ZHUYUAN HE

Chapter I Spike

 

Jin has turned 18. She visits her grandmother on a Sunday afternoon and is excited about her upcoming ceremony. Every year, all the teenagers who turn 18 will have an adult ceremony with the other 18 year-olds on the last day of December. At the ceremony, each person will be officially invited to be part of Spike. They will be assigned a position with a role and serve for two years in the community. 

 

The day of the ceremony finally comes. Jin goes to the ceremony with her best friend Ru in the evening. There are two parts to the ceremony.  During the first two hours, everyone will be assigned to the dinner table according to their future roles. There is a letter on the table for each person and their final roles were put inside. Jin opens the letter and finds herself assigned to the group of JointMind for Children. It is a group that helps families with newborn children to install JointMind when they start to learn about communication. Their job is to visit families every few months to check the progress of each child’s adaptation to JointMind. If the child is unable to communicate with JointMind, they will be sent to the training center for special treatment. JointMind is a device that everyone adopts for brain-to-brain communication. In the second part of the ceremony, everyone needs to take an oath to be faithful to Spike and each person will receive a set of instructions and a new identity card for registration. 

 

Jin was excited to start her new role. She reported to the training center with other new joiners and the senior officer welcomed them and showed them around the training center. The training center has four floors. The first floor is the reception and recent exhibition. The second floor ran a few innovation labs for the JointMind systems. The third floor is dedicated to children’s training. The fourth floor is the office.

 

Jin gets an appointment with a family that lives near the riverside. According to the record, they have a young boy who hasn’t been installed on JointMind. Usually, people get installed at around the age of two, but this family kept changing their addresses in the past few years, so some of the records went missing. Jin drove by herself to the riverside, she knocked on the door and a man opened it. He glimpsed the badge on Jin’s clothes and shut the door immediately after.  Jin waited for a whole afternoon, nobody opened the door. After a few visits, Jin almost gave up, she changed her strategy and took off the suits for the next visit. Luckily, the next time she visited, she spotted a little boy playing by the water at the riverside. She approaches him and greets him with her waving hands. He starts to run back to the house. Jin takes out some candy and her grandma’s cookies to share with him and tries to tell him that she doesn't want to hurt him and just wants to make friends with him. The boy doesn't seem to understand Jin but he takes the candy and cookies. After this visit, Jin comes to the riverside every day to play with the boy and they eventually become friends. Since the boy didn’t have JointMind yet, Jin always wrote on the sand of the river and chats with him in this way and learns that his name is Teng. 

One time, Jin brought Pipi with her. Pipi is the dog raised by Jin’s dad 10 years ago. Teng sees Pipi and is very excited, he asks his name, Jin replies on the sand and Teng is so excited to see Pipi and shouts the words out. Pipi immediately understands the name and runs towards Teng and starts to lick his face. Teng then starts to give instructions to Pipi to sit down and roll, surprisingly Pipi understands all of them and starts to follow accordingly. Jin is shocked and stunned. She has never heard anyone speak before and she never knows she could also communicate with animals in this way and this level of connections. 

 

Jin has won the trust of Teng’s family. One day, they invite her into the house and she notices that there is an audio player. They hand in a headphone to Jin, which is playing the music Smetana: Vltava. Jin listens to the music and this is her first time hearing something that has a beautiful rhythm and tears come out of her eyes. She knows that music is not allowed according to Spikes’ law but she doesn’t understand why they forbid such beautiful things and it seems may not even cause harm to people. She enjoys so much with the family and sometimes watches them act out a play in a book. Jin can understand everything they talk about but she just doesn’t know how to speak the same way as them. She notices that the words they speak feel differently from the ones transmitted through JointMind, it has something unique and special in addition to the meaning of the words. She got a new sense of unfamiliar feeling that she never had before. When she wrote down and asked the boy’s father why it feels different, the father said, “when you speak, your words have emotions. It’s the same with music. It has repetitive patterns that help to connect people on an emotional level. But JointMind only communicates messages.” 

 

After Jin heads back to the training center, she visits one of the labs that is for children who have trouble with JointMind. In this lab, the children who have problems with understanding others and being understood after JointMind is installed will go through a series of comprehension tests that are conducted by the senior Spike officers. The first level is basic questions for receiving orders and requests. A set of objects are placed in front of the children. Once the officers give the instructions of what she wants through JointMind, the children are supposed to get what she thinks in her mind accordingly. If the kid fails at getting the right object, they would be put into category B. If they passed the first level, they will go through the second level and they will be asked to describe what they have seen on a set of pre-given pictures to the officers. There will be a maximum of one minute for each picture. If the officer receives nothing, they will be put into category A. Each group will be sent to a special organization after the tests are completed but she heard that no one has ever come back to the community. Jin’s senior tells her that  “They will be taught in special programs and assigned to jobs after they complete the programs. ” 

 

The deadline finally comes. Jin visits Teng’s family for her last time and she has to get the installation done for Teng today. She hesitated. She knows that she can probably cheat the system by reporting that the address is not found. But she worries that if she didn’t install it, Teng’s future will be ruined and he will always be in lifelong hiding. On the other side, she is concerned that if he didn’t pass the initial test after installation, he will be sent away from his family. When she arrives at Teng’s family house, nobody is there. She walks along the river, and finally finds him in the treehouse. He is painting and singing a song. Jin sits down and looks at him for a while and thinks of how to tell him about the installation plan. She writes to him on the paper: 

“ Teng, have you ever thought about meeting other people?” 

Teng:“ Yes. But I am happy with my family and life right now. I know JointMind is a must if I want to go back to the community. But I don’t need it at this moment. ” 

Jin: “You know your parents will get old one day and you need to find a way to support yourself and your family. It’s better to install the JointMind now otherwise you might miss the best timing for you to adapt to the device. At that point, you would be sent away to special programs and separated from your family.” 

Teng: “How about my parents? Why do Spikes never force them to apply JointMind?” 

Jin: “They did when they were young. I saw the records in the database. But at some points, they left the community and took off the JointMind, then we lost the track of them. The last time we got the record updated is when you were sick and had to be hospitalized. ” 

Teng: “But going back to the community means I cannot sing, listen to music or speak again, right?”

Jin: “Correct, but you will make a lot of new friends, you will get proper education, we all taught with JointMind, it has proven to be twenty times faster than learning through talking alone. Speaking is an outdated and inefficient way of communication. You won’t want to go back. After school, you will be assigned a job with a very decent income, you don’t have to hunt like your parents in the forest for food.” 

Teng: “ There must be a reason that my parents chose to take off JointMind, you also agree that speaking and listening to music makes you feel differently.” 

Jin: “Yes, I agree. But I believe that the benefits of it outweigh the things you need to give up. When you grow up, you will feel lonelier, being part of the group gives you more supports and comfort. It’s always easier to walk the life journey with your peers together than going alone by yourself. ” 

Teng: “I am not sure. I make friends with the trees, rocks, and little animals in the forests, I don’t feel alone at this moment. And you are my friend now, you will always come to visit us right?  ”

 

Jin doesn’t know how to reply, but she smiles at Teng and nods her head. She goes back home and looks down on her report device for the whole night. An old memory comes to her, she remembered that when she was a kid in the school, there was once she went for a leader election. She always excelled in every part of the school works and she thought at least half of the class would vote for her. But in the end, she got only one vote, a vote from herself and not even her best friend voted for her. She cried for the whole afternoon and realized that she might be too indifferent in the ways she does things and too expressive about her real thoughts since she was brought up quite differently by her father. It was the very first time she felt so lonely and helpless in her life. After that election, she has changed so much and learned how to behave in a way that could be liked by others. Luckily, Jin is popular among her group now,  and she feels all the changes she made have paid off. At the last minute of the deadline, she hits the button on the device. She believes that she made the right decision for Teng. 

 

 The next morning, a few cars come and park in front of Teng’s family house. His parents are out hunting. Teng is at home so he gets brought back by Spike to the training center. Jin receives high praise from the senior officer, but she is secretly worried about Teng and hopes he can pass the tests after the installation. 

 

Chapter II Forbidden Forest

 

A week later, after an afternoon tea and cookie session, Jin is playing with Pipi in the grandma’s backyard but Pipi suddenly runs into the forest behind the yard and disappears in a second. Jin’s grandma always told her not to go into the forest since no one in Spike is currently in charge of that forest. Once if she gets lost, it can be dangerous. Pipi has gone for a while and it starts raining, Jin decides to go inside the forest to retrieve Pipi back. It is getting darker and the storm is coming. After searching for a while, the storm is getting stronger, Jin finds a cave and decides to stay inside for a while. She carefully enters the cave in case there are some dangerous animals like bears or snakes inside, but soon she sees some footprints of a dog, she follows the footprint and finds Pipi is lying in the corner at the end of the cave. Jin is happy to find Pipi there and she immediately notices a small notebook hidden between the rocks where Pipi lays down. She opens the notebook, it seems to be someone’s diary. Jin starts to read it: 

 

May 21st, 2130

A company called AlwaysConnect launched their first experiment on humans for brain-to-brain communication, they got big success and created a device called JointMind that allows people to understand each other without speaking the same language.

 

Oct 10th, 2146

Everyone had adopted the JointMind, the world had never been as connected as today. Without the communication barrier, people started to shift their focus from material to spiritual realization. More and more religious and spiritual leaders emerged and shared their ideas and peaceful message across the continents, all wars had stopped. People no longer pursued money and long hours of work, as everything became much more efficient with JointMind and management became flat and had no more hierarchy. Art and culture became the central part of people’s daily lives, musicians, painters, designers, and artists received the most respect in almost every society. However, a secret group named Spikes hacked the JointMind technology and started to interfere with everyone's thoughts. They were formed by the old capitalists and politicians who lost their reputation and status over the years. More and more people are influenced by Spikes, the leader formed his army and started to take control of the world.

 

Dec 14th, 2180

At this point, Spikes had ruled most places, they established a new world where everyone is required to wear the modified version of JointMind all the time. All the information communicated through the device would be monitored. No spoken language or sound-making is allowed, schools no longer provide language or music classes as any sound could be considered as a secret cipher code that is hard to be captured by the monitoring system. Written language is the only thing still allowed to keep everything on the record on occasion but no one knows how to read it out loud. A rebellion group invented a brain virus that was airborne transmitted, people who got contacted with it will no longer understand others with JointMind. A lot of them committed suicide as they lost jobs and trust without the ability to communicate with others, some of them try to escape from the city but most were caught by Spikes and put into a secret place called White Camp.

 

Jan 25th, 2183

No cure for the virus has been found, Spikes decided to move the city underground. Where we are living now is an artificial world with mimic nature created by Spikes. I happened to find an old map and discovered the way out of this place.                                                                                               If you climb inside, you will find the elevator at the end of the tunnel. It will take you to the ground. I saw the beautiful real nature and heard the most beautiful sound for the first time in my life. Believe me, Everything here is a lie. "

 

It looks more like a record for Spike’s history. Jin noticed that the key information has been crossed out in black. There is also a map at the end. When she flipped to the back of the page, it has a line: “The secret is ringing when the head is turning and feet get running” Below the line, there is a sign. It was Jin’s dad’s name! Jin is shocked. Her dad left the family ten years ago without telling her. When she was a small girl, she asked her grandma why her dad left without taking her along, her grandma said her dad went mad and crazy after Jin’s mother’s death, but grandma refused him to take Jin away. Suddenly, Jin feels that she might have made a mistake by sending Teng into the training center. After the rain stops, she runs back to her grandma’s house by following Pipi. On the way back, she bumps into a group of Spikes who were searching for her at the edge of the forest. They make sure she is safe and send her back home. 

 

Chapter III Hide and Seek 

 

The next day, Jin goes to the training center early in the morning at four o’clock and no one is there except the basic security guards. She quickly flips through the list of names for training labs and finds out Teng will receive his test this afternoon. She checks the room number where he stays and puts the key secretly in her pocket. She crawls into the monitor room and turns off the camera. Then she sneaks into Teng’s room. Teng is sleeping quietly. Jin wakes him up and notices that Teng gets tears in his eyes immediately. There is a special tape on his mouth. Jin helps to remove it with a passcode. But when Teng opens his mouth, not a single clear word comes out. His tongue is stiff and he couldn’t speak anymore. JointMind is installed on the back of Teng’s neck already. Teng shows Jin with his gestures about how officers stopped his talking by injecting a fluid that made his tongue no longer movable. Jin feels very regretful and ashamed about what she had done to Teng. She tries to communicate with Teng through JointMind, but Teng doesn’t respond to her messages at all. She calms him down and writes on the paper that he now has to focus on getting the JointMind works this afternoon, otherwise he might be sent away. She teaches him a few tricks but Teng still doesn’t manage to make it works. So Jin comes up with another plan. She runs into the tools room to get the Plug. It is a special device to help to takes out JointMind. Then she goes back to Teng’s room and helps him pulls out his JointMind and replaces it with an unregistered one. After that, Jin replaces hers with Teng’s. She tells Teng to look for her during the test. She will hide outside, show him some hints on the paper through the glass window, and help him answer all the questions. Then Jin goes back to the control room, turns on the camera, returns the device, walks downstairs to her office, pretends nothing has happened. 

 

In the afternoon, Teng is sent to one of the labs and the senior officer starts the comprehension tests for him. Jin follows them quietly and hides behind the door. She can understand the senior officer’s messages across the wall. In their world, no one could hold any secret message once the message is sent out within a certain distance. It became a great advantage. Jin draws on the paper quickly and shows them to Teng. Teng picks up the objects accordingly and passes the first round successfully. But right before the last few questions, one of her seniors walks towards her from the corridor and Jin has to hide the notes and greets him with a smile. After he walks away, she turns her head back and looks through the glass window, Teng has failed the test. The senior officer types something into the system records and then a few other security guards come and bring Teng away. 

 

Jin follows the security guards to a special hidden room in the parking lot. They lock Teng inside with a few other kids. She pretends to be an officer who just walks by and asks the security people when they will send this batch of kids. Security tells her that they will depart at six the next morning.

 

Jin drives back home early today with the excuse of not feeling well. She decides to rescue Teng. She goes to buy some equipment from the store across the street and packs all the necessities she might need together with the notebook left by her dad. She is going to say goodbye to Pipi now. Pipi probably senses that Jin is leaving, he puts his head down on her lap for a long time. The next morning, Jin takes a sick leave but parks her car near the hidden room in the parking lot. A small bus comes exactly at six o’clock and the security guards open the door and bring all the kids onto the bus. There were five kids including Teng. Jin follows the bus with some distance until the bus stops at a train station. 

 

Jin parks her car into the bushes and goes back to the trunk to take out her backpack. Pipi suddenly shows up. He hides at the back of the car all the time! Jin is surprised but she has no choice but to take Pipi with her now, she runs towards the train from the other side. Pipi runs after her but his bell is making a loud noise. Jin stops and takes out Pipi’s bell on the neck and jumps on the train and finds a restroom. She locks the door and hides inside. She waits until the night and opens the door. She leaves Pipi in the restroom and checks carriage by carriage and finally finds Teng and other kids in the fifth carriage, she wakes him up and tells him not to worry or make any noise. Jin’s initial plan was to wait until the train stops at the next station so she can bring Teng out. But when she sees other kids, she decides to figure out where they are going. Jin brings Teng back to the restroom and stays there for the whole night. The next morning, the security guard notices that Teng is missing. They start the search on the train. When they knock on the door of the restroom, Jin pretends to be a passenger and opens the door halfway to show them nobody was inside. Teng hides behind the door with Pipi. 

 

Another night passes. The train finally stops in the late afternoon without any intermediate stop. Jin waits until there is no noise outside, she opens the window and climbs out from the train with a rope with Teng. She takes out the map and compass, she finds herself should be near one of the Spike bases. She hears some noise along the sideways and she runs towards the noise and sees the last kid is just brought into a black car and they drive away in the dark. Jin and Teng walk along the side of the road. After half an hour of walking, they are finally in front of a huge factory-like hexagon building. Jin sets up a camp nearby in the forest and asks Teng to stay there overnight with Pipi. She wants to go inside and checks it out. 

 

She finds her way inside the building, there were a few different operation rooms in the basements. She walks upstairs, and there is an exhibition room with all different kinds of brains stored in some special fluid. On the other side, different generations of JointMind are displayed. She gets a bad feeling that she might know why no kids are coming back to the community. At the end of the hall, a half-transparent curved shaped elevator leads to a platform. Jin goes inside the elevator, but the moment she lands on the platform she is shocked. There were hundreds of kids locked on the chairs and each one of them had a sophisticated device put on their head. They look all asleep with their eyes closed. Tubes running through their bodies seems to provide the necessary nutrition to keep them barely alive. Jin runs out of the room with her heart beating fast. She soon realizes that Spikes are probably doing experiments with kids to improve the functions of JointMinds. On her way out, she overhears two people are having some communication in one of the rooms. They are discussing the virus and the progress of overcoming it. They use these children who are unable to use JointMind as samples to find the cure for the virus. “Dad was right. There was a virus and Spike must be planning to come back to the ground!” Jin carefully makes her way out of the building and runs back to her small camp in the forest. She couldn’t sleep with all the tears in her eyes. Everything here is a lie. She has to find her way out of this place. 

 

Chapter IV The Outside 

 

Jin packs everything up the next morning before sunrise and destroys her own and Teng’s JointMind in case people could track her down. She opens the notebook and reads it again, and puts her hand in the bag to reach the flashlight, Pipi’s bell suddenly falls out. “The secret is ringing when the head is turning and feet get running.” The last line comes across Jin’s mind. “It must be the bell!” When Pipi was running towards the train before, it made a huge noise. Jin looks at the bell carefully and notices that there is a small paper roll stuck in between the hollow part. She uses a tweezer to pick it out carefully and opens it open up. The missing line in the notebook shows up: “abandoned Factory 11, door 45. There is a small tunnel behind the wall of server stack 21.” Jin is very excited about what she just found. She decides to follow the map her dad left in the notebook. 

 

After a week of searching and hiding from the check from Spike, they finally arrive at Factory 11 with Teng and Pipi. They find Door 45 and the small tunnel behind the wall of server stack 21. They climb inside and operates the elevator together. The elevator moves up slowly and finally stops at a point after around thirty minutes. At the moment the elevator is open, Jin steps out and enters into a windy snow land with nothing clear at sight. They walk against the wind for a while without warm clothes and feel hopeless. 

 

All of a sudden, Jin sees some lights and hears some music from a far distance. They start to run towards where the light and sound come from. When they get closer, they notice that there is a small checkpoint where a young man is checking around a weapon in hand. He sees them from a distance as well and has the weapon ready and points at them. Jin raises her hands with notebooks and approaches slowly. She throws the notebook towards him. The young man carefully bends down and picks up the notebook on the ground. He reads for a few minutes and finds Jin’s dad’s signature at the back. He puts down the weapon and asks them to follow him. 

 

The young man brings them into the building and Jin saw a familiar face there. It is Jin’s dad! Pipi also recognizes his old friend and runs towards him. He gives both Jin and Teng a big hug. Then he brings them to the healthcare center and the doctor gives a dose of medicine to each of them. Slowly Teng feels his tongue become softer and he can speak again. At night, they sit around the fire in the camp and start to talk about what they have experienced. Jin tells them about the plan she overheard from Spike, everyone goes silent. Jin’s dad told her that Spikes has sent out a small team to the ground a week ago to check the outside condition. He detected them and informed everyone here. They have a feeling that a war would be inevitable soon.