The Man Without a Face
The streets were often packed on days like these. He figured if he could get to the station by three he’d have a chance at getting a ticket, but at this rate, shuffling through the dense throng of people, he’d be lucky to make it by half past three. No one was paying attention to what was going on around them, their featureless faces staring blindly ahead. It was a gift they said, to be able to see, but AA-78910 (as he was designated) found it more of a curse at most times, ignorance was bliss. This time, however, it paid off; he spotted a small fenced off area that cut through the crowd. Shuffling by, he hopped over and walked unhindered by. He could see a lot of people from the clearing, through his blurry monochrome vision. Keeping up a quick pace he made it to the station a few minutes early. The red LED sign flashed at the entrance, he didn’t know why they bothered making signs, perhaps they were artifacts from a time long gone. Slowly he followed the crowd up the steep concrete steps onto the pad. All those brown suits and ties, all the same, for some reason the Keepers cared about that. When he made it to the gate he swiped his card at the desk, a shrill beep sounded. “Sir” the man behind the desk drawled in a robotic tone from the speech synth clipped to his jacket pocket “please step aside and wait for a Secretary to see you,” he said. AA-78910 stepped aside, other people quickly filling the gap; “What’s the matter?” he asked, but the man behind the desk didn’t respond.
A few minutes later a Secretary came hovering through the crowd. “AA-78910” It droned “you have been registered as trespassing on unlicensed property”. “What, it was just a grass clearing\! There wasn’t anything there.” He said defensively. The Secretary stared at him, its group of glowing orange optical sensors swaying ever so slightly back and forth. “Unlicensed territory is off limits for civilians, you will be detained until a Keeper can see you in court” it said, and it reached out a thin mechanical arm and pricked him with a small needle.
It was dark, wherever he was. Getting up he looked around, he was standing in a large room with slick black floors. A light snapped on, it was pointed right at him. AA-78910 put his hands up to block the blinding beam. A voice boomed from somewhere in front of him “Civilian, you have been charged with traversing unlicensed land, you will be escorted to the nearest asset liquidation facility to dispose of your belongings before you are scrubbed,” it said. But AA-78910 just stood there, if he had a mouth it would be hanging wide open. Scrubbing a civilian for walking on some little fenced off piece of rotting lawn\!? Of course, no one would miss him, no one ever really noticed when this kind of stuff happened. There one day, gone the next, such was life. The light shut off and a man walked into the room and escorted him to a convict transport.
The transport craft was musty, peeling gray paint on metal seats. Everything in this place was old. A small sign in the corner read “No smoking”, AA-78910 wondered what it meant, there were a lot of signs that had lost their meaning through the centuries, only a few were even capable of wondering about them. Apart from a Secretary, he was the only one on the transport. Looking closely he could see the Secretary had a restraining clamp on itself, it too was going to get scrubbed. There were windows, he looked out and could see the city below, bustling people, hovering Secretaries, giant displays on building sides that flickered and glitched as distorted images and text flashed on them. It wasn’t long before they came to a screeching halt. Another official escorted him and the Secretary out to the liquidation site. He’d always wondered what it was like to watch your entire life decomposed. The man led them to a huge glass window, inside he could see his apartment block held up by a pair of huge grasping arms. How did they get it here so fast? In front of him was a tactile pad, and the man looked expectantly at him. He obliged, even though he could see the scene full well, and put his hand on the tactile pad. It was a bit of a different experience, feeling an image on your hand. He watched as the mechanisms slowly disassembled his apartment, handing the pieces to construction drones that flew them off, presumably to sort and store. After they had finished, the man led them to another, larger, tactile pad. He placed his hand on it, it was his citizen data, all his personal correspondence, every file he had ever made, sent, or received. He looked up, behind a glass panel was a data core, very obviously connected to the tactile pad. A patch cable on an extending arm came down and hooked into the core, it was all very dramatic, and he could feel the pad as all his data was slowly erased. Next, the man led them to a room with a large drone docking pad. The man pushed the Secretary up to the pad. Who knew what property, what identity, a Secretary had. Whatever it was, the Secretary was clearly upset to see it go, it’s glowing eyes drooped. It was a strange sight, Secretaries seldom show any emotion. Next the man led them to another transport.
It was a long ride this time, scrubbing facilities were kept at the outskirts of the city, for obvious reasons. “How did you wind up in here?” AA-78910 asked the Secretary who was now hovering in the corner of the cabin. It looked up and then looked back down. “I didn’t know Secretaries could be convicted.” AA-78910 continued. “Even the Keepers are not beyond the reach of the system” it replied in a monotonous voice. AA-78910 looked back out the window. The edges of town were all overgrown and dilapidated. Old residence blocks laying in pieces, and official buildings half demolished. “You know, I hear the city used to go out a lot farther than it does now,” he said. The Secretary looked up again “All the world was once under the system. The lack of liquidation and scrubbing was what caused the collapse. Now it will continue indefinitely.” The Secretary was quite melancholy for a high ranking official drone. “What actually is scrubbing?” he asked. He hated to ask something like this, he feared the truth. But the Secretary didn’t respond.
When they arrived the whole transport shook. The lines this far out of town were old and rusty. This time another Secretary “greeted” them at the entrance. It led them to a large lobby “Wait here while your indexes are processed” it said, and then hovered off. The convicted Secretary turned around and looked at AA-78910 and motioned him over. He walked up a little closer and a small compartment on the side of the Secretary popped open. Inside was a bunch of switches and buttons… and a small syringe. He took it and put it in his jacket pocket. The Secretary looked back at him “It is your only hope” it droned in a quiet tone. Just then the other Secretary returned with two other drones he’d never seen before. They were bright white and had a lot fewer appendages than a Secretary. One of them led the convict Secretary off down a hallway, and the other led AA-78910 through a large metal sliding door. The drone took him through a long hall of flickering lights and glass panels that looked into huge rooms lined with rows of metal tubes. Finally they made it to an open room. In the middle was an operating platform with restraints, and above that was a large circular apparatus with hundreds of small mechanical arms, sporting different medical instruments. A rack of the same metal tubes stood on one side of the room. The drone seized both his arms and walked him over to the table, placing him on it, the drone began fastening the restraints. This was it, this was scrubbing. He didn’t struggle, it wouldn’t help. When the drone was done it stepped back and the machine above hummed to life. A tiny arm reached down. AA-78910 winced as he shoved himself against the side of the table, sending the syringe in his pocket into his side. The machine didn’t seem to notice. The tiny arm descended on him, it had a tiny blade on the end of it. “Beginning scrubbing process.” A loud-speaker hummed, and the doors to the room slammed shut.
Slowly he woke up, everything ached. He could hear the dull voice of a public education droid and the confused hushed voices of others around him. He was in a new-citizen education facility. He couldn’t see anything. Putting his hands to his face he could feel… it wasn’t his face. No serum could keep you from being scrubbed, but with enough careful engineering, you could hope to save at least your memory. And that was all he had left now, with a new body, with a new face, with a new life, but the same haunting memories. He wondered if that Secretary was able to save it’s own memory… maybe it could answer all the questions he had.