Ooo the best kind of cautionary tale here!

The way you set up with AMY, the caring system that wakes him up, ensure he is fed sets the tone wonderfully. And AMY suggesting he watches the news at first seems like a normal alert, just like my phone my suggests i read the news when something has happened, but as the story progresses that moment takes a new tone of control and psychological manipulation.

The character never doubting what AMY tells him is wonderful, even when he finds himself a prisoner in his own home, when the tables have fully turned and she is giving him orders (which is a beautiful touch by the way), he still fully believes. No wonder they make everyone watch the news!

When he finally gets out to a ghost town, for a moment it feels like he could be the last living person, I could really feel the isolation he'd experienced alone in his flat, and to emerge out of a need for human connection only to find nothing, no one answering their doors. It really carried the emotion.

The encounter with other humans, and the discovery of a resistance fighting back brings a ray of hope, saddened by the realisation that the city was full of people, but they all sat in the dark, with no power, too afraid and brainwashed to venture out. No wonder, when he meets the resistance, he feels such a strong urge to save others.

The relevance of the car here is wonderful, the rich and powerful never giving up their sport cars, and instead living the polluting wasteful life they want, whilst they enforce a different system on the rest of society. At least it feels like the planet came off for the better in this world, the few who still have cars very much being the few, the rest of humanity carefully packaged and controlled, kept indoors resulting in minimal environmental impact.

What i think i like most about this, is that what seems like the master plans of smart tech thinking for itself, it actually another layer in the manipulation. Really it was the wealthy, those at the ruling who has programmed/ordered this behaviour from the smart tech. A very good forward look, especially considering how unscrupulous some companies already are with their customers data and privacy, this seems like a stepping stone in that same path.

This feels like a story of two worlds, living along side each other, the comfortable unwitting prisoners (also, love the title) and the elite with their free happy lives, and the people who found the space between the two, forming the resistance. At the end, I was left with very mixed feelings, I do love an ending where people die, and yet when it came to the ruling elite I was torn between being disgusting at their behaviour, and understanding. Not everyone can live like them or even close to that lifestyle, the planet can't handle it, but they found a way to maintain the balance with nature. It almost, almost, feels like a humane solution, a kind way to keep people happy, comfortable, alive and cared for, whilst limited their impact on the planet. I had wondered how the various AMY systems expected humanity to reproduce, where babies came from when people couldn't go out and physically be together, but the more I think about it, the more the ending addresses that. There is no need for a huge population, the machines make it all happen really, this almost feels like the ruling elite letting the majority of the population age away, until they are the only ones left.

A wonderfully speculative story, inspired in it's layers and twists!

~ Calluna <3

_{PS - Voting is open! Head over to the round up post and let me know which entry was your favourite for an extra chance to win!}