Out of Control cont.

I write the beginning of this some time ago and really liked it. I was diligently working on book 2 the other day and my brain wouldn't cooperate with it so I worked on something else... I added onto Out of Control... here it is so far...

Out of control. Does anyone know what that truly means? Sure there are drunken nights where we go a little wild, but we still made those choices. Our minds were under the influence of alcohol, but alcohol doesn’t tell us what to do. It cannot control us, it simply loosens our morals a bit, causing us to do what we would if we had no inhibitions. Alcohol makes us do what we really want to do.

That certainly isn’t being out of control, perhaps being drunk is simply being out of the control of society, of civilization.

But what truly is being out of control? We have choices we make everyday. The waking up in the morning, the getting out of bed—we choose that. We wear certain clothes. We talk with certain words—all choices.

What if all that was taken away from you? What if you weren’t even able to think your own thoughts? If you had no control over your motor functions? What if someone—something—had control over your breathing, and even when you blinked?

Welcome to my world.


***


Water pounded on my bloody fingernails as my brain snapped into place. They had given me back control too early…again. If only that were a good thing. I much preferred the days when I woke up blissfully unaware of my nighttime activities.

My stomach revolted and I doubled over in pain, awaiting the worst to come. Every awakening was the same—a moment of clear headedness followed by the racing stream of images of my covert actions. Like a dream, they drifted out of my mind’s grasp as soon as I tried to hold on. The memories I lacked were as elusive as the chip in my head was present.

Our bodies are ruled by little electrical pulses directed by our brains. A chip can control those pulses more effectively than our brains. The technology that held me together and kept me alive was the bane of my existence. The irony was not lost on me.

Decisions had been decided, deals had been done—I’d made this choice. Purging myself of whatever entered my stomach from the night before was on par with me trying to vomit the remnants of the deal I made with the titanium devil—fruitless. I’d have to eat again and I couldn’t survive without my mechanical friends.
Dragging my sorry ass out of the bathroom, I looked at the clock in the kitchen, seven in the morning. Not bad, I’d only lost a few hours this time. How much damage could I have done in three hours time? Downing a glass of water from the sink, the taste of regret and vomit was replaced with the cotton mouth feel of dread. The cordless phone sat innocently on the counter, unaware of its part in my mood swing. The date and time on the caller id taunted as it flashed. Picking up the phone, I threw it across the room at the clock. Both smashed into bits and after leaving a sizable dent in the wall, fell to the floor.
I hadn’t been booted up for three hours.
I’d been plugged in for three weeks.
***
The second I knocked on the door, I regretted my decision to come here. I bounced my heel on the ground of the dirty alley while I waited for Fister to come to the door. I’d never been here before, but just like every other Jack, a term used to describe those of us who jack into the system, I knew who Fister was and where he lived. He was a shyster was what he was. And where he was? Well picture the most God awful place imaginable… the place where even sin is afraid to come…where nightmares are preferable to reality and you have the abode of one Mr. Fister.

I looked down both ways of the alley. No one was here not even the rats. If the rodents were smart enough to stay away why the hell wasn’t I?

“Marilee Jenkins, what an unexpected, albeit no less delightful, surprise.”

Jerking my head back to the doorway, I stopped breathing for a moment when I met the eyes of the man before me—the man who shouldn’t know who I was. Handsome in the traditional sense of symmetrical features, Fister’s face wasn’t appealing in the slightest. His too wide mouth was not softened by slightly full lips, but hardened by thin stretched bands instead. His teeth were straight enough, but from years of bad hygiene, they’d rotted away until small points were left. His eyes were actually quite a nice cross between blue and gray but his pupils were always so small you felt as if he would prick you with them at any given moment. The man would’ve looked okay from a distance in profile. He’d probably even look nice, a model citizen if you will with his unassuming medium brown hair, as long as he didn’t show his teeth or turn his stare on you.

The man was scarred, oh not on the outside mind you, no his skin was flawless on the outsides. On the inside, running just under the surface of Mr. Fister was being comprised completely of scars, some his own, but mostly the scars of others. You see, Fister here is a scavenger—a self made Frankenstein.