Destructive Thoughts

by J.T. Brannan

Genres: Crime Fiction

Synopsis

In a world where the Federation controls your mind, the wrong thought will get you killed.

Ben Carver is a wanted man for treason but knows he's innocent.

As time runs out, he must find out why he's being set up, and who wants him dead.

DESTRUCTIVE THOUGHTS is an explosive action short story with J.T. Brannan's trademark stunning twist at the end.

Release date: January 24, 2014

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 170

Sample

The man’s head exploded, smashed across the smooth concrete walkway, a look of terror still fixed on his blood-soaked features. It was a girl who had delivered the killing blow, barely twelve years old. The metal bar still hung from her little hands, slick with gore, whilst the crowd looked on in approval.

‘Brutal,’ Ben Carver pronounced as he and his family watched the news hologram that took centre stage in their living quarters. They had been following the chase through the city live for the past ten minutes.

‘He got what he deserved,’ Lily Carver said.

Ben nodded. Lily was not much older than the girl with the metal bar in front of them, who moved to one side now as the Mind Police arrived on the scene. ‘That’s true enough,’ he agreed.

‘People have to learn to control themselves,’ Elaine Carver said. Ben’s wife was always quite incredulous that citizens still had unauthorised thoughts. To her, it was close to barbarism and savagery. ‘That man simply had no business thinking things like that,’ she continued. ‘The girl did a good job with him.’

The news report faithfully replayed the dead man’s illegal thoughts, displayed across Mid New York’s network of Holovision screens for all to see. Apparently he had had the temerity to think that the Federation should pay him more for his work. Imagine! Ben shook his head. If everyone thought like that, where would they be? He was glad it had been stamped on.

When the perpetrator had seen his image flash up on the big screens, everyone’s heads turning towards him, he had done what they all did when they were found out: he had run. The chase had lasted several minutes, much better than most managed, but had ended in the same inevitable way – citizen justice, meted out violently before the Mind Police could arrive. This way, the citizenry would be rewarded by the Federation rather than punished. If those on the streets around him hadn’t dealt with him, the whole city level would have been on half-rations for the week.

‘I wonder what they’ll give us?’ Lily asked.

‘You should watch those sorts of thoughts,’ her mother chided. ‘You know where they might lead. We can never want too much, remember.’

Lily nodded her head, thinking of the instruction she’d received at school. Banned Thoughts. There were a lot of them. Anything against the government. Violent thoughts about others, outside of that expected when punishing thought-criminals. Sexual thoughts about anyone other than your wife or husband. Desiring change of any kind – within the home, at work, but especially of the system itself.

And the system was all-powerful, the Federation using Mind CaptureTM technology from PsyCorp to constantly monitor the thoughts of its citizens. A vast network of computers worked night and day analysing the data, instantly highlighting irregularities. And then – and this was the real beauty of the system, Lily’s teachers had told her more than once – these irregularities were captured and immediately displayed on the screens surrounding the perpetrator, for everyone to see, followed by a picture of the subject.

In a society where the transgressor’s home town was punished by the Federation for thought infractions, it didn’t take long for the message to become clear – citizens should discipline their own, before the Mind Police had to get involved.

Crime was now almost non-existent, workplaces were never less than one hundred per cent productive, marital discord and family strife were unheard of; society was at last fully functioning. It was perfect.

‘Citizens of Mid New York,’ came the official Federation announcement moments later, ‘each family unit will receive an extra one thousand credits this week in recognition of your efforts to keep our society perfect. Thank you.’

Ben turned to Elaine and Lily and the family hugged one another, even as the girl on the news hologram behind them continued to hover over the dead man’s body, blood dripping from her fingertips.

Ben stepped off the Magnatram just three blocks away from his office. He was a mid-level manager for a large retail firm; nothing special, but nothing bad either. Like most jobs in the Federation of New American States, in fact. Like most things in new American life.

But as Ben walked down the clean concrete walkway, he didn’t consider these things, didn’t wonder about how his job compared to others. Indeed, he thought of nothing at all. Like most citizens, he had long ago been conditioned into believing. . .