Had I known, I never would have gone. Even the weather was bad. It finally stopped raining, but as I entered the darker shadows of the alley there were still drips falling from the pipes and ledges higher above. I stepped carefully, avoiding the puddles and occasionally wiping my shoulders free of water. I glanced behind me but saw no one. There was no reason to worry. I knew that. But knowing and feeling are two different things.
At the door I checked the map automatically, blinking my eyes twice quickly to bring up the overlay. In my vision the dark alley around me became a segmented series of lines and shapes, in color now, replacing last year’s grey-scale version of Person, the augmented reality interface most of the world had housed in their brains. Some had resisted the brain-hack back when it was still only Person 1.1. But now that we were up to version 14.2, very few people had the mental fortitude to continue to do things the old way. Gone was the time of carting around laptops or phones. Who needed them now that a web search or a text message was just a few blinks away?
The new skeletal view of the street showed me a variety of statistics and details about the world around me including the tensile strength of the metal in the fire escapes above and also the purity level of the drops of water that dripped from the eaves higher up. In addition to these finer details the overlay also showed me that the door I was standing at was the address I had searched for an hour earlier when I decided I needed some freedom from the scrutiny that came from life with Person.
I knocked on the door and waited. When exactly had I decided? Last week? No, it was two weeks ago when the last audit happened. The man at my apartment doorway had a friendly smile, typical of all Auditors and ironic because their visits brought so much discomfort. I invited him in and offered him coffee. Why not? It was illegal to refuse an audit, may as well be friendly. I remembered the stats and images on the Auditor’s screen…a complete scouring of my mind listed out neatly before my eyes. Everything was there. Every thought. Every cringey moment. The unspoken thoughts I had for my neighbors, the unsaid judgments for my coworkers, and, of course, the lifelike representation of every carnal mental image I had conjured up during the past week.
The Auditor was as kind as possible, listing all the reasons the government needed to have this kind of oversight. The words made sense. Prevention of terrorism, complete freedom from school shootings, 95 percent decrease in corporate crime. The list of benefits went on and on. Isn’t that worth a little personal discomfort?
He said goodbye and left, disappearing into my neighbor’s house, ready for a next audit. I glanced up at the neighborhood Truth Screen, the 12-foot monstrosity towering over the street, and saw my audit results appear. A couple of teenagers were walking on the sidewalk opposite my house. They glanced up at my results and then looked at me, smirking. I closed my front door. I needed out.
Click. In the alley the door in front of me opened and brought me back to reality. The man was short and wore all black. He glanced out at the dark alley and, satisfied I was alone, stepped back to allow me to enter. Once I was in, he closed the door behind me.
“Who knows you’re here?” he said.
“No one.”
“Most people say that. Mind if I check?”
I lifted my wrist. He took out a scanner, similar to the one the Auditor used two weeks ago and passed it over my skin. The scanner whirred for a moment and then spit a reading of dense code. The code meant nothing to me, but the short man scanned it quickly, probably with his own overlay, and then nodded.
“Good,” he said. “We like the truth here. Well, up to a point.” He chuckled and beckoned for me to follow him. We stepped up a short hallway and then into a small room with two chairs and with walls covered with circuitry and screens. There was no overhead light, but the room didn’t need it. The lights and sensors from the walls gave the inner space a flickering sheen of blue and red blips.
He gestured for me to sit and then he sat opposite, pulling a screen toward him. The screen’s telescoping arm extended from the wall, thick with cables and wires connecting it back into the superstructure of the building beside and above us.
“Let’s make it quick,” he said. “There are at least two others on their way. It’s better if you’re gone when the next one arrives.”
“Why?”
“Because then your memories won’t mix. It makes the scouring process cleaner.”
I winced. Of course there were others coming after me. Everyone wanted a break. After the Person upgrade last year, Audit results were all anyone was talking about. A couple of national politicians were forced to resign. Hollywood stars doing mea culpas on their socials. And neighbors across the country were generally avoiding each other, anything to escape the possibility of being caught with your thoughts down. But soon the internet did its thing, and the dark web began to hum with the news that there were hack patches on their way for anyone who didn’t want to deal with the embarrassment or, in some cases, with the law enforcement.
“So, what will it be?” the short man said. “We can do a basic package for one Coin or we can add extra enhancements for more if you want.”
“What’s in the basic package?”
He blinked his eyes twice and read from his overlay. “Basic package gives you control over a week’s worth of your logged thoughts. If you activate the patch once a week you can wipe over anything objectionable with clean thoughts.”
“If I pay more what are the benefits?”
He smiled. “Of course. If you want an enhanced package then you don’t need to do the wipe manually.”
I stared at him. “Sorry. I don’t know what that means.”
He sat back. “A manual wipe means you need to personally replace every objectionable thought with something new. That means active good thinking. You can’t just replace the bad by staring out at the world vacantly. Those memories will be too neutral and don’t have enough emotional heft to replace the bad stuff. Your mind flags mental highs and lows. If you’re going to delete a high then you need to fill it with something equally strong. The Auditor will catch on if he sees too much neutral space. He’ll know you’re using a hack. You need to replace the emotion with something genuine. That means if the cause of your objectionable material is because you saw your neighbor sunbathing and you spent a little too much time enjoying that memory…” he smiled, “…then you need to replace it with a series of kind, wholesome thoughts.”
“Why is that a problem?” I asked.
He shrugged. “It isn’t. But some people don’t want to take that time. They only want the freedom to indulge themselves without having to do any…” he searched for word. “…penance,” he said with a smirk.
“So, an enhanced package gives me wholesome thoughts? Where do they come from?”
He shook his head. ”Sorry. Trade secret. Besides, it’s better if you know as little as possible. Just…trust me.” He smiled and looked a lot like a used car salesman.
I sat back and thought for a moment. Then I nodded. “I’ll pay the two Coins.”
He winked at me. “Most people do.” He typed another line or two of code and then extended the scanner. He blinked twice. I felt a momentary flicker in my own overlay and then it was over.
“That’s it? Wow… Pretty fast.”
“It’s all just ones and zeroes,” he said. “Now, if you don’t mind…” and he made a shooing gesture with his free hand.
“Right,” I said. “I’ll transfer the Coins.”
“I know you will,” he said. He tapped his head. “I’ve got you up here now.”
I frowned. Then I left.
***
I awoke. I blinked and brought up my Person overlay and checked the time. 3AM. What was wrong? I blinked again and realized my overlay was flickering slightly. I sat and realized I was sweating. My sheet was clammy. I went to the bathroom and looked at the mirror. Was that a dream?
A dirt alley. Ramshackle huts. Thick strands of jerry-rigged wires crisscrossing above, feeding down into the rooftops. A heavy fog all around, but…no, not fog. It smelled like metal.
I kept looking at myself in the mirror. My image in the mirror reacted as I did, but, slightly off…as though it were a step or two ahead or behind. And it wavered.
I shook my head and the figure in the mirror jittered and shook with me, but, once again, just a bit unsynced. I splashed my face and went back to bed.
***
Something was definitely off. I walked back into the little alley. I knocked on the door and waited, thinking about the past eight hours. I hadn’t been able to concentrate at work. Each time a coworker crossed my vision I felt like I was seeing double. But the double images weren’t of the same person. They were hazy reflections of faces I didn’t know. Once when a barista was asking about my order, I swear she was speaking another language. My Person overlay even tried to step in and translate for me. And the words translated made no sense. “Think and think quickly. Good thoughts. Then you’ll be paid.” But then the language jittered and it was just the barista again, asking about my coffee. But for a second, I had been seeing and hearing double. What was happening?
Again, the door in the alley opened and the short man frowned when he saw me.
“What’s wrong?” he said.
“I don’t know,” I said. “But something’s not right.”
He looked both ways down the alley and pulled me in. Back in the circuitry room he gestured to the chair. I sat.
“What?” he said again.
“I don’t know…it’s hard to explain. Something mental.”
He nodded. “It must be a patch side effect.”
“What is that?”
“You’re having a double-exposure. The new thoughts that replaced your old thinking. You’re experiencing some overlap.”
“You mean those are real moments?! It’s someone else’s real life?”
He waved his hand. “It’s temporary. It happens sometimes, but it always wears off. I’ll give you a mental cleanse, and you should be good to go in another day or two.”
He took out the scanner and waved it over my wrist again. Then he pointed at the door.
***
But it didn’t wear off. My last visit to the alley was three weeks ago. The images have only gotten stronger. This morning when I woke up, I was lost in the other world for what seemed like more than an hour. I was in their head…watching them walking around. They left their small hut and walked up a dusty street. They boarded a crowded bus where people hung off the sides. They got off at a long, low building where hundreds of people were entering. The people had on different clothes. Lots of saris and billowing pants.
I watched them…I was them…as they entered the low building and walked up rows and rows of cubicles, all filled with people. Each person was wearing a headset that was connected to a machine. They were just sitting with their eyes closed. They were thinking. The person I was…my thinker…walked up the rows until they reached an empty cubicle. They sat down, and I saw their hands reach for a headset. They put it on. They closed their eyes.
And then I was in their thoughts. The thoughts were difficult to discern…like a camera lens sharpening and then softening again, but one thing was clear. The thoughts were all…good. Smiling babies. Playing puppies and kittens. Mothers with bowed heads in prayer.
It was beatific. It was…awful. It was a prison. I had no control over my mind.
So now I’m headed back to the alley. I’ll pay him whatever he asks. And if he can’t help me, I have some thoughts of my own. I searched the dark web last night. Other people have been having this same problem. These new thoughts…they come from…factories. Human thinking sweat shops. People in third world countries are paid a few cents to think for customers like me in the West. The benevolent thoughts of the poor are being bought by the rich in order to circumvent embarrassment. I should feel guilty, but I don’t. I just want out.
The dark web came up with a sure-fire solution. They said you can short circuit the thoughts by giving yourself an electrical shock. I have a screwdriver at home. I may need to loosen some wiring in the wall. Just in case this guy can’t help me. God, I hope he can.
This story previously appeared in Symphonies of Imagination, Jan. 2025.
Edited by Marie Ginga
Zary Fekete grew up in Hungary. He has a debut novella (Words on the Page) out with DarkWinter Lit Press and a short story collection (To Accept the Things I Cannot Change: Writing My Way Out of Addition) out with Creative Texts. He enjoys books, podcasts, and many many many films. Twitter and Instagram: @ZaryFekete