Alternate reality

Tatyana Sotikova

(Based on media gossip)

Version 1

Waking up early in the morning and looking out of the window, Yana sighed heavily: what she had seen in the dream really remained a terrible and grim reality. The streets were still empty, with only a few straggling patrol officers checking documents of the passers who were walking their dogs. They pressed their heads into their shoulders and bowed ingratiatingly, saying, “I am Sorry, I didn't mean to. But it's not the dog's fault that it needs to go to the toilet." And they shuddered when they saw that the police were not very ceremonious, accompanying their words by waving their batons. It was impossible to see their facial expressions, since the government had made it mandatory to wear masks more than a year ago. However, the bent shoulders and lowered heads spoke better than words.
An ambulance drove down the street. Yana had already learned to distinguish them: this one had a dark blue stripe. It is a hearse car. So someone had died again. These cars came to their area several times a day. People are used to it, but how can you get used to death?
Most of them did not even take their relatives ' ashes from the crematorium. It costed too much money and there were none. Those who were still alive were buying products in the nearest stores using special cards given by government. Each family had the right to do this once a week. They bought cereals, salt, potatoes… Many have forgotten the taste of the butter and the meat. Almost all businesses were closed. There was no work. What could have been sold is already sold… But there were fewer and fewer people willing to buy.
She wondered; when did it all start? In the winter? When they started vaccinating people with the miracle vaccine? No, it does not look like that. Then everything was already decided: a covered car with armed guards drove up to each house. Young healthy people proceeded according to house-to-house. If the residents did not open the door, they kicked it until it was broken. People were read out an order for universal vaccination, like a sentence, and then a doctor came forward with a syringe in his hands. Did they have the right to choose?
There was only one choice: which needle to choose for the injection. If the condemned person chose a thin needle, then after six months or a year, he would simply die. The vaccine contained a slow-acting poison. But they didn't know about it then. No one knew.
What about a thick needle? Like the one for drawing blood for analysis from a vein? Strange choice. Sometimes they actually made the choice by themselves, and sometimes there were just no other needles left… Then doctors instead of the vaccine they injected them with the normal saline solution along with a nano-chip. Small, smaller than a millet seed… this, as it turned out, was even worse. You were allowed to live, but your will was completely taken away. Outwardly, you remained human, but only outwardly, gradually turning into a bio-robot. Sometimes music would start playing in head. It was very quiet, but Intrusive, and was usually heard at night. Sleep has also become a luxury. It was no longer possible to say something against the government - speech receptors were immediately blocked. It was impossible to talk loudly, to laugh. Sleep and food and even sex were allowed on schedule only.
People got the right to work and move within the city. But ... the job itself was not guaranteed.
The woman sighed and moved away from the window. Her thoughts flowed in another direction. She still does not know if she was lucky or not. On the eve of the ill-fated day when the line for vaccination reached their house, she dropped her phone. When she picked it up, it showed an error, invoking her to enter her coordinates. Angry, she pointed to the nearest cemetery. She was surprised when the electronic monster asked for the exact line and number of the grave! Clenching her teeth, she answered this question as well, entering the family burial data for accuracy. Almost immediately, an inscription appeared: "Information received. We're so sorry".
To avoid troubles, she no longer tried to turn on the phone. Instead, she took out the sim-card and tossed it into the desk drawer. For two days, she was in a strange state of unconsciousness. Even the motion sensors installed in the apartment never responded to her. She didn't want to eat or drink. She was just lying there.  And that's what saved her life. She's dead! For everyone: for security and tracking systems, for the few acquaintances who were still alive. Yana was not afraid that someone would try to occupy her apartment. What for? After all, almost all houses were empty. Strange, but only six months have passed since people disappeared from those houses, and the walls have already begun to crack.
She smiled bitterly: such society, such homes. Was t the case before? They were meant to stand for the ages! there are still palaces and manors that are more than three hundred years old. However, people still live in them… More precisely, non-humans. The ones who planned this completely inhuman game.
The woman went to the bookshelf. Her eyes were drawn to the famous Dan Brown novel Inferno. She had read it many times before. Here it is, the answer to the question of how to reduce the population of the planet! Much more humane! But the timing was tight, and the world government went the other way…However… Their position is understandable. Everything in this world is for sale and purchase. Everyone wants to live. But not everyone can walk over corpses. In the literal sense of the word.
Sighing again, she turned on the computer. No Internet! Isolated system. She had enough data to work with, the data that she had accumulated before, when she was still officially alive.
She sighed heavily: she continued to work, being dead to everyone. A  paradox? May be. She didn't want to believe that there were no people left who could still think and want to change something. Those who, like her, had been left without the vaccine or the chip, even by mistake. It was this thought that inspired the woman, forcing her to make more and more programs. How to break out and get around the cameras installed on every corner? She had already thought about that for a long time. The knowledge that she had acquired when she was young, when she roamed the deep underground of her hometown with divers, was as if carved in stone. She remembered the emergency food and equipment stowed in metal boxes.  At that time they made these boxes as a joke... There's no one to joke about it now. Her friends were destroyed first. They were not even given the right to choose…
A light buzzer sounded, and the results of the task assigned to the machine appeared on the monitor. It seems that the Swedes were not mistaken in their forecasts: it was only a matter of months before the tectonic platform shifts. What is next? Her fingers moved quickly over the keyboard, setting a new search goal. Yana entered the words: Siberia, clearing, Baikal… A row of files where these words were used flashed up in front of her. As new concepts were introduced, there were fewer folders left…
All right. Here it is: "as a result of the movement of the tectonic platform, due to rapid melting of glaciers, the poles of the planet will shift, and a significant part of the land will be flooded…»
Yana covered her eyes, remembering what was written next.
France, which Yana loved so much, and where she had vacationed many times, will almost all go under the water. Paris will become an island city with a large number of channels. Two-thirds of Spain will also disappear from the face of the Earth. Italy, Greece, Bulgaria will no longer exist... the Black sea will turn into a part of the ocean, merging together with the Azov, Caspian and Mediterranean seas… A new sea – Baikal-will appear on the geographical map. And the life will be preserved around it. New society… New order… Vast territories of Russia, one of the few remaining countries in the world… But ... without the Russian population. Too freedom-loving and independent!
Despite the fact that the history of Russia was rewritten with enviable constancy, it still had such bright events as the Salt and Streletsky riots (*), the revolts of Stepan Razin and Emelyan Pugachev (*), the cholera and potato riots (*)… Just some sixty years without slave obedience was enough to form a Russian man who began to live with proudly raised head.
Now what? Having made a turn, the story returned to its origins… Slavery again. But even more terrible and hopeless – digital slavery.
That is exactly what the science fiction writers predicted in their novels: a society without people, or almost without people… A million enjoying life, trying to settle in Siberia, several million of servants and robots, robots, robots…
Yana shivered, as if from a strong gust of cold wind, and wondered: what exactly can she do? At most, find a few more like-minded people who by chance escaped the fate of the majority… And then what? Live as an outcast? She didn't know, but she didn't want to die for the second time…

* - pages of Russian history of the XVII-XVIII centuries