The Mind

It was an unremarkable day, as always. Everyone did as they were predicted to do, to the slightest tensing of a muscle. As William returned to his house, located at the top right corner of the Cube he lived in, he was reminded, as always, of the sorry state that the world was in. 

The intercoms came on and gave its “friendly” reminder: 

“Citizens of this Cube, remember that you must remove your microchip from behind your left ear and store it inside its charging port for the night.”

Will has a very uncommon mindset. He loathes The Mind, the lucky few who study the data gathered from the microchips and use it to predict all movement. Most citizens just deal with The Mind and try to forget about it, but not Will. He frequently studies The Mind and the mandatory microchips. He knows that The Mind knows what he’s doing but he doesn't worry about it. Nothing has happened to him yet and he doesn’t believe that The Mind would ever take action.

He isn’t so careless as to disobey The Mind. He put his microchip in its charging port and headed to his bed.

When he woke up, he didn’t know what to do; he never did. His goal was to be as erratic as possible so as to be unpredictable to The Mind. 

The Mind knew what he was going to do, however. He had a very complex routine that he unconsciously followed. Today he would run a mile, write a paper about the microchips The Mind used, take a half hour nap, practice the accordion for an hour, and then go to sleep.

They got it exactly right, as always. The next day Will would dedicate the entire day to practicing exotic instruments.

Will was doing just that the next day, inevitably. He was in the middle of a verse on the stringed kora when, all of a sudden, he had an impulse. He put down the kora and ran a couple of miles to the house of an old friend.

This was unpredicted. For the first time since its creation, The Mind had made a false prediction. Will didn’t know of his triumph, how could he, but his lifelong dream had been accomplished.

He knocked on his friend’s door and it was a couple of minutes before there was a response, “Who is it?”

Will, unable to keep his excitement in check, loudly responded, “Jack! It’s me, Will. It’s been so long!”

“Will! Come inside, it’s cold out there,” Jack opened the door and ushered Will into his living room, “So Will, what brings you here?”

“Nothing important, I just wanted to hang out with you like the old days.”

Jack was glad to have Will around and jumped right into talking, “I can’t believe it's been so long that we’re calling it the ‘old days’.”

Will apologized, “Yeah, sorry about that. I’ve been all caught up in my research.”

“Found out anything interesting lately?” Jack asked, then wondered, “Do you think that The Mind predicted this?”

Will simply said, “Not really and we wouldn’t know either way”

Jack persisted, “But do you think that they have?”

Will thought about it and answered, “I believe that they did. They’re always right. But if they didn’t, you know how I would rejoice.”

Jack, eager to continue the conversation, asked, “What were you doing before you came here, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“I was just practicing some of my instruments.”

“I didn’t know that you were a musician. Which ones do you play?”

“You probably haven’t heard of them. I play the kora, the hurdy-gurdy, the crwth, the lur, the dulcimer, and the kalimba.”

Jack was utterly confused, “Those are instruments? The names sound like names of legendary weapons.”

Will laughed at this comparison, “Haven’t heard that one before.”

They kept on talking for hours until the sky was dark and then Will headed home. The intercoms delivered their message around the city and Will put his microchip into its charging port.

 When he woke up the next day and put his microchip behind his 

left ear, he heard a message in his mind saying, “William Pitia Lazcano, The Mind wants to speak with you from 4:00 PM to 4:30PM. Please be sitting in a quiet room at this time and be ready to converse with The Mind through your microchip as you are doing now.”

Will was confused about this message so he decided to write about it on his computer. He wrote until it was 3:15 PM and then he started to clean out his bedroom so he could talk with The Mind there. This took him until 3:45 PM and he sat reading until it was 4:00 PM.

He heard a weird blip noise in his mind and then he heard a robotic voice say, “William, have we successfully connected?”

He was stunned and it took him a minute to gather back his thoughts. “Yes, I think so.”

“Good, good,” came the robotic voice, “Are you aware that yesterday you made an unpredicted movement?”

Will was stunned once again, but managed to say, “N-no I wasn’t.”

“Well you did when you decided to run to Jack’s house. This is the first time that there has been an unpredicted movement, as I’m sure you know.”

Now able to properly speak, Will asked, “What are you going to do to me now?”

“Well we can’t have you running around telling everyone how you did it,” The Mind responded. “You have 2 options: stay in house arrest for the rest of your life or have a life sentence in prison”

Will, gaining confidence, defiantly scoffed, “Humans are beings of chaos, they get impulses and follow them. I’m surprised that no one’s done something unpredicted before. You’ll never be able to control the human race, at least not by predicting what they will do. The Mind is a farce!” He tore the microchip out from behind his left ear and smashed it against the ground.

He quickly wrote up a summary of what The Mind was trying to do and sent it to everyone he knew. Then the people he knew did the same, until everyone in Will’s Cube knew of this. They all smashed their chips and became an independent society, a rebel society.

The Mind couldn’t do anything about it either; they had never predicted this.