The Machine from The Antichrist
Sam was waiting in the long single file for his turn at The Machine. He had been waiting for over three hours, but he had to come on that very day, or he would miss the opportunity to get a better future. The people in line were not allowed to talk to each other, so there was only the sheer sound of joints moving, legs hitting the uniform pants’ cloth worn by everyone, and the unified well-hidden faint stomp every three hundred and sixty-five seconds. It took The Machine one second to analyze every day in a human’s life over the past year.
Sam thought to himself as he did the year before, and for some years before he would care to remember how many, “What the hell am I doing here? Coming here every year for a chance at a better life, when I do know this is not going to happen.” But he kept on showing up every year, anyway.
The Machine was the genius design of the World Initiative Government or the WIG. They passed new laws after the Last Great War to prevent any future conflict. Humanity was on the brink of extinction after nuclear bombs were thrown everywhere for some retaliation, revenge or retribution. Back at that time, there was always one country teaching another country a lesson, and yes, we got it. We have fully understood all their teachings. The WIG came in after the Last Great War as they call it, and unified the remaining humans from all around the world and brought them to one of the few fertile places left on the planet, which happened to be outside Nineveh in old Iraq.
Fifty brothers were ranking up all the way from Brother Fifty to Brother One. They ran the whole show as members of the WIG. Elections were forbidden after it was the fault of one referendum that authorized the first nuclear missile launch which started the war about eighty years ago. The whole government was like one big flight of stairs, on top of which there was Brother One and at the very bottom beneath, there was Brother Fifty. And below that, there was everybody else. Whenever one of the brothers stepped down or died, the one just below him would step up to fill the new empty spot in a counter-domino effect until the 50th spot was empty and The Machine would pick one from the rest of the people to fill it. So basically, all the brothers were initially chosen by The Machine.
It was the first Brother One who designed The Machine. The Machine is a very simple neurotransmitter reader that can read all thoughts and ideas a person has had all the way back to the day he was born and based on that reading, The Machine decides the level of potential each citizen has, which will affect the future of that individual for the next year. The first Brother One thought he would have everybody examined by The Machine once a year in the hope of changing their potential, and in turn, their fate. So that’s why everyone showed up at their scheduled annual appraisal by The Machine. Everybody dreams of being one of the brothers for everything multiplies when you are a brother, women, money, land, and power; not only once but fifty times from Brother Fifty to Brother One. It was a modern version of the comuuno-capitalist system.
***
Sam had the same potential for years. Every year, he would come fearing that he might be violating the free right to be assessed once a year by The Machine. However, his potential had never been enough for anything better than a blue-collar job. He might have been luckier than some others who were given the dirtiest and hardest jobs in the mines and at the Great Sewers Processing Plant.
Sam was tired of standing in line for almost an entire day waiting for his turn and having to hear the rumble of thousands of people moving about every six minutes. He had already counted the fifty-four people ahead of him in the line twice. He still had about seven hours to wait, “plenty of time to come up with a rebellion,” Sam thought with a faint smile on his face, but soon the smile disappeared, as he looked at one of the guards who started to stare at him.
“How many times have people been coming to this stupid machine to tell them about their destinies as if it were a god? I hate to believe that my fate is decided by a programmable machine.” Sam thought as he remembered the machine he read about in the only book he had hidden in his mattress, as reading was forbidden after it was reading that made the nuclear bomb possible in the first place; that was what the WIG thought anyway when they confiscated all books, especially pre-war books collected by people over the years. Sam had only one book left; it was about a story that happened in England and France during the time of the French Revolution, and a stupid man sacrificed his life for another man at the guillotine at the end of the story, but Sam found a picture stuck on the back cover of a man he knew nothing about. The letters that vaguely mentioned the man’s name were smeared and half-burned as was the rest of the book. What Sam liked about that picture and that man was the way he looked up in his black beret and gold star in the middle of it. The red color that filled the background of the picture was so vivid that Sam felt it nearly filled his heart with real blood as he kept on looking at it more than reading the book itself, especially with the missing pages and the half-burnt ones; the story as far as he understood was not that interesting to him. He once talked to his friend about that man in the picture, but he never mentioned him in front of anyone that he still had the book; he always claimed to have turned in the book to the Nuclear Thought Purification Organization that started about ten years ago when the WIG passed the third phase of the book ban.
***
Sam was still drowned in these memories and thoughts when he suddenly began to count again and the sum of the count was only four. He had less than half an hour to be in The Machine and be done with it for yet another year.
Sam was close now to the outer casing of The Machine, which was clean and shiny as a mirror. Sam looked at his reflection and felt happy with the way he looked. He apparently had inherited the looks of his father or mother, but he wouldn’t know, for making a family or staying with any family was forbidden after the famous incident when a father killed one of the guards when they came to take his son on the one-way ticket journey to work on one of the many secret projects for the WIG. The law was passed right after the father was executed, and it had been more than forty years with no families at all. Reproduction as the WIG called it took place in specialized labs and during Dark Sexual Congregations, which the WIG announced whenever they saw fit. They did announce about one or two a month, at least, these were only the official DSCs announced to the public.
Now there was only one man in front of Sam, and he came to see his reflection clearly in the shiny casing of The Machine. Suddenly his eyes widened, and in disbelief, he looked closer at his own reflection. It was like he was staring at the book man. Sam was wearing a black beret, he had the same beard, and when he lifted his head up, it was as if this was his picture on the forgotten book. He felt for one moment that he was a part of a stolen history, an ambiguous present, and a gloomily uncertain future.
The man in front of Sam just got in The Machine. Sam had a strange feeling. It felt as if these six minutes were like an age but at the same time a very young fleeting one Sam had to decide what to do with before it was too late.
The one-minute-left beep started marking the longest wait Sam ever had in his life. His heart was beating a hundred times a second. Now the 10-second countdown began. All the memories flashed in his mind, that torn and burnt book with the man at the back, his fantasies about his random father and unknown mother, and his long wait like an animal in line to get into the slaughterhouse. Everything was flashing in Sam’s mind when the final beep announced the five seconds he had to get into The Machine. The entire process went like clockwork and it always ran according to schedule. Only this time, second six ticked and Sam was still outside The Machine. The guards looked amazed at the first couple of seconds then they started to move towards The Machine’s door, but Sam was at an advantage there, because the door stood higher than the heads of the guards, and the only way the guards would reach what turned out to be Sam’s position was through one-man-wide stairs all the way to the top. They ordered the other men who were initially behind Sam in line to move away, and that bought Sam some precious time to take up what he thought would be his last stand. He did not know what he was up to, or why he was doing what he was doing. He felt for a moment that he might turn out to be the fool man at the guillotine at the end of his book, only he had no one to sacrifice for, or for another moment, he felt like he was that man on the back cover. He did not know who that man was or what he did, but Sam didn’t mind being that man, fool or no fool.
The guards moved the other men away and were ready to stop Sam. Sam was lucky that all lethal weapons were banned, so he was not in the range of anybody’s bullets, only their clubs. However, Sam was a well-built man with a height advantage, so he could easily take down four guards before they got a hold of him. By the time they cuffed him, one of the brothers had come to the scene of that bizarre accident.
Sam didn’t care what might happen to him anymore. He was not planning to be in this situation, but in his mind, he saw his friend on the book cover smiling at him, so Sam smiled back.
“You must have a good reason to smile in this situation. Would you please tell me what is funny?” The brother asked Sam.
“I have nothing to lose now. I am who I am. I have been afraid to be myself all my life, and I failed in your stupid machine’s tests year after year, and for what, a stupid promotion for a couple of more meals a week, or a chance to get an invitation to one of your DSCs? I don’t care about that anymore. I know who I want to be, and that’s me, only me. Like it or not, I look like that man in the book I hid from you and read again and again and again. You just look down on us from your lavish palaces and see us as small as cockroaches you could crush any day, and you get to decide who we should be as if you were gods. To legitimize that for the stupid, you made that stupid machine of yours, and we have been your slaves ever since; not anymore brother, not anymore.” Sam felt shocked at hearing his own words coming out of his own mouth. He was even more amazed than when he refused to get into The Machine. He knew it was him all along, but he liked to think that his book friend was smiling at him somewhere giving him the support he needed to make that crazily bold move.
***
From the shadows of the room they were holding Sam in, an older man appeared. The man was wearing the same brothers’ robe, but he seemed to have been of a higher rank because the first brother bowed to him and moved away.
“You’re going to have to pass in The Machine no matter what you do or say. We are not dictators as you claim; we would have killed you or locked you away if we were. We are going to give you another chance to pass into The Machine and see your destiny for yourself.” The elder brother did not add any more words but gave a sign to the guards to take him back to The Machine, and Sam did not know what to say, so he didn’t say anything.
***
Six minutes inside The Machine and Sam could not believe he was still alive and did not know what to think now, especially after what the elder brother said. He never had enough time to think about his destiny; that’s why his destiny rushed to him when he just followed his heart.
Sam did not believe his eyes when he got out of The Machine. His assessment was better than last year. It was way better than anything he had ever dreamed of. He was to become the newest member of the WIG, Brother Fifty, and one of the older brothers is about to step down and give room for Sam’s inclusion in the WIG.
People on the other side of The Machine started to cheer, and Sam could not believe what was happening. He was given an official brothers’ robe to wear and on his way inside the official building, he saw the same elderly brother, only this time without his robe, making his way out of the official facility.
Sam rushed to the man and shook his hand, “How did you know sir? How did you make up your mind, or The Machine’s?”“I didn’t, my son; you did.” The elderly brother said that and went on his way out.
