What I understood from it left me stunned. It turned out that… the keyscopian lenses were really cameras. The Tecô-Deli-Kpter agents could see through the eyes of the Ô-plugs. The mouth ôSes recorded all conversations, including those that happened outside of the Ô’Key. I took another fiber between my fingers and caressed it to pull out its sense. Hold on… Key-Deli-Ô-Scope was going to update its equipment soon. The sound ôSes would be replaced by ear and mouth implants, the lenses by chips grafted onto the optic nerve and the daily-S by cerebral implants. In the future, the Ô-plugs would move around in the different zones of the Ô’Key… by thinking. I learned that this new equipment would allow for the sending of suggestions directly to the neural mass, in order to influence users in their purchases or work. Advertisements would secrete addictive substances. I understood that this update was going to bring about a change in spying methods: the Tecô-Deli-Kpter could thus spy on Ô-plugs right up to their thoughts. Wave of panic. I continued my investigation. My voice a low rumble, I said: « Chemical industry. » A sole pocket opened up and extended to within arm’s reach. Intrigued, I pulled at the glowing red fiber. Cold sweat. A new program was going to be put in place. Within ten years. The nanoparticles added to food would be replaced by nanocapsules. The transnational extropian governance had given the green light to the chemical industry, for it to put their substances in these capsules, invisible to the naked eye. The same substances that were currently being tested on the safeverseens. Except that the population would not have diffusers! The goal was two-fold: not only would these chemical products resolve the problems of overpopulation, by skimming off a certain number of individuals, but they would also generate great profits for the pharmaceutical industry. The entire population would develop illnesses and be required to medicate itself to survive. The profits of the pharmaceutical industry would be passed on to the chemical industry and to the security sector, in a closed loop. They could thus finance the development of new chemical agents and other surveillance equipment. Tremors. Contamination. Massacres. Profit. It’s a genocide, a genocide… in a new form! I was going to open a new pocket, when I heard an alarm go off. I disconnected.
When I came to, the room was empty. There was no one. Yannos and Ezil had disappeared. No lasers. No one. I cried out, tears in my eyes. Nothing. Not knowing what to do, I left the room. I walked in the rain, beset by a deep sense of helplessness. « Oh no… » In front of me. Five humanoids. Kpter agents. They moved in iron armor. Exoskeletons. Three drones rotated around me, inspecting me from head to tow. One of the men cried out: « Aksel, Key-Secure-Ô-Log, alveolus B451, independent Key-Avatarist. You are under arrest. » He continued in a monotone voice: « Come with us. Do not resist. All your movements and words will be recorded and can be used against you. Cooperate or we will use force. » One of the men rolled his exoskeleton up to me and pricked me with a syringe. Fog. Blackout.
When I woke up, I found myself in a bed in a small, white room. I was going to get up when I noticed that I was chained to the bed. I cried out. I felt a rage: had the safeverseens betrayed me? Why had they allowed me to be captured? A woman entered the room. She was dressed in white, her hair pulled back into a chignon. I asked why I was in this room. She said, « Psychotic decompensation. You had a paranoid crisis, but we’re here to make you better, Aksel. Welcome to New View Hospital. » A hospital? I was in a psychiatric hospital? Good god, I had no reason to be there! The woman informed me that it was dinnertime. And after that, I would have permission to have a Key-Deli-Ô-Scopic therapy session. I cursed. She undid me and took me to the canteen. Thinking of what I had discovered about the chemical industry, and nanoparticles, I refused to eat. They gave me an injection and took me to the room where the therapy session was to be held. They sat me down in an armchair and put on my keyscopian lenses, the daily-S and the ôSes.
I discovered the therapy program with horror. It involved a three-hour-long film that repeated banalities about mental health, the benefits of the extropian society and the good fortune we had to be treated. After this I had the right to do what I wanted on the Key-Deli-Ô-Scope, which was obviously limited to a few zones. Then I returned to bed. The days passed. Wake up. Injection. Meal. Therapy session. Injection. Meal. Sleep. My belief in having been part of the safeverseens gradually went away. I even began to think that what I had discovered had really been part of a psychiatric illness. When I took out Harris’s letter, the doctors told me that I had written it myself, and that this type of language was typical of schizophrenics. It wasn’t my writing, but this claim made me doubt myself. I felt like I was standing in front of an abyss that was preying on my memories, swallowing them up and spitting them back out in the form of psychosanitary sermons. It didn’t take long for me to become as passive as the rest of the partients. Those therapy sessions… ah! A real brainwash.
After one particular session, I noticed a round woman with disheveled gray hair in the corner of the room. She had a fire in her eyes that I didn’t see in the other patients. She intrigued me. I waved. Her eyes responded with a smile. After talking about one thing or another, she asked me what I had experienced during my decompensation. Suddenly suspicious, I refused to respond. She insisted. I muttered that I had discovered compromising things, and that I had helped the techno-resisters called the safeverseens. « The safeverseens? » she exclaimed, her eyes wide. « The safeverseens, you heard right. Why? » « What… what is your name? » « Aksel, and you? » She said nothing. « Go on, what’s your name? » « My name is… Diane. » Stupor. Shock. The recordings of my memory crashed down, lightbulbs turned on, sensations reactivated. « D-I-A-N-E? I mean… the Diane? It’s not possible, it’s not possible, you can’t be Diane, she disappeared, she disappeared, no one knows where she is. She’s dead. » « I am Diane. » I looked at her face. She seemed so old, so eroded. Never would I have imagined her like this. Diane seemed as surprised as I was.