To Dream of Pictures
by Robert B. Marcus, Jr.
Part 1 appears
in this issue.
conclusion
“Some had jobs, and some did not.”
“How did they make enough credits to buy food and have a house?”
“Sometimes they didn’t.”
“Where did they live?”
“Some had to just live on the streets and eat whatever they could find.”
“What happened?”
“In the twenty-first century, computers became smarter than people and created jobs for everyone.”
“Did computers also invent the artells?”
“Humans gradually turned computers into artells, allowing them to increase their intelligence until they became independent thinkers, quickly developing the ability to do all jobs because they were better at them. They took over all the complicated ones except for a few. Since most humans became unemployed, the artells created new jobs that humans could do.”
“Then they must be able to design a job for me,” I said. “There must be something.”
He shook his head, the tight smirk back on his face. “No, you are not qualified to do anything. You cannot even concentrate. Unnatural ideas fill your head. We have nothing to offer you, unless the neuronal engineers succeed.”
“When?”
“I do not know. Unfortunately, there are only a few artells in the world capable of such surgery. As you might guess, there is quite a wait for their services.”
“Why can’t humans be neuronal engineers?”
“Don’t be absurd! Humans aren’t smart enough.”
“I don’t believe that. With education, I think some humans could be neuronal engineers.”
The fat man’s face turns red again, and he sputters. “Y-you are even m-more s-stupid than I-I-I t-thought. That would be b-beyond the c-c-capabilities of h-humans!”
I don’t answer, but my mind whirls. Is it true? Are all complicated jobs beyond the capabilities of humans?
“You will wait for the neuronal engineers!” he demands. “You will be taken to a holding facility until they are ready for you.”
I do not cry at all that night. I guess I am beyond tears, for it is numbing to be told that out of all people in the world, you are one of only a handful who lack the intelligence to qualify for any job. Why me? My parents are normal and hold normal jobs. My father, as a computer-watcher, is well respected, as is my mother. Why am I too stupid to perform any job?
* * *
Two days later, I am taken away to the holding area, which is just another prison. This one is quite a distance away, on the shore of a large lake. It takes four hours on the floater to get there, and the last leg is across the clear blue of the unpolluted lake.
I have never been so far from home, and the flood of scenery rushing by the window fascinates me. Most of the ride is through greater Savanta, but towards the end, we pass through some rolling mountains and vast acres of trees. I never knew so many trees still existed in the world, and certainly not so near home. It is a glorious sight, one that I have the sudden desire to capture with paint. Bile erupts into my throat as I realize my transgression. Why do I think such thoughts? Why can’t I just enjoy the view, like every other person in the world?
* * *
The new prison is nestled in the valley between two blunt mountains, surrounded by three layers of high-wire fences. Between the fences patrol what looked like large artells, though I can’t be sure because of the distance. Inside the fence, the prison is a large, three-story building surrounded by a large, open courtyard. Between the building and the fence are two hundred feet of open grass, with more artell guards patrolling. Escape appears impossible.
I am assigned to a room on the first floor with ten other men. Most are sullen and even hostile when I try to talk with them, so I soon discover that the best approach is to keep my mouth shut most of the time. When we have free time and can go out into the courtyard, I meet someone who is friendlier, a man named Charlie Dead. He is in prison because he didn’t want to work and preferred to be here. He would rather tell stories to children. That is hard for me to understand. Why wouldn’t a person want to accomplish something? Why wouldn’t a person want to work?
But I enjoy talking with him, despite his ideas. Sometimes I wonder if it is because of his ideas. Because they are different. That scares me. I don’t want to be different. I have been different all my life. Right now, I just want to belong. To hold a job, like every other normal person.
“No one ever leaves here except through that gate,” he tells me one day, pointing to the large gate on the north side of the complex. It stands opposite to the direction from which I came, but a small road exits the complex through the gate. He is chewing on a piece of grass, a common habit of his.
“Where does that road go?” I ask.
“Several places. The first branch goes to a building about three miles north of here. Neuronal Engineering. They come for you in a black truck. You never come back.”
I say nothing; I just stare at the road.
“Less than one in ten people are helped by the neuronal engineers,” he tells me that same afternoon.
“That’s not what they said at my trial.”
“They lied.”
I don’t know whether to believe him. But... what if he is right?
“What happens to the rest?” I ask.
“They either die during the operation or become complete imbeciles, incapable of even feeding themselves.”
I am not sure if he is serious or joking. I am too scared to ask. He has a terrible sense of humor, but since most people seem to have none, I enjoy it.
* * *
“What’s the point of living?” he would say. “I’m already dead.” Then he would laugh for five minutes at his own joke. I’m ashamed to say that I didn’t get it the first time, but when I finally did, I laughed with him.
He also asked me a lot of questions about my past. “Why did they sentence you to be corrected by the neuronal engineers?”
I was unsure about how to answer and hesitated. He laughed. “No need to be afraid. What are they going to do to you they haven’t already done? You’re facing the most severe punishment our society inflicts.”
He was right, of course, so why does it matter if I speak about it? Fear is a fundamental ingredient in our society. The artell leaders have developed a government using subservient artells to instill fear in people so that they will be easy to control.
“I imagine things,” I told him, “and invent things in my mind. I’ve always done this, from my early childhood. It was hard for me to concentrate in school, so I didn’t do well. I didn’t want to choose answer C... or D. I wanted to create my own answer. For that, I was always being reprimanded.
“I repeated four different levels. I’m surprised I achieved my Competency Certificate at all. But even that didn’t help. I’ve been trained for a dozen different jobs, but I can’t hold any of them. Just before I came here, they tested me again. I’m too stupid to hold a job; I can’t control my mind.
“There are always strange new ideas hovering all around me, around my mind, through my mind, and as they drift by, I instinctively seize them, ideas that no one has ever thought of before. Thoughts that no one else can grab. When I finally told my parents this, they took me to a doctor. He called the Enforcer artells, and you know the rest. They declared me insane. I am, I suppose.”
He looked at me and smiled. “Everyone is insane,” he said.
* * *
Charlie Dead is the only good thing about this new prison. Several prisoners beat me occasionally, just for fun, while the artell guards just watch. I think that if we obey the artells, they don’t care how we treat each other. But why the hatred for me? When they aren’t beating me, most of the other prisoners avoid me completely, a look of disgust crossing their lips when they pass by me.
And what have I done? I dream and imagine things. I never hurt anyone. Why do they hate me enough to beat me as they do? I usually go to bed with my eyes swollen shut, and my lips too sore to eat. Sometimes I cry, but the salty tears hurt so badly when they drip into my cuts, I soon learn to hold them back. But inside I hurt just as much as ever.
Why me? Why do I deserve this? Most of the other prisoners are here because they are violent, and violence is a behavior that cannot be tolerated. Like me, almost everyone here awaits neuronal engineering, though most are awaiting the elimination of their violent issues. Ours is a peaceful society, where everyone should have a job, work at that job without complaining, go home and watch the Holo, go to sleep, wake up and go back to work.
Everyone makes the same amount of money, everyone has virtually everything a person could want, so what is the need for violence? But there are some people who are still not satisfied, people who should have lived in the past, not in our twenty-second century. So, they steal, they murder, and they are caught. They are always caught. There is no way to hide from the forensic artells. For most citizens, it is the perfect time to live. We have a perfect government. It controls our lives, tells us what to think, how to think, and adjusts the mind of anyone whose thoughts stray.
* * *
Every night I dream. Sometimes I am back in the walled city, painting. Sometimes I sit at a desk, writing on a computer or a Net pad. A story... perhaps. Sometimes I create a wondrous new thing never seen by anyone. Sometimes I am lying in a field of yellow and gold wildflowers, surrounded only by the wind and many thoughts. Sometimes I stand in the middle of the village, surrounded by children, painting a picture or telling a story. In this dream, I can see the ideas whirling around me, small ideas and large, ideas of peace and some of great destruction, all waiting for me to reach out with my mind and seize them. And I do.
And I understand.
In my dreams.
* * *
I know my inevitable appointment with the neuronal engineers is close at hand when I am called daily into the office of one of the prison artell doctors. I doubt he is a mind doctor, because that is one of the few complex jobs a human can do. Besides, he has no interest in my case. Whether I am just another murderer or something else, he cares little. He asks me routine questions, and I doubt my answers matter much to him. He obviously has never accessed my medical chart.
“Do you regret your crimes against society?” he asks.
“I regret I am not capable of holding a job,” I reply.
“Do you feel any sympathy for your victims?” he asks, ignoring my answer.
I have to think about this one. What victims? The only person I ever hurt was myself.
“I don’t know how to answer that question,” I tell him.
He writes something on his Net pad with the stylus. “You think unnatural thoughts; that hurts everyone. Don’t you care?”
“How does it hurt anyone?” I ask.
He gazes at me. “You really don’t understand, do you? We cannot go back to the chaos of the past, where millions of people starved while a few rogue thinkers lived in luxury. We cannot afford to let people think whatever they please; that experiment has already failed. The government understands that. Soon you will, too, after the neuronal engineers correct your mind.”
“I don’t want my mind corrected,” I tell him.
“It is for your own good,” he says gently.
* * *
That night, I have the urge to paint again, for the first time in quite a while. It is a picture I don’t plan at all; it just happens.
Since I have no pen and paper, I draw on my Net pad that they gave me when I first arrived. The next morning, the fat man comes to see me again. I show him the new picture, thinking he might find it interesting, but he reacts like my parents. He is absolutely shocked. He shrivels away from me. “What is this?” he asks.
“It is a picture of a neuronal engineer,” I say.
“It cannot be, because the neuronal engineer you drew is a human being, not an artell.”
“In my world, humans can be neuronal engineers,” I say.
“That is impossible.”
“I disagree,” I tell him.
His face takes on an expression of complete fury, and I think he might explode, but he finally calms down and says, “You are far more hopeless than I first decided. There is no job that you could ever do, and not even the neuronal engineers can help you, so I talked to the judge, and we decided to cancel your appointment with them. All we can do with you is have you sit in the middle of the Square of Maddox and keep the children busy when they are not in school. You will receive a few credits each week to use for food. We are not without sympathy about your lack of ability to qualify for a standard job.”
* * *
So now, each day I sit with Charlie Dead in the middle of the Square of Maddox, where the children play. He tells them stories he’s made up. The fat man took my Net pad away, but most of the children have one and are excited to see me draw on theirs. I seize the ideas and pictures that float around me and show them what I can do. The children watch, fascinated, asking question after question.
Some start to draw pictures on their Net pads, beautiful ones, and in color at times. They soon learn to do things that I never thought of, like draw characters and pictures from Charlie’s stories.
When the fat man comes to monitor us, Charlie and I hide what the children have done.
And, of course, we remind them not to tell their parents.
Copyright © 2026 by Robert B. Marcus, Jr.
