Krishna kumar Mani: SFS2: Science Fiction Short Stories

Year: 2600

I watched the video I had prepared. My image and voice came out from the screen. What follows is a transcription of the video.

“Today is the fifth world republic day. Today there is only one government. Before there were over three hundred countries on the earth. But after an alien attack most of the countries were destroyed. The people who were still alive were rescued and transported here. Later the government announced that they had won the war against the aliens. And after that we have had no more wars. The lack of population has put us all under one single government instead of multiple ones. Once this happened the military was dismissed and soldiers moved into different government jobs. Now the main job is agriculture. We don’t fish anymore since the chance of radiation poisoning is too high. On world republic day we remember all the people who died. This is the only place that was not attacked by the aliens. This place used to be called….”

The country’s name was censored but that was the only thing that had been censored. I relaxed because the video was approved for broadcast. Nowadays there’s only one television channel and its run by the government. It’s called “Earth Now.” I work as a program developer for them and was assigned to prepare the video for the fifth anniversary of the Earth’s government. Getting approval for the program and for the advertisements has been incredibly tough. The video must go through several approval processes before it can be broadcast.

I submitted the video ten days ago. Based on the comments I have to modify the program and then I am allowed to broadcast it. Some of my programs in the past were rejected since they had contained sensitive content. Since there are so many people from various former countries living here, the government doesn’t want to acknowledge any diversity. You can’t speak about former countries, a person’s color, and race or even mention different languages. There is only one official language here and that’s English.

I’ve already submitted another program for approval after this one. It’s about the mystery of some people who were killed by UFOs in the last six month. There’s no solid evidence backing this up but eyewitnesses claim that it’s true. I did research about it and found that there was a pattern for whom the UFOs were targeting, but the station is still reviewing my program.

I left the television station and headed home. There’s no private manufacturing of cars any more. All the cars belong to the government and you must rent them. They’re dual powered meaning they run on solar energy and electricity when the sun’s not out.

I sat in my bedroom thinking about my past life. I used to live with my wife and two kids in my own country. That was during the attack. I had come here for a conference otherwise I would have lost my life along with them. Sometimes I sit and think about why I’m still alive. Ninety percent of the world died. What right do I have to still be alive? I often look at my family’s photo and cry as I am doing now. Suddenly the power went out. Darkness took over the house and I heard a loud bang before I lost consciousness.

I woke up, or was I still unconscious? It’s so dark I can’t tell. I didn’t feel any pain so I figured I was still alive. I stood up and moved step by step. A bright light shocked the room. I closed my eyes and opened them after a long moment. A person stood in front of me.

“Hi, Michael. Relax. You are safe,” he said.

I had forgotten that my name was Michael.

“Where am I?” I asked him.

“Yes, sorry about that,” he said with a smile. “We shot you with a tranquilizer gun. It was to save you.”

I was in the media so I understood what had happened. He had kidnapped me. I have no idea why he was telling me that he had saved me but I had to go along with it. I had to wait until my chance to escape came up. I saw that there were a few other people around in the room as well.

“Do you think I could get a drink of water? And who are you guys anyways?” I asked.

“I will tell you everything. Please follow us.”

I followed them. I believed it was a place far underground. It might have been an old gold mine. Gold was worthless now so the mine had been long abandoned. They seemed to be some sort of anti-government force. We entered into a conference room and one of them handed me a glass of water.

“What time is?” I asked.

“Eleven in the morning, you can see it on the television.”

I realized I had been held captive for fourteen hours. I looked at the news scrolling on the television. It showed that a reporter named Michael had died in a fire at his house. I was surprised and looked at them.

“We knew that the government was planning to kill you so we rescued you before they could do it.”

I couldn’t believe that. They had to be lying to me.

“So why did the government have to kill me?” I asked.

“Your last report was about the UFOs. You found the patterns about who was attacked by a UFO and could predict who would be next.”

Could that really be the case, I wondered.

“As per your video, the people who died by a UFO were former chief army officers, correct? We are also former army officers in this group.”

“But how do you know what was in my video? It was never broadcast to anyone.”

“The government is killing off the chief officers one by one. It hasn’t been UFO attacks at all. No one knows that they are even former army officers because we all were assigned to different government jobs now.”

“I don’t understand though. Why would the government try to kill me? I’m not an army officer.”

“Because of your video about the former army officers. If they program was broadcast, the government would face a big problem. They wouldn’t approve the program and they knew how much you knew so they decided that they needed to kill you. We need you to go back to your television station and broadcast the video at six tonight. Everyone will be listening to the news. Tell them that you’re still alive and that it’s been authorized. Your video is the game changer that we need.”

“It… would be possible. But the government would punish me afterwards. I’m certain of that,” I said, afraid for my life.

“The government already tried to kill you. Once they know you’re alive they will kill you anyways. This video is your only chance at staying alive. If they kill you after it will be a problem for them.”

”Why did the government kill the army officers though?”

“The government is the one with that question. Do you think you can broadcast the video for us?”

“If they rejected my video that means that it will have been deleted from my computer as well.”

“Don’t worry about that. We have a copy of your video that you can play,” responded the army officer.

“But how? How is that possible?” I asked.

“The same way we know about the video. We will give it to you and you need to broadcast it at six pm, alright?”

They gave me a memory card, two officers blindfolded me and they dropped me near the TV station. They told me to not take any unnecessary risks and to broadcast it directly upon getting into the station. Everyone in the station was surprised to see me. Management had already disabled my biometric access so I had to enter the building with a visitor’s pass after I explained to the channel authority that I was not at my home during the fire and the news had been incorrect.