Intro

127 5 0
                                    

        It is 3:59pm when she walks into a tall, stately building formally known as The Capsule Headquarters. She has only been here once before, but she knows exactly where she needs to go.

        The girl is five foot seven; long brown hair in a deft ponytail and eyes to match. After leaving the sweltering heat of the outdoors, she is overwhelmed by the powerful air conditioning to the point that it makes her shiver immediately as she enters. Wearing only a thin tank top, she rubs up and down on her bare arms ironically trying to introduce heat back into them.

        The Capsule HQ is massive. The ceiling looms high above her head and the whole place is bustling with people. Lining the walls are information screens and several occupied computer stations which look like ATMs. The building itself is separated into different sections for various purposes. The girl only needs one and she finds it almost instantly.

        STORAGE.

        The large overhead sign is hard to miss and she approaches it calmly. There are a number of doors that lead to various small rooms or “stations”, which is the proper term. A circular beacon of red light hanging above each door indicates whether the station is occupied or not. For the next five minutes, all she can see is red. Luckily, there isn’t a queue.

        After looking around for a moment or two, she spots a recently vacated station and quickly rushes towards it, narrowly beating an older man to it. The man frowns but lets her go in. Giving him a small smile - half grateful, half apologetic - she opens the door and walks in.

        The room is almost empty, much like an interrogation room that you’d find in a police station. All she can see is a computer screen against the far wall far corner and a desk chair but no desk in front of it. She presses the start button on the screen and sits back in the chair.

        The screen flickers to life and a booming monotone fills the room. "Welcome to The Capsule. My name is Matt. What service do you require from me today?"

        "Hi. I'd like to store a message in The Capsule,” she says. “It's very important. Really, really important. Might save someone's life. Life or death - literally."

        “Okay. State your full name, please.”

        “Josie. Josie Payson Blake.”

        “Josie, as in Josephine?”

        “No. Josie is my official birth name. Although, my mom does call me Josephine when she's really mad at me, so there's that.”

        “Age?” the machine asks.

        “I'm sixteen.”

        “To access your account, you will need to provide me with a few more personal details. Please state all five digits of your passcode.”

        Josie racks her brain. “Three-two-three-six-seven.”

        “And please state the third and sixth letters of the security codeword you have chosen.”

        “Um... 'I' and 'R'.”

        “Conducting facial recognition scan now.”

        Josie blinks rapidly as a quick flash of blinding blue light pores over her face. It takes her a few seconds to recover from her blurred vision.

        “Identity confirmed. Alright, Miss Blake. My sole purpose for you today is to record your message of choice and monitor your speech. Anything malicious will be immediately omitted and may result in a penalty. Do you understand?”

        “Um... okay,” she says, fidgeting with her fingers.

        There was a short pause before the next question. “Is there a problem, Miss Blake?”

        “No. It's just... what I'm about to tell you isn't so straightforward. It's kind of hard to believe, but it's a hundred per cent true, I swear.” She hesitates. “Something happened to me - something that hasn't happened to a lot of people. I guess I'm just wondering how much of an open mind you have.”

         “Miss Blake, I am a computer-generated machine,” comes the reply. Josie swears she can hear a mocking tone in his voice. “Whether I have a so-called ‘open mind’ or not is irrelevant. I may respond from time to time while I record your speech, but I will not offer up a personal judgement or opinion of any sort. I am incapable of reasoning and thinking in the same vein as a human such as yourself would.”

        “Well, you say that, but you do have the ability to ask me questions based on the answers I provide, and that's supposed to help you decide whether or not you will accept my message into The Capsule, right? Plus you do have a human name. Is ‘MATT’ an anagram for something? What does it stand for?”

        “As you said, Miss Blake, I ask the questions.”

        She grinned playfully. “You're pretty sassy for someone who's computer-programmed. Are you sure there isn't a human somewhere in there controlling you right now?”

        MATT ignored her question. “Before you proceed, who would you like this message to be sent to?”

        “Well, that's the thing - I don't know yet. Actually, I might not ever find out. But I know someone's definitely going to need it. And when they do... I really hope they'll find this useful.”

        “Miss Blake, may I ask what this message is regarding?”

        Serious again, she took a deep breath. “It's my story. My survival story.”

============================

A.N.

Hi. So this is a new story that I've started. I'm still writing my other story Play On, but I wanted to post this as a little teaser. I will be updating soon.

Please comment and tell me what you think! Thanks.

The AlternateWhere stories live. Discover now