A Puppet of Idealistic Will

          “Now, Maxence, would you like to start this conference?” An official hands me the microphone. My trembling fingers grip the base of the black contraption. The blue light lining the edge distracts me. My thumb runs over the cord, finding that it isn’t as slick as I want—it’s unhelpful for kneading out my unease.

          If only I could stim in public. The officials don’t like me doing the obvious ones in front of people. Even if I’m young, they don’t want their head engineer looking too abnormal. But it only makes me less inclined to be expressive. How can I focus on smiling with a bundle of anxiety trapped in my fingertips?

          Flashing lights lash across my vision. The archaic chirps of shutters opening and closing vocalize the moments they capture my shock. The spotlight didn’t bother me before. Now I feel my jaw clench under the attention. My breaths become more desperate as the air leaks from my lungs.

          This crowd expects me to explain why my friends disappeared.

          The gleaming wood beneath my feet creaks as my weight shifts from one leg to the other. Neither side feels right. The stage I stand on is decorated elaborately, as if this is any other public event. Renovatio went for a mostly blue theme this time; the color makes me woozy.

          People fill the lobby. They occupy so much breath space that it’s difficult to breathe just watching them. Of course it’s full, since I’m speaking at this sudden press conference. I’m the star of this building and this city’s star celebrity. They supply me with everything I need to craft projects that help rebuild the world. In return, I give them the entertainment that is my life’s details as I grow up.

          It's not a bad deal. I can take on problems caused by flooding and redistribution of resources—issues that even a century hasn’t been able to fix since the climate change acceleration. New problems in government, housing, structures, and environment appear every day. I, like many other engineers, are recruited to fix it all. That part is easy enough.

          It’s people that are difficult for me. Conversations are chores that I don’t often have energy for. I can’t read social cues the way people are supposedly supposed to. Interacting with people is like playing a game where everyone else but me knows the rules. Over time, I’ve gotten better at recognizing some patterns. And my friends help.

          Well, they helped.

          I broke my own life less than a week ago. Can I really continue acting like I can fix the world if I can’t even help myself?

          Renovatio drafted an address for me to say. It describes how my friends received opportunities elsewhere. That’s why they all left suddenly without saying goodbye, years before they were supposed to graduate the Renovatio engineering program.

          I pluck at my vocal cords, desperately hoping that there’s some idea hiding there. A strangled grunt reverberates through the microphone instead. Silence ripples through the audience, giving space for me to speak.

          There’s that awkward pause after my noise. In the past, I would’ve immediately come up with some witty thing about me being nervous or having talked myself hoarse for my friends’ ears this morning. That’s the kind of tactic Alex had me practice for uncomfortable moments.

          My eyes dart to the sides of the room. Renovatio officials line the walls. I can’t escape this place. The officials wouldn’t let me leave the building for a break yesterday. What am I—their prisoner? I thought they were supposed to support me in fixing the world. I trusted them.

          Images from my nightmares flash through my head. Officials wrestled my friends to the ground and shoved black pills down their throats. My friends frothed at the mouth. They collapsed, their muscles twitching until they couldn’t move.

          Alex was the only one who escaped. His expression reflected my pain as he shot the truck out of the building, the tires screeching behind him. I don’t see him here. I had hoped he’d be in the audience—actually there, not as some figment of my mind. But then, he’d be a prisoner too. All we wanted was to leave the building for a little while without Renovatio knowing.

          I used to think that this was a place of opportunity. They’re making me lie about what they did. If I resist, they’ve got more black pills. I learned that they have a whole floor of drugs that control people. They’re so potent that a single black pill can kill.

          And that isn’t even the worst one. They gave me the blue pill before this press conference.

          My mouth curls into a smile. “What a dramatic pause. Am I right?” I receive some light chuckles. “I’m betting you want me to address the mechanical elephant in the room. The quick travels my friends made! I want to see them too. Let’s call them up, shall we? Officials, can you ring up Annie?”

          My shoulders stiffly shift enough for me to watch the screen behind me. My smile flickers as the AI-generated video of Annie appears. She beams. “Hey, Maxence! It hasn’t even been a week. Did you miss me that much?”

          The accurate voice smacks my chest. My troubles with breathing don’t seem to be over.

          My voice lilts and my eyes roll toward the audience. “I just thought you might want to let us know how you’ve been doing. What, you got some engineering deal in Territory Argentina and you didn’t let me visit for a few days?”

          My voice goes back and forth with the AI-generated video. I remember every word and inflection in my voice that must be included to create Renovatio’s perfect version of me in this idealized situation.

          I really thought I could trust Renovatio. They adopted me and gave me the means to change the world. All the adults seemed supportive, especially in helping me learn whatever I wanted.

          Betrayal has swarmed my mind for the past few days. Initially, when I couldn’t revive my friends, my emotional overload was sourced in anger. In those first moments of pain, I ordered the technology in the self-tying neckties to clasp around the officials’ necks relentlessly. I killed the officials who killed my friends, but it didn’t fix anything. It only made my guilt climb exponentially.

          A stinging develops in my eyes. However, under the blue pill’s influence, my eyes refuse to cry. I can’t even cry?

          They tried feeding me the green pill to obscure my memory. But my nightmares kept showing me my friends’ last moments. They tried feeding me the purple pill when I would destroy my room in helpless anger. Although the purple pills made me unconscious, it only returned me to the nightmares.

          The blue pill is now their dominant method. The one that makes the subject do whatever they’re told. For example, a distressed subject can lead a press conference without breaking down.

          The makeup they put on me hides the purple beneath my eyes and the blemishes from injections in my arms. My body carries the signs of my disturbed sleep from their efforts to control me. The clothes they put on me makes me look less thin, as if I’m still eating healthily. They’ve started sticking crushed pills in my food. I need to learn to cook my own meals.

          While my mouth takes the lead over my mind and answers questions from the audience, I notice the familiar dark hair. Her short stature, especially in comparison to the adults in the audience, is difficult to miss once I’ve locked onto it. Her face is even the same.

          Her lumbering soles creak across the stage. Dribble drips out the corners of her mouth as she sways in uneasy steps toward me. It’s such a stark contrast from her image that was behind me. Annie didn’t deserve this. None of them did.

          I expect her to vanish like the other hallucinations of recent. But she keeps approaching.

          Fear clamps around my skin, trembling me with a chill. I can’t even see through her. I know she can’t be real. It’s another hallucination like Alex and all my other friends. They don’t talk. Most of the time, they simply stand in the corner of the room. But this one’s moving.

          “Maxence,” she mutters.

          I drop the microphone. Dread jolts the fake, blue pill version of me out of my body.

          My feet trip over themselves scrambling backwards and I smack into the floor. My breaths exhale so quickly, warming the floor inches from my face. Ache from the impact squeezes my limbs. When I next look up, her eyes are centimeters away from mine.

          “You should’ve known that we couldn’t trust the adults.” Her voice dips, dejected.

          I lurch to my feet and sprint for the elevators. The clamor behind me dissipates the further I go. My vision spirals until I approach my bedroom. It’s so far away from the lobby. Only the officials can reach me here. And they will. They won’t be pleased with how I’m behaving.

          As soon as I’m in the room, I rip off the suit that suffocates my skin. I can only stand being in my underwear. The thought of pajamas even sends prickles of irritation up my arms.

          I collapse on the floor and lean against my bed. The hard frame etches away at my spine. I lean forward, resting my head against my bundled legs. If I don’t look up, I can’t see Annie sitting in the chair in front of me.

          “You really lost it, huh? I wonder how Renovatio’s going to explain this one.” Alex’s offers a mild groan in irritation. “What if they publicly blame you for killing our friends? I can’t even be there to defend you.”

          “All the adults care about is their image,” Annie says bitterly. “They try to claim adolescents care too much about maintaining images, but at least we admit how much we care. The adults will kill to hide their care. Blaming Maxence would destroy their images.”

          I cram my palms into my ears. Although it’s futile against their voices, it feels like I’m doing something to fight them. The pressure on my head is somewhat grounding. I smack the side of my head, finding the force a necessary attempt to expel how out of control everything feels.

          Their voices are painful. Yet, the words themselves are somewhat reassuring. They bring up thoughts I didn’t consider. As if my friends really were here. It’s a conflicting twist of bittersweetness melting my head.

          As my arms drop to my sides, I look up. There’s no Annie or Alex here now. There’s no one with me.

          The lower part of my face feels unfamiliarly solid. A warning prickle of pain threatens my mouth as I attempt to open it. Curious, I stumble into the bathroom.

          Black thread rests on the counter. When did I put that there?

          In the mirror, I stare at the dark thread frenziedly stitched around my mouth, tightening it into a thin smile. My fingers delicately touch the taut thread, sticky with semi-dry blood. The hardened signs of pain look real. Did I sew my mouth shut, or is this another nightmare? Perhaps it’s a hallucination.

          A laugh bubbles up my throat and buzzes behind my teeth. At least they can’t shove anything down my throat now. And they can’t make me speak a lie.

          If my skin were scarred, could they not inject me either?

          The laughter builds in my chest, as it can’t leave through my closed lips. My breath is too turbulent to rely on. The darkened edges of my vision are harder to focus on.

          The laughter fades. There’s no climactic result afterwards. Everything around me remains the same.

          Renovatio will likely send officials tonight to inject more of the drugs. I can’t tell if the hallucinations and nightmares are from grief or the drugs. But if my fake friends talk more, maybe I wouldn’t mind hearing what they have to say.

          Another laugh buzzes behind my teeth—lighter this time. My thoughts seem insane.

          Was I truly so crazy for dreaming about fixing the world? Where did I go wrong in trusting the adults around me to be kind? I thought I was more to them than an asset they couldn’t lose. For some reason, I thought I’d have so many more days with my friends.

          Could I find dreamer as insane as me to replace my position?

          Maybe if I ruin myself enough, they’ll let me quit and someone else can try. Maybe then I can escape all this.

          Because even if I tried, I don’t think I could fix it. I can’t be their puppet. That isn’t the role I want to play in this world. Is this how they plan to treat me as I grow through my teenage years? I still have six years before I can graduate Renovatio. If this is how they want to treat me, fine. But mark me, I will defy their choices every step of the way.

          There may not be a happy ending to fighting their expectations. But even after a week of subjugation under their idealistic will, I can’t stand another second without resisting it.

          I’ll find my own way forward, one way or another.