"All right then," said the savage defiantly, I'm claiming the right to be unhappy." "Not to mention the right to grow old and ugly and impotent; the right to have syphilis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat, the right to be lousy; the right to live in constant apprehension of what may happen tomorrow; the right to catch typhoid; the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind." There was a long silence. "I claim them all," said the Savage at last."

- Aldous Huxley, "A Brave New World".

2.53 am, 11th of March, Saturday. 2541. The MHA.

The ride didn't take long. About fifteen minutes after she had gone out, at 1 am, a Mindcar arrived and Talissa, able to bring some sleep pills just in time, hurriedly descended the little flight of stairs before her flat building and shakily walked outside, eyes dully fixed on the front window. She was still shocked and, floating between dream and reality, wasn't sure if her actions were a part of either. Nonetheless, she had to take her mind off such things. That night carried troubles more troublesome, dreads more dreadful such as murder. The MHA. And its infamous leader.

Maximilian Stoll. That was the name he owned in InsMass, InsTime, InsQuick, Mindpedia, MindGlory, the MHA official site and every single app one used equalling the favours of Wikipedia. Born full term on the 6th of April in Bristol, with his hair almost silver at 55 he had served as an Airforce cadet before called to fight in the War of the Five Minds as a representative of the Spanish. Emerging victorious with Darren First Class on his ACU Stoll worked in the Navy before his mysterious disappearance in the darkness of quasi-fifth-revolutionary Engel, going off the radar for one and a half years. But on the 7th of October, 2512, his gratitutional speech was translated into every of the Five television channels, livestreamed on over 20 billion platforms and made into more than a thousand billion memes as the four Minds signalled their approval by bright identical smiles, "bringing mental health awareness into the world". The crown of the MHA president didn't offer another chance of taking its power or the power of the fellow crowns, the contingent of the MHA; ever since then, his and almost all the major positions under him hadn't been changed. Conference by conference, direct line by direct line, the government leader gained authority until the MMS (mass media sources) clearly signalled no need, leaving the man respected about as well as the mind had been before the Rebellion. But Stoll continued to lead the steady life of a government leader and continued to do a range of things undercover – things no one dared to question. In the last couple of years, however, he, like the two billion citizens of his country, had been often reported to "shy the warm sun", be frequently avoiding chances to go outside, hence setting an example for people to mill the chance of being affected by a heat wave. No one questioned his demeanour. Since no one could.

Such was the biography of Maximilian Stoll.

Talissa pointlessly tried to stifle the nervousness in her stomach as she got in. The car she entered was probably not a common sight to many Leviathans and, surely, all Belpeople; Talissa's muscles stiffened as soon as she heard the doors close behind. She felt cold. There was no chance of taking her mind off of the upcoming meeting. Was she actually about to meet the Stoll, the Stoll-leader of the Engel government and the Mendson Organization, an enterprise owning a surplus of shops, cafes and hospitals? Was she – oh no, her heartbeat was speeding up – allowed to be acquantained with such a consequential issue – the death of Engel's brightest scientist? To add to it, she even knew his real name; why did they decide to inform her? A Belwoman? Why did they need her? It wasn't as if she had something to share except the poverty of her life as a lower-class, and the fact that her parents had more than one kid. Oh... What if they called her because of the latter? What if she was suspected? What if she was the criminal?

She shivered. The car engine started and they rose in the air. Yet wait. Mindcars required no driver. But was there someone else in the car?

"Hello!"

No one answered. Maybe she was imagining things. Maybe it was her thoughts; maybe she was mad –

"Good day, miss Talissa Mercedell. The ride won't take too much. Compared to how average Belcars travel, it won't feel long. Make yourself at home," a response came. However polite the words sounded, the woman instantly knew the speaker detested her. Her kind.

"Belcars. I haven't been able to afford car travel since I was 16," she spoke out loud. But she knew it was a mistake. She had to have said something else.

"A-are you... Maximilian Stoll?" Goodness. She should've said Mister Maximilian Stoll, or rather, president-

"I'm not Stoll, don't fret," the voice said, condescending and Talissa thought that this response was gentler.

But should she ask him who he was? There wasn't any courage left in her to do so. It started to rain.

"My name is Eleanora Kell; however, you may call me Miss Kell."

"Oh,..."

"And I know you're Talissa," Eleanora added, interrupting her awe-inspiring speed of thought. "The car should be there soon."

"Am I suspected of something?" she asked before she could stop herself. The built-in conditioner made her level-headedness disband. She waited. And waited.

She felt panic, nearly paralyzed.

The rain increased.

"No, you are not suspected in any crime and certainly not the death of the scientist."

She let out a relieved breath. A bolt of lightning struck the streets.

"Do you know his name, by the way?"

Talissa had two options. Jake Richards or the real Macarius Mascar.

"They didn't reveal his identity," she said, trusting her intuition. "Only that he was a scientist. And that, unfortunately, he died."

It was eerie hearing that word fall from her lips.

"Oh, that's fine. Well, you've been chosen for another goal. They told me, so you're certainly not the murderer of the poor scientist."

"I see," she said. She looked out of the window, quietening down by watching the murky scenery of midnight NovLondon. It was silent, as it had been during the past days, but flying above the ground, seeing the twinkling lights of its buildings and every Belcar seldom passing the streets appeared unfamiliar, almost bewitching, but quiet. Seeing the lightning strike the clouds, too, was a wonderful sight to behold, and the way the occasional MindBucks was sharply illuminated by the light seemed haunting, but beautiful. There was no road up in the sky, but there were posts built up to the bird's eye to mark the direction and other constants taken into consideration. The rain pounded, making it hard to see through the excess humidity formed on the windows. There wasn't any need for a passenger to see through them perfectly, hence no technology had been wasted. But the lightning brightened it ideally, as if wishing her to see everything she was leaving behind. In the mellow of the thunder.

For the hundredth time, she couldn't stop her nervousness. It turned her stomach outwards even though the meet was a few minutes ahead, even though she had presented at a handful of conferences, even though she believed she knew how to stand up for herself when she was she or her family were abused, and she was sure that this was simply a test, maybe set by the MHA, to see if she was worthy of her job or mentally sane. The government often did skits like that. They posted about it in InsMass. But here, something was wrong. Richards's death (or Macarius Mascar's) was too grand an excuse to test her abilities. And they had told her his real name...

All this she had to deal with while a zillion new worries concerning her family and sister arose, waiting to be accepted into her mind after it'd finished with the others; she hadn't even absent-mindedly noticed that the Mindcar started to lower down; she hadn't even noticed until a hard thump jolted her stomach and she awoke from her thought-infused slumber.

Without a word, she stepped from the Mindcar, not daring to look up until Eleanora went out and turned away from the apprehensive woman, quickly snatching her purse out even though there was no need in the omnipotent smart-car. Her gaze fell on a gargantuan monolith-like piece of architecture, invisible in the dark. Rain soaked her clothes and hair, but Talissa couldn't go anywhere without the MHA's permission. So just as she opened her mouth to speak, she was positively surprised by an umbrella Eleanora unexpectedly passed her.

"Thank you." The umbrella curled around her body, dissolving into pieces starting from her hair and shoulders. The old protection was old but useful and she wasn't a fan of the new, banal repel suits.

"You are welcome. You must go to the entrance and open the first door on the seventh floor. Knock once. I cannot go any further, as you might've guessed," (indeed, although Talissa had already passed a few meters away from the car, the other woman stood unmoving, rigid, as if not desiring to move even a nanometer more from a meter away from the car.) Talissa nodded. "That is everything I can tell you."

Talissa wanted to ask: "the MHA?", but she chose not to push it. The woman might be more hostile than she appeared. But she wanted to say goodbye.

"Will I see you again?" Talissa asked, straightening up to go. The question had a strong chance of being received critically. A strike of lightning illuminated their faces. Talissa saw a middle-aged woman's face and figure. She had jet-black hair and dark eyebrows. Her eyes twinkled in the darkness before she chose her answer.

"Может быть," Eleanora replied. Talissa swiftly recalled that these were the Jossian words for "maybe". Of course, following Jossia's and Engel's unification treaty, Jossian was a must in external economics, akin to Spanish.

The next instant, however, Eleanora and the Mindcar disappeared, without a trace. Talissa hesitantly took this as her cue to leave, to start the journey she would have to do alone.

Without her loved ones.

Wilfully stilling a nervous outburst, Talissa slowly made her way towards the tall building seeming to loom over her, hiding her from society's view. It was a quite ordinary house; she wasn't sure if she could recognise it if she saw it somewhere else; however, in the strikes of lightning it appeared so brooding, so desolate and grandiose she had to hold her breath to stop the anxiety increasing with every exhale. Her hands tightly gripped her purse as she fought off another fit of dizziness. It was hot. But not only because of the climate. She wasn't quite sure if she could make it.

Nevertheless she braced herself, quickly striding towards the establishment. If someone like Eleanora could do it, driving a stranger in the middle of the night whose fate she knew nothing of, then she could enter and retain her composure facing whatever was inside. She had love behind her, true love not the love issued by Insmass smiles. But it was hard.

She could be killed at any moment.

Yet she walked on, abruptly tossing all thoughts away and preferring to join in the route of venture rather than letting the prior drown her. If death should take her, death she would become. If fear was inevitable, she would become that fear. But she had to at least try. She would show them her best, fighting to the end if required, but she was willing to do anything to stay alive, even in an unappealing twisted way. She would show them the strength of her family through her will.

And there it was, the final door. Lightning struck. She didn't hesitate.

Talissa pushed the large wooden door; it burst out, broken.

Sighing, the woman stepped inside. A vast array of corridors emerged before her. It was practically endless, illuminated how you'd expect upon perforating a limbo. An after-death living room. Each door was enumerated according to some Jovian initialization system she had never seen before. As she stepped into one of the corridors, the first one she'd seen upon entering, the numbers appeared to increase in size and... form, as some picturesque quality. It looked as if an illustration was drawn, stroke by stroke, until the final result. She hadn't seen them ever before.

It might mean she was there. Talissa knocked once on the seventh door on the right. Testing her defiance, it appeared to be a mirror. She barely had time to dodge before it split into shards demolishing the floor.

She surveyed the other doors. There was no certainty they wouldn't all be mirrors, but she had to find a solution. She had to come up with a plan.

Yet, the only thing she could come up with was smashing the rest of the doors and springing back when they all cracked.

One door gave in more furiously, and she barely saved her head from a segmented shard. However, she hadn't avoided the minuscule shard which pierced slightly above her ankle.

Excruciating pain strained her senses, invading every piece of her with suffering. Her vision had regained strength shortly after the impact, but she didn't have the strength to make out the little glass pieces all over the floor that could injure her further. She had lost. There was no way to go.

But at the following moment, the next seven corridors solemnly greeted a woman walking on feet pierced with glass, stepping over more before she advanced to the only door in the seventh corridor. Her feet left blood on the shards of glass, and her face was scrunched up in pain, but the woman went on, crushing the handles of her purse.

Talissa halted and, somewhat heaving on the door handle – the only one she had seen, knocked once. She waited. She had done everything she thought needed.

The government was known to set up tests like this to render the taker hopeless of achieving anything for their own benefit at the government, their own plate. This was the technique they used for a hundred years, staying strong and performing the worst - frightening people to oblivion.

But such was the MHA. And Talissa dreaded meeting with the leader Stoll.

But she didn't have another way.