A Night Time Walk

Randy was thrown against the side of the squad car. The police put the handcuffs on as tight as they could and threw him into the back seat.

"So what do you think, Sargent," asked Freddie, the first cyborg hired by the police force. "Why would he be doing what he was doing?"

"Who knows Freddie," sighed Sargent O'Malley. "Who knows why people do what they do any more. Times have changed so much, I just don't know anymore."

Randy didn't look like much. If he was standing, most people would call him average in height, medium build, and sandy brown hair. His looks didn't strike much fear in the police, and when other people were talking to him on the video phone, he didn't strike much of anything into them. So why was he in the patrol car.

Randy was doing what no one else would do. He wasn't sitting at home participating in 3D virtual reality games. He wasn't watching live holographic shows on the floor of his living room. He wasn't streaming live music from his music player into his head while working out on a virtual treadmill. Randy did what no one else was doing.

He went for a walk.

He was tired of all the technology. He was tired of having the latest commercials beamed into his head. He didn't want to deal with virtual birds while he was on his virtual walk. He didn't want to have access to what the weather was like in Beijing while he sat in his home in Chicago. He didn't want any of the knowledge that was available at his fingertips twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

He just wanted to take a walk in the night air.

"I mean, who would want to take a walk outside?" O'Malley asked Freddie. "Why would someone want to deal with normal reality, when we have everything available at any time at home? Who could be bored with all of that? Why not enjoy the world at your fingertips?"

This was the last thing that Randy heard before he was frozen in liquid nitrogen and kept in suspension while the court system figured out why he was acting so strangely. Why didn't Randy want everything available? Why enjoy the peace and quiet that the night offers?

Why indeed.