Анатолий Шигапов – EXPIRATION DATE (страница 2)
Because hope is a drug.
It calms. It helps you forget. It gives the illusion that everything will be fine. But I do not want you to forget. I want you to remember - every second, every minute, every day.
The world will not become better if you close your eyes to its ugliness. It will become better only if you look it straight in the face - and say: "I see. And I do not agree."
I do not give you false hope. I give you the truth. The truth that corporations are already at your doorstep. That states are already selling your freedom for the promise of security. That technologies are already erasing your identity, turning you into a line in a database.
But I also give you another truth: you are not alone.
As long as there are those who remember - freedom has not died. It is just waiting. It is always waiting.
8. What I want you to do after reading
I want you to close this trilogy and feel the emptiness.
Not the emptiness when you have nothing to do. But the emptiness when you understand: the world you knew was never real. And you will have to build a new one - from scratch. From ruins. From tears. From the memory of those who did not survive.
I want you to go outside and look at the sky. Not at a screen, not at a hologram, not at an advertisement - but at the real sky. And ask yourself: "What do I see? And what do I want to see tomorrow?"
I want you to stop being passive. To stop waiting for someone else to decide your fate. To stop signing documents without reading them.
Because this world was created by those who were not afraid to read the fine print.
I do not know if you will read this trilogy to the end.
I do not know if it will leave a mark on your soul.
I do not know if it will change your life.
But I know one thing: each of us is a choice. Every day. Every hour. Every second.
The choice between submitting and surviving. Or rebelling - and dying free.
I am not telling you what to choose. That is not my right. It is yours.
But I ask you one thing:
Do not choose blindly.
Read the terms. Look at the faces of those you trust. Look into the future - not the one promised to you, but the one you see yourself.
And then take your step.
And remember: even if you fall - you will not fall alone. Because somewhere, in a basement, in ruins, in the Gray Zones, there are others like you. Those who remember freedom. Those who did not give up. Those who are waiting for a signal.
And that signal is you.
Are you ready to pay it?
EXSPIRATION DATE
STAGE 1. "CITIES-IN-A-BOX" (2035–2052)
October 2035. Manhattan.
The rain had been falling for three days straight. Not a downpour, not a drizzle - some kind of gray watery suspension that seeped everywhere. It settled on the windows of skyscrapers, mixed with exhaust fumes, and turned into sticky mud on the asphalt. It seeped under collars, down necks, into shoes. It made everything gray - faces, buildings, thoughts.
Charles Davis stood under the awning of an abandoned bank. It used to be "City Bank." Now it was emptiness. The windows were boarded up with plywood; the facade was covered with peeling paint and graffiti: "SOLD TO CYBER-FUND." The glass doors were smashed - inside there was nothing left. Only trash and the smell of dampness. Charles looked at the building and remembered how in 2025 he had taken out a mortgage here. Back then he still believed. Believed that he would buy an apartment, that the world would become better, that his children would have a future.
He had no children. And no apartment either.
He looked at the screen of his communicator. An old model, a plastic case in cracks, a screen with dead pixels. He had bought it for forty credits at a flea market. New ones cost a thousand - you could watch holograms, play games, order food on them. Charles did not have a thousand. He did not even have a hundred.
The screen blinked red: "Danger zone. It is recommended to immediately leave sector 14-B." Charles paid no attention. These warnings appeared every hour. The "Cyber-Fund" security system automatically scanned all areas where the crime rate exceeded the permissible level. Sector 14-B was one of them. Poor people lived here. There was no police here. There was only survival. But Charles needed to deliver a package to 45th Street, and 45th was right in this sector. He could not afford a late fee - fifty credits. That was four hours of work. That was two days of food.
He adjusted his backpack. Heavy. Inside - a plastic container with biological material. He did not know what was in it. Maybe medicine. Maybe blood samples for diagnostics. Maybe something illegal. He did not ask. He just carried it.
The rain did not let up. Charles raised his head and looked up.
There, behind the gray veil of clouds, hung the airships. Huge, slow, majestic. They hovered over the city like gods from old myths. Each had its own logo, glowing in the darkness. "Solar-City" - a blue sphere with white rings rotating around its axis. "Cyber-Fund" - a silver triangle pulsing like a heart. "Neura-Infra" - a green neuron branching like a tree. They hung over the city twenty-four hours a day. They never descended below three hundred meters. They were symbols of power. Reminders of who was in charge here.
Once, American flags had hung over Manhattan. Charles remembered. In 2020, when he first arrived in New York, stars and stripes were on all the buildings. Now flags remained only on government buildings - and fewer and fewer of them. The White House in Washington still raised the flag in the mornings. But who looked at that?
Charles remembered the 2020s. Everything seemed different then. People believed in progress. In green energy. In technologies that would save the planet. Hollywood made movies where inventors defeated villainous corporations. Scientists promised that in ten years we would be living on Mars. Politicians swore that "we will build a better future." Charles believed. He graduated from the architectural faculty in 2019 with honors. He designed bridges. Six bridges that were never built. He remembered sitting in his office, looking at the blueprints, and thinking: "I am creating the future." He was creating. But the future turned out different.
Technology saved not the planet. It saved those who had money.
Charles looked at the airships. They said that inside them were entire cities. Offices, residential modules, restaurants. Top corporate managers lived there. They never came down. Why would they? Down there was dirt, crime, disease. Up there was cleanliness, artificial climate, synthetic food that did not smell of rot. Up there was safety. Down there was chaos.
The world of 2035 was a world of fatigue.
Charles looked at his hands. He remembered them young, with clean skin, without calluses. Now they were cracked, with black nails from dirt, with bruises from heavy packages. He was forty-seven. He looked sixty. That is how couriers aged.
He turned away from the airships and walked along the street. Along the walls - advertising. Holographic screens built into the walls of buildings. They showed ideal faces, ideal smiles, ideal homes. A woman with skin that did not know dust said:
He remembered Jacob.
Jacob lived in the neighboring apartment - small, damp, with peeling wallpaper. He worked as a programmer for Cyber-Fund. He earned little but dreamed of more. When enrollment for "New Eden" was announced, Jacob came to Charles, beaming, with a tablet in his hands.
"Charlie, have you seen it?" he jabbed his finger at the screen. "Only 2% annual interest! A thousand a month, and I'm a homeowner! Clean streets, no smog, drones collecting garbage. They even have a security system - facial recognition! No crime."
Charles looked at the tablet. He was used to reading fine print - it was a professional habit of an architect. He saw the clauses Jacob had missed. "In case of dismissal for any reason, the corporation has the right to revise the terms of the loan." "All disputes are resolved in corporate courts." "The corporation has the right to unilaterally change the terms." "The mortgage is transferred to the corporate fund upon change of employer." Charles tried to explain:
"Jake, you don't understand. If they fire you - you'll be left without a home."
"They won't fire me!" Jacob waved him off. "I'm a valuable specialist. They appreciate me."
"They appreciate you as long as you're useful. And when you're not - they'll throw you out. And you'll be left with a debt you can't pay."
Jacob laughed. He was already mentally living in the dream city. He did not hear Charles.
"You're just jealous, Charlie," he said. "You're staying here, in the dirt. And I'm moving to a bright future."