Far From Utopia: A short story

[ThePortalGuru]

I've decided to post the completed chapters of a short story I'm working on here. This is the story about Jentson Riley, a "chamber man" who lives within the confides of an eerie test facility run by a malevolent robotic overseer.

Without further ado, I give you the first chapter. Hope you enjoy.

Chapter 1

Jents Riley was a chamber man. So was his father, and his father before him. Jents knew his boundaries, knew where he was and wasn't supposed to be at whichever given time. He, like every other chamber man or chamber woman, knew his place, and lived by routine and linearity. It was by this unexciting code, this beaten path through time, that him and everyone else were expected to follow.

Out of bed by 6:30 A.M.
Breakfast at 7:00 A.M.
Testing preparation from 7:30-7:45 A.M.
Physical testing from 7:50-11:15 A.M.
Lunch at 11:20 A.M.
Mental testing 11:50 A.M.-2:15 P.M.
Exercise break 2:20 P.M.
Learning period 2:50-7:00 P.M.
Dinner 7:05 P.M.
Rest 8:00 P.M.

Every day, at those exact times, a plain white intercom would announce which event was to come next. Not that it ever needed to. Knowledge of their schedule had become generational knowledge for most of the test subjects. Jents' chamber clock struck 6:30. A small white intercom in the corner of his room turned on.

"Good morning, subjects!" the intercom announced, "We hope you had a pleasant night's sleep. It is now time to report to the central dining hall for breakfast. Thank you for listening, and have a wonderful day!" The intercom promptly shut off.

Jents opened his sleeping pod and stepped out, on the exact same spot he had stepped on since he had first started testing. As he walked over to his wardrobe, songs from the public domain blared throughout the room, the intercom's alarm music used to wake up sleeping test subjects. No subject groaned, or rubbed their eyes, or covered their heads with their pillows. Almost as if in unison, each test subject in Jents' chamber opened and stepped out of their sleeping pods and walked over to their wardrobes. Jents' opened his and put on his uniform, a bright blue, one-pieced, freshly washed and ironed uniform with the letters "SPL" printed neatly on the breast pocket.

One by one, each of the test subjects made their way out the chamber and into Corridor 5A, which they would follow until they reached Corridor 5, a direct route to the Central Dining Hall.

If one were looking through the eyes of one of the subjects, they would open the latch in the door to be looking at the corridor wall, with a small box with clouds in it that read "Sky Patch Labs". What you would not expect to see, however, is a mangled corpse lying on the ground before you. If you were to see this, you would most likely be in the body of Dimitri Wells, who found such a thing lying outside his chamber at 6:31 A.M. that morning.

[Josh-B]

Fairly cliche in the Sci-fi genre, but otherwise a fair start.

[ThePortalGuru]

"All our knowledge merely helps us to die a more painful death than animals that know nothing."
-Maurice Maeterlinck

Chapter 2

So sooner had Jents stepped out the door than a blood-curdling scream echoed throughout the corridor. It is important to note that the average Sky Patch Labs test subject does live by a routine code, but they are still human, and subject to human emotions such as fear.

Jents and his chambermates ran over to the now mortified Dimitri, whose face had gone a deathly pale. "W-w-who... W-w-when..." Dimitri stuttered, looking at the bloody mess in front of him, "I thought... they said... this wouldn't happen, couldn't, can't... Impossible..."

"Calm down, Dim. We're not getting anywhere by just standing here. I'll alert SWEEP," said Thomas Larson, one of Jents' chambermates, "just hang tight until I get back." Thomas ran off down the corridor, towards Corridor 4B. Jents, Dimitri, and the rest of the group stood there, staring at the body with looks of shock and disgust on their faces.

"Jents, you heard them! When we first started testing, they told us we were under the utmost protection! They said that no one would be harmed under their surveillance. What a load of crap..." said Dimitri.

"Don't upset yourself over this, Dim. Everything's going to be fine. They'll sort it out," Jents said with a tone that exclaimed most assuredly that everything was not going to be alright. A faint alarm could be heard from the distance. Thomas came running back, with a waist-high robot trailing behind him. On its shining white exterior, there were five black letters evenly spaced across the mid-portion: "S W E E P".

It should be noted that SWEEP doesn't actually stand for anything in particular, but was just an name that the creator came up with as a way of trying to sound professional by using fake acronyms. SWEEP had been Sky Patch Laboratory's robotic custodian for as long as the facility had existed. Higher management had thought about replacing him several times, but it went against budget concerns. SWEEP knew the building inside and out, and could even narrate to you the entire labelled electric grid from internal memory. The only one piece of equipment that knew more than him was METIS, the Man-made Electronic Testing and Intelligent System.

In the entire 346 year period that Sky Patch Labs had existed, not a single murder had taken place. This body went against testing protocol and corridor cleanliness policies, and did not please SWEEP at all.

"NO, NO, NO. THIS WON'T DO. MESSY, MESSY, MESSY. CLEAN UP AT ONCE," said SWEEP with a frantic tone, "SUBJECT 17598-CH, WHY WAS THIS NOT ATTENDED TO EARLIER?" he said to Thomas.

"SWEEP, you don't understand, this man was mur-"
"17598-CH, PROTOCOL STRICTLY DICTATES THAT ANY AND ALL BLOOD OR MESS CAUSED BY INJURY BE DEALT WITH USING RUBBING ALCOHOL AND FRESH SPONGES. ARE YOU SUGGESTING THAT I GO AGAINST PROTOCOL? A FOOLISH STATEMENT INDEED, SUBJECT," SWEEP interupted. IF YOU HAVE AN ISSUE WITH PROTOCOL, PLEASE CONSULT MANAGEMENT. I AM ONLY DOING WHAT I HAVE BEEN INSTRUCTED TO DO. NOW IF THE RESIDENTS OF CHAMBER 1678 AND 1680 WOULD PLEASE REPORT TO THE CENTRAL DINING HALL, YOU ARE ALREADY EXCEEDINGLY LATE FOR BREAKFAST."

Thomas looked intensely at SWEEP for a few moments. He turned to his chambermates and said "The rest of you go on. I need to spend a bit more time here."

With that, Jents, Dimitri and the group set off to go to the Central Dining Hall. They didn't touch their food that breakfast.