Anzia and The Keepers of Time (1st Draft)

Anzia was marking time. In a short while, the workday would be over. This day was the last before her break. 1

The party in power, The Keepers of Time, had recently instituted policies controlling when vacations could be taken. Actually, they were taking steps to control every aspect of life from birth to death. They didn’t care how you were born, how you died or how you celebrated your vacation- they only cared when you did it.2

Anzia didn’t understand why The Keepers of Time felt the need to control her vacation. She was just glad that she was finally allowed to take it. Before the new policies were instituted, she had been saving up her days so that she could take a nice long vacation. A short trip simply wouldn’t do. She wanted her money’s worth. She got it. Twenty-six days! Almost an entire month, and all of it at once! Really, it was only eighteen workdays, but it sounded better when you counted the weekends too.3

Anzia didn’t know anyone who had ever taken as long a vacation as she was about to have. In spite of Earth’s explosive population, there still always seemed to be an extreme shortage of skilled ‘labour’, so workers were rarely granted time away. As a form of compensation, anyone employable was guaranteed an exorbitant salary. Anzia had been working in her current job for eight years, so she was very rich. 4

The trouble with her job was that she found it very boring. In the beginning, while she was young, boredom had not been a problem, but now Anzia was seventeen and she aspired to higher things. An education was not necessary to perform her job- she had been born suitable, but she ached to learn. To improve herself. She hoped to do that during her vacation.5

She also needed simply to be able to recharge herself. Though her job was not exactly difficult, it was mentally exhausting. 6

Anzia worked as a network mind for the government, which is to say that she was part of a sentient computer network composed of her mind and others similar to it.7

Only one person in a hundred was born with a mind suitable to working in a network. In order to be suitable, a person’s mind had to be able to function in tandem with the minds of others without completely submerging it’s own identity and losing itself. Anzia’s mind was more suitable than most. For that reason, she was a catalyst mind- one that facilitated the bringing together of other minds. Unfortunately, catalysts didn’t do any of the thinking- that was why it took a special mind. Catalysts had to be able to retain their individuality without asserting it.8

Anzia needed a break from her work as a catalyst. She needed to find out who she was. She had been catalyzing the thoughts of others for so long and from such a young age that she wasn’t really sure if she ever had possessed her own identity. She needed to stretch her mind- discover if she still had an imagination. 9

The shift change tolled.10

“Thank the Keepers of Time,” Anzia cried aloud as she disengaged from the network after assuring that her relief was in place, “Now I am free!”11

Two weeks later, on a beach in the tropics, Anzia sipped her fruit cocktail. A worried wrinkle between her eyebrows marred the line of her face. She couldn’t understand what was wrong.12

She spoke softly to herself, under her breath, “I thought that I would be different away from there. I thought that I would feel more… real.”13

Anzia had wanted her long vacation so that she would be able to work to recover the identity she was forced to suppress while she worked. To find that she might have imagined that more vital identity was disturbing. It felt as though she had been going through her entire life secretly believing herself to be a real person, only to discover that she was, after all, nothing more than a paper doll.14

“I’m not supposed to be this way,” she tried to convince herself. The very differentness of her mind- it’s uniqueness and individuality, was what made her suitable for her job. 15

Anzia couldn’t quite put a finger on exactly what it was that was wrong. It was more just that things didn’t feel quite right. As a child she had always been possessed of an outrageous imagination. Such things did not just disappear.16

“Your imagination is part of who you are,” she tried to convince herself, “You can’t just wake up one morning and not have it anymore!”17

And then she wondered, “What if it was gradual? You don’t notice things as much when they happen gradually?” she shook her head, “No. That’s not it. I felt this way from the first moment I started in my job. I thought it was my job… but I haven’t been there for two weeks!”18

The death of identity is a horrible thing to contemplate.19

Anzia had not worried during the first week of her vacation. It hadn’t occurred to her to do so. Gradually, however, her anxiety had increased. By the third week, she was frantic.20

“I can’t go back there,” she told herself. She hadn’t left her hotel room in three days by that point, “I can’t… what if it got worse? I don’t need to go back. I have enough money.” It was true that she had enough money to live off of for the rest of her life. Catalyst minds received astronomical salaries- much higher than that of other, less unique, network minds. And so she made up her mind. She would quite her job.21

Anzia did not catch her scheduled flight back home after her vacation. She had found a fax machine and sent off a letter of resignation. That was why she was surprised when the next morning, representatives from the government knocked on her door.22

She had been expecting room service with her breakfast, so she picked up her purse and started hunting around for some change as she crossed the room to the door.23

“Anzia Kreuchtiv,” said the first man when she opened the door, “You failed to report to your centre of employment upon the completion of your leave.”24

Anzia lifted her chin in a gesture of defiance, “I don’t work there anymore. I quit my job. I’ve retired.” She stopped searching through her purse.25

The second man spoke, “The Keepers of Time have determined that it is not yet the time for you to retire.”26

“The Keepers of Time don’t have any say in when I retire,” Anzia returned with a frown, “I am the one who decides when I’m finished. I and nobody else!”27

She tried to close the door.28

The third man, who up to that point had remained silent, blocked the door with his foot, “You do not decide,” he said. The man had a faint accent, which Anzia was not quite able to place. She thought it odd that she should notice such an insignificant detail in the face of what was turning into quite a bad situation. The man continued to talk, “The Keepers of Time decide. They will tell you when you may retire. It will not be for many years.”29

“Years?” Anzia asked in horror, “They can’t do that! It’s my life! I control when I want to retire!”30

“No, Miss,” The third man spoke again, “You do not. There is a new law,” upon seeing her look of shock, he elaborated, “Because of the labour shortage, skilled workers must work until such a time as their talents are no longer needed.”31

“But…” Anzia protested, “But then I might never be able to retire!”32

“True,” the man agreed. He smiled. It was not a pleasant smile.33

“Oh my God!”34

“He cannot here you,” the man’s smile grew even wider, “We will bring you back now. To work.”35

“No!” Without thinking about what she was doing, Anzia pushed past the men and ran down the hallway toward the staircase. She was on the eleventh floor.36

She raced down as quickly as she could. She had covered four floors before she realized that she could not hear her pursuers.37

She stopped.38

“Of course!” she cried in despair, “It’s eleven floors! They don’t have to follow me. All they have to do is take the elevator and they can be waiting for me when I come down!” She sat in the stairwell, “Think, Anzia, think! They will only wait so long before coming up to look for you… think!”39

The laundry chute.40

A drop from the eleventh floor would kill her but…41

She once again began to race down the stairs. As she rounded the fourth floor, she heard the door to the ground floor open. Someone was coming into the stairwell.42

Realizing she’d wasted too much time, she quickly backtracked to the fourth floor. While she realized that her chances of escape were slim so high off the ground level, she still had to risk it. The laundry chute was located midway between the staircase and the elevator. She made directly for it.43

It wasn’t as bad as she’d expected. The chute was wide enough and she was small enough that she might just be able to descend slowly by pressing her back tightly against one wall and carefully walking her feet down the opposite wall. Certainly it would be preferable to falling so many stories. The laundry chute terminated in the basement. A long way down…44

She climbed inside.45

It was very slow going and hard on a body that wasn’t used to intense physical labour. Anzia was powered only by fear and adrenaline. While she was midway between the second and first floors, a load of laundry came tumbling down from above. Anzia almost fell as the damp towels smacked into her. She had to briefly halt her downward progress and ease the towels carefully past her body.46

Her purse fell.47

She muffled her instinctive gasp of dismay. She could retrieve it when she got to the basement. In the mean time, she didn’t want anyone to know she was there. By now, the government men would know that she was up to something. They were probably searching all of the floors. Anzia reflected that maybe it hadn’t been such a bad thing that her room was on the top floor. It gave them so many more places to search.48

A man’s head poked into the first floor laundry chute as the last towel fell.49

Anzia froze.50

She listened to the man’s muffled cursing as he extracted both his head and the towel. It was one of the men from her room. She heard his voice speaking to someone else.51

“She’s not in there. The chute’s clear. Someone just dropped a towel on my head.”52

Another man answered. The man with the accent, “Are you sure? Did you actually look? You were in and out very quickly.”53

Anzia didn’t wait to hear anymore. She pressed her hands into the walls as tightly as she was able and lowered her feet. She dropped down the rest of the way.54

She landed with a muffled thud on top of the towels she had so recently dropped as well as a great deal of others. The dirty clothing and towels were piled so high that the top was near to the ceiling of the basement. Anzia had built up enough velocity to since partway into the pile, but she was uninjured and her purse was within her reach. She quickly grabbed it and scrambled out of the pile.55

When she noticed the clean laundry, carefully folded and labeled on the other side of the basement, she impulsively grabbed a loose-fitting, ankle-length sundress and slipped it on over her cut-offs and tank top. There was also a wide-brimmed canvas hat in matching colours. She coiled her long golden hair up onto the top of her head and settled the hat over top of it.56

Now she just needed some shoes.57

There weren’t any. She cursed herself soundly, “If you weren’t so stupid and lazy, you could have had your own shoes. All that you had to do was to plan on going out for your breakfast instead of ordering it in!”58

She was wasting time and she knew it. She pulled her sunglasses out of her purse and slipped out of the laundry room in search of an exit.59

She quickly found one and stepped outside. She didn’t wait around to catch her breath, but quickly lost herself among the other tourists.60

“What do I do now?” she asked herself. She hadn’t planned her flight. Hadn’t known that she would need to, “Why couldn’t they just let me quit? Why did they send people after me?” It seemed an awful lot of bother to send men to retrieve her just because she didn’t want to go back to her job. Was there something more behind it?61

Anzia, failing to pay attention to where she was walking, bumped into another pedestrian and sent them both sprawling.62

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Anzia said as she struggled to untangle herself from the stranger. She reached over his head to retrieve the hat, which had fallen off her head when she bumped into him. He stiffened beneath her.63

“What do you want with me?” he asked. Anxiety was apparent in his tone of voice. Anzia regarded him curiously. What had he to be anxious about? She was the one running from something. He was staring at her shoulder jack. It had been there so long that she’d almost forgotten it was there. The jack on her shoulder was how she hooked into the network. She reflected that she would have to find some way of disguising it. It marked her as a network mind.64

“What do you mean what do I want with you?” She asked.65

“I’m not going back,” Anzia didn’t see how that answered her question, but she listened with interest anyway, “I know you work for them, so you can tell them I’m not going back!”66

“Them?” she asked with confusion. Then she noticed the bandage on his shoulder and a few pieces fell into place, “You worked for the government too, didn’t you? They wouldn’t let you leave either…”67

He sat up abruptly and dislodged her, “You tried to leave?”68

“Yes,” she answered, “I sent in my resignation while I was on vacation. I couldn’t bear the idea of going back. But, when I didn’t catch my flight back, they sent men after me,” she looked around in dismay as she suddenly realized that she was in perfect view of anyone who cared to look, “I only just barely got away. They’ll be looking for me now. I have to get out of here.”69

His look of anxiety increased, “They’re here? Now?”70

She fidgeted nervously and looked around for a sign of her pursuers, “Yes. Now. I barely got away. I need to put some distance between them and myself. Fast.”71

He nodded, “Follow me.”72

She did, “Who are you?” she asked as they walked.73

“Another network mind,” he answered, “like you. I was a catalyst.”74

“I’m a… was a catalyst as well,” she said, “But I couldn’t stay there. I… I didn’t feel real.”75

“There’s a reason for that,” her companion answered grimly, “When you engage with the system through your jack, it pipes chemicals into your body to make the connection to the other network minds possible. The problem is that those same chemicals suppress a lot of the brain function associated with personality. Most people don’t notice it, but catalysts are a breed apart. The unique individuality that allows us to do the job we do, also allows us to notice the effect that networking has on us. Eventually, when we find ourselves disconnected from the network for a long enough period, the chemicals disappear from our systems and we return to being the people we were before. The government doesn’t like that. They need us in order to be able to run the network. We’re their greatest strength, but we’re also their greatest liability.”76

Anzia listened in shock. What he was telling her was horrible, but it made a twisted kind of sense, “So what do we do?” she asked, “What can we do?”77

He stopped walking and looked her directly in the eye, “You can join the resistance. We’re still a small group, but every person we add to our numbers is a step in the right direction.”78

“Are all of the resistance members ex-catalysts?” she asked.79

“Yes, but soon we will begin recruiting others. Everyone needs to know what the Keepers are doing to us- it’s getting worse. It’s not just the catalysts that they’re trying to control. It’s everyone.”80

“So, how do I join the resistance?”81

”You follow me.”82

He brought her to a squat cement building in the old factory district and led her in through the back door. The inside was depressingly empty and the air was hot, humid and carried the foul taste of mold. There was one man inside. He sat behind a rotting wooden desk. Anzia wrinkled her nose. She couldn’t imagine many places more unpleasant.83

“Who have you brought me, Kai?” The man asked.84

It was at this point that Anzia realized she had never exchanged names with the man she’d met.85

“Another ex-catalyst who wishes to join the resistance,” the man she now knew as Kai answered.86

“I see,” said the man behind the desk, “Very well,” he turned to Anzia, “Girl, what is your name?”87

Anzia, who still wasn’t quite sure who she was dealing with or whether or not they could be trusted, gave a shortened version of her name, “I am called Zia.”88

“Welcome to the resistance, Zia,” the man said.89

Kai grinned, “Yes, Zia. Welcome.”90

Something about Kai’s grin made her nervous. It didn’t seem… right.91

“Will you excuse me for a moment?” she asked brightly, “It’s very hot in here. I’d like a breath of air,” she stepped outside before either man could object.92

She was in time to see a vehicle, bearing three familiar passengers, pulling up to the front entrance of the building.93

She ran.94

Her life had just gone from bad to worse and she could see no escape.95