Free Stand Against Infinity by Aaron K. Redshaw

 
Chapter 1
    The technological wonder before H662 had
never grown old. The building, itself a monument to what the best
minds could create, stood at 65 floors of shiny, black, synthetic
concrete, and every one of them working for the highest goal of
mankind: to improve himself through technology.
    “Good morning, H662,” said his foreman, his
balding head shining with just a skiff of white hair on both sides.
“How long have you been in?”
    “Going on three hours, sir.” H662 ran his
fingers through his short, cropped, black hair. “I just barely beat
A1103 this time.”
    “And the sun is not yet up. Excellent work,
excellent. You will certainly go places with that kind of work
ethic. Where is my son anyway?”
    “At his welding station,” H662 said. His
foreman moved on to check on A1103. H662 focused again on putting
the thermal converter into place and sealing up the compartment.
Next, before running the final test, he turned to a screen and
checked his embedded chip to see if the numbers were in line with
the current standards. The chip sat just behind his right ear, and
he accessed its information hundreds of times per day. Much of it
just for his job.
    After scanning the screen, he flipped the
switch and the testing began. He checked to make sure the pod did
not shake unduly as it was put through a simulated speed test.
After two minutes, he was done.
    “Thirty-five,” he said to himself.
“Thirty-five today, and the sun is just clearing the horizon.”
    He heard the sound of the workroom door. From
the narrow shoulders and his way of hunching over when he walked,
he could tell it was G1193, the new guy. He came in the back door
again, hoping the foreman would not see him. Didn’t he know there
was a camera every few feet in here? How did he expect to keep his
job if he kept this up?
    H662 wondered at such people in an age where
technology was always making advances. Take these transport pods,
for instance. They were a work of art, driving at a speed up to 120
miles per hour and they never made a mistake. They never had an
accident either, something he had heard used to be a common
occurrence in the past.
    Then there was the chip. It held an
encyclopedic range of information, always accessible, and able to
be modified by each person’s employer for job specific
requirements. Why wouldn’t someone want to help improve such
technology? By doing so he was improving mankind. His foreman often
quoted the company work ethic: “Don’t be part of the problem, be
part of the solution,” and H662 lived by that rule.
     

Chapter 2
    He was finally going to do it. He had told
himself a hundred times that he would, but now it was really
happening. He was picking up his life and with it a new name:
Chavez. He had heard the name mentioned in some historical chip
index once and he liked the sound of it and so he picked it up,
like picking up a fallen apple.
    There was only one problem. They would be
looking for him. The moment he didn’t show up to work that morning,
they would send out a team of guards to pick him up. He never
learned what they did with no shows at his job, but he suspected it
couldn’t be good. This society did not value a person until they
produced something. It was not that Chavez did not want to work. He
just didn’t want to work for them . It was as if they took
you in and made you one more cog in the machinery. He didn’t want
to be a cog anymore. He wanted to be alive. He wanted to make
decisions on his own. To do a thing because he had decided to do it
rather than because it had been decided for him.
    Thank goodness he had not received a wife
yet. That would have been in only a few months since his 21st
birthday was just around the corner, and he would not want to carry
someone else into whatever trouble he might bring on himself. And
there would be trouble. How could there not be? He was about to
rebel against everything his world believed had worth. He would
therefore be thought