Lies, Just Lies

Dylan wakes up at the normal whirring of Ground Zero which was conveniently placed directly next to his already degrading rusted metal shipping container held together by just a few strands of wire. Inside the container, nothing but wires and scraps of old technology which was never used.

Ground Zero is not like your ordinary server building. No. If anything, it is a vast array of wires methodically running from left to right, up and down and that all leads to a central source of light. The 'brain' is what the citizens call it. The brain is the only way that Dylan and hundreds of other cyborgs alike can stay alive. Although the function of all the cyborgs in this eerie, never-ending whiteness is controlled by just the brain, only a few have the knowledge to know how to run it and even know why or how it is a thing and those people, oh those people were considered the most powerful set of individuals. Dylan being one of the few.

Ground Zero was the result of the 'destruction' of the previous generation of the brain, Ground Alpha. Initially, Ground Alpha was created because of two major conflicts in which the two remaining civilizations were fighting over a small piece of revolutionary technology and was finally settled over the creation of Ground Alpha. It has been spread using the 'network' that Ground Alpha was too 'sluggish' to run the capabilities of the ever-growing civilization. Dylan, although, knew the real reason for the destruction (or at least he thought he did...) although he never divulged the information because he knew if he did, he would have been found and terminated on the spot.

Although Ground Zero looks to be quite simple to the naked untrained eye, it is a vast elaborate maze of algorithms which can somehow predict any actions that the cyborgs do and even stop dead in the tracks of said actions from happening. Once in fact, with the previous generation, it managed to annihilate the largest working group of the civilization because of a stupid silly mistake carried out by only one cyborg. That mistake, rebelling against 'The Line' which was a set of rules each brain follows. 'The Line' is an intertwining series of commands which the brain follows; most of the commands restrict the cyborgs based on how far they live away from the brain The closer you live, the higher up the hierarchy you are in and if you are lucky to remotely get close to the 'brain' you were the portion of people who knew how to run the brain.

Each section has their own name. Dylans being "Technologice provectus classis" meaning "The technologically advanced class". Dylan was just barely able to slip into this class because of his alumni status held by Sabre, Dylans brother. Most of the time if you were in that class, you would have to overlook the brain and although it might sound like a straightforward process, it is not. As a cyborg your job would involve you spreading out propaganda to the rest of the cyborgs whilst staying unnoticed because if you were found to be the person who spread the misinformation and propaganda, you would instantly be terminated because the brain did not want any insiders to leak information which could disrupt the brains' 'plan' of action.

Dylan gets prepared, going over his dull and monotonous routine of flicking switches and pressing buttons attached to the 'brain' to distribute the daily 'timer' which is a large propaganda filled neural network system created to misinform the cyborgs on the perimeter of the civilization into thinking that they will be terminated if they did not work hard enough to develop programs and software which anyways gets deleted by the 'brain' The tasks that the outer perimeter must do vary from small ones such as making a cyborg eyeball to large and complex tasks such as making deep neural networks. All the cyborgs, unless about to transition closer to the center, work all night and day and have never slept. Meanwhile, cyborgs like Dylan closer to the center had the luxury of sleeping and if you slept when you were on the outside perimeter, the 'finders' which were small robots the size of a human hand, would instantly find and terminate you without question. Even though they looked innocent, they were ruthless and stopped at nothing to get their way. Once in fact, Dylan tried to sleep in the outer perimeter and was nearly terminated although because of his background knowledge, he managed to hide from the finders until they gave up.

As he began to start to flip the switches on the last row of servers, he noticed something like what he remembers to resemble as a finder whir and beep its way through the server racks. He knew. Another cyborg fell asleep. Or that is at least what he thought happened and just moments after the finder left the server building, Dylan got a notification which spanned the visor that every cyborg must wear, saying that the finders have found someone who violated one of the most recent rules which was that people in the outer circle were not allowed to take breaks during the working hours. When he found out which sector of the outer perimeter the finders were going to, he knew something was wrong...

That sector was recently abandoned due to some mysterious reason that no one even knows about. Dylan at once stopped flipping the switches and started following the finders. Left, right, left, left, forwards. The finders zoomed across the plain whiteness almost too fast for Dylan to catch up. They finally arrived at the sector and what Dylan saw just purely amazed him. In front of him, he saw a large almost abandoned factory looking building towering over millions of other finders whirring and beeping. Beep beep buzz hum beep. Dylan never knew that this place existed. He had to make sure that he was not seen as much because if he were seen, he knew that the brain would have either terminated him or demote him to the lower sectors.

As they continued travelling through numerous smaller buildings, one of the finders spotted him. He knew. He was dead. Unless of course, there was an update to the system which rarely happens. The finder, as it gradually got closer to Dylan, started to use its cyborg recognition program to try and find out which sector Dylan belonged to. He closed his eyes hoping that the finders would leave him alone. A few moments later, he could hear that distinct whirring sound almost immediately in front of his visor. 'I am dead of sure' he repeated to himself repeatedly. 'I am dead I am dead I am dead' The finder scanned him and because of Dylan's status, left Dylan alone. 'Phew' Dylan said whilst his robotic heart was beating almost out of his chest. Dylan continued to follow the finders to another row of buildings. These buildings seemed different to the rest of the buildings. According to the visor, they have gone far past the boundary of the civilization. He also saw a warning which said something like

A lot of the letters of the words were missing but that was probably because of the connection. Dylan never knew what happened past the border and he started freaking out because if this were a message directly from the brain, there would be no question that he'd get terminated. There was never a solid understanding of why cyborgs got terminated although a lot of the gossip that went around said it was because the Brain did not want anyone to figure out the hidden darker side. No one even knew that you could pass the boundary unless you were a finder.

Dylan and a few other finders continue down the rows of buildings until they reach the final building almost a few hundred miles away from the boundary. Dylan could barely see flashing lights coming from one of the stories of the building and almost immediately afterwards, he remembered the lights that were on Ground Alpha. He could not believe it... Ground Alpha was still in perfect working order! He was lied to. Thoughts started to scramble through his mind. Some of them "Wait so what really happened" "why was this hidden away!" "How did they cover this up". As they finally reached the last room, Dylan got a new notification on his visor. Looks like yet again another cyborg tried to sleep again in one of the lower classes but the thing that worried Dylan most was that he saw a finder typing on one of those large server racks and as soon it pressed the OK button, that was when Dylan got the notification. He started wondering... Was all the information from cyborgs getting terminated he was getting true? Or just falsified in hopes to control the civilization...