Disappearing
This story is one of four in a series written as a projection of a world in which collecting emotion data is commonplace — or mandatory — and the disregard of the golden rules of designing for emotion.
Lee’s brother disappeared three years ago without a trace. I mean, sort of without a trace. Lee and I found some of his posts on a message board while we were digging through his browser history and hard drives. It’s not unusual for people to go missing like that, but unless you go all archeological on the stuff they leave behind, you never find out why.
I was already born into the system, but my grandfather wasn’t. He told me about the time when everyone was allowed to feel just how they wanted to feel. He said it wasn’t always pretty, but they were free. About 40 years ago the government introduced the level. The level is the sort of the operational value that we all have to maintain in order to not disappear. When I was born, they implanted a chip that monitors this level for me and alerts me when it’s too low. Your parents monitor it when you’re a kid, but when you turn 16 you have to do it yourself. It’s entry into adulthood.
Anyway, Lee’s brother wasn’t really high risk, or so we thought. He was just like any teenager. Whenever you start feeling down or sad or whatever, things happen to bring you back onto track. Like the time my sister left for college. My mom was a total wreck. She cried for two days and I’m sure she got warned about her levels. On the third day, the doorbell rang and on the front stoop was two packed suitcases and a tickets for a cruise. Mom loves the sea. She’s always looking for deals online for places like Bermuda and the Bahamas. She’s also got buckling shelf of travel books. I don’t think she was even mad that because of her levels the tickets were automatically bought with her account. My grandfather gets mad about that stuff, but my mom was also already brought up with the government knowing as much about herself as she does.
Lee said his brother so far had never been warned like that. Now that we know how he felt, he must have somehow found a way to get around the monitor. But whatever he did, he was found.
The only thing that ever happened to me was the break up message. This was back when I was dating Alex. We had a few hard weeks and her dad was giving us a lot of trouble. He never really liked me and it was wearing her down. We got into this huge fight and my levels were probably off the fucking charts I’m sure. Usually the first step is always the cue the music. Like I said, they know you just as well as you know yourself. So apparently some ambient tracks jacked from my “Relaxation” playlist were blaring in my ear canals, but I can’t really remember hearing them. It probably happened to Alex too.
In any case, the next morning I woke up and logged on Messenger and found out that a letter had been sent to Alex breaking up with her. Everything else about her account was blocked from me, but I could read the letter and it was a good letter. Probably couldn’t have written one as good as that if I tried.
Lee’s brother liked video games a lot and most of his friends did too. Sometimes Lee and I would play with him. The gamer message boards were the most visited sites in his history so we looked there first. We found some heavy duty protected boards that took us a couple days to get into. We had some help from Lee’s computer science major roommate. And that’s how we found out Lee’s brother was depressed. (I didn’t really know what that meant until my grandfather explained it to me and it’s still not completely clear…)
We don’t know if any one else from these boards have disappeared and I don’t really want to. All we know for sure is that this was a secret place where they could all anonymously commiserate together. It was about 15 seconds before it dawned on me, Lee and Lee’s computer science major roommate that we could get into big shit for finding this board. Thank god we were on Lee’s computer so none of our IP addresses could be tracked. But they knew Lee had disappeared and this was probably why. We figured it was better safe than sorry to keep his computer around incase they came looking for it. We took turns bashing it with a hammer and then split up, disposing of all the parts around town.
Lee’s brother described his darkness in a way that I’ll never forget. I’ve never felt anything like what he wrote. My grandfather would probably say that’s because I’ve never been allowed to. I try not to think too much about the fairness of it all. I liked Lee’s brother. I don’t think he deserved to disappear. But I also like the way it is. I like that everyone doesn’t feel the way Lee’s brother felt. Or if they do, I don’t really know about it. I like that my mom got to go on a cruise and I like that I didn’t have to break up with Alex myself.
My grandfather tells me I don’t know anything about what it’s like to have the free will of expression. I watch my mother just roll her eyes when he talks about intervention and “those bullshit amendments.” Mom says he was always a bit of a revolutionary. But he always stays in line anyway. Until a couple days ago.
I was helping mom take the trash out. She had done a spring cleaning of the house so we had to do a couple trips. When we got back, grandpa wasn’t in the living room where we left him. He probably had used up all his warnings bitching about the way things are. I can’t imagine grandpa being excited about tickets to a cruise showing up on the stoop for him. Probably would just ignite the fire.
I tell mom I think grandpa was wrong about the free will of expression. I told her that he willingly chose to ignore his levels and that he wanted to disappear. If I had to guess how my mom is feeling about it, I would guess that she feels like Lee’s brother felt. And we know how that turned out.
