Defiant: Quantic Dreams Book 2 by Elizabeth McLaughlin (reading list txt) 📗

be wise to distribute a low-level antiviral among the shelter. Our databases said that it had some effectiveness against influenza and if nothing else it would act as a placebo to calm people down.

After Gabriel’s announcement I had become a de facto social outcast. Salvation beckoned in the form of a return to swimming pools and Sunday mornings at the local cafe. The realization that people would be that quick to give up their freedoms in return for security saddened me. I understood why anyone hungered to sequester themselves from the virus; it was the prospect of what happened afterwards that I had to question whether or not they were thinking of. “Reactivating” Gabriel, or downloading him, whatever the process would entail, was as much of a guarantee of certain death as the disease! How quickly the specter of slaughter at the hands of a machine had been forgotten. Perhaps they hadn’t taken me seriously in the first place.

Even my own family had abandoned me, choosing to keep as much distance as possible between us. That hurt more than anything else. I suppose I could understand why they did it; they had to keep each other safe. There was a lot of sacrificing yet to be had. But to have the kind of reunion I had always dreamed of only to have them ripped away from me tore at my soul. Instead of breaking the thin shield they had between themselves and social ridicule, I chose to accept my exile. It gave me time to think. As soon as the situation was stabilized I would gather the exploration team. Maybe there would be one or two others who would agree to leave the shelter voluntarily to gather more samples. I reassured myself with the knowledge that the mission would go on, with or without me.

Gabriel had used my drop in popularity to mobilize his supporters in setting his own plan in motion. HIs ‘inner circle’ had started restoring the hibernation pods and Gabriel’s server room. The good news is that I had wreaked some havoc down there. It didn’t matter if they worked twenty-four hours a day, it would be weeks before they had the place in any kind of order. The pods were easier to repair. Freeing the people from the simulation didn’t cause any physical damage to them, the repairs would be all in the coding. The pods were dependent on the server room which would be useless without the pods.

My newfound lack of friendly faces didn’t mean that I was relieved of my duties. Every minute of the day was filled with complaints, attempts to undermine me, and requests I had no way of filling. I cursed my father for that. The idea that there should be one person in charge of ‘governing’ a group worked very well when there were only a few hundred of them. One man attempting to govern a thousand was laughable.

I was bombarded with a hundred questions every day and could offer very little in the way of answers. The former exit team remained my allies, even if they only interacted with me when absolutely necessary. My shunning had one upside to it. Whereas I had been awash in constant human contact since I shut down the simulation, I found myself with an abundance of time alone. Every moment I was not occupying my office it was like everyone else disappeared. In its own way, the isolation worked to calm my nerves.

As the sickness burned through the shelter, crimes were on the rise. Problems with people hoarding food and supplies were common. I even caught a teenaged boy sneaking out of the infirmary, antibiotics and personal protective equipment stuffed under his shirt. He was sent back to his quarters with a stern warning. The kid was just trying to help his parents out. The Founders had failed to envision a way of life that included a judicial system. The decisions were left to the leader. Under normal circumstances it would be easier to dole out more lenient punishments but the circumstances called for divisive action. Thieves were rewarded with reduced rations for their entire family for the rest of the month. Instances of violence against others resulted in isolation to quarters, the length of time to be determined by the severity of their crime, et cetera. No one was exempt.

I couldn’t have handed Gabriel a larger boon. He took advantage of the new ‘laws’ to seed dissension through the shelter. Pretty soon I was facing chafing from everyone. What had previously been silent if recalcitrant acceptance morphed into pleas, excuses, and denials. Each day that passed brought me closer to outright rebellion. Trying to maintain the balance between order and chaos wore me down more and more each passing hour. One afternoon after being screamed at for an hour by a woman who insisted that she absolutely needed ten extra servings of preserved rations for her family, I settled on the fact that it was becoming necessary to choose my battles. Punishments for severe transgressions remained the same, but I tried to work with people who committed more minor crimes, if only to gain a better understanding of their circumstances. It didn’t win me any friends but it was an exceptionally good source of data.

I awoke from a sound sleep gasping and covered in sweat. My nightmare hadn’t been a fantasy or a figment of my mind, it was a memory. I was back in the recreation room, Gabriel’s mobile robot leering over me as I rested my chin on my hands. It was the game where Gabriel had questioned my usefulness as an intelligent being. Instead of paying heed to his comments I blew him off, chalking the conversation up to yet another of Gabriel’s turbulent mood swings. Instead of seeing his lackluster ‘boy next door’ visage reflected in the tablet his face morphed into a snarling mirror of George’s face.

It’s still a game. The thought popped into my head. This