Seven Players

CUT! I always hear this snap when I wake up from my “acting dream” (as we call our playing on the set) and come back to my true reality, panting loudly as if haunted by terror. My eyelids lift up and my eyes begin to survey the surroundings. I recognize familiar large windows covered with red curtains. My room. Someone has just transported me here from the set. Again.

So it’s over. Fifteen minutes ago I took part in the first scene of Seven Players: Season 1. It’s the post-apocalyptic serial of the Emperial Metropolis—a production so big that it will gather around the Screens all the inhabitants of the Seven Metropolises, and perhaps also the poor people from Outer Slums and the Underground District.

Of course, I don’t remember anything after waking up from an “acting dream”. Because I don’t perform normally, as a real Actor. The truth is . . . I don’t even know what might happen during my performance in the film. When I’m supposed to be in a movie or a serial, I have to put my mind to sleep so that the Film Coordinators can turn on a whole new consciousness hidden in a special microchip in my brain and invented for production by some Film Designers. We call this consciousness the Movie Character. And when I find myself on the set (not knowing when while sleeping) they activate this consciousness with their highly advanced technologies I know nothing about. During the filming, the Coordinators send messages, orders and various impulses to microchip in the form of thoughts, forcing the Character to do everything that the script requires. Meanwhile, my true Self rests in a dormant state, sedated by special preparations (sleeping pills) and some quantum waves. I become a real puppet on the set, performing without my own consciousness, only aware of thoughts and feelings, which belong to my Movie Character. One can ask a question—what’s all for? The reason is quite simple and clear. Everything featured in Emperial’s films when we perform is real and is broadcast live on TV and on the Screens. (It’s a kind of movie-reality show). Unconscious, we can follow the script without hesitation, whether we have to kill someone ourselves or . . . get killed. What’s even more scary—not one viewer from the Seven Metropolises realizes it’s real. Terrific, isn’t it?

When I wake up again in my room with large windows and red curtains, I’m weak and confused, filled only with one bitter thought—I was used again, and I have no idea what I have done! Have I hurt or killed somebody? What if the next time it will be my turn to become a mindless prey?