Black Book Poque

City of Ankh 3030

The mirrored skyscrapers towered over the city of Ankh. Within these high rise walls, the affluent residents frowned down upon the bustling streets below. These windows were a looking glass for the inhabitants into a world that many had not physically entered since the outbreak. The city center had one building, the Exodus Corporation Tower, that loomed menacingly over the rest.

Her eyes caught the ominous shadow cast from this main government building. She feared for the new technology directive that was being developed within these walls by the elite at Exodus Corporation. Within this month alone, ten new directives had been issued with stater credit requirements, the government currency. With her dwindling balance, one more directive would cause her stater credit balance to drop to non-existent levels.

Lost in her thoughts, she nearly ran through one of the wealthy residents ahead of her on the street. She stopped seconds short of dispersing the hologram of well-dressed woman before her. The projection of the woman sputtered and then stabilized as she turned to face her dead on.

Since the outbreak, the wealthy residents only entered the city center with their holographic projections assisted by the personal aides. The aides would run beside their employers with arms full of parcels bought at the shops along the metropolis streets. The outbreak started slowly with many citizens ignoring the impacts. As the situation worsened, normal life stopped. The streets were silent except for the residents that had to venture out for essential work.

This was the situation until Exodus Corporation announced a new invention that would return normalcy to the wealthy of society. The outbreak was incurable; however, the newly invented hologram machine would allow citizens to return to everyday life without leaving the security and sanitation of their home. Due to the stater credit cost, the less fortunate were still required to interact in person. This shift among the elite allowed Exodus Corporation to become the de-facto leader of the land. The hologram technology spread along with other enhancements to the citizens. These innovations continued to bring contactless and constant connectivity to Ankh; however, the technology eliminated privacy. All citizens now had Exodus Corporation technology embedded into the palm of their hand and required to carry tablets with identifying information.

Of course, the initial outbreak and rise of Exodus Corporation had occurred thirty years ago. Now all she cared about was the wealthy women wagging her projected finger and threatening to call the Exodus Forces for disturbing her force field. Noticing a door ajar in the alley, she scurried past the woman and disappeared from the holograms view. When tucked away in the crawl space behind the door, she checked her new stater credit balance. The screen showed an updated balance of forty five stater credits. The credit pull was not a bad swipe; however, still not enough for dinner. She made a mental note to target a hologram before they started their shopping trips not after.

Scanning the cramped crawl space for anything edible, her eyes stopped on a dusty black rectangle in the corner. At first glance, she thought that the object was an abandoned Exodus tablet. As she picked up the object, the black cover opened to reveal something she had only heard about from before the outbreak. Within the book, she saw sheets of aged blank paper. When Exodus Corporation took over the government, all writing instruments, paper and books had been confiscated. Now all written communication was delivered via the connected network with digital records for each message. The conversations were recorded so that no secrets or conspiracies could spread against the Exodus Corporation.

During her first inspection, the pages appeared blank. After her third flip through the pages, she noticed five full pages of writing hidden in the middle of the book. The writing had a scribbled title of Poque. Was this a game from before the outbreak? Could she use this game to increase her stater credits? With the watchful eye of the Exodus Forces it would be difficult; however, she could use a more valuable currency. The buy-in would be with secrets. The rules were simple. The players were all dealt a hand. With that hand, they had to bet against their probability of having winning cards against the other competitors. Players would either bet, raise call or fold each round. Amending only a few of the rules with her limited supplies, she started out to recreate the game.

Inspecting the book, she admired the leathery material of the cover. The game called for fifty two cards. She used her knife to slice the black leather cover into rectangles. The rules mention different symbols for each card. She had aced a few con jobs and knew a few Jacks but had never seen the symbols paired together. Visualizing the symbols was difficult because before she was born Exodus Corporation had outlawed all symbols except their pyramid logo. Using variations of this pyramid, she made the symbols outlined in the game. She carved the symbols into the durable rectangles creating the cards. Searching the crawl space, she noticed the wood was chipping on a section of the wall. Carefully, she broke away pieces for the players to have chips during the game.

Crushing the few lingering cockroaches in the corner, she was able to create a thick and viscose ink. She plucked the feather from her hair and made her first mark on the undisturbed but yellowed with age sheets. She wrote “ Black Book Poque, 14:00, Red C Street Alley, Remember Silence is Mandatory”.

The game started small because the crawl space was just big enough to fit six people and her paper supply was finite. The tables turned on a currency of secrets. To enter the game, each player would rip a small piece of the paper from the black book and scribble their secret onto the torn paper. In order to avoid the sound detection on their Exodus palm devices, the players played in silence betting with hand motions & wood chips. Although the room was silent, it buzzed with energy as the pieces of papers felt as loud as the secrets that had gone unsaid for so long. As the players went round after round, whispers of employers’ secrets, routines and lovers circled around the room. She noticed each week that the winning players returned to the game in finer clothes and well-kept versions of their former selves.

What the players did not realize is that with each secret scribbled the imprint of words remained on the remaining untorn page. With each new entry, the players secrets became her knowledge as well. Using this knowledge, her stater credits grew exponentially as she applied pressure on the secret keepers. As the pages dwindled, she worried how to continue the game and the collection of secrets that followed suit. Until she read one secret, that changed the course of the game. The etching had no words, jut a picture of an air filtration device + Exodus Corporation’s pyramid logo + 3000.

She stared at the image with no comprehension of the meaning for days. Indexing through the secrets she learned, she started to realize a connection to a previous whisper about a director at Exodus Corporation. He was recently fired for the transmission of paperwork from thirty years ago regarding the outbreak. As the realization started to dawn on her, she thought back to the stories from before the outbreak about mass gathering at shopping malls, concerts and sporting contests operated at Exodus Corporation Buildings.

If what she believed was true, what were the citizens supposed to do? The outbreak was still incurable and ravaging lives. With this new information, she thought “What if Exodus had also designed a cure when designing the disease?” As the danger of situation dawned on her, she knew that she had to alert the citizens of the discovery. Without hard evidence, she would have to bluff to see if Exodus corporation would fold under the citizens outrage at the situation.

On the last sheets of paper from the black book, she tore as many strips as possible. She wrote “Exodus Corporation designed & transmitted the outbreak in 3000. Along with the pathogen, the company also has an antidote. The evidence of the distribution is in the air filtration systems of the closed event locations”.

She rolled up the scraps into tiny scrolls. She wanted to disseminate the word against Exodus Corporation with the same veracity that their pathogen had spread thirty years prior. She passed the scrolls to any approaching citizens on the street that lacked hologram companions.

She saved the final scrap for her most important but risky stop. She took a calculated bet on her probability of being arrested versus finding an ally within the Exodus organization. Outside the Exodus owned press office, she observed the workers for their tells until her eyes met the hologram of a young reporter. Knowing the risk , she unrolled the scroll and held it up to his holographic vision line. As recognition dawned on his projected face, she mouthed I can be found at the alley of Red C Street.

She returned to the crawl space and waited. She knew that soon she would be confronted by the reporter or the Exodus Forces. As the sun and her guard fell, she heard a loud pounding at the crawl space door.