Brain

/brān/

noun

an organ of soft nervous tissue contained in the skull of vertebrates, functioning as the coordinating center of sensation and intellectual and nervous activity

Noon was our lunch break when we were allowed to go get food from the cafeteria and bring it back to our computers. The catch about being a Brain was that we never got time off except to sleep.

Janice and I were pretty lucky. Ever since we were thirteen, when we began operating our twin's brains, we had sat next to each other at every single quadrant. At first, we didn't want to get too close, scared one would be moved, but now we found that it was useful to have a friend. You could call us sisters, because, in a messed up way, we are.

We had been there since the beginning, and wouldn't leave until the end. It was like a bond that couldn't be broken between us. We searched the internet for music to stay connected with the outside world, looked up movies to watch, and looked at hot guys when no one was looking. Things normal teenagers our age took for granted.

"Dude have you seen this guy?" Janice whispered to me. I sat down my fork and turned my swively chair to look at the photo she is displaying on her monitor.

"That guy is hot!" I suddenly exclaimed, quickly throwing my hand over my mouth and looking around to see if an observant officer was in to hear what I yelled. My eyes found Ms. Shawna, one of the more leniant observers of us, shaking her head at me with gentle eyes glistening with humor. I breathed a sigh of relief before turning back to my computer that was emitting a light earpiercing sound to alert me she needs permission to do something.

May I kiss him?

The message was illuminating my screen as I saw the world from her point of view lightly. The boy in front of her was her boyfriend, looking like he was a year older than us. His brown eyes looked like pools of affection as he stared at her lovingly. Sighing again, I pressed the yes button and watched as my screen turned black due to her eyes closing for the soon to be passionate kiss. I couldn't stand to watch another second as I pulled up my window of pictures of hot guys. I sat there bored out of my mind, knowing she won't be able to give me a look into the real world for a while, looking at shirtless bots that I would never see in my life.

Inside, I knew it wasn't her fault that she was like this, unable to make monumental decisions for herself, but it grew to be old when she couldn't do things on her own and relied on me for assistance. Despite the great benefits of using the Brain and Bot program, such as lowered crime rate, higher age expectancy, and many other benefits, the drawbacks included times such as this moment when the Brains had no outside life besides the one their sibling provided. The government couldn't even detect a problem in the system due to the tyranny held over its people, whom were scared into submission to every guideline. With these arguments came the thoughts of rebellion.

Groups such as the Raiders, who were an elite war machine that posed a viable threat to the government, were forming everyday and being joined by Brains and Bots alike. The setback that drew me away from that life was the thought of my twin sister who would be killed for my decision, despite her lack of council through it.

"You know," Janice began, "it's not good to be depressed while operating machinary." I laughed at her terrible joke. Truthfully, that was my life. Operating my sister twenty four- seven since she couldn't make a monumental decision for herself, but had to run it through me. It was fun sometimes, like when I told her she couldn't kiss her boyfriend back, and he was furious. That was a perk, but it wasn't all happy; especially, when it felt like she couldn't do anything for herself.

Can I drive this car? Can I eat this cheeseburger? Can I drink this glass of alcohol?

Yes. Yes, totally. No, you crazy woman! You are sixteen, and that's illegal! Are you trying to get me killed?!?

"Do you even know your sister's name?" I asked her, going back to eating my food.

"Yea. I hear what people call her, so that's her name I'm assuming. Why?" she responded, turning toward me with her head tilted and confusion covering her features.

"It's just a question," I mumbled, turning back to my computer which once again is filled with live feed from outside. My twin's gaze was fixated toward the ground so I can only see grey pavement, a little piece of her velvet red shirt, the hem of her skirt, and her combat boots walking along the pavement.

I decided to relax and leaned back in my seat. My eyes began to close but opened wide once I heard a husky tone whispering in the background. The headphones I had connected to monitor the sounds around my sister's body were turned up full blast as I tried to listen to the voice and decipher what it was saying. My stomach was twisting as I grabbed my notepad and pen, ready to write whatever I heard from the person.

As she looked up, I took in the surroundings. Wherever we were held an airplane hanger scenery and was painted grey, a distinctive red markings covering the walls. The symbol looked like the letter 'r' in all aspects except the top of the rounded part had a line coming off of it and a line went from the inside, across the rounded piece, and off of it to line up with the other one.

The whispering grew when footsteps approached the door. The body giving me the information stayed perfectly still, not shaking with fear as I would have. The door swung open and her boyfriend stood at the entrance way, smiling at her. What am I missing?

Her feet moved toward him, stopping next to him as he gripped her arm before continuing down into a dark, narrow hallway. I was shifting in my seat, anxious to find out where they were headed. The only light in the hall appeared to be coming from the two sides of the tunnel.

When we reahed the opposite side, the scenery had changed to a circlular shape room. A metal lounging chair with monitors surrounding it sat in the middle. My nerves only increased as they approached the chair. My twin sat down in the chair, knowing what was happening as I sat behind the screen freaking out.

The whole point behind the Brain and Bot program was to put the Brain into the Bots point of view, submirsing them in a new enviorment so they could make good decisions and take observations of surroundings if communications were to be compromised with the Bot. This was all fine, remarkable even, until the Bot outsmarted the Brain. Then all ties were assessed and everyone was a suspect.

My eyes focused on the dark haired boy in the corner of the room. Ear muffs had been placed on her ears, taking away what little I could hear. The asian looking male walked over, talking to the other boy. The restraints were fastened onto the body and her oddly hair colored boyfriend kissed her forehead before leaving the room with the others in the room.

"Janice?" I shook her, scared to watch what was going to happen. Are these raiders? Are they trying to get intel from her?

Janice turned toward me with a confused face that turned to a mixture of anger and fear within seconds of seeing the screen. "Who is that?" she asked through gritted teeth.

"I don't know but it's scaring me though." I looked around hoping to not attract attention to the screen we were studying.

"What are they doing?" Her voice wasn't confused, but sounded as if she was patronizing them through the screen as if they were doing something wrong, or incrediably stupid that I wasn't to know about.

"I don't know!" I whisper-yelled. By this point, I was on edge, too scared to say anything else. My headphones filled with static, cutting me off from the outside world; disconecting me from my twin's concious. As earpircing sound waves flowed through the headphones, it occurred to me what was going on. They are cutting off her curcuit.

"Janice, her curcuit is being taken out of her brain." I was frozen; horrified at what I was witnessing. Taking out the curcuit in her brain would disconect her from the computer system and, in turn, kill her most likely.

"I know. That's the only reason they would have her on that chair." Janice's explanation sounded accurate, but why wasn't she freaking out? "Get out of your chair," she demanded, pulling my arm slightly as she stood from hers.

I gave her a look, and she repeated herself, pulling my arm roughly to help me out of my chair. She sat down at the moniter, pulling up a huge crypt window. Her hands flew across the keyboard, entering codes and pressing the enter button several times. After five minutes, she looked up to find Ms. Shawna staring at her with a firm glare. Without another thought she pressed the enter button one last time, recieving a slight nod from her in return.

All of a sudden, Janice was up and dragging me out of the room. I barely caught a glimpse at the screen as I rushed out, but when I looked back, I find only a dark screen. My eyes were probably bugging out of my head as I moved with Janice. She just hacked the system. And she booted my twin and I off. Not only that, but she probably wiped us from the data system knowing how long she was putting codes into the computer.

My breathing picked up. Not from being out of breathe, but in fear. If she could overtake the system, then what else could she do? "Keep up," she said over her shoulder, still holding my wrist as we walked briskly down the hallway. She came to an immediate halt and looked at the clock expectantly. When I least expected it, my arm is swung in front of her, putting me on the other side of the blank wall.

"Don't move. No matter what comes on that intercom, you're safer here. You got that?" she rushed out. I could barely get a nod out before she turned and walked off in the opposite direction.

A second doesn't even go by before I heard the all too familiar sirens, this time igniting more fear than ever before. The voice that came on the intercom didn't soothe me like it usually did. This time it gave me knots in my stomach as it stated the all too familiar words. However, I knew it was not a drill this time before it announced it.

Raiders detected. Report to your normal quarters and issue lockdown procedures. This is not a drill.

Edited: 30 September 2016