Eyes Behind the Eyes

The glow of the monitors bathed the small security office in a pale blue light. rows and rows of screens, each displaying a different camera feed from within the labyrinth of China Central Television. I sat motionless in my chair, eyes darting from screen to screen, hunting for any sign of disturbance. This was my duty - to watch and observe, making sure all remained in perfect order.

At CCTV, they called us the Eyes of the Party. We were the invisible watchers, the silent sentinels seeing all from the dark. To most, our presence went unnoticed. But we saw everything. And as long as we were watching, keeping vigilant watch, China would remain harmonious, orderly, and under control.

Tonight had been quiet, as most nights were. The occasional journalist working late, the janitors making their subtle rounds. But aside from the usual hum of the third shift, all was still. My coffee had long gone cold. I debated brewing a fresh pot, knowing the caffeine would make it hard to sleep when I got off in the morning. But the tedium of the job made it hard to stay alert, so I pushed myself up and headed for the breakroom.

The hallways were empty, lit only by the periodic emergency light. Each of my steps echoed in the silence. I wondered, as I often did on these late nights, if perhaps I was the only one left in the building. Surely someone else must still be here, but it felt as though I was utterly alone. Just me and the eyes of the cameras tracking my movements.

I returned to my desk with fresh coffee in hand, the bitter liquid helping shake off the claws of drowsiness that pulled at my mind. I settled back into my chair and continued my scan of the monitors. Most remained tranquil. Then my eyes fell on camera 45B, one of the external feeds facing the rear parking garage. The view was obscured by a blur of static, flickering gray and white stripes where a clear image should be. I sat up straighter, now fully alert. Something was wrong.

I radioed the supervisor on duty, reporting the disrupted camera. He instructed me to stay put while he sent the repair team to check it out. I acknowledged, but couldn't take my eyes off the snowy screen. A problem with the camera was exceptionally rare, especially for an external one. They were well protected from the elements. This had to be intentional interference.

The minutes ticked by as I waited for the repair update. The rest of the screens remained quiet, but I was no longer paying them much mind. My focus stayed locked on the hazy gray feed, that blemish of obscured oversight. What was happening just out of sight?

At last my radio crackled. The supervisor's voice informed me the camera could not be repaired tonight. The morning shift would have to complete the work. I should log the outage and continue observation as normal.

My jaw clenched. As normal? Nothing about this was normal. Someone had deliberately blinded that camera, and now we had a dark spot in our vision. But protocol was clear. With no other evidence of a security breach, I was to remain at my post.

Reluctantly, I noted the damaged camera in the log. But I could not brush this off so easily. I continued watching the snowy screen, as if I could force it to reveal its secret through will alone. The longer I gazed at the static, the more a sense of unease grew within me. The system had failed. Somehow we'd been caught unprepared, vulnerable. Anything could be happening just out of frame.

Paranoia crept in. Were there other blind spots I was unaware of? What if this was just the first sign of an unfolding attack? It would be too late by the time anyone detected it. The thought made my chest constrict. No, I could not accept being passive. I had to know what was happening.

I turned to the camera feeds for the parking garage, hoping I might spot something unusual. The screens showed nothing remarkable. Cars parked in orderly rows, concrete pillars standing at attention, the whole scene awash in the cold blue glow of overhead lights. Then I noticed it. Across three different cameras, the same car appeared. A white sedan, parked in the same spot relative to the pillars and other vehicles. I looked to the coordinates - cameras 42A, 47C, and 50B. They all faced the same part of the garage, just from slightly different angles. Yet they all showed the same scene, replicated precisely across the feeds.

Impossible. Unless... Unless those cameras were not live. My fingers shook as I rewound the footage on 47C, looking for any signs of life, any movement at all. But there was none. The car lights did not grow or shrink as vehicles should when pulling in or out. The shadows did not shift across the fixed spaces. No, this was a prerecorded loop. Somehow these camera feeds had been replaced with a simulation.

I tried to radio the supervisor again but got no response. Next I went for the phone, planning to call the men stationed at the garage entrance. But the line was dead. My chest grew tight. I was completely cut off with no way to verify what was happening outside this room.

I jumped to my feet, ready to run to the garage myself, to see firsthand what was going on. But just then the door handle jiggled followed by a loud knock. I froze. Visitors never came here at night. Tentatively I reached for the handle when a voice called out from the other side.

“Open up! This is Supervisor Dawei. My keycard is damaged.”

I hesitated, unsure whether to trust the voice. But the supervisor clearly already had access to the building, so I took a breath and opened the door. Mr. Dawei stepped inside, clutching his keycard in his hand.

“Apologies for the disruption,” he said briskly. “We are testing a new security system, integrating recorded and live footage to keep eyes anywhere at all times. Please resume your monitoring and note any anomalies.”

With that, he turned and exited before I could react. I stood motionless, struggling to process his words. Testing a new system? Why hadn't I been informed? A cold sense of dread filled me as I realized the truth. The glitches I had noted were not glitches at all. Every suspicious sign was planned, part of this “test” I was now part of yet knew nothing about.

I moved back to the screens but found I could no longer give them my full attention. Doubt had taken root in my mind. What if none of this was real? How much had they fabricated for this experiment? And why were they toying with me in this way?

The more I considered it, the more I questioned. I began to see deception in everything around me. The coffee that fueled my late nights - was it truly coffee or some placebo? The hum and flicker of the monitors - could I believe anything they showed me? Even my own reality felt uncertain. I had no memory of agreeing to participate in such a test. All I knew was my routine. My daily habits of this job. Was it possible that none of this was real? That my purpose here was fabricated, falsehoods implanted in my mind to preserve the illusion?

Cold sweat broke across my skin. I could trust nothing and no one. No facts or experiences could be taken at face value. I was trapped in a web of smoke and mirrors with unseen puppet masters controlling every thread. Perhaps I was no more than a character in a script, an actor unknowingly playing a part.

My heart pounded as the room seemed to spin around me. I had to get out of there. I rushed for the door, threw it open, and ran blindly down the empty hall, no idea where I was heading. As I raced by closed doors, I imagined unseen cameras tracking me, my frenzied state surely a source of amusement for those observing this experiment. But I could not stop. I had to find the boundaries of this fabrication. There must be a way out.

At the end of the hallway, I burst through a final door into the cool night air. I froze, fully expecting to hit an invisible wall or find myself suddenly transported back inside. But I remained outside, feet planted on the pavement of an empty lot. Slowly, I turned and looked back at the building I had just fled from. The sign atop the entrance read "Everlight Electronics Factory."

The racing panic within me halted abruptly, displaced by confusion. This was not CCTV. Which meant, I was not a watcher of the watchers. I was...no one. Just a player in someone else's game.

As the adrenaline seeped from my veins, a strange hollowness replaced it. I waited for the surge of existential terror. But it did not come. Instead, a quiet calm settled over me. I had been eager to learn the truth hidden behind the veil. And now I had my answer, though it was not the one I expected.

I sat down on the curb, looking up at the night sky. The moon shone brightly behind thin drifting clouds. Perhaps nothing here was real. Or perhaps reality was not what I thought at all. But in that moment, I felt at peace.

As I gazed up at the stars, the full truth dawned on me. The glitching cameras, the looping footage - it had all been orchestrated. My managers gave me the illusion of constant oversight, of a pivotal role in keeping threats at bay. But in reality, CCTV was a quiet place where little ever happened. They devised this elaborate ruse simply to keep me focused and vigilant in my work.

I had to let slip a wry chuckle at the masterful trickery of it all. That penitentiary panopticon had played the same brainy ruse, keeping their locked-up wards in check through the phantom menace of unsleeping eyes upon them. And I had stumbled into the same crafty trap all these countless nights, held fast in place by my staunch belief in the truth twinkling on those bewitching screens. When in truth, the reels were conjured fakery, illusory movies crafted to hold my gaze. A genius gambit to spur this watcher on without the need for actual watching. They had performed a mesmerist’s illusion to pull wool over my peering eyes, and I, a fool in the funhouse, had fallen fealty to their spell all these years.

At first I felt a flare of anger and resentment. But it soon melted away, displaced by grudging admiration. My supervisors had devised an elegant system to encourage discipline without needing to watch me around the clock. I was at once a prisoner and guard of their imagination.

This fleeting moment of revelation was a gift. For the first time, I saw through the illusion and understood my true place in the machine. The weight of responsibility lifted from my shoulders. Tomorrow I would return to my post, complacent once more. But tonight, beneath the stars, I savored my glimpse behind the curtain. A prisoner sees the walls that confine him. But with perspective, he sees also the brilliance in their design.