Code of the Council

Close Calls

Alex and I got a message like that once. Maya and I were taking our monthly walk together (we are allowed two per month with another citizen, and the other is with Alex) and talking. The Council had made a new rule forbidding any acts of "Switching Identities." Switching Identities was a popular game in Qeant, where you switch names with a person and act like you think they would in a certain situation. Maya was complaining about how much she had enjoyed the game. I hated to see her sad, mostly because she was always the cheery one, so I decided to make do something I would never do for anyone else, except for maybe Alex.
"Do you want to switch identities one last time?" I asked nervously, half regretting it. Maya's eyes widened.
"Would you really?" she whispered. Like I said before, the Council wasn't exactly cruel. I would take most of the punishment if the Council were to find out, since I offered it. Maya would receive a minor penalty for agreeing.
"Stuck in a tree on an inhabited island," I told her. "You first." She gave me a devilish grin and whisper-yelled,
"Help me! Is anyone there? HELP!" I rolled my eyes but couldn't help smiling. Maya often pointed out I wasn't the brightest one around at times, but the point of the game was to make it funny, so I wasn't mad. I faked sobbing and tugged at my hair disgustedly.
"My hair is RUINED! What am I going to do now?! EVERYTHING WILL THINK I'M UGLY!" I cried, a little louder than I wanted. Maya looked around nervously, and she gasped softly. I heard it too: a soft humming noise, coming from behind me. I turned around and saw a buzzcam flitting around, its lens and tiny microphones pointed directly at me. As soon as it saw that i noticed it, it spun around and fled. It was disguised as a gray moth, but it was easy to tell it wasn't real. Buzzcams were made to spy on citizens and make sure they weren't breaking any laws. Most looked like insects: butterflies, bees, beetles, but over the years citizens have learned to tell them apart from real bugs.

After the encounter with the buzzcam, I had nothing better to do but to run home. I burst into our house and answered Alex's questioning look with a full story. He frowned, then gasped and told me,
"Hide the books. Now." I remembered I had left them out after reading them this morning, and hurried to the cellar. What would I do without my little brother? Right as I hid them behind a stinking crate of pickles, the mailbot burst into our house. Council machines have the right to walk into citizen's homes anytime they like, without knocking or giving any warning they were coming. I scrambled into the kitchen and started chopping a carrot, and hoped the robot didnt have scent glands to realize I smelled like pickles but was cooking carrots. Yes, I know what you're thinking, then why bother hiding the books behind the pickles? Well, you see, if you are suspected of committing a major penalty, Council members themselves will come to your house. I doubted that a Council machine is even authorized to do a full search of the house, especially a mailbot. It scurried through the living room, completely ignoring Alex, and handed me a thin strip of paper full of circles and dashes and tiny dots. I took the strip of paper and went to the living room, inserting it into the slot of out Visionscreen. I put on the headphones and the dark screen buzzed to life.

"Dear Citizen.
We have had reports of you committing a penalty. The act of crime is the following:
Caught "Switching Identities." New laws forbid such. Please do not repeat this act." I finished listening and handed the mailbot the piece of paper, and it rushed out of our house to incinerate it.

Someone must have cracked the code, because soon after, news of the Rebellion was sent out the same way.