The Fifty Cent Café

By André Ferero

Luke Lock lives on Earth in a not too distant future. He is an exemplary citizen who loves his life and views the government as benevolent. Luke revels in working for the greater good, strongly believing that his work helps to guarantee the safety of others on planet Earth. Luke never questions the reason why a Security Tag was implanted in his shoulder by State Surveillance, believing it is there for his own good.

But Luke's views are about to change when he sees an unexpected arrest on State Television. The arrest doesn't make sense to him, especially when he realizes who is being arrested by the infamous Captain Gore and his feared team of Avoiders.

Luke decides to start his own investigation, but has no idea where to start and who to ask for help.

In this adventure Luke has to make some very important decisions that will not only affect his own life but also the stability of society.

"The Fifty Cent Café" is a story about courage, belief, and the strength to overcome your own doubts and fight for freedom, even when the odds are against you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: André Ferero
• Release date: Nov 23, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465705297

André Ferero

André Ferero is a South African writer who has been living in France since July 2006. Even though his love for Africa hasn't diminished during that time, he is not complaining about living in the kingdom (well, Republic) of food and wine.His interests include photography, reading, (good) movies, hiking, wine tasting, traveling and trying to figure out this experience called life. Music is one of his biggest loves and he listens to almost anything, from old to new.He writes as often as possible. He describes his fiction as speculative, with a focus on the characters in possible futures. He has also just finished a South African guidebook that is different from all other guidebooks on the topic and will be very helpful to travelers who want to plan their own trip to Southern Africa.

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The Fifty Cent Café

by André Ferero

Published by Ferrero Books at Smashwords

Copyright 2011, André Ferero

Smashwords Edition, License Notes:

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only then please return to Smashwords and buy your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Chapters:

Chapter 1: Luke Lock

Chapter 2: Eric Crimson

Chapter 3: Model 2050

Chapter 4: Zero

Chapter 5: Reality Arrests

Chapter 6: Undistorted Reality

Chapter 7: The Message

Chapter 8: Cosmic Feedback

Chapter 9: Microchip

Chapter 10: Ultimatum

Chapter 11: Detached

Chapter 12: Bliss

Chapter 13: Questions

Chapter 14: Link

Chapter 15: Investigation

Chapter 16: No Access

Chapter 17: Indignation

Chapter18: Lady White

Chapter 19: Questions And Answers

Chapter 20: Gore's Visit

Chapter 21: Encounter

Chapter 22: Skirmish

Chapter 23: Speeding Up The Process

Chapter 24: Revelation

Chapter 25: A Flash Of White

Chapter 26: Frank On The Run

Chapter 27: Looking For Lady White

Chapter 28: The Fifty Cent Café

Chapter 29: Aftermath

Chapter 30: Chaos And Anger

Chapter 31: Model 2050's Warning

Chapter 32: Catching A Rabbit

Chapter 33: Reunion

About the author

Chapter 1: Luke Lock

Luke was unable to decipher the chaotic images he saw. If the ability to dream had not been suppressed by State Control and Luke was familiar with dreams, he would have realized that the jumbled pictures he witnessed was not a dream. How could he anyway have dreamt while he was wide awake, staring at his workspace in front of him?

If what Luke saw were not dreams, then what were they, where did they come from and how did it reach him in his waking life? Did some snippets of televised movies get lost on the airwaves and transmitted to him by mistake?

No, that was also impossible. Not because it didn't occasionally happen, but due to Luke's knowledge that he had never starred in any movie. Yet, in the scrambled reels of footage that he viewed he seemed to be the star of the show.

Maybe not the star, but definitely one of the lead characters, someone who was constantly running away from something, looking over his shoulder in fear. What he ran from, Luke did not know. He couldn't see who or what chased him, but he knew he had to escape. To be caught, Luke believed, would mean destruction.

How could Luke have known that what he saw came from one of Kayden Lee's first Cosmic Feedback attacks, one that reached her in her sleep, an attack she wasn't even aware of. If Luke held any belief that Kayden was still alive and that there was still a strong connection between them, he would have understood what was going on, would not have been so confused by the Feedback images. But Luke didn't know anything about Kayden any longer. She had disappeared over two years before, apparently another victim of the humans, and was as good as dead to Luke.

Memories of Kayden survived in his heart and mind. More than anything else he longed to see her face again, to talk to her, to have their friendship returned to him. Luke wished for things to go back to the way they were before, but he had no hope that it ever would.

If Luke knew that it was inevitable for Kayden and him to meet again, feelings of despair, loss and sadness would not have accompanied the Feedback images. Instead, Luke would have been filled with hope and a belief in a future where love and intimacy between people still existed.

Relief swept over Luke when the electronic voice of a chronometer announced the end of the work shift and shattered the confusing images into countless shards. Luke gathered his few belongings and left his cubicle in Cell Z of the Big Lock Equipment Plant.

He used a pedestrian conveyor belt to reach the Transporter Capsule Portal, pressed the summons button, and a single travel-pod stopped within seconds. The hydraulic doors opened automatically. Luke stepped into the pod and the unit was sealed again.

Luke held his thumb in front of the pod's control panel. The electronic eye of the controller instantly read his thumbprint and immediately identified the address of his living Space.

The pod was sucked into one of the blast tunnels that ran throughout the city of CPU like a vast glass and metal network of veins. In a flash Luke was on his way to his dwelling place.

Dark faces in other capsules rushed past him in the eternal earth night – the darkness that has surrounded the planet since the Third Big War. Luke never saw the eyes of the others, wasn't aware that most of those eyes were vacant, staring into oblivion like a disconnected computer monitor.

Outside the safety of the transporter tubes, some privileged ones drifted past on their float-bikes, wearing oxygen provider helmets and protecto-suits. Above Luke he briefly saw a few state-owned vehicles and hover-taxis drifting down an invisible highway.

After only half a minute Luke was deposited in the oxygen protected hallway outside his living Space. He walked to the entrance and touched his fingerprint-activated door lock.

The authenticity of his fingerprints were confirmed and a female voice commanded him to speak his citizen identity number into the small wire-covered microphone to the left of the doorplate. An instant voice analysis was completed, simultaneously verifying Luke's identity digits, before access to his Space was allowed.

Luke was pleased to know that the door's secure recognition system was designed to only allow him entrance to his living Space. It didn't bother him that the Action Controllers could also enter his Space with their special access equipment, even in his absence. To him it meant security, not invasion of privacy.

Every time Luke opened his electro-door he was impressed. The word success always registered in his mind at that moment. What was remarkable was that the panel even worked during the occasional power cuts that occurred in the city. If that wasn't a sign of the progress on the planet and the benevolence of the System, nothing was.

Luke entered his Space. The tubular nuclear lights against the ceiling switched automatically on, reflecting its intensity off the bare white walls of his accommodation unit.

In the one corner of his rectangular apartment a Rejuvenator stood. It was a beautiful machine, boasting a streamlined metal design and integrated opaque glass Sleeping Bubble. It was also very effective. Luke's was an older model. He still needed three hours of rejuvenation per twenty four hour cycle. In old-world terms that was equivalent to eight hours of uninterrupted sleep.

The Bubble, as the Rejuvenator was also called, provided dreamless physical restoration. In condensed time it rested and repaired every tagged citizen, even motivated them subliminally, instilling a renewed desire to work for the common goal, day after day.

Luke knew he should apply for the new one-hour model as soon as he had more Recognition Credits from the Board of Controllers. He decided to work harder and become more visible and active in society.

A Globe-Link computer stood in the other corner of his Space. It was Luke's universal communication center, linking him visually with virtually anyone anywhere on the planet. It was never turned off, and although citizens were conditioned to believe they had access to everything, they did not.

Some information was only authorized for use by the most trusted ones and members of the Council Of World Leaders. The rulers unanimously believed that ordinary citizens had to be protected from certain sensitive data.

Not far from the Link, in the wall, was Luke's push-button cupboard. It slid open when Luke touched it. The neat contents lay before him. He pulled off his acid-proof boots and threw it carelessly inside. It was cleaned and neatly placed next to his other shoes by the cupboard's lazer-maid.

Luke walked to the refill area and took a glass of water capsule from the safe storage unit in the wall. He swallowed it and no longer felt thirsty afterwards.

He moved to the center of his Space and stepped on a small button on the metal floor. It started flashing on and off. Luke pushed it again. Instantly an upholstered seat appeared.

Luke sat down and faced the wall on the other side of the room. He pressed Open on the keyboard on the right armrest of the chair. A screen appeared on the wall in front of him. He touched the On button and saw a city scene.

Luke loved the wall-sized monitor which acted as the sole window of his apartment. He picture-searched through a few images and stopped at the Desert in bloom image. He studied the photo and words like prophecy and fairy tale flashed quickly through his brain. He looked at the computer's clock. It was 18:35.

His communicator buzzed. He pressed Answer. The picture of the desert was replaced by Grim's face, a colleague who worked with him at the Big Lock Equipment Plant.

Greetings, Luke said.

Greetings, Grim echoed.

Where have you been? I noticed your absence at work.

I was in the Front-Frontier and the Outer-Limit, to do some hardware checks under severe circumstances.

It's good to see you again. You must be happy to have returned safely to CPU.

Yes, I'm glad to be back in the comforts of my own Space. No place like home. Anyway, I'm communicating to enquire about your plans for later.

I haven't decided yet, Luke said.

How long is your off-time? Grim asked.

Six hours.

That's plenty of time for a quick drink somewhere.

What did you have in mind?

I'm on my way to Zero. I haven't been entertained in a while, didn't have much contact with anybody else while I was in the Outer-Limit. Will I see you there?

Maybe. I must still decide.

I'll buy you a drink if you come. But now I'll fade out. Speak soon, Grim said. His face vanished from the screen and the desert scene reappeared.

Luke walked to the steam-cleaner. He thought about the drinks that were available in Zero. They were called hip-drinks and although they were expensive he enjoyed the mild feelings of euphoria it caused. Somehow the consumption of those drinks helped to improve conversation with other tagged citizens. Luke always enjoyed that interaction.

Luke took his work uniform off and stepped into the cleaner. After thirty seconds he emerged, shaven and washed. He put on a clean social uniform, his protecto-jacket and resistance shoes.

Why was Zero one of the few legal social interaction venues in the city? Luke wondered while fastening the laces of his boots. In a metropolis the size of CPU additional entertainment clubs were a necessity, he thought. It was the first time ever he thought about it and he wondered where that question suddenly came from.

Luke had heard rumors of other recreational gathering places, but they were illegal and his fear of the Action Controllers prevented him from trying to visit them. He would never dare to jeopardize his privileges and freedom for a bit of novel social excitement.

While Luke thought about citizen interaction he remembered an ex-colleague that worked with him a few years before, a man who had mysteriously disappeared one day. He was called Eric Crimson and he had once spoken about a place called The Fifty Cent Café.

According to Eric the Café was managed by the human rebels, those people unwilling to get tagged, the ones who ceaselessly fought against the State's control over them. Their wish was to live without the constant surveillance from Action Controllers.

Eric believed that the Café was hidden somewhere in the Wasteland. Apparently it provided a safe haven for tagged citizens who escaped from the eyes of the Action Controllers. Human outcasts also frequented the place. Some even lived there. Because of the secrecy of the Café's location, no honest tagged citizen in CPU really knew where it was.

The Fifty Cent Café was anyway beyond city boundaries. To visit it would mean definite arrest, longterm incarceration and simultaneous behavioral rehabilitation. Luke wasn't convinced that the Café offered enough rewards to justify those risks.

Once in a while, usually while on his way to Zero or one of the other legal clubs in the city, Luke briefly wondered if the Café really existed or if it was just another legend – a senseless dream of escape created by someone critical of the System.

Luke remembered that Eric always acted a bit strange. He never really fitted in, didn't consider himself as part of the others. He declined to embrace the System the way all other good citizens did. Eric always found something wrong with the government and continuously criticized it, although never publicly.

Once, shortly before Eric's disappearance, when he visited Luke, he had spoken about the Café in great length. He had mentioned that every item in the Café has the same price. A beer cost fifty cents, so did a packet of chips, even old-world movies in the adjoining cinema, as well as hamburgers, hotdogs, pizza, dessert, fresh fruit and vegetables, popcorn, peanuts, a shot of any of the old-earth spirits, wine and songs on the ancient jukebox. That's where the place got its name, from the universal price of everything.

There were even pool tables and pinball machines. In winter wood fires burnt in the fireplaces. There were real showers and baths and genuine, untagged people to talk to. It was a place that made you feel human and alive, as if you really belonged somewhere, not isolated from other citizens. It was a true home, exactly the way homes were on old-earth.

Another attraction of the Café was that you paid with fifty cent coins, not with your World Bank Card. This arrangement was especially good for Tagger visitors, since cash was untraceable and did not reveal their visits to the Café.

Eric's ranting that evening sounded unbelievable to Luke. He mentioned things that were no longer available on the new-earth, not even to elite citizens. How could the humans, who were classified as inferior to tagged citizens, anyway be able to produce all those products?

One inexplicable thing Luke remembered from Eric's visit that night, years before, was a suppressed memory that suddenly appeared in his mind. It unexpectedly surfaced from within him while Eric was talking about old-earth things. It originated from a part of Luke's emotions that seemed lost.

While Eric continued talking, everything within Luke grew quiet. It was as if an inner engine had been switched off and, for once, he was allowed to savor the silence.

Luke saw a picture of a man and a woman, older than himself and very familiar. The face of a girl, a few years younger than him, also materialized, but vanished instantly again, as if inexplicably erased by an invisible force.

For a moment Luke had felt something. It was an unfulfilled desire. Somewhere inside of him he wondered, although subconsciously, why normal human relationships, those from the times before the Big War, no longer formed part of everyday life. Why had families been abolished by the State? Why were citizens expected to live alone, without a partner, without children?

Luke wondered what it would be like to live a life of physical touch, filled by closeness of others, a life of warmth and intimacy. Was it even possible to ask for such a life? Could coldness and isolation ever really be eradicated?

Luckily Luke only contemplated old-world relationships for split-seconds before the Tag in his shoulder erased and replaced them with thoughts of wellbeing and a renewed belief in the benevolence of the System.

However, when the longing for someone overwhelmed Luke, he always thought of Kayden Lee. The memory of her face was still clear in his mind. It was the one face Luke knew he would never forget. The friendliness of her expression was something for him to hold onto. If only she was still around, still alive and part of his life.

That night, while preparing to visit Zero, Luke thought about the humans and their Fifty Cent Café again. He knew he would never be brave enough to go and look for it. He wasn't even convinced that it really existed. To him it sounded like a story of a madman, the ravings of a lunatic trying to transform his hallucinations into reality. Luke put the thoughts about the Café out of his mind and prepared to go to Zero.

Chapter 2: Eric Crimson

In another part of CPU, hidden from tagged citizens, only known as The Clusters, Eric Crimson was also preparing for a night out. Unlike Luke, Eric was not on his way to a social club. His destination for the evening was further away, as far from the evil eyes of the System and its control over him as possible. The place he wanted to visit and stay in was called freedom.

For Eric it had become unbearable to live with the curse of the microchip that was implanted into his brain after his arrest a few years before. The State had put it there to control him and to monitor all his movements. He had become their prisoner and their slave. He was never alone, always watched by the Thought and Action Controllers, the TACS.

Eric couldn't even think his own thoughts or truly feel human emotions. His Chip only allowed him a few free thoughts every now and again. In an attempt to control chipped citizens, the most powerful feeling emitted by the Chip was the fear of freedom.

After Eric was taken into custody, his status as legal citizen had also been revoked. His name was deleted from the list of tagged citizens, he was reclassified and entered into the Void category. He no longer had a name, only a number. He worked and lived in The Clusters and although he had freedom of movement within the boundaries of that place, any attempt to escape was punishable with death.

If only the tagged citizens knew about him and those like him they might have done something to help them. But Voids lived on the other side of CPU, cut off from the tagged ones, surrounded by post-war rubble, concealed by high walls and controlled by rehabilitation laws. They were out of sight of so-called normal citizens.

If the Taggers had found out about the Voids, what would they have done anyway? What could they do? Even they were slaves, only in a different way. The truth was kept from them. Their slavery was presented as freedom. The System enforced it amiably in order to minimize existential questions.

Eric's decision to flee wasn't an easy one to make. Months of confused and conflicting free thoughts had preceded the eventual deed. And even then, after Eric knew the course of his life was unalterably and eternally changed, he had doubts, found it difficult to finally abandon the System way, even though it meant temporary freedom before the process of his nullification would start.

In the last weeks before the day of liberation, the word that appeared most frequently in Eric's uncontrolled mind was escape, a word that had long ago been deleted from the programmed vocabulary of Voids. Contemplating escape, his mind had repeated incessantly. After a while the familiarity of those words had become his guide, the destination he knew he had to travel to.

Eric looked forward to being alive briefly, one last time. That short life was good enough reason to convince him that the painful death that awaited him afterwards was not too big a sacrifice to make.

Eric hoped that escape would mean deliverance into the possibility of a new life. But he knew the chances of being intercepted by the human rebels were small. Thus, he saw his getaway as a release from the life of a Void into the finality of termination, that state of non-being, where oppression could no longer rule over him. He only had one last wish to fulfill. Eric desired to terminate everything, to no longer live a life enslaved.

After Eric had made the final decision, the conflict in his head had intensified. It must be done, he knew. But that would mean sacrificing his life and the few advantages the System offered Voids.

Eric often thought that it was foolishness to willingly cut the umbilical cord that bound him to the sustenance of the System. However, he was also convinced that to maintain that link would eventually poison and kill him on their terms.

Finally, the pain in his head had decided his future for him. He no longer allowed thoughts of escape in his uncontrolled mind only. He challenged the implanted Chip openly, cursing it and the System it represented.

Give me back my mind, Eric shouted within the soundproof confines of his living Space. I can't handle this oppression any longer. Take this pain in my head away. This Chip. You call it progress, I call it a curse!

Progress – everybody wants progress. It is the ultimate good, the Chip's automatic responder answered.

I will rip you out, cast you away from me, to die free, no longer live bound by your rules and restrictions, Eric screamed. His angry voice bounced off the empty walls.

The word free no longer forms part of Void vocabulary. Rules and regulations assure stability and progress. That is good. It upholds the perfect society we have worked so hard for to give you.

Yes, everything in this world is perfect for you, because you don't feel anything. But me? Us? The different ones? We don't fit in, are unwilling to live in the small cages you have built for us that you dare to call lives. Why? Because we don't even like this world you created. Created? It's worthless, it's not creation. Nothing you designed is alive. Everything functions well, but it's all dead.

Initiate Central Chip control. Control! Too much mental energy being utilized. Danger! Danger! the microchip warned.

What do you think I'm trying to do?

Think? Think? No comprehension.

Oh, I forgot – you weren't programmed to think. Let me tell you my plan. Fusion. Yes, to fuse the circuits that control me and free myself.

No option. Free – word no longer in use. Erase from memory. Dangerous word.

I will be free, even if it's for the last time ever.

Erase. Free has been erased from memory banks.

You can erase. I will destroy.

Eric started using the power of his uncontrolled mind. He encouraged free thoughts, concentrated on non-System thinking and saw the circuits of his Chip fusing.

Calm down. Irrational behavior. Change course.

Change course? I will. Anything other than this. Let me just shut you down.

Eric swallowed two anti-Chip tablets he had obtained from a dealer.

A few more minutes and you will be dead, he shouted at the Central Chip.

Dead: The state of not being alive. Human shortcoming. No fear for Voids.

Be quiet. You will die. You might be in my head, but now I control you.

Too much energy utilization. Beep-Beep. Too much. Beep-Beep. Overload warning. Shutdown imminent. Change thoughts now. Danger. Change. Be calm. Tampering detected. Warning: Thought and Action Controllers will pursue and subdue or terminate, the Chip warned before it was switched off due to the effects of the anti-Chip tablets.

Eric had successfully achieved microchip malfunction. It was in shut-down mode. The Emergency Chip, known as the EC, which took over from the Central Chip under circumstances like these, was also suppressed for one hour. Eric knew that the EC was fighting to switch itself on again. But he was temporarily free.

The anti-Chip tablets, combined with an overload of free thoughts, had fused the circuitry in his Central Chip and his old mind was returned to him. What unfamiliar freedom that was. Bliss as few Voids had ever experienced before. Thoughts appeared in his mind, memories from a time that seemed to be lost forever were returned to him, even true feelings entered his heart. Eric remembered what it felt like to be human again. It lasted only one final incredible hour before the EC was activated.

With that activation came the reminder that one hour of his remaining six had already expired. Eric's last five hours on earth had arrived. Five more hours of control, then death. That control was in his mind, activated by the Emergency Chip which did not rely on the Central Chip for its power source.

Under normal circumstances the EC signaled Emergency from the moment it took over from the Central Chip. But the anti-Chip tablets suppressed that signal, allowing Eric a head start for escape before the inevitable TACS pursuit would commence.