Every time summer vacation came round, the parents were in the habit of sending their two children to the country, far away from the bustle of the city. So every July, Julien and his little siste
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One electric pulse can instantly suppress ten thousand digital signs, so before the protest begins, we scrounge for cardboard and cover it with bright colors and wild slogans.
I tie the balaclava over my brother's face, securing the knot so tightly that he laughs and bats my hand away. His human eye gleams almost as brightly as his cyborg one, brimming with excitement.
We aren't the first ones out on the streets. We join a burgeoning crowd—a sea of hidden faces and cardboard signs. Our chants ring off the silent skyscrapers.
No more war!
Li-ber-ty!
When it starts to rain, we hold our signs over our heads. The thunder only makes us laugh.
But when lightning flickers over the square, we scatter. I pull my brother down an alley and into the shadow of a dumpster. I can't stop laughing at the sheer audacity of our lawless escapade, and then I hear my brother whimper.
I'm at his side at once. He's clawing at his face, leaving raw scratches across his cheeks. I grab at his hands, and then I see it.
His cyborg eye whirs wildly in its socket. It pops out; he screams; the eye hangs from wires out of the empty gash in his face, and on its side is the blinking red light of a camera.
The doctors insisted the eye was surveillance-free. They promised.
The next time the sirens wail, they're already almost on top of us.
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