Philippe is wakened up by the burn of sunlight on his eyelids. All of his time and he still have to follow the forest's rule and woke up. It does not care for seconds or minutes, even hours are inconsequential. It only cares about daylight and darkness.
Last night, his tired mind drifted off, dragged him into the oblivion of sleep. Philippe could see in the front mirror the blank stare of his red eyes. He is not used to that much sleep derived from the day he took over New Greenwich. Setting his slump limbs on the ground of the forest feels likes he is using a different body that is not his. Maybe, he has crossed the boundary, the upper limit of his physic health. His body is after all over a hundred years old, and training never bothers his thought even if he was warned that even a young body needs its exercise to stay strong and healthy.
Philippe walks carefully on the rocky ground, trying to avoid sharp stones and bricks. High pine trees surrounded just towers on him and he hardly sees the second marked stone - a big head-shaped stone, that is supposed to be perpendicular to the car road at the first marked. Otherwise, the forest seems refreshing. The air is rich with the earthy dam smell. The leaves are singing their harmony under the lingering wind. It is a truth that the last time he goes this close to nature was almost hundred years ago since his last trails at university. And even at that time, he still had a textbook on his hands for he cannot lose a second and fail behind his classmates. So it is quite the first time that he looks at nature closely.
He sees the stone after 20 minutes looking around. It is quite close to the road. He can still see his car from there. Now, he has to walk fifty more step toward the peak on the right. One. Two. Three...Forty-nine. Fifty. Now walking along the mountain, he put his hand on it and trying to feel a different place. One hundred and fifty. Not here. One hundred and Sixty. He feels that the stone is not right. He pushes that place a little and he hears the machine sound! First the hand identifications, then the eyes and voices, which he all passed. The first marked stone rises up, and the elevator for his car is opened. So he has electric power and thus, every machine must work!
He feels like he is turning to a youngster again, running fast to his car and drive it to the elevator, and it goes down all by itself, bringing him to his underground hideout. "Mr. Philippe Weis, welcome home", a woman voice announces. It is his visual assistant and butler. The shelter actually operates under the control of that assistant as he has no such knowledge. All he did was searching for the schematic, the house plant, and finding constructors. And this house could do everything for him.
He goes through the tunnel and walks into his lake view house. Literally lake view. It is a two-story house that is built underground - under the surface of the lake. His living room has translucent-wall, so he got whole view from under the lake, but outside cannot see through. Other could say it is a fancy fish tank though. The house also has 5 bedrooms, a theater, a gymnast, and health pods that can check or even surgeon. Deeper underground, he even got a farm and processors to provide him a sustainable amount of various nutrition. Point of information, actually, this shelter can provide for around 6 people, and the manual setting is to serve that number.
"OK, Cortana. Change the house status, set to one person, male." He commands as he settles on the sofa, legs on the cocktail table.
"Housing status operate for one male user. Are there any other command, sir?"
Urgh, Philippe still feels dizzy with the lack of meals. His brain does not function as it should be - he even forget about needing food. Well, he doesn't need to cook here also.
"Cortana, I want a quick breakfast with an omelet and french toast, please."
"Your meal is coming in 5 minutes."
This kind of non-human companion has drastically diminished after the change, as human labor becomes cheaper and cheaper. Now, Philippe hardly remembers how much more competent and reliable machine compares to human. He can reach it everywhere in the house and it does do everything he needs. Just think of the time he can save not worrying of other's emotions and gossips that he is more contented with his work but not his wife nor his family nor those damn people that paraded around once a week. New Greenwich's parties. The endless nothingness that happens too occasionally just because rich people want to show off their wealth. He had a whole city of Gatsby, worse, they were overspending and they did not have their Daisy for waiting.
And he, himself did so to not become an oddity. No one said that others don't have his same reason. Philippe is just want to direct his anger at other.
He let out a long sigh of despairs. Well, what can he do but watching movies? He cannot connect to the Internet, as it would provide his exact location for his enemies. He waves his hand and turns on the TV. "Best of sci-fi," He said and scroll down the list. Philippe has no clue which movie is better than other, he trained himself to forsake his needs for entertainment a long time ago. They are quite time-consuming for someone who obsessed with living day by day like him.
Knowing that every film would have similar effects to his emotions, he chooses the first name that caught his eyes: Star Wars.
And a robot arm brings him his food is delivered. The introduction slowly crawls through the flat screen. He almost coughs out his first bite after seeing the word trade dispute. Even alien cannot stand boresome trade deals, and he thought buying cars from Detroit is troublesome. Maybe the movie is not that bad, it is relatable to him (which he surely would not relatable to the vast majority).
The bread and eggs are well done. Perfect timing. Perfect for his taste. Well, some of his preference is easy to translate to time, and nothing is better at keeping time than computers and machines. He quickly finishes his meal. He shrinks all his body on the sofa His chin propped on his knee, he leans forward trying to focus on the movie.
Ah, the villains are cowardice...Oh, forget it, that hooded lord Sidious seems to be a more reasonable main force of evil.
What kind of queen ask for her handmaiden confident? So, she is a decoy for that Padme. And that Padme dare to go to a planet of scumbags? She is the queen, another handmaiden can do that for her.
"Are you an angel?"
No. No, he is too young, he is like 6 years old. Philippe would not complain if they had the clocks, but they didn't. And the boy is kind of a slave.
So the slave and the queen get together. Another movie about a poor hero that becomes the love interest of a rich girl, and she helps him out. Just think of his daughter situation. If there were a movie at the time before, a sci-fi movie, Sylvia would be the rich girl that help the daring hero Will Salas to find his correct way of changing the system: stealing money from her father. Philippe is a villain in their story, well, the timekeepers also play the bad guy role. After all, only people who saturated in poverty are genuinely good.
But he is rag once. His father is a veteran who better died in the war to stop poor people from rioting because they have no food but come back with PTSD. Later, he killed himself when Philippe was two, too young to remember that man and his troublesome. His mother is a high school teacher, who worked two jobs to raise him. She had a keen understanding of the system, more than anyone at that time. She knew that nobody could live forever, she understood that his fate, marked by the clock, was like livestock waiting for his due day. She was the only person Philippe could trust. He went to university before most of his age went to their junior year, and with a merit-based scholarship. But it is not enough for her. She died in an "accident" after his graduation. An accident. His frame fall on the sofa, he hardly controls his emotion, every time he thinks of it. An accident, because the jury agreed that his mom didn't have any reason to die - no emotional nor financial cause. Her son just graduated from a prestigious university and already obtained a great job at the age of 19. But he knew better. She thought that she would have become a liability, she was getting old at 39 years old, close to the retirement age, and he, when she is 45 years old, only had a year on his arm. She died to give him her retirement plan and her insurance, which is around 70 years (once 5000$ equals 1 year) enough for him to live a normal lifespan.
She died for him to live.
It was her choice alone. It was her ideas that she had to protect her almost grown-up son by any means. And she would sacrifice. And she had gone. All he can do is living, living all the years she had given him.
The movie rant about the slave transmitter that can explode if a slave decided to run. Funny. He never thinks of his chip as a slave tracking system. But they sound the same. They forbid you to go far away from the city. They force you to stay at the place they want to (you cannot cross zone without money or specific jobs before system corruption). They control your death, either your time is out, or you try to remove it. He didn't realize that he is gripping his right arm wrist at the thought of the chip. Or at the thought of he, himself being a slave for time.
His transmitter was deactivated. It is alright to remove it.
He takes the butter knife and forces it to cut through his skin - through the fainted scar where it was put when he was a newborn. The transmitting chip is around half a centimeter deep. He can feel the hard surface of it. Dropping the knife, he uses his left hand to pick and pull the chip out of his own blood.
He sits up and walks upstairs, to the healing pod, cradling his blood smeared arm.
"Cortana, I have a wrist injury."
"Healing pod is ready for you." She answers
He lies into the pod, carefully put his injured hand down. The machine shows that it is scanning his arm for nerve and cord damage.
"No further injury." Great. It is such a relief. He already knows that slashing his wrist like this is stupid. He might lose control of his hand if he cut too deep, or he might die because he had cut through his vessels. But he has to take it out.
It starts with pumping an anesthetic above that wound. Then, some sort of medicine, maybe to sterilize the bacteria is poured around the cut. Next, the robot arms sew his muscle and then his skin back. Another robot arm, this one connects with a light. The light slowly heals each area its cover until the wound again turn to its old state - a faded scar. It still hurts, as the wound inside isn't healed, yet.
He wakes up and goes for the theater. He almost forgets that he has an IMAX cinema that is still running Star Wars in his house.