The Lucid - Season One: The Beginning by Thacker Nick & Tumlinson Kevin

Author:Thacker, Nick & Tumlinson, Kevin [Thacker, Nick]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Dystopian Future, Science Fiction
Publisher: Turtleshell Press, Happy Pants Books
Published: 2014-11-26T16:00:00+00:00

FIVE

There was the occasional jostling from the roads, which were becoming increasingly rural. The few people they passed now were all in that weird state of suppression that Adam dreaded seeing. It meant something was changing. It meant there was a shift happening in the world.

My family is part of that, he thought. He wasn’t sure how, or why. He knew only that it had something to do with the water.

They continued in silence for another 45 minutes, Adam driving and Kate in the passenger seat. The children were eerily quiet in the back.

All this quiet. He was all for some peace around the house, but Kate and the kids had stepped over the weird line, which had prompted Adam to start doing some digging. He never could have guessed things would end up here.

He pulled off the black-topped country road and the truck began its climb up a narrow dirt right-of-way that would eventually deposit them on the upper stretch of the mountain. This wasn’t a road that Google Maps would be likely to chart, and other than the eyes in orbit, no cameras could see this place. Their destination was a cabin, hidden in the forest just below the tree line, about 1,000 feet higher than their current elevation.

Adam purchased the cabin years ago from a man who had only used it for hunting season. It was rustic, but comfortable, and it served as a weekend retreat for the family. They’d put time and money into repairing and upgrading it, bringing in plumbing and electricity, so it was livable even by Kate’s standards. It had been a favorite spot for the kids growing up, but the novelty of the place had mostly worn off for the twins as they got older. Kate’s appreciation for it had faded a lot sooner. But Adam still liked the place, and had been meaning to come back for a while now. Under different circumstances, of course.

“Dad, are we going to the cabin?” Sammie asked.

Adam checked the mirror, and saw her looking dispassionately at the pines passing outside the window next to her. Was there a hint of enthusiasm? Was she lucid enough to recognize where they were and be happy about it? Or maybe bored? He’d take bored right now. “Yeah, sweetie. We’ll be there soon”

He kept watching, glancing back to the dirt road in quick darts. He was hoping to see some reaction, some hint that she was all there. Instead, she seemed completely unmoved by the news. No excitement, certainly. But also no boredom. No protests that they’d been to the cabin a million times. It was like he’d just talked to her over some sort of intercom, and she was in a different room, or a different country.

It was like her default programming had resumed with the lack of further input.

It wasn’t the first time Adam had thought of it this way—as if everyone were somehow running on a program. Since this all began, since he had started noticing it, he had become increasingly alert.

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