I have become suspicious of everyone. It is not something I particularly wanted, but it has become this way. I’m an inventor, you see, and I have invented a machine that everybody wants, especially corrupt, paranoid governments and dictators. They all know about it, and all want what I’ve got.
Even normal people want it, from teenagers to the elderly. It can make me rich if I knew how to market it properly. If I knew what I was doing, but I don’t, and these governments are going to steal it.
I have locked myself in my detached house on the outskirts of Chester, and through many vigils at my upstairs bedroom window, where I am now, I have seen sleek black, tinted windowed cars drive slowly past. I think they’re recceing the place for their assault here to steal it.
Who they are I have no idea. Russians, Argentinians, or my own British. None of them would surprise me. They all want it for themselves, to perpetuate the paranoia they all have of other countries, and their population.
The mistrust governments have of each other will be heightened by this, and will further enhance the portrayal of a media-driven world which purports to convey their ‘facts’ such as we’re all going to be burned to a cinder by global warming in a matter of hours. Those terrorists have planted bombs everywhere, and you’re going to be mugged and assaulted as soon as you step out of your front door.
The newspapers are full of gloom, full of misery, and it beats me why people pay money to read them. My paranoia, however, is real and justified. You see, my machine wasn’t just invented by me. My friend helped me, but now he’s gone. He went straight to the top to tell them of the invention. He thinks he can get rich from it, and he may well do, but my reservations are that he’s dead, as I will be soon, and the invention sneaked away to be used covertly by a satellite.
There you go, see, I knew it. Through my net curtains, I see two tinted windowed cars pull up. Obviously, they’ve driven past once too often and now it’s time for them to stop. Oh no, look at this. Three police vans have also pulled up. There’s no need for the riot squad, unless it’s a cover-up, which I can see it as being.
They all look the same as they vacate the vehicles, togged up like robots with their helmets, batons, and boots. I think it’s to show the rest of the neighbourhood, and any passers-by who try and sneakily film it on their mobile phones that it’s a drugs bust.
It happens all the time all over the country, but each of these will have been paid off, paid for their silence. It doesn’t surprise me at all. In fact, it’s pretty much exactly what I expected. Ironic really that governments are so fearful of being overthrown, or invaded, that society and I, well I suppose I’m a member of it, are all paranoid together in some version of it.
There’s one of them with a battering ram, and they’re approaching my front gate. Oh well, that’s it then. I turn and walk across to the machine, which we named ‘Spyder’, and is basically a chair, a helmet fitted with probes, and a computer monitor. That’s it. A person sits down, puts on the helmet, and their thoughts come onto the screen.
It’s a mind-reading machine.
It can easily be made into a satellite, so our minds can be read, and seen without us even knowing it. The last bastion of privacy a person has is now going to be blown wide open and exposed, and exposed worldwide, and it’s the British police that I can now hear battering my front door down. I bought several door locks and chains so that will mean it will take slightly longer for them to get up here. There’s nothing else in this room. It’s where it was built.
I sit on the chair, and pick up a small digital camera from the small table upon which rests the monitor. I hear the door crash open. Heavy footsteps rumble around down there, and start up the stairs. See, I’m quite okay with machines, electronics, and technology basically, so I converted the camera into a remote device that means when I press the button, it will detonate all the explosives I have set up around the house.
The bedroom door is kicked open, but I cannot see them coming in because I am sat facing the window, and the door is south-easterly behind me, but it doesn’t matter. I suddenly realise that my friend has the notes, has all the information on how to make the machine, but they’re going to want a fully working one, and to stop their ‘enemies’ from getting it.
Well, no-one will get this. I cannot live in a world where my thoughts are read, where news and press shove misery down your throat every day. I often wonder why, why are we bombarded with it? Or maybe it’s not as bad as it seems. Maybe it’s just me. I know I’m paranoid, but not anymore. I push the button, and all seventeen bombs throughout the house explode at once. Then I feel nothing.
