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Back The Block Save as PDF
Chapters (27)
  1. Title Page
  2. Dedication
  3. Epigraph
  4. After the War
  5. Day 7
  6. In the Block
  7. Day 32
  8. Day 34
  9. Day 36
  10. Day 38
  11. Day 39
  12. Day 41
  13. Day 43
  14. Day 45
  15. Day 49
  16. Out of the Block
  17. Day 2
  18. Day 3
  19. In Purgatory
  20. Day 2
  21. Day 5
  22. Day 1
  23. Day 6
  24. In the ARC
  25. Day 2
  26. Acknowledgments
  27. About the Author

Day 32

There was a trick I used to use back in the Loop, on those long days when loneliness and boredom would creep into my bones. (How little I knew back then; I hadn’t even been introduced to true isolation.) The trick was a sort of disappearing act, escapology of the psyche. I would build a world inside my mind, a world in which I was free and happy. This world—a story really—existed dozens of years in the past, long before I was even born, in a time I had only heard about in accounts from my father. I could wander the city, happy in my freedom; I could meet friends who weren’t prejudiced, neighbors who weren’t forced to live in poverty; I could spend afternoons reading in the sunlight, evenings with my dad and my sister just talking and laughing about nothing at all. But I’ve lost the trick; I can’t find the way into that world. Instead I have to rely on the Sane Zone.

Minutes after being placed into paralysis again, I appear in the white room.

The Sane Zone exists to keep Happy’s batteries functioning. The AI gets its power from the energy harvest, and the energy harvested is produced by our fear. If we lose our minds, we won’t feel fear and the harvest won’t work. So, to combat the isolation, Happy allows us six hours a day inside the Sane Zone.

I crave it like a drug. I know the experience is not real, I know that it exists to pacify and distract my mind, but I need it.

The first part of the Sane Zone is the white expanse that goes on into infinity in all directions. An involuntary sigh escapes my lips as I can move again. It’s a strange feeling, knowing that I am still paralyzed, knowing that I am lying in my bed in my cell and yet being here, in this artificial reality.

All the scenarios in the Sane Zone begin with a memory. That memory can be simply a location that I recall vividly, or it can be a recollection of a day or an event. From there I can take it wherever I want. I don’t know how it works—if it’s nanobots that crawl into my brain, controlled hallucinogens and augmented reality, or some new kind of tech that I can’t even fathom—but it’s flawless.

Slowly, the white expanse around me begins to fade into color: dim gray at first and then luminous scribbles. It takes a few seconds, but I recognize this place as the ground floor of the Black Road Vertical, the mile-high tower block in which I used to live.

I stare in awe at the neon graffiti paint that lines the concrete walls: gang symbols and skate team logos, names and threats.