Cracked

“Good morning, Reya. Have a great day!” Carl’s familiar greeting broke through the quiet morning air.

“Thanks, Carl, you too!” Reya waved back, offering the same smile she had worn for weeks. Her voice sounded more automatic than she intended, the words slipping from her lips without much thought, mechanical, like they were on autopilot. The joy those daily exchanges once brought her had faded, losing their charm after her friend Lila disappeared last year.

“Relocated.” They’d told everyone. Off to pursue dreams elsewhere, apparently. The explanation still gnawed at Reya, never sitting right with her. Lila’s behaviour changed in those last few weeks, but she’d seemed upset and paranoid, not itching for a new experience.

Shaking her head, Reya pulled out the work order tablet and checked her first location. Within minutes, she’d arrived at the flickering street lamp in the center of downtown. “Love an easy one to start the day,” she mumbled as she reached up to unscrew the bulb and sifted through her bag for its replacement.

“Looks great!” A random passerby called out.

“Thanks,” Reya replied without looking up from her task.

Once completed, she bent down to pack up her supplies when she noticed an irregularity in the sidewalk. Leaning in, she ran her gloved finger over the spot, feeling a slight groove. She gasped as her eyes narrowed in disbelief at the offending spot.

Standing up, she looked around at the people passing by. No one seemed bothered. She checked her work order tablet; no other repairs were flagged in this area. She shook her head, “It can’t be,” she said to herself. “It’s not possible.”

After packing up, Reya moved on to the next order and continued until the end of the day. When she arrived home, thoughts of the minuscule crack still plagued her.

Days passed, and the crack haunted her. She found herself making excuses to visit downtown, unable to leave it behind. Each day, she would re-live the horrible confusion of seeing that it had grown, unease settling in her gut.

Each day, she looked around, silently begging someone else to notice, but they never did. Since becoming more observant, she’d noticed patterns. The same people doing the same things at the same time every day. Just like her. Visiting the same shop for lunch, greeting the same people on their way out, and plastering the same smiles on their faces.

And yet, the smiles looked genuine. Despite the monotony, the city seemed happy.

After a week of visiting the crack and seeing it slowly expand, she couldn’t take it anymore. Locking her doors and closing her windows, Reya clicked on her laptop and opened the browser. She logged in to the special server she had access to as a Continuity Specialist with the city. She started by logging the day’s repairs to avoid triggering suspicion. Then she clicked into the repair archives and searched for the keyword “crack.”

The logs date back to the city’s inception almost 45 years ago, but no results appeared. Had nothing cracked in 45 years? Her responsibilities only included minor replacements of consumables like light bulbs and batteries. The Overseer Bots took care of the rest, they said, to avoid mistakes.

The next began like any other, with Reya taking her lunch break in the downtown square. Another half inch on the crack, another day that no one else saw. She casually sauntered into the coffee shop across the street, greeting the owner, Joe, with a smile. “Mornin’ Joe, how are you today?”

Joe raised his eyebrows but answered with a smile equally bright, “I’m doin’ alright, thanks, Reya; you want your usual today?”

“You bet, thanks!” Reya leaned against the countertop, tapping her heel, and tried to muster up the courage to ask her question. Since Lila’s disappearance, she had distanced herself from everyone. Joe was the closest thing she had to a confidant, but even with him, she hesitated.

“Sooo, Joe, question for ya,” she said, catching his gaze as he made her lunch. He nodded for her to continue.

“You ever seen any cracks in the sidewalk outside?”

Joe furrowed his brow. “Crack? What do you mean?”

“Like… have you ever seen the ground split open?”

Joe chuckled nervously, handing her the plate of food. “You feelin’ okay there, Reya? I’m not sure what you’re talkin’ about.”

Reya let out a sigh, forcing a laugh. “Ah, never mind. I just watched a weird movie last night.” Her smile felt tight, and she cursed herself for bringing it up at all.

Joe’s confused gaze lingered on her briefly before he shrugged and returned to work.

Reya spent the next several days trying to forget the crack. To unsee it. But the more she tried to forget, the bigger it seemed to get, both in her mind and on the pavement. Her thoughts swirled in circles at night, and she felt pain in her forehead come morning.

Up before her alarm, Reya stood in front of her bathroom mirror, massaging her temples and examining her skin for irregularities. “I think they used to call them “head aches” but how does anything bad get in if the skin hasn’t broken?” She wondered out loud, frustrated by this new, unpleasant sensation.

Shaking her head, Reya tried to focus. “Just get through today,” She said, steeling herself before venturing out to start the day. By the end of her shift, the pain in her head had spread to her neck, and Reya began to panic. But if she contacted an Overseer Bot about this, she’d have to explain the irregularity that caused it, and that scared her more than the pain.

Determined to clear things up herself, Reya waited for the sun to go down. Once satisfied that the city slept, she gathered some tools, donned a black hoodie, and set out for the town square.

Breathing deep, Reya approached the crack, still thin but almost two feet long. Glancing around, she quickly pulled the thin rod from her sack and slipped it into the concrete. Pausing one last second, Reya closed her eyes and pushed the rod hard with her foot. Relief and fear fought for dominance as she felt the crack give a little.

On and on she went; another push, another give, until she had opened the crack several inches. Running out of strength, Reya put the rod down and sank to her knees to peer into the hole she made. At first, her brain could not make sense of the information her eyes provided. But the longer she stared, the more familiar the sight became. Wires, light, sparks, and rusty metal.

It looked like an old pile of rubble, yet it was alive. The way it moved, breathed, and shone would have been beautiful and impressive were it not unhinged and broken.

“Citizen Reya, you have breached protocol. Please return to your designated area and await further instructions.”

So engrossed by her discovery, Reya hadn’t heard the soft but distinct whir of an Overseer Bot. She stood up quickly, stuttering as she tried to form a response. Before she could speak, however, Reya noticed her surroundings had changed. Cracks covered the entire street. The once-picturesque shops now boasted broken windows and rusty hinges. The bright, pristine lamp she replaced recently now sat rusted and dark.

The Overseer Bot turned red and began blaring. “Code Red, Code Red,” it spoke into its armband. "Citizen consciousness is too high. Begin protocol.”

Looking around for an escape, Reya realized that in those moments, the crack had expanded into a giant hole, pieces of gravel now lying on a bumpy dirt path below. Seeing no other option, she jumped and ran, dodging loose wires and discarded metal.

The Overseer Bot’s noise faded into the distance. Reya stopped when she came to a large metal box with a small door, slightly ajar. Heart pounding and headache spreading, she pulled it open and stepped inside.

The horror gripped her like icy fingers, freezing her in place as she entered the room. Much larger inside than it looked, horrible green pods surrounded her. Each one had a small metal circuit board attached with blurry photos of faces. Scanning the first few, tears sprang to her eyes as she found Lila’s photo. In the almost-opaque pods, she could barely make out the shape of a human form centered in a mass of wires.

“Citizen Reya, you have breached protocol. Please return to your designated area or risk relocation.”

The voice came over a loudspeaker now, repeating itself on a loop. The robotic tones reverberated through her skull, but the lack of bots in this room meant they didn’t know her location. Reya looked up, following the wires with her eyes. She saw they connected to a giant hole in the ceiling and continued up and out, the consciousness of the dissenting citizens fueling the utopian simulation above.

Unsure what else to do, Reya ripped the first set of wires connecting the pod to its circuit. With her metal rod still in hand, she smashed the pod. As she did the same to several more, the iridescent liquid spilled onto the floor. The people inside slowly awoke and frantically pulled the wires out of themselves.

Reya paused her work and looked back, locking eyes with the newly conscious Lila. “Reya!” Lila’s voice trembled as she stood, unsteady on shaky legs.

Reya ran back, “Lila, do you know where we are?”

Lila nodded, hands shaking. “Yes, I remember everything. I saw a string of rust on someone’s car… it was all downhill from there.”

“It was a broken window for me,” another man piped up, standing on his own shaky legs.

They all froze as the familiar whir of Overseer Bots and their fans were heard in the distance. Reya stared down the rows of pods with trepidation. “We don’t have time for everyone right now. How do we break the simulation?"

“If we break out the first few people they trapped, it should do the trick,” said a third woman, voice husky. “Their brains are the strongest since they came from the Old City and never saw the sim world. They hold the most power.”

The group nodded and ran down the lane, scanning the dates. Upon reaching the oldest ones, they got to work. They pulled as many wires and smashed as many pods as possible before the Bots arrived.

The bots surrounded Reya and the survivors, leaving no escape. They all exchanged glances, and an unspoken question ran between them: Did we make enough people see?

The Bots took the group into custody while the ones tasked with Overseeing attempted damage control. Lila and some others spoke optimistically as they heard screams and wails above them, the citizens struggling as they confronted the truth.

Though imprisoned, hope permeated the air so much that no one noticed Reya’s grim expression. The pit in her stomach grew as the screams reverberated through the walls. She hadn’t been after a breakthrough. She just wanted to get rid of her headache. Her actions were nothing more than self-preservation and mild curiosity; she couldn't help but wonder if they'd truly done the right thing.

They say the truth will set you free, but what is freedom in a world consumed by chaos and ruin?