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Watching You
What happens when government—or someone else—is watching everything?
Harold is a second-class citizen and a cog in a government surveillance system charged with reviewing ‘criminal activity’. This is a world with a caste system, where everyone has their place and Harold’s job is to flag anyone who might threaten the peace.
But he is tempted. Oh, so tempted, by a woman he constantly sees and imagines needs his help. And he’s only too willing to offer to break her free of her misery. It is a match made not in heaven or hell but in the minds of those who created his world, who placed him as a watcher, able to see the most intimate details of her unhappiness. But fraternizing with members of a different caste is forbidden. He knows this yet can’t help himself. She needs him, he concludes.
This short story is a chilling tale of government surveillance. Or is this corporate surveillance. Hard to separate these days. At the intersection of global tracking, pervasive networks, and mass storage, we have the ability and some say the obligation to know everything about everyone. Can privacy survive? Can the individual endure?
What Amazon readers are
★★★★★ “It was like reading "1984" while watching "Castaway" alone in a motel room far from home. And all of it seemed believable”
Explore the undercurrent of a society constantly under surveillance.
Harold is a second-class citizen and a cog in a government surveillance system charged with reviewing ‘criminal activity’. This is a world with a caste system, where everyone has their place and Harold’s job is to flag anyone who might threaten the peace.
But he is tempted. Oh, so tempted, by a woman he constantly sees and imagines needs his help. And he’s only too willing to offer to break her free of her misery. It is a match made not in heaven or hell but in the minds of those who created his world, who placed him as a watcher, able to see the most intimate details of her unhappiness. But fraternizing with members of a different caste is forbidden. He knows this yet can’t help himself. She needs him, he concludes.
This short story is a chilling tale of government surveillance. Or is this corporate surveillance. Hard to separate these days. At the intersection of global tracking, pervasive networks, and mass storage, we have the ability and some say the obligation to know everything about everyone. Can privacy survive? Can the individual endure?
What Amazon readers are
★★★★★ “It was like reading "1984" while watching "Castaway" alone in a motel room far from home. And all of it seemed believable”
Explore the undercurrent of a society constantly under surveillance.
25 pages, Paperback
First published June 9, 2013
About the author
Lance Erlick
21 books265 followersLance Erlick writes science fiction thrillers for adult and young adult readers. In 2018, he launched his Android Chronicles novels with Reborn and continued it with Unbound and Emergent. This series follows the challenges of Synthia Cross, wrestling with the download of a human mind and emergent behavior while confronted by humans who seek to control her. In the Rebel series, Annabelle Scott faces a crisis of conscience after she’s drafted into the military to enforce laws she believes are wrong. The Regina Shen series takes place after abrupt climate change leads to Collapse and a new World Federation. As an outcast, Regina must fight to stay alive and help her family while she avoids being captured. Xenogeneic: First Contact is about aerospace engineer Elena Pyetrov’s struggles with alien pilgrims determined to take over Earth.
To learn more, visit him online at www.LanceErlick.com.
To learn more, visit him online at www.LanceErlick.com.
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