"Now that she had nothing to lose, she was free."

- Paulo Coelho, "Eleven Minutes".

9 am, 10th of March, Friday. 2541. NovLondon.

Talissa Mercedell was on the way to one of her two jobs, the office job. Even though she was an astronaut, she still had to work as an office programmer because astronauts weren't paid much. Like all information technology-based jobs, this job had decreased in salary and became equal to, por ejemplo, a doctor; not AI-based, that is. Most highly-paid jobs at that time were VR electronics sense programmers (you had to be a professional including touch, scent and sight in holograms at the same time), Ins -Orators and -Translators, who could perform the advanced tasks of relating, calculating the millions of psychology types invented and translating "text" language into informal "human" speech (which included emoticons, Pinterest images (the general ones needed to be memorized in school programme) for people with Aphantasia and lots of abbreviation slang, that drastically increased in number every hour of day) and a job more associated with the social-cultural sphere, but which wasn't mentioned aloud. Although lots of jokes were made about this last job, the most privileged and at the same time dangerous one, no one spoke directly about it, not even the government, the Mind Happiness Organization (MHA), which turned a blind eye to the subject.

After taking a minute to check her phone (the addiction was too strong it didn't let go 24/7) and learning that Io-24 had filed for a divorce with HuGOO, which was supposed to be quite shocking, the woman went on to her next habit; hurrying. Many people knew her as the "astronaut-in-training-who-doesn't-have-enough-money-to-buy-an-A9-Mindphone", so although her schedule wasn't made flexible, she had a nice co-worker who always tried to cheer her up, so she often pretended to be cheerful. Despite her work at the office being appreciated, her salary, unfortunately, didn't increase. Her parents tried to help her as much as they could – however, they had taken quite a risk to have children at a young age, hence their work opportunities were somewhat limited.

The matter was that rape was one of the most common reasons for jail. Be it a female or a male, young or adult, ill person or healthy person – everyone was charged significantly if there was any evidence that they had done such things. Even children were often sentenced to a few consecutive years of prison since, due to generations and generations of accelerated development drugs and advanced educational classes, even a little five-year-old child could have the body and maturity of a fourteen-year-old boy or girl. More and more people learned to accept and support their children if they had been raped, catcalled, or kidnapped. Treatment was deemed obligatory, even if the children didn't show any sign of trauma after going through such misfortunes.

However, there was a dark side to the coin. Even though the 5 Minds, the factual "presidents" of the world, did a good job in controlling cases of rape and suicide – suicide was also a thing of extreme danger – the meaning of the word "rape" had changed quite a lot over the decades. People nowadays could rape others by a foolish phrase, even though they had no deliberate intention of doing so. Sometimes a fleeting glance thrown at the victim's body was enough for one to be caught by policemen, "JusticeMen", as they were now called. It was even tougher if one had a lover or, what was even worse, a child. Parents were indirectly advised to stay home most of the time, and not go outside as much as they did before having their youngster. For them, work in offices – public places - was nearly prohibited. They mostly worked from home.

Talissa stepped outside the tall building where her flat was. There wasn't anything too zestful outside, just a desolate chalk-white platform turning into a tapered sidewalk at the ends of the outlet. There was a poster on the front wall of the building, or rather, a flat hologram on the dark wall, since of course there were holaisthisegrams (from holos – whole, aisthise – sensation and gramma – message) which depicted all the five senses including volume; however, people just didn't like smiling people hanging above their heads all the time, so the novelty was eliminated.

On the poster with a little symbol for the MHA, there was an image advertising the latest scientific discovery, food tablets, but there wasn't any man or woman depicted near. The matter was that the author of the discovery, Prof. Macarius Mascar, didn't like to show his face in public. In fact, he didn't show his face at all since the news, of course, had gotten quite boring with all those astronauts dancing in open space, robots playing football at handblocks and creatures doing all that sort of stuff involved with virtual reality associated with a person's favourite aesthetic. So IntChain, the mass app for media, fished things for generally any information that could be even a little bit interesting for the people. But this, unfortunately, included fishing out every detail about a person's appearance, personality and personal life, if they proved interesting enough. And the MHA government, well, pretended not to notice some quite straightforward articles sometimes published in the app. Since despite whichever politics the MHA chose, primal old desires always had to be satisfied, and if not, then people would find another source, another place to do so. And the MHA didn't want anyone leaving Engel.

But Macarius Mascar, for one, had found a way not to be identified by the media. It might've been quite hard to do so, since the DNA could betray him; but nevertheless he had succeeded, and no one knew what his real appearance was. His characteristic DNA was publicly known, yes; however no one knew him. And this was a phenomenon, yet no one did question him. They just lived.

Talissa sighed when she felt the hotness of the sun overwhelm her senses. It was this sultry almost boiling weather which made her headaches more repetitive to the point that she was unable to think properly, to move, or function at her best. She had to cover all of her body with thick warm clothes and lotion due to excessive radiation, which was even worse, and except for some rare occasions such as a few days before, the hotness never seemed to cease, often starting in March and ending in November. Despite the efforts of the MHA, the ozone layer was becoming thinner than ever.

However, her senses suddenly heightened, and she felt fear slowly etch into her body. It invaded her mind akin to a swamp knife which pierced her, but at the same time tied her up into a sticky airless marsh, taking her deeper into the ruinous quicksand. She felt unnerved. The woman quickly turned around, but saw nothing except the torpid monotone of the terrain which was dystopian NovLondon. There was something there, something she could sense, yet she saw nobody and heard just silence. She shuddered, trying to brush off the haywire of her thoughts that heightened her alarm. Perhaps she was going psychic. Nevertheless, she swiftened her step.

There was no one she could ask for help, if something were to happen, since there were no robots around, for no apparent reason, simply to note. She continued walking-running, hoping to get to work soon and engage in its unending normalcy. Some part of her found her countenance amusing, to her surprise. She was running away from something that she didn't know was there, running faster even though she knew the heat overload wouldn't do well for her body, and, with an irregularly beating heart, hoping so much to get away to the safety of her old little office, which she vowed to detest earlier that day. As the adrenaline leaked, her lungs became constricted, and her head went light.

She couldn't run, and the streets, the flats, the burning sunlight - all was blurring together; she took one last step and her knees buckled up. In a fraction of a second she lost her voice, and, however she tried, she couldn't stand. The Sun, indeed, was too fervid, too aggressive, too brimming with power that she, a trained astronaut, couldn't hold on. There was one thing on her mind; to escape this agonizing existence, but she was too weak to even do so. She looked around again, but at that moment, her legs weakened and her head spun around so that she involuntarily leaned forward, the fear invading her soul and weakness her body. Then the latter filled her soul, so aggressively that for a few moments, her life flashed in front of her eyes. Her heartbeat raced. But this was all a play of adrenaline, a façade before her system went numb.

***

She felt her vision return to normal. With a jolt, she realized she could take in a deep breath which was solely of cold oxygen. How could it be cold?

Her gaze was met by a pair of eyes. An intimidating pair of eyes, to be exact. They were quite dark and held some fathomless hollow in them that did unnerve her. They stared at hers in interest, but with a side of indifference to them, as if merely examining this example of a human being which just happened to collapse somewhere in the middle of a sidewalk. Although not able to move anyway, she froze in expectation, unsure of who it was, and what to do with them.

She saw an outstretched hand.

"¿Está bien?" a male voice asked. Spanish. An outstretched hand.

She took it.

When the owner of the voice helped her up, a tall almost gaunt man wearing a dark overcoat, she backed away to ensure some comfortable distance and tried to find an excuse for her actions. There were none. Why had she taken the hand of a complete stranger, and why had she run at her swiftest when she had seen no one to run away from? In the case of the prior, one such handshake, or a mere touch of the wrist could result in the victim's fatal shock, with a hidden enumerator tearing the DNA off of them. 90% of such instances proved fatal. And in the case of the latter, if some people were actually to have been seen, increasing her pace up to that amount would have inevitably resulted in some damage to the lungs and her heat regulation system. The power of radiation was humongous. She had been lucky she only got syncope.

However, the man started to mumble something in Spanish she couldn't quite comprehend - not because she didn't know the language, but because he was too quiet. Spain had become quite a nation puissante the past few years, consequently rising significantly in popularity and population, although the latter was mostly kids from English migrant families born and raised in Madrid, or Barcelona. She hoped he wasn't angry, and she said the first thing that came to her mind:

"No sé cómo sucedió esto. Lo siento. Muchas gracias." Upon doing so, she carefully traced her steps away from this person. Her shame was starting to be replaced with more fear.

"Toma esto, por favor," he said, swiftly outstretching a hand with something inside towards Talissa. An expression of surprise settled onto Talissa's features upon hearing the strange suggestion: she didn't take it. His hand remained outstretched as if he was testing her; but she was too afraid of him and DNA-tearing.

"Vengo de la MO, the Mendson Organization, o cómo la llaman," he stated nonchalantly; but what he said startled her immensely. "Nos gustaría que consideramos la siguiente... oferta," he showed what appeared to be a sealed envelope in his hand. "Nos gustaría que lo tomara, ya que podría ser útil para su trabajo de astronauta."

"So sorry, but did you just mention... the Mendson Organization?"

"Yes," the stranger said in perfect English with an American accent, but not without a bit of irritation in his lowered tone. "We're from the Mendson Organization, and we would like you to consider the following offer. Goodbye."

Talissa didn't have time to reply. The instant she reopened her eyes he was gone. She didn't even recall how he had gone; she was almost convinced that he had disappeared into thin air. But her mind was playing tricks on her. This was what you got for not taking a ride at the Engel Mindplane station - the Continuum. It was honestly too expensive.

She opened the envelope and unfolded the paper. It was indeed a written note. It asked her, WSO astronaut Talissa Mercedell, to be outside her flat at its respective address at eight in the evening. How they knew her address did amaze her, but what amazed her most was the name written under the note. "M. Stoll." M. Stoll. The signature wasn't forged; the stamp was his own.

Stoll was the government leader of Engel.

***

Translation💜

¿Está bien? = Are you alright?

No sé cómo sucedió esto. Lo siento. Muchas gracias. = I don't know how this happened. I'm sorry. Thank you so much.

Toma esto, por favor = Take this, please.

Vengo de la MO, the Mendson Organization, o cómo la llaman. Nos gustaría que consideramos la siguiente... oferta. Nos gustaría que lo tomara, ya que podría ser útil para su trabajo de astronauta. =  I come from the MO, the Mendson Organization, or whatever they call it. We would like you to consider the following... offer. We would like you to take it, as it could be useful for your work as an astronaut.