Brain Switch

                                    

                                          
BRAIN SWITCH by R. Chris Streutker
                          


                          
Chapter 1
                          
Tom lifted his head from the optical-scanner after seeing the green light glow. He used to think security clearance controls such as this were exciting, but after working for five months at "The Agency" they were becoming a nuisance. As the electric door opened, he slinked into his department office, hoping to avoid his nagging boss.

                          
"Tom Kramer!," the voice barked, "Are you done with that report yet?" Tom cringed and then turned around muttering, "Well...no sir, there were problems with the new computer and..."
                          
Mr. Hensley interrupted, "Do you realize you're late again Kramer?"
                          
 Tom sighed, "Yes sir, I know. I'm having problems with my car's recharger system and I can't go much faster than forty miles per hour when it acts up."
 Mr. Hensley frowned and shouted, "I am sick and tired of hearing excuses from you Kramer, I want those reports handed to me by sixteen hundred hours sharp!"
 Tom responded, "Yes sir, right away sir." 
                          
Tom trudged into his office cell and switched on his computer.  As he answered several security prompts, he took notice of the date on his screen: July 14, 2078.
                          
"Oh my gosh, it's my wife's birthday tomorrow", he thought.
                          
He wanted to buy Alice a nice gift, but they were already maxed out on their credit system. He was hoping he could work overtime this week to pay off some of their debts, even though he hated working more than the required 24 hours per week.  If only they had the 6500 credits it took to buy that new Virtual Hologram Optivision set he saw demonstrated at the MarketNet Center.  The 3-d visuals were getting better all the time on those sets.  The ancient television they owned was a hand-me-down from his great-grandparents manufactured before Hologram sets were even invented.  But that was the price for getting married before 40.  They were lucky to get their own apartment flat though, working for the government did have certain privileges. Tom had friends that didn't move out of their parents' housing unit until they were close to fifty years old.  Living units that were located in areas with soil that was not toxic were becoming scarce.

                          
Tom's attention turned to his report writing when his screen finished scrolling to the place he left off last week. His job was to organize the digitized vocal information collected by intelligence agents to a form required for review by Agency Superiors.  Agency Superiors were very wealthy, often owning private housing units that had vegetation gardens that were not artificial.  Genetically engineered plants that barely looked better than plastic plants were the only things that grew in most other city sectors.  Almost all of the information that Tom processed seemed quite tedious.  When he grew up watching James Bond Adventure movies, he thought anything associated with spies would be thrilling, but he had a dull desk job.

                          
The former Commonwealth of Independent States had disintegrated into fourteen different countries at the beginning of the century and the only country that the United States had to really worry about was the Federation of China.  Even Russia had splintered into three separate countries and sold most of their nuclear weapons to the Chinese to pay for the rebuilding of devastated cities from two major civil wars.  With a population of nearly 2.5 billion people and a rapidly expanding capitalistic economy, China was a force to be reckoned with.  China and the United States were the only considered "super-powers" by this point.  Since China was the greatest threat to the security of the U.S., most of the CIA's secret agents were located in the Orient, which China essentially controlled.

                          
Since every major country had economic interests in most other significant countries, there seemed to be little reason for international wars to break out.  Big business basically ruled the world and the world's governments were its puppets. Any war between two countries would destroy valuable industry and since most countries now had nuclear weapons, it would probably spell the literal end of the world.  The CIA's main function was to now monitor major Chinese companies to ensure that American industry would not become overshadowed by the economically aggressive Chinese.