Chapter 559

Finnigan "Finn" Abernathy, a transplanted Kiwi with a receding hairline and an ever-present weariness in his eyes, hunched over his workstation. He pushed a stray strand of hair from his forehead.

At 38, Finn found himself surrounded by individuals half his age. Energetic young techies fueled by ramen noodles and boundless ambition filled the brightly lit office space. Their collective energy was supposed to be infectious, invigorating. It wasn't. It felt…invasive.

The company, 'Synergy Corp,' proclaimed to connect people better than anything ever before. The reality was murkier, a digital fog obscuring their true purpose.

Their CEO, Alistair Finch, a man whose charisma was only surpassed by his ruthlessness, had presented the vision with evangelical fervor. Finn had been lured in, promised a corner office and a chance to build something. But building was far from what he expected.

Alistair's pet project, 'Nexus,' was a global network designed to act as a predictive data center for advertising and consumption. However, as Finn climbed the corporate ladder, he discovered what the core programming of the nexus was: Manipulation.

Nexus didn't predict, it prompted. It nudged. It orchestrated. It wormed into the algorithms of daily existence. Finn had helped set it up, even helped stabilize some of its first processes. Now, he feared its potential.

He'd voiced his concerns to Sarah, the head of legal. Her reaction was to chuckle, a light, airy sound that did nothing to quell the darkness pooling in Finn's gut.

"Finn," she said, her voice patronizing. "You worry too much. It's just technology."

Finn wished he could share her delusion.

The Nexus project had been expanding exponentially, its reach lengthening like grasping, greedy vines. Alistair, emboldened by the platform's success, demanded faster, deeper integration into communication lines. Finn was to be a vital asset in achieving that goal, or his value to the corporation diminished exponentially.

One evening, after the majority of the team had filtered out, Finn found himself staring at the core code of the program. Endless lines of digital scripture glowed ominously from his screen.

He scrolled, his fingers flying across the keyboard as he analyzed functions, tracing command prompts, trying to discover the trigger mechanism behind Nexus' manipulation matrix.

His brow furrowed, sweat beading on his forehead. He noticed redundancies within the coding, a mirrored series of command algorithms meant to create the desired emotional state of subjects within their network. The scary thing about it all, the desired results weren't the positive emotions: they were a constant level of dissatisfaction, envy, and need.

The aim wasn't just to sell people things; it was to keep them permanently and subtly unhappy unless they did.

A chill went down his spine. The goal wasn't connection. It was control. The start-up wasn't revolutionizing the world: it was enslaving it, one algorithm at a time.

The screen notification bell chimed; it was Alistair's profile picture. A video call. Finn hesitated, then clicked 'Accept'.

Alistair's sharp visage materialized on the screen. His face, a carefully constructed mask of affability, revealed nothing of the hunger he contained within. "Finn, how are we?" he asked, his tone conversational, too smooth.

"Good, Alistair. Just...working."

Alistair gave a tight smile. "Good. Diligence is appreciated. We're close to a big integration soon, and I'd hate for our man of the hour to miss the moment!"

Finn managed a weak smile back. "Of course, Sir."

"Excellent. And Finn, don't let those 'ethical' qualms slow you down, will you? Sentimentality isn't conducive to progress." He chuckled again.

The call terminated. Finn stared at his screen. Sentimentality. Alistair could practically read his mind. It was possible the integration went deeper than what he could ever hope to stop now.

He ran his fingers through his thinning hair, a new kind of dread taking root. He had to do something. He had to stop them, even if it meant his job, his reputation, everything. But how? He was one man against a multi-billion-dollar start up driven by its megalomaniacal leader.

He dove back into the code, furiously trying to isolate the kill switch, a failsafe, anything that could cripple Nexus before the big integration. Hours became a blur of programming syntax and caffeine.

As dawn approached, he located an anomaly, a dormant code sequence hidden deep within the structure. It looked like an earlier build of an artificial response protocol, one seemingly discarded for more precise manipulation variables. Perhaps… Perhaps it could be repurposed.

The sequence responded when input, the right emotion. That emotion being something antithetical to everything that they were doing at Nexus; Joy. He'd been studying these connections for the better half of a year. He would work it in. He would program joy into the collective stream, and stop it all here and now.

With trembling fingers, he wrote a patch, repurposing the old sequence to flood the network with the right inputs. It was a dangerous move; a slight error could trigger alerts, set off alarm bells throughout the system, and mark him as a threat.

He hit 'execute.'

The computers glowed with renewed brightness. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, a series of error messages flashed across the screens. Alarms blared, echoing throughout the almost empty office. Finn swallowed hard.

It was working…or failing spectacularly. He couldn't tell. He tried desperately to keep the joy variable rising; all his commands just showed the same, error, error, error.

Suddenly, the doors to the server room crashed open. Alistair stood there, flanked by two security guards. His face was contorted in fury.

"Finn. You betrayed us!" His voice was low and laced with contempt.

Finn stood his ground, even though his legs felt like they were about to buckle. "I tried to protect them. To protect you."

"Protect us? From progress? From a better future?" Alistair spat. He motioned to the guards. "Get him."

The guards advanced, their faces blank and impersonal. Finn knew what was coming. He just wanted to save them all. He tried to make a run for it, only to have the closest of the guards grab his arm and fling him away.

They dragged him down to a room. It was pristine. Metal as far as the eye could see. Alistair stepped into the room after them, as he took to a seat. Finn had been forced down into a steel chair, shackled so tightly, that his bones ached.

"You do understand why we are doing this right?" Alistair spoke. He spoke in a tone like that of a condescending physician to a sickly patient.

"You are a tyrant. Nothing more."

Alistair tilted his head, clearly taken by a sudden burst of rage; an uncontrolled fury that burned his façade. "Oh Finn, your opinion holds little value. Your purpose now is nothing. We had such high hopes."

With the snap of a finger, a surge of energy went through the walls; something huge powering on. From behind the walls of the operating bay emerged a device, one akin to those that did the impossible when the world discovered MRIs. But this machine, would not provide knowledge of the internal form; instead, it did quite the opposite, rewriting your thoughts and self, from the inside-out.

It dawned on Finn. This had been their intention from the very beginning. This isn't an advanced-marketing, AI. This was brainwashing on a global scale, and soon to be permanent. The worst thing? They probably would have offered the chance to be indoctrinated if Finn would have stayed loyal.

They were going to rewrite Finn's thoughts, destroy his memories, erase his rebellion and turn him into a mindless drone, like so many of the other faces around here who bought the dogma hook, line, and sinker.

Terror turned his blood to ice.

"You can't!" Finn's protest came out as a weak croak.

Alistair gave an unsettling, inhuman grin. "Oh, but we can. We're Synergy Corp, Finn. We are connection. We are, control."

They strapped him into the machine. Cold metal pressed against his skull. He tried to scream, but a clamp closed over his mouth, silencing him. Alistair gave a final look towards him before pushing the button.

Then, darkness, an excruciatingly, mind numbing, horrifying blankness filled Finn's awareness. It had started. All he knew, all he thought, every decision or emotion that made Finn into Finn…gone. Rewritten.

When he came to, he was back at his desk. The events of the night before were just an uncomfortable dream, nothing more. A new sense of purpose filled him, a quiet excitement for the 'Nexus' project, its revolutionary potential.

He smiled and dived back into the code, a loyal soldier of Synergy Corp, completely devoted to his new task of global connection. Alistair simply looked down from his perch; observing with cold calculation, as he watched another individual get reincorporated.

Months passed. Finn threw himself into his work, achieving previously unimaginable milestones. He was Alistair's star developer, an unreserved champion for Synergy's mission. He still occasionally thought he knew Sarah, yet could not place where, or when he might have had the opportunity to have gotten to know her.

One day, Alistair summoned Finn to his office. "Finn, I have a special assignment for you." He gestured to a file on his desk. "It involves a…cleanup operation."

Finn raised an eyebrow, his curiosity.

"A rogue group has surfaced, trying to undermine 'Nexus.' We believe they possess damaging information and may be planning to disclose it to the authorities."

Finn nodded, his sense of the value in their work beginning to get in the way. "What do you need me to do, Alistair?"

"I need you to find them. And eliminate the threat, permanently." Alistair's eyes met his.

Finn felt a tremor, a ghost of something buried deep inside. The directive sat wrong. It went against what he was used to doing. "Eliminate…?"

Alistair smiled, that chilling, unnerving expression. "Think of it as eliminating bugs in the system. You're good at that, Finn. The very best."

Finn accepted the file, a cold knot forming in his stomach. He did some digging and got straight to tracking, and within a day had tracked these so-called "enemies" of their world down. They seemed to congregate around what was labeled as a residential building: and so Finn ventured over.

He pulled up to the building and parked his car. A brick apartment block that sat low against the horizon. The directions listed a name to search by once in the building; a woman labeled 'Hazel Price', and as Finn began making the journey into the building's foyer, he began scanning names for Hazel Price. As Finn went floor-to-floor in the dim stairway he saw that she resided on the fourth level. And so that is where Finn's search brought him.

Hazel's name shone clear from the peephole on the unit door. All that had to be done was knocking, and dealing. It came as simple for Finn; it had come as everything from the first time on he'd had something altered about his person.

He came so simple, because that's just how the others like it; simplicity of all that lives in this world. Finn knocks; he waits a moment; he knocks again; until he hears from the inside "Just a minute, please". Hazel opens up the door after releasing all of the chains.

It wasn't Hazel Price; it was Sarah. Her. That woman he always knew. And in an instant all came to a head; her visage triggering everything suppressed.

Every thought that she should be here instead of locked in the back recesses. All of the reasons and the ways. And a scream comes to his lips, silent behind the visage of terror.

A gun sat holstered behind his belt. His orders rung loudly into being, yet his face, locked and tear-filled began speaking his mind.

As fast as thought he brought his pistol up; thumb cocking back the hammer as Sarah looked to Finn, confusion plastered to all that she held as knowledge and visage. Yet Finn, the loyal and forever mindwiped employee brought the gun high up over his head and fired.

All went red in the apartment of Hazel. Then quiet; then blank. It went simple for everyone again; and Finn Abernathy would forever serve Alistair for everything that Alistair might think to have been good for Finn; with a look and visage that remained as terror; because the knowledge would never find all that came from mind control; it came simple, just a blank for anything outside.