NOW you bring that up!” Christine teased

“OH, I don’t know, I think you’re wrong there. Granted, some of them may not know how to deal with it at first, but many of them had the chips forced on them to begin with.”

“But still--.” The man noticed that some of the soldiers were beginning to come around.

“You’re a traitor to our cause!” One of the soldiers barked out.

“It was a cause that was formulated to fit the excessive ego of one man, one man who has his own misguided thinking, his own agenda. I don’t know about you, but I kind of think that kind of a life is a sad and boring life. Isn’t life more interesting when different people have different perspectives and different ways of thinking?”

The soldier gave Judy a blank stare.

“Think about it!” Judy said. “I mean yes, there are certain times when people have to be of the same mindset, but for the most part think about it, what was the President’s true agenda for having people dictate what we do and how we think in our everyday lives, what clothes we put on, when we eat, when we sleep? There’s something extremely strange about that one!”

“She’s got a point,” a second soldier, one of the ones who had the chips forced onto him, spoke up.

“Isn’t that what this country was originally supposed to be all about? To be able to live free, talk free, to go here or there as we wish, to be drunk or sober however they chose.” Christine pointed out.

“I think there are certain freedoms we have been trampling on,”

“That’s your opinion,” a third spoke up.

“Yes, it is….” Back and forth it went, with each person formulating his own way of thinking.

“You were saying about them being none too happy?” Christine stood back and watched them, 12 men with their own opinion. “I think they are already beginning to enjoy being able think for themselves again.”

“Some of them are,” Judy replied

“And it won’t end here, it’s going to spread. Soon, other pockets of free thinkers will figure out how to deactivate the microchips and freedom of thought will once again be a part of our country.”

“At this point, I think some of that is wishful thinking!” Judy nudged at her sister.

“And I have the freedom to think that way, right?”

“Of course,” Judy looked at her sister, as she did, the guilt of what happened over the last six months began to set in, “so where do we stand? Is this where we each go our separate ways? I mean I did a lot of wrongs, made some bad decisions, decisions that weren’t mine to make.”

“You think that a simple apology for all you have done over the past six months is going to cut it?” Christine looked at her sister with a scowl, then realized that she may have to explain it to her. “You killed people just for having a thought that was their own just because some moron puts a chip in your head and told you to do something.”

“The chip…was responsible for that,” Judy yelled, “besides--.”

“Yeah,” Christine cut Judy off before she could finish “the chip took away your freedom to think and turned you into a killer overnight, right!”

“Who did I kill? Who did I kill? Nobody! I literally spent the last six months trying to track you down.”

“Then who killed mom and dad? Who would’ve shot me in the head if I hadn’t of taken the chip?”

“They would have!” Judy pointed to the soldiers who were sitting in the back of the truck literally waiting for the next command, even the ones who were beginning to talk out had fallen into listlessness. “These preconditioned soldiers have so many chips implanted in their bodies, they have no idea what thinking is, let alone what their own actions are! A few minutes ago, you haphazardly called them Cybermen, that description is actually not too far from the truth!”

“So, you are telling me that you a girl with a simple chip the size of a sesame seed was in command of these 12 drones with multiple interlinking chips?”

“I wasn’t exactly in command,”

“So, you were being controlled by them,”

“I wasn’t exactly being controlled,” Judy said with a wince, “you see--.”

“If you weren’t in command, and you weren’t being controlled by them then what the hell were you doing with them for the past six months?”

“I was trying to lead them on a wild goose chase.” Judy looked at her sister. “I was protecting you!”

“How can you do that with a chip in your head that is supposed to be blocking your freedom of thought. Because in order to do something like that you need to be able to outthink these drones. So how can you think for yourself to do something like that? Unless--.”

“Go on,” Judy gave a sly smile, “you figured it out!”

“I have a question for you,”

“Which is?”

“When exactly did that chip stop working? When I shot you with the EMP?”

“No. It actually stopped working about a month after they implanted it. These microchips have a very short life of efficiency. They were only created for short time use.”

“And they know the chips don’t work.”

“Oh, they know, that’s why they’ve been pushing for people to get the “upgraded version” or to have the original chip checked out to make sure it’s actually still working which most people with the chip have been doing, it’s been all over the news.”

“I haven’t exactly been in a position to watch the news in the last six months, been too busy trying to keep one step ahead of you.”

“And that’s all you’ve been doing is keeping one step ahead of us. In fact, you’ve been following a path that is so predictable I’m actually surprised it took them this long to catch up with you. There are just so many diversions and “false leads” that I could lead them on, which was hard to do with you following practically a straight line.”

“You were hoping that I would actually disappear?”

“Yes. But it’s a good thing that I actually caught up with you when I did. I think they figured out that I was doing what I was doing, and they were feeding me enough rope to hang myself with.”

“All that time, you weren’t working against me, you were working for me.”

“Yes!”

Christine looked at the soldier drones in the truck, “they’ll probably send out more of these guys to come after us.”

“Possible, but not likely. These drones are the only ones that have been programmed to even know about your existence, with them taken out all of their information about you is literally wiped out.”

“And you know that because?”

“Listen, there’s been a lot of things about what’s been going on that you need to be made aware of, this whole thing has become an exercise in futility from the chips stopping their function to the actual program that is supposed to be controlling these chips potentially being shut down to other things that even I’m not aware of.”

“So, this is the end of it?”

“I wouldn’t call it the end, but the beginning of the end,”

“I see.”

“I’m going to ask you again where we stand. Is this a reunion or a parting of ways?”

“Neither.” Christine said with a sigh. “It may take me a while for me to fully know and understand what you did.”

“It was all to help you, of that you must believe.”

“All I want is to have my sister back,”

“Christine,” Judy reached out, “that’s what this was all about from day one. Getting you back.”

“This isn’t a parting of ways, and we can never go back to the way things were,” Christine explained.

“Give it time,”

“Right,” Christine looked at the 12 drones, “what are we going to do about them? I think I took out a few more chips than the ones we were aiming to take out.”

“Underneath all of those chips and layers of body armor there are still people, people who are beginning to think for themselves.”

“We are waiting for your command,” one of the soldier drones said.

“No commands,” Judy said, “just that the mission has come to an end.”

“What do we do now?”

“Anything you want.”

“Is that an order?”

“Uh,” the drone clearly didn’t get it, but she knew he will sooner or later. “Yes, that is my order, and your final order coming from me

“What do we say happened to you?”

“You can--,” a coy smile came to her face, “you can tell them whatever the hell you want.”

“Understood,” at that the soldier lead the 11 other soldier drones away, back to the central command post.

“So,” Judy watched as the drones worked their way back towards their central command, she held out her hand, in hopes that her sister would take it. To her if she did, it would be a signal that given time they could work things out, “where do we go from here?”

“Oh,” Christine said as she not only took her sister’s hand but fell into an embrace with her, “we’ll figure it out as we go along.”

“Yeah,” Judy smiled, she finally had her sister back, “we can do that.”