A Chip off the Old Block

I got Flashed at JJ's Blog.

Hell bent for leather and ugly as a dirt clod, Max climbed out of the sewer onto the busy parkway.

The Zybus flew overhead, and someone kindly deposited a wad of chewing gum on Max's head. Max shook his head in disgust, and ran past the Zybus Depot, blinking with advertisements posted by the Government. He didn't stop to read them. Like everyone else, he knew the ads by heart.
"Save the Earth! Stay indoors!"
"Don't Pollute your Mind! Put the book down and turn on the Telly!"

Max was running for another purpose--that is, he was running away from the Government Squad. He could still see them now, as they were three hours ago, in the detainment room.
The two male droids were sheathed in pale blue metal, and had strikingly handsome faces. The female droid (the sergeant) had a pale pink apron on over her metallic breasts. The droids had been very charming and polite when they had informed Max of the intent to kill him--humanely, of course.

"But I haven't done anything!" Max proclaimed.
"Not so, sir," said the female droid, "We've documentation of your work in the lab."
"But that's my job! I work for the Government! Dr. Astley..."
"Dr. Astley is considered a fugitive, sir. He is a ribald example of rebelliousness within the confines of the Government."
"But I've paychecks from the Government! I'm a coroner, for President's sake! I belong to the union of the world government just like you!" Max was bewildered.
"I'm sorry, sir," the female droid continued, "that you were disillusioned about your work. That does not excuse you from performing immoral and degrading acts upon the bodies of the Government!"
One of the male droids slammed his hand upon the table.

Apparently, much to Max's benefit, the Government had another power failure that so recently plagued the world. All droids, being attached to the power source by remote location, shut down. At this point, while the three droids were drained of power, Max jumped from the seat, ran to the door, and escaped. He'd like to think he was incredibly clever about the whole thing. He wasn't. Simply, the entire building had lost power functions and no one noticed a slightly balding twenty five year old dashing out of the building and onto the Parkway. As Max ran, he thought about the 'immoral and degrading' acts he had so recently committed against the dead bodies piled at the Government interment Center.

He and Dr. Astley had been working round the clock to discover what was killing off so many individuals in the city. A plague like this had not been experienced since five hundred years ago. The Government doctors were unable to diagnose the causes, as doctors no longer really diagnosed anyone. Doctors simply dispensed pills to lengthen or shorten life. Nutrition was amply provided by Government Vitamins, and citizens decided the length of their life, generally provided on the lottery they were assigned upon birth. But the dead! Max had determined the dead were all over the age of 35, but not by much, and all had a small flap placed in the frontal lobe of the brain, where a tiny chip of some type had been placed.

Dr. Astley and Max had determined that somebody was heartlessly placing termination chips into the brains of the victims. The victims were of no certain pattern. Other than being around 35, the dead were women, men, black, asian, white, poor, rich. There was no denomination among them! It was perplexing. But the work was approved by the Government! Wasn't it...?

Max had run from the precinct on the parkway and had found the old sewer tunnel. Of course, it was not in use, as the Government had found an ecological method to remove waste (it had much to do with dehydration and small packs of aluminum shuttled to space), so Max found himself quite alone in the sewers. But as he trundled blindly along the passages, he found his locater government card was beeping urgently. Max was ready to ditch the card, but as he pulled it out of his pocket, he saw a ghastly sight on the small screen. It was Dr. Astley, trying to contact him! Max fingered the 'call' button, and placed the transmission through.

"Dr. Astley! Are you all right?" Max cried into the card.
"Max! You must come immediately! I've discovered it all! The plague..all of it!" Dr. Astley was frantically whispering.
"Yes, then! I'll come to the lab!" Max replied.
"No, no! Not the lab! Go to the Leatherface Saloon, by the Zybus Depot! I'm in the back, hiding!"
The transmission was cut short.

So, here Max came, climbing out of the sewer and by the Zybus Depot, running blindly into a darkened alley where he was directed by the locater card. He found the Leatherface Saloon by its ghastly sign depicting an old character from a movie, holding a blade of some type. Max stumbled into the dingy bar, shocked at its antiquity. He saw about him ancient serving taps for ale, and a telly predating the Government's reign. The barkeeper, a squat man with a patch, looked at Max and nodded toward the door behind the bar. Max dashed through the door, and there, he found Dr. Astley.

Dr. Astley was sitting behind a desk, with papers and ledgers spread out before him. His old hands were still and quiet. It seemed Dr. Astley was quite collected. While Max was observing this, seven droids stepped out from the shadows of the room and surrounded Max. Max gasped in surprise as he was shoved down in a chair before Dr. Astley.

"What the devil is going on?" cried Max.
"Tsk tsk, dear boy. You musn't fuss," said Dr. Astley. "I felt it necessary to bring certain events to light before your termination!"
"Dr. Astley! I do not understand!"
"Ah, poor Max," said Dr. Astley as he stood up, "You have the true brain of a scientist. So eager to discover! So foolish to believe the discovery will not lead to consequence!" Dr. Astley stepped into a darkened corner, and turned on a light. In the corner of the room, on a palette, lay a corpse, covered with a sheet.
"Come, come, Max. Come have us a looksee!" Dr. Astley directed. The droid behind Max shoved him in the shoulder. Max stood and joined Dr. Astley at the palette. Dr. Astley uncovered the corpse, showing it completely dissected with the facial skin pulled down and the cranium sawed open. The brain was exposed, and therein lay a tiny chip.

"My dear boy, you stumbled upon the Government's newest and greatest invention! While you pilfered away, diagnosing and determining death, I had to contact the Government and inform them of your great skills of deduction." Here, Dr. Astley took a scalpel, and delicately removed the chip from the corpse.
"You see, Max, this recent plague of illness, this recent surge in the death toll, is due to this little contraption. You came to the conclusion that the chip was a termination chip, like those seen in old computers. You were wrong. It was not a termination chip." Dr. Astley glared at Max with clouded eyes.

"Why, Max, would you think a computer chip could kill a human?" Dr. Astley asked.
"But it's been done! We've seen the exercises on the champs. A chip is placed neatly beneath the skin, preferably in tissue, and it rearranges electrical impulses throughout the body, thereby killing!" Max was sweating.
"But why so sudden, dear boy, would we see it happen on humans, without warning?" Dr. Astley queried.
"Well, I certainly don't know, sir! I'm merely a coroner!"
"Foolish boy. The termination chips have been used for years on humans, yes, but all at once? No, no. Tut tut! The Government is smarter than that. We clean out riff-raff in a much more discreet manner, and never place the chips in such an obvious way. No, Max," and here Dr. Astley sighed, "what you discovered was something completely different. You see, a number of years ago, our droids began...feeling things, yes? They began thinking, and functioning independently. The droids began to feel emotion. Some of the droids discarded their blues and pinks for street clothes. They mingled with humans in bars and nightclubs. And through some glitch in evolution, they mated with humans."

"What?" cried Max.

"Yes! Quite the problem! The Government was nonplussed, but thought the offspring, if able to survive, should be monitored before extinguished. Perhaps, something good could come of it! Meanwhile, the droids behaving this way were terminated, and the human parents were left to wonder their partners' disappearances. So, these individuals were tracked, this half-breed of human and droid. They functioned quite well, with adequate socialization and general human characteristics. But there was a problem. Most of the individuals began to...question the Government more than any human had. It seemed they were capable of understanding both droid and human aspects. In short, they were a threat to our society, our way of life."

Dr. Astley fingered the scalpel, watching the light glint off the steel.

"We knew someone would find out. Someone would be observant enough to discover the chip, a mutation in these half-breeds. And soon, someone would see the Government had short circuited each chip through the Power Source...hence, the recent failures of power."

Max grew aware of the droids circling in closer around him.

"What we didn't know, dear Max, is that there are thousands of these creatures, all roughly the same age, all roughly the same intellect, and all roaming about our fair World, thinking un-Presidently things. And what we didn't count on, dear Max, is that one of their own would discover the deaths."

A droid grabbed Max and threw him to the floor. He was pinned by droid hands; his head was restrained and a droid drew back his eyelids, so that he might see the dreaded Dr. Astley coming closer.

"It was the leathery skin, dear Max, that gave you away. So tough compared to mine. So durable. It's such a shame that we lost such a great scientist."

And as Dr. Astley plunged the scalpel into Max's eye, and tore through his brain, Max remembered his father, a solid man with strange mannerisms, a man of calculating knowledge and leaden features. While Dr. Astley located the chip embedded through evolution in Max's brain and plucked it out, Max understood, finally, why his father had disappeared so suddenly. And as Max slowly died, the lights of the Government World dimmed, and then, went out completely.