Controlling Minds
an excerpt

Chapter 1 – The three sisters
“You stink worse than a pair of my socks!” Connie yelled.
“You need to grow up. You don’t need one. Look at Grandpa. He-”
“I would if he was here!”
Reb watched her sister, almost eighteen, flip her hair and cross her arms, tap a foot and roll her eyes like a twelve year old.
“You know what Reb? You’re sad. That’s what you are. You can’t even turn on a light without freaking.”
“You can’t get one.”
“Dad says I can.”
“Dad’s crazy.”
“And it’s your fault. But he’s still my legal guardian.”
“Why do you want one anyway? To fit in?” Reb stared at her shirt. It was black, with white letters stapled to it: “I’m Different.”
Reb pointed. “Way to live up to your own standards.”
“You can’t live today without being plugged. You’re living proof. You have no life.”
Reb couldn’t really reply to this. She graduated college with flying colors and at the top of her class only to become a janitor, politically correctly, a maintenance worker, at her alma mater. Now she was trying to make her four years of computer science go to waste.
The door banged open, and in walked the sisters’ older sister, Tory. She strode in.
“Are you two fighting again? You need to disengage.”
The two younger sisters just glared at each other. Reb was twenty four. She didn’t have a boyfriend and hadn’t for three years, not since her parents had been arrested. Their father had been returned only a few weeks ago, completely changed.
“Well, this is long, good quality awkward pause.” She turned to face the stereo, which came standard with the house, built into the wall, and barely visible. Only the flashing buttons gave it away. With a tilt of her head, Tory turned the music on.
“I hate it, Tor. You know I hate it.”
“You only hate it because you want one. You know you do.”
“Like a hole in the head. Your head!” She went for the front door, slammed it, and made it all the way to the street before turning around.
There was a tree in her backyard. The only backyard tree on the entire block. As she rounded the house, she could see her father sitting in it, where he had been since that morning. She climbed up and sat down. She knew better than to speak first. He would only change the subject if she started talking about something important to her.
“The Sox are going to win again.”
“Mmhm.” She nodded as she climbed and sat down on a branch on the other side of the tree. The Red Sox hadn’t won for thirty seven years. The Curse resurrected some said. Bad playing and no talent Reb said. And it was soccer season.
“They have to win again sooner or later.”
“When’s Mom getting back?” She would usually go in less directly, but she didn’t want to deal with him today. Hopefully, getting him off his guard would be enough. It was.
He stopped, and looked directly at her. He was really thinking about her. Something he couldn’t always do. Then he concentrated on his wife. Confusion. Lost. No information. He could see the room that must be her cell, but the communication was abruptly cut off and he found he could no longer talk.
“Anything Dad?” She knew what had happened. They had cut off his line with her. “Dad?” Apparently, they had just cut off his line totally for a little while, just to be safe.
They sat in silence. When would they give him back his freedom to speak? Reb looked over at him. He never really would have true freedom again.
She waited a few more minutes before whipping out her computer. It was an old model, almost obsolete. Paper thin, nearly indestructable, black, and about the size of her two palms together and able to be folded to the size of your thumb.
“You have a meeting in one hour,” it chimed.
“Shut your face,” she sang.
She clicked a few buttons and the internet displayed a higher number than last time.
“Eighty seven percent of adults in the United States. Seventy eight percent worldwide. It won’t be long now.”
“What won’t?” Her father’s glazed eyes were coming back to life. She folded up her computer and holed it up in her jeans pocket once again.
“Nothing. Do you know when Mom’s getting back?”
He shook his head. “I remember that I saw something, but they erased it. I don’t think it was anything new. What are the statistics?” he asked.
“Doesn’t matter,” she said. “Connie and I were fighting again.”
“Did you do that a lot?”
“Only since you got back,” she said. But why since Dad got back? Shouldn’t the fighting between them have started when their parents were arrested?
“Sorry I’ve been such a burden,” he said, but she shrugged it off.
“You going anywhere later?”
“I have some things I have to do,” she said.
There was a siren. She hoped it wasn’t the police, but it was. She could see the glaring lights between the houses, like she had seen the lights through the shutters. She had just turned twenty, still in college, home for Christmas, politically correctly, winter, break. The sirens had wailed as the police kicked down the back door. She could still see the cracks in the wood, since the door frame had never been replaced.
A few minutes later the cop car drove by again, lights flashing and silent.
“They’ll be coming for you next,” he said. She climbed down from the tree and went inside, only to come out the front door.