DO NOT PRESS!

As they descended, Maggie stared blankly at the live video feed shining forth from the closed elevator doors, her permanent, slightly befuddled smile fixed firmly on her face. The feed showed The Button, gleaming under bright lights in it's carefully guarded lair.

DO NOT PRESS! Seriously. This button will totes for realsies end the whole entire world!

Maggie thought that the person who'd written the warning was trying too hard to convince everyone that it was a real danger. But, at the same time, it was exactly the sort of thing that the Old Government would have written, mad, control-hungry maniacs that they were.

Maggie thought that the New Government was just the Old Government with different hairstyles. But, as always, she kept her thoughts carefully hidden behind her well-practiced smile.

Maybe it was a generational thing. Maybe she, as she neared her seventieth birthday, just didn't understand the current communication trends.

"And as you can see, viewing numbers are increasing with each minute that passes! They're all excited to see you!"

The tour guide's voice grated against Maggie's nerves. A middle-aged, falsely positive frump who clearly thought that her role in the Department for Button Protection was the most important job anyone could ever have.

Maggie thought that everyone who worked for the Department deserved the worst death imaginable.

But, after a brief pause to simulate processing difficulties, Maggie simply smiled at the guide and bobbed her head in assent.

"Who are you, then?" the elevator's only other passenger demanded, shoving five wrinkled digits in Maggie's face as if an offer to shake hands overrode the rudeness in his tone.

Pause. Smile. Grab the hand enthusiastically. Shake. Smile. Let go. Take the note out of her pocket. Hand it over.

It was like a dance, one Maggie had performed many, many times.

The man snatched the note from her and read it critically. Like most people who earned the title of Model Citizen, he was old, older even than Maggie, skinny and slightly stooped, his full head of silver hair framing a lined, sour face.

"What's this?" he barked as he glared at her note. "'I don't speak.' Nonsense!"

"Mr. Richardson, Ms. Hernandez has met all the requirements needed to achieve Model Citizen status," cooed the tour guide. "So we shall welcome her, even if her behavior is a little. . .odd."

Now they were both staring at her, only the tour guide bothering to disguise the suspicion in her gaze. Maggie just smiled and nodded and smiled some more until they looked away.

Richardson didn't return her laminated note. She decided to let him keep it.

She was hardly likely to need it again, after all.

I don't speak.

When she was younger, the note had been longer, more detailed, more revealing. It had tried to give reasons. As she aged, she found that she no longer cared what people thought. I don't speak. They could make up their own reasons why.

She returned to staring at the elevator doors, displaying the unmoving image of The Button. It was far better than looking at the walls. Out of the corner of her eyes, she could just make out a targeted ad for the toothpaste she already bought, and there was a strange purple glow from above that made her think it was showing an ad for that life insurance company with the exorbitant prices and poor taste in logo design.

She ignored them both. Ignoring ads was a skill you had to develop in a world where every wall screamed propaganda and buy, but, buy! Where every move you made was noted and added to The Algorithm for your future judgement.

Where every word you spoke was recorded, forever, and used in whatever way the new Government chose. The only privacy you had was what you could construct inside your own head, and who knew how long even that freedom would last.

So, Maggie did not speak. Richardson was right about one thing--it wasn't the behavior of a Model Citizen. Failing to fully participate in the Algorithm was practically treason.

It had taken decades of work to get to where she was now.

To start with, she'd had to convince everyone that her silence wasn't a protest, but rather the result of the extreme trauma she'd experienced in her late teens. She'd gone to therapist after therapist until she'd amassed a pile of paperwork to that effect that could have covered half the world.

And it had been traumatic. Seeing your father shot in front of you during what was a peaceful protest before the police turned up was enough to frighten the voice out of anyone.

Of course, all the paperwork read Involuntary Exposure to Dissident Tactics at a Young Age as the reason for her speechlessness, but it served its purpose.

Eventually, people had accepted that she was 'just' damaged.

Then came the problem of the stigma attached to her via her father. It wasn't enough that Maggie had renounced her father's actions. It wasn't enough that she has forsaken his last name for a government issued one. It wasn't enough that she not only avoided dissident protests of any kind but also attended anti-protest rallies at every chance she got. She also had to work for the Department of Button Protection, showing a pseudo-religious fervor for her work as a data miner that surpassed that of her peers.

For forty years.

Like the tour guide, like Richardson, she truly deserved to die the worst death imaginable.

She had often worried in the depths of the darkest nights, or when she flagged some poor soul's shopping habits for further investigation, that she might, at some level, have started to really believe in what she was doing, that the façade was who she really was.

Well, she would soon have the chance to test her resolve.

"It has been months since we last had a new Model Citizen pay us a visit!" trilled the tour guide, the tiny hint of bitterness in her voice evidence that she herself had not yet achieved the coveted position. "And then, suddenly, two in one day!"

Nod. Smile.

Yes, it was awful bad luck that, the moment Maggie had completed her required forty years of complete, uninterrupted service to the Department, some other moron had reached the same milestone.

"Almost there!" the tour guide's brittle voice trilled into the silence. Maggie smiled widely and encouragingly at the younger woman in what she hoped was a warm way. She glanced at Richardson, wondering (and not for the first time) why angry old men could be as sullen and silent as they liked without having a therapist sign off on it first.

"Here we are!" Eleven long minutes later, they had finally arrived at their destination, and the relief in the tour guide's voice was palpable.

Maggie stepped calmly out of the elevator.

Even here, miles and miles under the ground, the walls shone with ever present targeted advertising and propaganda. Maggie smiled at the nearest wall, some spiel about the glorious achievements of the new Government. She gave the wall a little wave.

"A bit thick, that one," said Richardson, jabbing a thumb in Maggie's direction.

So Maggie waved at him too. There was nothing quite as good at making an angry man angrier than refusing to be insulted by them.

"This way, please!" trilled the tour guide. Maggie carefully adjusted her walking stick and began her slow hobble in the only direction available to her--straight ahead. Richardson immediately sped up to overtake Maggie and the tour guide, as if there were a prize for getting there first.

The Button was kept deep beneath the ground where it couldn't be accessed by terrorists, or teachers who wanted to be treated as human, or whoever the most recent bad guys were. Only Model Citizens were permitted to view it. In fact, it was something of a rite of passage--if you were able to toe the line for long enough, then you got to see The Button. It was a gesture of great trust, they were taught, extended to only the most devoted citizens.

Maggie thought that it was just a show, like everything else, a carrot dangled in the faces of the masses. See? If you're good you too can achieve the highest honor!

They neared a large set of steel doors, and Maggie's heartbeat quickened.

Like everyone, she had a rough idea of what the Button Room looked like, but seeing it in person could change everything.

She knew she was walking faster, but that was alright--the Algorithm would register it as eagerness to see The Button rather than anything insidious.

Probably.

As the doors slid open, the tour guide disappeared through a smaller door to the left of the main entrance. Maggie stepped through into the bright, almost blinding light that filled the Button Room. A few seconds alter, the tour guides voice blared out over a PA system.

"I, of course, am unable to join you in the actual enclosure." There was that note of bitterness again. "But please, enjoy your time with The Button!"

The tour guide kept speaking, but Maggie blocked her words out. They weren't aimed at her, anyway--they were for the viewers, a history lesson about The Button and the evils that lead to its existence and why the New Government was so wonderful for never, ever even thinking about pressing it.

There it was. In the middle of the room on pedestal was The Button, an enormous red dome that pulsated angrily, the well-known warning flashing from its smooth surface.

It was only decades of practice that allowed Maggie to keep her shoulders from slumping in despair.

Her worst fear was a reality.

The Button wasn't real.

If it was a real threat, there would have been more than a rope cordoning it off from the visitors. If it was a real threat, there would have been glass, guards, lasers, every possible security measure one could dream of. If it was a real threat, it wouldn't have been close enough for Maggie to press with her walking stick.

If it were a real threat, Maggie would never have been allowed in the room in the first place.

It was all so obvious now that she could see it with her own eyes.

For a long time, death had been one of the few freedoms left to humanity, and then they'd taken even that, controlling who died and when, so even your last moments were not your own.

Pressing The Button had seemed like the only way. But it wouldn't free the world. It wouldn't avenge her father. It was just another performance, another sparkling distraction to keep the people in check.

Her eyes glazed over as she stared unseeingly at The Button.

Her whole life had been for nothing.

Slowly, the tour guide's words began to filter through her daze.

". . .the great and wonderful decision to keep The Button safely locked away forever!" she was saying. "For the viewers who just joined us, I'll do a brief recap--today we are celebrating the ascension of two Model Citizen who, through hard work and dedication, have. . ."

But Maggie had stopped listening again.

Viewers.

She glanced at the counter embedded in the far wall, the digital monstrosity that kept a running tally of how many people were viewing the live feed at any given moment.

Billions.

Her father's voice echoed through her head, still as strong and powerful as it had been all those years ago.

There is nothing as dangerous to a cause as true, steadfast believers finding out that it's all a lie.

Slowly, a smile spread across Maggie's lips, replacing the false one that was always there.

It didn't matter. The Button might end the world, or it might not, but it didn't matter because either way, Maggie would win.

Either the world would end, or everyone would see that it hadn't.

Without the threat of The Button, the New Government would have nothing.

Before she could change her mind, before anyone could stop her, Maggie raised her walking stick and brought it down on The Button.

And the world ended.

One way or another.