It's preview time. :)

To make it up to you about the sad state of things at present - my constant absentee-ism... - I'm going to share something with you that if I don't do it NOW, I'll NEVER do it, so here we are.

I ask for three things:
1 - you do not judge too harshly.  This is my first-ever attempt at writing in this genre.  This is also a RAW copy.  As in, it is not edited yet, and this is just right off the cuff.  Well, I had started hand-writing it, but I want to share it, so I had to type it out.
2 - DO NOT pirate this.  I will find you, and it will not bode well for you!
3 - If you share it, understand that this is INTELLECTUAL COPYRIGHT TO ME, as it is MY brainchild.

© 2018 T. REA OKERBERG, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. NO PART OF THIS MAY BE COPIED, SHARED, OR OTHERWISE ALTERED WITHOUT EXPRESS WRITTEN PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR!

             It was summertime when things changed. It was gradual, almost so subtle at first that hardly anything was in any newspapers or reports on the television. Slowly but surely, the oppressive new rulings and dictatorship seemed to strangle their way through each thing: Scientists aren’t allowed to use fact to try to keep people abreast of life changes - environmental, even animal and medical. Women are slowly forced further back into the kitchen and silence. Children are slowly forced to be the silent trophies of their parents who wanted nothing more than to live vicariously through their children’s achievements.

By the year 2025, the Arctic Shelf was almost completely diminished. By 2032, global warming had been discovered to be directly linked to the way people were focused more on what made them angry rather than trying to live peacefully. In other words, everyone had lost their “chill.” Eventually, things got so out of hand, the government officials of the more “aggressive” continents commissioned scientists, chemists, and medication designers to develop a medication to suppress emotions.

Some citizens decried accusations of mind control in the advent of this new medication being mandated by their respective governing bodies. Other citizens blithely - if not outright blindly - went along with it, whining, “media bias, you just believe into what the newscasters and teleprompters are saying! There’s no ‘mind control’ going on! We’re all safe! Our leaders are amazing, life is roses and cotton candy on a balmy spring afternoon in the park!”

Fortunately, not all citizens were as easily swayed. Scientists did as they were tasked to do, but some heard citizens decrying about mind control and it was loud and steady enough to give them pause. A few scientists started resisting doing their part in designing these emotion suppressors.

The lab techs rebelling against these new mandates had to be adept in the arts of subterfuge and subtlety. There were rumours of governmental retaliation if anyone dared resist their assignment. A few had disappeared, never to be heard from again, and when any questions were asked after their disappearances, always a vague response of, “moved” or “reassigned to another department in another town,” but the rumours were never dispelled nor proven false, only fanning the proverbial flames along.

Everyone knew of the CRSC’s. There was speculation that the rebellious were shipped there, or worse: killed and their bodies dumped in undisclosed locations.

The rogue techs who were able to still go undetected were able to collaborate with each other about how to infiltrate the CRSC and try to make an outlet for people to expel their more “aggressive” emotions, especially when it was discovered the treatments didn’t seem to be as helpful anymore and people were developing resistance to the active mood-suppressing compounds in the medications, but no one at the higher levels and even the government officials in charge of the project’s overall commission wouldn’t hear of anything befalling the idea the populace would finally stop trying to implode in on itself.

By the time the rogue scientists had infiltrated the CRSC’s as staff members themselves, there were black market “vent” safe houses all over the city, mostly in basements of warehouses an out-dated, refurbished missile silos out in the sticks.

At a glance, no one had any reason to suspect these structures were being used for anything illegal. Not at first. It would be a few years before it all blew up in everyone’s faces, but they still had to be as careful as they could, as they knew the consequences of discovery would be dire.