Oh, What Intricate Circuits We Create

I don't recognize these streets anymore. Kids hang by the corner, tweeting about the days of their lives. Business men hurry by in expensive suits and speak in hushed voices to the small blue tooth in their ear. Cars drive by, beautiful stallions, but no one is at the wheel. Sweet aromas of coffee cafes drape around the sea of laptops, and all minds are plugged in, hooked on the cyberspace. And slowly we disappear with control slipping across the circuits, but nobody seems to notice. Nobody realizes. The machines have taken over.

The subway breaks me from my trance. The hum of a cell phone burns into my back. Fingers hungrily type on the blackberry with eyes drinking in each and every word, and all I can do is stare. The doors whoosh open, and I am pushed into a herd of chatter, blank faces speaking a thousand tongues into the cell pressed to their ear, but service is interrupted. And footsteps thunder to the surface, begging to connect, but they are pulled further into a tangled web of isolation. And I follow, struggling to survive in a world thriving on what we create, but has our creation now become our domination?

The warnings were there. The machines would take over, but that was just Science-Fiction. This is our world, or so we believe. It's a new century, where anything is possible, so why our dependence on small gadgets that fit in the palm of your hand? Is the world now a circuit's breath away, and did freedom break through this frontier? Or do the gates of security wait to slam close, trapping identity in, and dictating protocol of how we must live?

It only takes one phone call to change your life forever. A cry for help breaks through the static, and innocence hangs in the balance. And one man must risk all in a high stakes game, where he has no role, but another must survive the deadly web that holds his life in the balance. A sweet voice fills his ear, edged with deadly intent, but he is the pawn in her circuitry game. And one wrong move would place the world on its knees, but there is only one move left to make. But would we give our lives to bring humanity back from the brink?

He should have been dead. The strange delivery saved his life, and now wealth dangled at his fingertips. Beauty passed by, edged with argument, and razor sharp thorns cut him deep. But he was on a roll, untouchable, or so he thought when he met the man with the gun in his hands. And Max Peterson's world came crashing down.

Time was against him, and death was a footstep behind. There was no one to trust, but he had no choice as he sat beside the man ordered to protect him. Eyes were everywhere, hunting him down, but there was no place to hide. If he wanted to survive, he would have to confront a global conspiracy, but would he be able to stop the one bent on taking control? Or would he remain the pawn, delivering the world into their hands, and locking our fate away, and would he risk his freedom to save our own?

My days are spent cruising the web, drifting through email, and blogging to night's end. The soft hum of my cell stirs me from my daze, and a voice mail waits to be heard. A social gathering is texted to my attention, and I tweet its details to my loyal followers. And I stretch further into the cyberspace, losing myself over corridors of circuitry, and trying to capture the world, but the four walls around me say different, keeping me in isolation. But this is how I live. This is how we live. No more days are spent without holding the hands to technology because we fear disconnection, but have we relinquished our control for our need to connect? And what if the day comes where all our actions become record, all secrets bleed out across the screen, and we are denied from breathing the freedom that was so adamantly fought for? What days wait for us then?