I sat back down on my bed and cried. This is the first time I had ever rolled a One, but from the drills during my years at school and constant PSA announcements on television and radio, I knew the protocol.
I picked up my phone and called the number.
“911, what’s your emergency?” the hoarse, but calm voice asked. I could almost smell her cigarettes through the phone.
“9-1-1-1.” I nervously responded. Taking all my effort to be as clear as I could.
“Understood,” came her reply, not quite as calm as before. “5972, I repeat, 5972,” she paused, “good luck dear,” and hung up.
I continually repeated 5-9-7-2 while I ran to ‘The Box’. The box, rather unremarkable looking, looked just like every other box, in every other household. It was a plain black metal box, around the size of a large lunchbox, with a handle, two metal clips and nothing but the small emblem of the DOAD in the bottom left of the lid. I pulled it off the wall, unclipped the clips, and opened the lid. As soon as it was open, on the underside of the lid, a red, single line display flicked on with ‘CODE?’ on it. I typed ‘5-9-7-2’ on the keypad that was just below the read-out.
In what felt like forever, but in reality was just a few seconds, the words ‘CONFIRMED - ETA 3 MINS - POD 3’ kept scrolling on the screen. I ran back to my room and quickly got dressed. I glanced at my phone wishing I could tell someone or talk to anyone from my family, but I couldn’t risk being tracked.
“Follow the protocol, idiot.” I cursed myself for even thinking of touching my phone. I knew they were already praying for me, I had not sent my number to my friends or family group anyway. They will know what is happening.
I ran back to the box, pulled out the black balaclava and put it on. I heard the pods coming down my normally quiet street. I knew that did not mean I was safe, but it did give me a sense of relief. I closed the box, picked it up and headed to my front door. I checked my watch, it just clicked over to 6:05am.
“Thank goodness I didn’t press snooze this morning,” I thought. I’m never ready for the day this quickly.
CRASH. My self-congratulatory moment was interrupted by the sound of glass breaking near my back door. I panicked and ran out the front door as four black DOAD pods pulled up, opened their doors, and started flooding the entire area around them in smoke. I ran to the first car under the cover of smoke, I felt along the pod shaped chassis of the car until I got to car two. I repeated the process and found car three’s open door, I threw myself in and smashed the big red button on the other side of the car.
The instant I hit the button, the door slid shut, and the car accelerated away at a speed faster than I had ever felt. This acceleration threw me towards the back of the cushioned pod, while the lights inside flicked on and a static lady’s voice started talking to me. Lana, I thought, I knew her from all the DOAD commercials.
“Welcome. Please enter your secure code,” Lana instructed.
I found the panel to the left of me and entered ‘5-9-7-2,’ then clicked confirm.
“Welcome 5-9-7-2”, Lana’s robotic AI voice continued, “we at the Department of Alien Defence know that today may be scary for you, but we hope to make your roll of One as pleasant as possible. We are proud of our 83 percent success rate, and want to turn your ‘Day of One’ into a day of fun. You are number one to us.”
Having never rolled a One before, having never been the one putting my life in the hands of an international governmental agency, and having never been the one absolutely scared for my life, I had never quite stopped to think how bullshit that advert was.
The moment my pod gets into one of the DOAD underground bunkers, I will be safe. I just have to get there first.
I started to look around the pod as I hadn’t seen one since the DOAD brought them to school to show us all. I remember being so excited to sit in it as a child. This pod was more modern than the ones I remembered, but basically the same. There was not much to them. They are are built as cheaply as possible because they are blown up, a lot. ‘Smokey eggs,’ Dad used to call them.
BOOM. My pod shook, but continued on its way. Something blew up. Maybe one of the decoy pods, maybe not even one of my decoy pods. I’m not the only one that rolled a One today. I wished I could see out of my pod, but I guessed that would only frighten me more. I had seen pods being shot at, being swarmed, clawed at and being blown up many times. I am sure not being able to see any of that would have been considered part of making the day more ‘fun.’
Not knowing how long this would take, I tried pass the time by distracting myself from all the shaking, gunfire and scratching noises. I remembered back when I rolled a 93, easily my highest roll. Originally, it was the aliens that invented rolling the One. They came and held our world hostage until it was negotiated that every adult human, at midday GMT time, would be assigned a number from 1 to 100. Every person that was assigned a One, was free for the aliens to hunt down and kill, but if they survived 24 hours, they were free.
The DOAD was born shortly after this, as they worked out a way for people to actually know what number had been assigned to them. The physical act of rolling the DOAD Die was their way of trying to make people feel like they had control, but the numbers came from the aliens.
Later on, in an effort to try and improve spirits, the DOAD starting implementing raffles and contests based on the other numbers. You could take your die to any DOAD outlet to claim all sorts of prizes. The higher your number, the bigger the potential prize. Of course different apps became available to streamline this ‘service’. My best friend’s family won a holiday to Disney Universe one time, and my 93 won me a television. One of the DOAD’s famous mottos was, “The better your number, the better your day.”
Disgusting. But here I am now thankful that the DOAD exists. So far, so good.
Lana had continued to talk to me, but I didn’t care about the different services available at my destination. I just wanted to get to the bunker, get my basic room with a plastic bed and TV, eat and drink the things in my box, then go home with my complimentary new box and call Mom.
All of a sudden my pod stopped. The door slid open and Lana spoke up.
“Welcome to the Department of Alien Defence’s bunker 6145-E. We pride ourselves on your safe arrival. Follow the green line to Room 73 and enjoy your 23 hour and 33 minute stay. If you would like to upgrade to one of our VIP services, please follow the blue line to...”
Lana’s voice from the pod trailed off as I followed the green line to my room.
I am safe.