Vládik's monotony passed as normal as he prepared to go to work. He did it at a leisurely pace, as always, because he knew he would have enough time to get ready. That's what he thought until he had to leave his house that morning.
As usual, Vládik checked his analog watch after closing his door, but instead of looking at the normal 8:25, he found that both the minute hand and second hand were going back and forth like crazy. Vládik couldn't help but let out an expression of astonishment as he tapped the antique clock his grandfather had given him years ago.
Unable to repair the anomaly, Vládik just resigned himself to hurry to the bus stop so as not to miss his ride to work. But as he ran to the bus stop he noticed something disturbing: the Grüs Tower, where he worked, was not visible on the city skyline. Neither was the 301 Skyscraper. In fact, there wasn't even the same modern bus stop he used to go to from Monday to Saturday.
At this point Vládik was a sea of emotions. The automaton of a man who loathed his life so much, now could not stop sweating and trembling at such a change of scenery.
He looked for concern on people's faces. But there was nothing. Their faces were cold, rigid as always.
"Hey, Mr. Drusdae, since when did they demolish the Grüs Tower," Vládik asked one of his neighbors who was walking his dog, totally elated.
"What are you talking about? The Grüs Tower? I can see it perfectly from here with its litmus colors."
"But how? There is absolutely nothing. Neither the Grüs Tower, nor the 301 Skycraper, nor the bus stop. See!" shouted Vládik before falling into a sitting position after listening to his neighbor.
Mr. Drusdae laughed out loud before exclaiming mockingly:
"One more day without a wife and you're going to end up in the madhouse. Loneliness is going to do you in."
Vládik couldn't help but saying bad words to Mr. Drusdae. He wanted to chase after him to tell him more, but instead, he ran home. Vládik felt he had to return to the only one place that seemed familiar now.
It was a warm escape that stopped just seconds after it began. For, from one moment to the next, Vládik felt something brush against his left wrist. As he detailed this thing very well, he realized that it was a bluish chip with several fluorescent filaments hanging from a wire coming from inside his skin.
To make matters worse, Vládik also perceived that his hands were blurry holograms. No matter how much he reached out to touch his hands together, he felt neither the texture nor the sweat they should have.
Vládik asked himself: "Who am I? What is this all about? What has happened to me?" before collapsing in a faint on the grass surrounding his neighborhood from such an unusual find.
From the deep shock Vládik suffered, only nature could bring him out of it. A faint, cold night rain brought him back to his senses. However, the sight was unpleasant to his eyes, as he saw that it was no longer only his hands but also his legs and torso that looked like holograms.
"VD-1347, return to normal. Reintroduce the chip and follow common order now," Vládik heard from a rather metallic voice that seemed to expand like a ripple among the millions of falling droplets.
"Who's out there?" Vládik asked assuming a defensive posture.
But once again the metallic echo was heard:
"Reintroduce the chip and follow the common order now."
This ended up exasperating Vládik, who looking around found no one. But, by the time the disturbing voice wanted to speak again, Vládik finally realized that the voice was coming from him. It was exactly coming from the chip that had caused him to collapse earlier.
So when the voice was giving the known directive, Vládik went berserk and, grabbing the filaments as if he wanted to shatter them, pulled them with such force that they flew several meters behind him.
It was definitely one moment, one night everyone would have thought of crawling into his bed until the next day, but he could not. Instead, he ran. He ran trying to escape from something that seemed to be everywhere.
And the fact is that, although he got rid of that strange authority in the form of a chip, he could notice «in his escape» how everyone who walked the streets had on his left wrist the same chip that he got rid of.
It was, without a doubt, another sad and disconcerting finding. Amidst the rain, the neon lights and the frenetic walking of the people, Vládik felt as if he were part of an alien reality.
He vainly talked to whoever he met. Children, young people, adults and old people, all ignored him or scoffed at his words. No one believed a single word of how Vládik described that they were part of a Control System that kept them in a never-ending virtual illusion they never asked for.
"If I have come to know this, it is not to keep quiet," Vládik said over and over again to himself after people turned away.
After several minutes of failed attempts, Vládik was left with only one option: force.
Like a beast being released from a long confinement, Vládik began to rip the chips from people's bodies. One chip after another, Vládik became more and more excited, noticing how his fellow citizens began to perceive the reality he perceived. Vládik was the architect of a new life.
It was probably the most exciting and satisfying thing Vládik had done in his life.
In his heroism, however, he was blinded and did not realize that the System had formed a barrier of Special Guards. These Guards soon subdued him with aggressive nanotechnology before everyone's eyes. Vládik thought that someone would reveal themselves when they saw him being taken away by the System, but everyone just watched. His latest disappointment.
"VD-1347 error will be corrected," was heard several times from the Special Guards as they subdued the «error».
Vládik could not believe that he had lost the only possibility to be free. Perhaps, his grandfather interfered from somewhere in his old watch for his grandson to make history, but Vládik didn't make it. Or maybe he did.
Although Vládik was never heard of again, his effort was not in vain in the end. That world Vládik once saw was in total transformation. There were squares, monuments and even entire regions called «Vládik», and all because many of the people he removed the chip from were able to organize and create a Resistance against the System that grew progressively over the years until it extracted a large part of the world's population from that imposed virtual lethargy.
It can be said that this was the foundation of the planet Vládik among millions of civilizations that later followed its example throughout the cosmos. If only Vládik knew...
