Free Human Again: A Dystopian Sci-Fi Novel (Cryonemesis Book 1) by Moran Chaim

a festival inside the simulation. No “See you there,” no “I'll be expecting you,” no “Loved if you'd come and meet,” just the necessary information. I thought her voice sounded like she was smiling, though. I didn't know what to do to pass the time until sunset so I just went to sleep.
    When I woke up I went back to the gun room with an uneasy feeling in my stomach. The main street ceiling light had changed its color according to the sunset outside, at least that’s what it looked like, and was nice. So I took my time getting to the gun room. Viti was waiting for me when I entered the room.
    “I don't know, maybe you'd prefer to be a cleaner. I could use a cleaner here.”
    “Sorry I'm late.”
    “Listen buddy, this is no game. This is not ‘ The Future show .’ This is life now, ok? You have to respect the rules.”
    “You told me to forget the rules for now.”
    The lights dimmed and flickered for a few moments. Viti smiled as if she saw fireworks over the city on Independence Day.
    “My babies are working,” she said with pride.
    “The Purists again?”
    “No, neighbors trying to ask for milk. Of course it's the Purists.”
    “Why don't they stop when one of theirs dies?”
    “Every stupid one thinks he'll break our systems. It turns out that men aren't so smart. They never were, actually.”
    “MEN were smart enough to build this place to protect us.”
    “But not smart enough to keep the whole world from collapsing.”
    She had a point.
    “So why do the Purists do it?”
    “For everyone dead there are some others watching and studying our system. But they can't break it.”
    “How can you be so sure?”
    “The fact is they never succeeded.”
    “It doesn’t sound like a good enough answer.”
    “When they study us our systems study them, and we’re faster.”
    “So what’s next?” I asked.
    “We put on a Cactus, follow me.”
    She pushed the tray with the gun out of the room and I followed her till we reached an elevator.
    “Are we going out now?”
    “You betcha.”
    I started to get excited and my stomach tingled. The tip of my fingers felt electrified. We got into an elevator and went one floor up, where the air was warmer. I started to perspire. I could hear a muffled hum that was coming from the surface so I figured we were just a few meters below the surface. She pushed the tray into the room and onto another platform elevator. It was lit with red light, like a photography dark room. By the side of it was a metal cabinet. She opened it, and there were four guns and four of the spiky suits that I saw the guards wear to go outside.
    She took one of them out.
    “This is the Cactus suit. It's a camouflage suit that muffles sounds and deflects your figure. It also absorbs the environment temperature so you'll be invisible to infrared. Oh, and it also diffuses radars.”
    “It didn’t help those guards who got shot two days ago.”
    “Those idiots never follow procedures.”
    “Did the Purists ever try to attack you while you were out there?”
    “Oh, usually I don’t go out myself, that’s your job.”
    “But…”
    “You’re the GTA, I do the technical part, and you do the dangerous part. I’ll go out with you just for a few times.”
    She handed me a suit and it stung my hand. I put the pants on first, then the vest. Then I had to attach the sleeves, and lastly the headpiece. Just like I saw the guards do. For all of its technological sophistication, it wasn't easy to put on or move in; walking too fast or making too sharp a movement caused you to get stung by a metal fibers. That's they called it the Cactus. Then she handed me a gun.
    “Instead of using gunpowder that you’re familiar with, these guns use a strong repulsive magnetic field to shoot. The little glowing bar represents the power left in the battery. And the bullets are pretty standard besides that they can be shot to a longer range than old regular bullets.”
    The gun felt powerful in my hand. I