Quarantine
by Jun Zhang ︎︎︎I inserted my ID disk into the apparatus next to the entrance and with the beep of the apparatus I entered the adjacent scanning room for a full-body scan, 30 seconds later the apparatus spat out my ID disk and flashed a red light, the test showed positive and I still couldn't get out.
It had been almost a month since I was sent to the quarantine station S. One month ago I was caught speaking in a strange language with a strange voice at a party hosted by a friend, and someone called in the epidemic prevention personnel to come and check, I eventually tested positive and was immediately sent to the quarantine station. At the same time, the epidemic prevention personnel also conducted a mass inspection of the other people at the party, two more people tested positive and were sent to the station with me.
The building of quarantine station S is quite huge and I was told that it is a temporary building that can hold tens of thousands of infected people in case of an outbreak. Since the current pandemic is said to be able to spread acoustically, artificial intelligence has become the only pandemic prevention worker throughout the quarantine station. Each infected person has his or her own separate unit room, where the bathroom and toilet are concentrated. Our food is all 3D printed, and the machines are said to print the food based on daily nutrition. It seems that there is the freedom to walk around throughout the quarantine station, but most of the infected people choose to stay in their own unit room in the hope of getting out quickly, and most of them refuse to talk and communicate for fear of acoustic infection.
According to the news, most people recover after a week of infection, so I was quite optimistic in the beginning. In the second week, I still tested positive, then I tried to contact the outside world but all the AI in the quarantine station had very few response options. I began to feel anxious and tried to report physical discomfort, but even then the AI only asked me to be scanned and tested in my unit and eventually replied that no physical abnormalities were found. I also tried to violently destroy the facilities in the station, but the quality of materials used in the buildings and equipment were so good that my destruction did not cause any reaction. I tried talking to other infected people, but most of them refused out of fear. I was getting desperate. I didn't know who I could talk to, and I didn't know how long it would take to get out...