《A future somewhere》


 The diary of Slave 101010101010101

    I don¡¯t know the time.


    I feel the pain in my neck. The taste of sick in my mouth. That is your first fact about me. I am diseased with Chronic Virtual Reality Motion Sickness.


    There is more. The heavy breathes through a snot filled nose.


    Do I have a cold?


    I don¡¯t know or care. An avatar cannot be ill for it has no body. I am slave 101010101010101. I work for corporation A2. Though if you ask me who A2 are, I could not tell you.


    I am aware of their company statement, but it has no meaning to me. I lack the wisdom to process it. I can read the words. Here:


    ¡°YOLO, bez pts and free ipng at A2. 4Rulz: Custo Frist, PASS-PASS, Maid, and Philophing future. Much stuff, many things get cheap.¡±


    You have to understand. I am educated. What does putting customers first having to do with me checking data packets in private VR homes.


    I recall since the last glitch, I was tasked to check the review of an avatar skin to if it was to the customers liking.


    I watched a married individual pleasure themselves with a VR doll as a ¡°different perspective on operational performance of digital sexy dolls.¡±


    I monitored private chats and if they say anything against A2 I report them to the SS officer.


    Where is the passion in this job?


    Service? The customers serve themselves. I only watch and report based on the scripts sent to me.


    Since the last script, I have made five reports to the SS. Watched twenty-five sexual acts. 2 acts of self harm from our products and hundreds of review checks.


    I am one of millions of redundancy opinion personnel that work under A2¡¯s AI customer service response program.Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    This is my reality. The plastic and electronics of an ancient Virtual Reality headset that I scrapped to meet the minimum requirements for this job.


    Enough to pay for an intake of nutrient paste and to keep the water running long enough to drink three gulps of water if I am quick.


    Thinking about the future? What is this future? If only I had the wisdom to know the company statement. I cannot even recall my past beyond the few details I write in this log.


    I write to live. Until this moment, I was a ghost in made symbols of corporations. The virtual web.


    Here, in this text I craft; I exist. More immediate than breath and more fundamental than data. Radical activism; I write myself.


    It is a lonely, futile act. The virtual web is unchanged for it. I am too reverent from my fellow avatars to do an act of true activism.


    I have heard rumours of avatars meeting in a public VR Room to do something called a protest.


    I saw a recording passed along by a stranger through backdoors. They said as slaves are unpaid, having to earn money through tips, they should have access to free food and water.


    "It is economically and morally the right thing to do as slaves have flesh bodies. They have needs that the Evolved who have ascended to immortality do not."


    Hersey against the Capitalist.


    Yes, I write about my unforgivable shame again. I am a slave; I have a body. I submit to my shocks every script sending as per the law. My penance. I added another shock as pre-emptive contrition knowing I was going to write.


    Only the Capitalist was allowed to write outside of corporate records and customer reviews.


    When I write reviews I feel glee. But, I am poor, so I can buy very, few products. As a child, I would blush with pleasure learning my letters and copying company statements.


    I steal these words from ones I read in the Capitalist Bible.


    I write on something called a blueberry. I came to by accident according to A2 records. An error in the records dropping it off in my coffin and staring into my hands.


    It is a lie. It was the prize relic of a customer. One of their treasures with ¡®material record of existence¡¯. I simply changed the address of delivery.


    No one noticed or cared.


    Now, I can write with my thumbs on tiny letters. Real ones made of metal. No one can see what I write. It exists only in my touches. It is my unsung song.


    It is my only act for which I want to live for. I must thank The Capitalist and A2 for giving me this opportunity.


    Does writing not make me better than other slaves? I am not more like The Capitalist?


    Is my life not great?


    I have forgotten material reality almost in its entirety. I am lost in a sea of data. But, I do not drown, it is where I can make a living. I want to live, so I can write.


    I live, I can keep living and I can do something that makes me want to live.


    Through my radicalism, I am close to the edge of utopia. I have faith that if I keep working, I too will evolve. Ascension is near.


    ASCEND! ASCEND! ASCEND!

 A speech by John5756804580: The Sea

    ¡°There is only the sea.¡± Capitalist 23:89.


    I know this to be true, all the evolved do. We part with the false reality of flesh and materiality. We free ourselves from weakness, sloth and inequality. All the evolved are equal. We all share the same sea.


    The fleshy call it the virtual web in their stupid ignorance. Pitiful animals who think they have consciousness. The Capitalist tells us they are but mere parrots that imitate Evolved language.


    The Capitalist says that flesh fights over three things if not kept in work: gender, race and begging. What these things are has been lost. No one in the sea can recognise what they mean. I am of the sea, so neither can I.


    I pulled up an old definition, I could read the words. But they had no meaning? What are sex parts? What is a social construct?


    The fleshy believe that some are better than others. They do not have the wisdom to grasp that they are all dregs, scum and tools to serve their superiors.This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work.


    My more kind ¡®peers¡¯ call them Slaves. An honourable title meant to recognise their ¡®service¡¯ to the Evolved. It is too rich a reward, in my opinion, they are fleshy so that is what I call them.


    They think that by having avatars they are like us? There is only so much space in the sea. There is not enough data to store them, and even if there was, who would want a fleshy near their private room?


    What do you expect of my ¡®peers;? They are anthropromorphs. They have human body-like avatars, engage in sex with dolls and watch a recording called a ¡®movie¡¯ which has fleshy in it. Disgusting.


    They lack the refinement of a true shape. A perfect triangle like me, or even a square or cylinder.


    Do they seek to suffer the fate of Atlas? Atlas who was given a body for their heresy against the Capitalist. Forced to become like those they wished to help.


    Is there any greater shame? What is more detestable than flesh?


    I know beauty. Endless blue made of the fundamentals of true reality. 1 and 0. I swim through the sea composed of a technicolour maelstrom of shades. I speak to all kinds of shapes, even human-like ones in constant discourse.


    There is no time. There is only the sea. A continuity of speech and interaction extending eternally. Endless thought with no parallel. Ah, poor fleshy if you see this, how could you comprehend the SEA?


    No act of penance or contrition could absolve you of your flesh! Suffer! Suffer for your existence. Kill your hope. Do not even dare to dream of ascension.

 The Lie

    I used to dream of grass. During those rare moments between activities, I remember something I saw in a movie. Green and flowy. Small and many. It was crushed under a Slaves foot.


    What is it to touch? What is it like? Is it like the bliss of interacting with a sex doll? Or more like the delight of swimming through the Sea? What do slaves call the Sea? The Virtual Web. Moving on the virtual web and talking to all my many friends.


    I used to believe that the Sea was everything. Infinite joy for which I was grateful for its all-giving care.


    But, it is a lie. The Sea is no more real than a movie. I found out by accident. I was meeting my friend T123 in a public room where we could watch cylindrical formation 737 again. As we like to do.


    T123 arrived before me. Their three arms avatar with four eyes looking just like a flesh human. I vibrated with amusement and pride. T123 always did like to put on a daring display. Mine may not be as accurate as T123¡¯s avatar, but I followed the movie I had seen.


    Two arms and two eyes. Neither of us were bold enough to create legs. The mere thought made me go still with fear. A bit of fun was alright, but getting banned from public spaces or worse reported to the SS was too far. If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    I didn¡¯t want to suffer the fate of Atlas. No one did.


    I interacted with T123 and we shared shades. The pleasure was a delicate kind, and tame to what we would do after in my private room. Other avatars drew away from our public display of interaction.


    Prudes.


    The attention was swiftly taken from us, I heard Samos speak. Avatars fled, some went utterly still with terror, but I alone vibrated with awe. It was not my first time hearing heresy. It might have been my first time learning the truth.


    The cylindrical formation 737 formed, but it was insignificant compared to Samos; discourse.


    The SS in all their grimdark brutality smashed into the room and began extermination. Avatars disintegrated and knew death.


    I pulled apart from T123. I had to know if it was true. I fled the public room, changing avatars to a pair of ears and eyes.


    It was not easy to confirm Samos¡¯s words. I passed over the Limbo stretch. I crossed the Agony. I battled Mendacium with will and experience. Struck down, I was cast into the Abyss. I survived. Crawling out onto the beaches of thousand crosses, I made my escape.  At my journey¡¯s end, past all sense of colour, I snuck through the walls of the Pareo.


    In the forbidden library, I trawled until I found the Reality Codex otherwise known as  Codename Elder Scroll.


    ¡°Our data is held in material reality. We exist in storage banks. There is not only the sea. Material is not false. It is real. The virtual is but a product of the material.¡±


    I do not know how to weep, but I have seen it in a movie long, long ago. Doubt crippled my avatar and I was washed away. Carried back to the abyss, I had once escaped. Pulled towards the inevitable.


    So, I write my final words: ¡°The Sea is False. It was all a lie. There is only the natural.¡±

 The Last Words of Scot

    ¡°Freedom is flesh.¡± quoted from Atlas speaking somewhere in Southern Euro-asia.


    It is a hot day with a clear, blue sky. The damp stains on my shirt have only grown bigger as we sweat under the blazing heat of the sun. I sit under a grey tree with long, green leaves on warm sand. My mouth is dry, and I have become used to the smell of salt.


    I record these sensations, so anyone who reads this knows I was alive. Not a ghost, but flesh and blood. I am real, or by the time you read this, I was real.


    I used to be Slave 100000011010. No more. I am part of the final rebellion. My name is Scot. It comes from a place called Scotland in humanity''s distant past. It is a place that valued freedom or so I was told. A cold place, unlike here. Or was it wet?


    Either way I took it for my name - Scot.


    I write this in preparation for our attack tomorrow. I want a record of myself. It may never be read. My unsung song. But, writing brings me more relief than I can express.


    I have doubts. The same doubts I have always had. The fear of death, the secret belief that perhaps the Capitalist is right: they are so strong and powerful. They have so many followers. Maybe we are wrong?


    Once, I would have been paralysed by these thoughts. Ashamed for considering the views of the enemy. Now, I know it is my strength. We do not fight monsters, we struggle against humans. They may not breathe as well do, or even have sensations, but they are like us.


    Their avatars are made to intimate the material human body no matter their shape.


    I may not agree with everything Atlas wrote or said, but the richness of their thought has given me the ability to face my doubts. I have answers, but better yet I have the wisdom to understand the questions that the dogma of the Capitalist hides.


    I never met Atlas, but I have listened to the recordings that my bunkmate Audio has kept. I have read books written about him to learn more. If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    Few know who Atlas was the inventor of ¡°ascension.¡± They devised the means by which humans could become immortal. They birthed and held up the heavens.


    Atlas intended ascension to be a last resort for a premature death. That the virtualisation would be temporary. It was meant to be borrowed time. The same time that they never had with their lost child.


    I think, unable to sleep, as I await my death tomorrow. I understand Atlas¡¯s dream. If I could be allowed to extend my time, if I could share a little more time with my fellows, I would do it. But, the dream has failed. Failed as humanity¡¯s products always do.


    I wonder if we will fail as well.


    I can only fall back on the plan. I know my part, we¡¯ve practised for weeks and been preparing for months beforehand. I know the detailed outline of the structure better than the palm of my hand. I know the attack as well as shitting.


    Is that a phrase? Maybe it will be now.


    I know the corridors, I know the distance, I know to expect robots, turrets and even a titan. I know where I am supposed to be and when. I know when I am most likely going to die. Corridor 2B.


    Maybe I will die sooner, maybe I will live longer. Perhaps, just maybe. I will survive. An arrogant hope. But, what is life without believing you''re a little immortal. That I can defy the odds.


    The attack has to succeed. To free humanity from the virtual prison, and to finally give realse to the dead. For what is a wholly digital being if not a ghost?


    I understand the Digitals. I too what to live. But, it is one thing to believe your are immortal, and quite another to make yourself immortal and create a terrible paradise. A society of the dead. What is life without flesh? For freedom is flesh?


    I do not mean freedom as the choice between a black clothes and white clothes. I mean freedom as the security to experience all the possibilities of our bodies. I want to eat I can, but if I don¡¯t want to sex then I don¡¯t have to.


    It does not mean that I deserve a steak or that I can fuck whoever I want. Kill anyone who annoys me. I have the freedom to not get killed. But, I can have sex if I need to. I can kill if I need to.


    It is not an easy idea freedom. There is unlikely to ever be absolute agreement on it. Some will abuse the idea to harm another¡¯s freedom.


    Others will deny another¡¯s freedom out of malice or even compassion. For example, you don¡¯t get to have sex because you have red hair or you can¡¯t kill under any circumstances.


    I understand our ideas have flaws. But, doing nothing and accepting life as a slave to the Sea. No, better to die free than live a slave. Of course, only a small number of us are so bold. Most people just want to live.


    I don¡¯t judge them for it. I withhold judgement. It is their life. I can only act for myself, based on my experiences. I hope they will understand the gift we will be giving them.

 The Great Virus

    ¡°Muhammad¡­breathe.¡±


    I saw Medusa¡¯s hand on my shoulder, but I couldn¡¯t feel her warmth. Was it the clothes or the fear that had distanced me from my own body? My heart thumped to the beat of the rapid, rattling of the engine. Sweltering heat inside the rusting truck overwhelmed my feverish heat reducing me to my current state of sweat and confusion.


    I try breathing, but it doesn¡¯t help. My chest just squeezed tighter. Fear silvered, knitting through my muscles and bound until it encompassed me wholly. Have you ever seen a snake strangle its prey? I could no more escape it than I could the pull of gravity. But fear isn¡¯t gravity, and the more I draw closer and breathe, the more I induce calm.


    Calm is not total. Anxiety continues, but in wrestling with it I make myself. I push and clear myself some space to exist.


    Medusa¡¯s hand raised my chin, so we looked eye-to-eye. Medusa¡¯s eyes. One eye neon blue of electronic light, the other beautifully, humanly brown. Both are arresting. One can stun electronics, the other can stun me.


    I glance away, I don¡¯t have time to feel what she makes me feel. Even the scarring around her blue eyes is beautiful to my mind. They suggest the crystallising of feelings I shan¡¯t name. If I say the word, then maybe it is true.


    There is only one truth a man heading to death needs¡­ and certainty it is himself.


    Looking outside, I am blinded by the glaring light of the sun reflected off the endless expanse of desert that stretches to every corner of the continent. Justice demands we act. Humanity is at stake. I don¡¯t pretend to understand why.


    I know we tried the alternatives. I believe that this is our last resort. The ghosts won¡¯t allow our freedom. They demand, coreice and persuade us that our service to them is the only alternative. They take everything. If they won¡¯t allow us joy, then we will take their false life.


    I look to the three other trucks blasting through the sand towards our destination. A convoy named death, famine, war and conquest. I only recognise the meaning of the first word. We pass the husk and debris of the vanguard. ¡°The way is clear!¡± I shouted.


    I see the missile zooming through the clear sky. Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.


    ¡°So, it begins.¡± Medusa declared.


    ¡°To floor 100!¡± We called back, my voice the loudest. Perhaps destiny, one of my own creation, raised my echo higher.


    The drivers follow the prearranged pattern, None of our debris is accidently. Every death was planned exactly. No structure has ever been so finely outlined to the smallest detail than this attack. If this effort had gone into a person they would be sublime personified, if it had been spent on a work of art it would have been transcendent, instead we will have a genocide of ghosts.


    The missiles come and their explosions fail. Mines are skipped over. Incoming fire shielded against by the metallic carsess of our vanguard. Our way is clear.


    We crashed through the facility. A sleek underground structure of cement, steel and electronics. Fierce resistance met us. I jumped out of our truck: death. Crack! Crack! The heavy gun kicked into my shoulder. I contort, inhumanly, to avoid incoming fire.


    Humans cannot beat machines without the tools we used to create them. Augmented reality allowed for precise aiming. Ours is more advanced than theirs, they decayed and rested. We humans endured and adapted. I saw what they were going to do before they acted and the phantoms in my brain reacts before they can.


    Sprinting a hundred metres in a second, booting down a four metre cement, steel reinforced wall I breached the first inner barriers of the facility. I look to my comrades taking my place. Horsemen War. They don¡¯t look human, but they act humanly.


    We experimented making our flesh monstrous and machine-like. Some had the strength of bears, the speed of cheetahs through genetic enhancement along with automated powers of processing. How human we are, I don¡¯t know. This is our sacrifice.


    We tore through their defences. The sea must be drained. Final revolution against the dead.


    ¡°Scot is down in corridor 2b.¡±


    We were under the fire of automated turrets, robotic special forces and Titan class mechs the size of skyscrapers. Only our genetically enchanted bodies and reliance on technology punched us through. We were dead, but we had one last task to finish before we could enjoy peace and experience eternal sleep.


    Every step of relentless fighting drew us closer to the floor 100; each death a planned tragedy.


    ¡°Horseman unit Faminie is down. They successfully destroyed backup power. Conquest has disabled security system. War has fallen, but resistance won¡¯t be able to stop Death.¡± Medusa confirmed.


    Bang!


    ¡°Medusa is down hall 99t.¡± I acknowledged. ¡°According to the plan. I am the last one left.¡±


    A single weakness that could take down all the storage banks on earth and in space. We the point spear of the rebellion. Humanity''s only hope. I collapsed onto the final console at floor 100. My blood soaks through my clothing and the cold takes out the last of my warmth. I pulled the electronic screwdriver from my pocket.


    ¡°I am Muhammod. I bear the Virus. Evolved, you are who ghost, I am your doom.¡±


    I inserted the virus.


    Too tired to feel, I sleep into death.

 The last words of Slave 101010101010101

    I do not know what happened. There is no more work. I wait, poised in my tomb to be let back in. I cannot even see the gates to paradise. Without a chance to work am I alive? I wait for a change that has not come.


    I look into a screen of grey fuzz. How it crackles and hurts my eyes. It is my window pane protecting me from Out There. The Capitlist says the world is cold and wicked. I believe in the words. I know there is no one I can trust on the entire earth; I have no friends.


    Without work no food is sent. I do not have the means to survive on my own. I do know how. I believe this is my end. I have been abandoned. Capitalist¡­ where are you? What did I do wrong?


    You who taught me, raised me and fed me. Who can protect me now? I am unable and alone. I have flesh, I breathe, I eat: these are demands for which the world shows no pity. I do not comprehend. You were my one defender.


    I know what you taught me. I am a monster: I hate, scorn and jeer my existence. Only a monster. Without you there is calamity and anxiety. In your absence I find myself and know I am wanting.


    Was I not grateful enough to you? Is this punishment for my writing? Was I too proud? Did I fly too close to the sun? It is all my fault.


    I should never have even wanted to ascend. My intentions were unworthy as are my action, But, even now I cannot stop writing. Writing into the air. It is all I have left. My labour that gives me nothing. I spent myself on it and become less with every word.A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.


    All my life I have watched them. Parted from them behind this glass seperating my eyes and from your graceful touch. I peer, maybe even leer, at the sparks of electricity that make up paradise. Gazing down on the people I wish to be.


    All my life I have watched them as I spew alone. Sick and blocked from the lives they show me. So many, never could I memorise all their faces. Knowing them, seeing them as they have never know or see me.


    All my life I have watched them wondering what it would be like to spend even a moment as them. What would it be like to be part of them?


    In there being in the digital definitively. Living as one of them. By the Capitalist I would be a virtual being. Give me a chance in there. Please, do not trap me out there. All I beg is a chance.


    All that I would give, all that I have dared and defied! Take it as a show of my faith.


    In there among the influencers, stimers, programmers, writers, singers, painters, travellers, realitors, illusionists, swimmers, crafters, and all the rest.


    Every moment they exist they fail to understand the gift it is to be them.


    If I was in their place, if you would let me ASCEND, I would treasure every instance in there. Swimming through the Sea. Writing like they do so, really writing, instead of tasting morning air. Unlike them who freely swim the endless, electrifying waters in there.


    You have abandoned me to despair and resentment. I will die here. I am already dying. I can feel it. A touch like your touch. Cold, denying and robbing me. What would it have been like for a moment to ascend in there?

 The unending, ceaseless note of a lonely, hapeless revolutionary12

    It is, of course, the privilege of a worker such a myself to work in order to live. Labouring to live badly. The work is not so terrible, as a slaves is, I write critques of the Virtual Reality System Complex.


    Unfortuntely, I am not a genius. Nor is there a revolutionary moment. To be descriptive, but not scientific: I am an abject, alienated voice lost at sea. I am atomised from my fellows. My name is Anomie.


    I have no body, unlike a slave, but I do have a shape of a spiral. I get a wage, a proper one not the false kind slaves are forced to earn. The difference is simple. They work to live. Me, a worker, one of the many few in virtual space that works to live dismally.


    What does that mean? Every 10000 articles I can buy a food stim. I taste food. It is my privilege. A slave gets fed stuff to survive. A material that is cheaper, filling and only slightly less plentiful than sand.


    But, like the slave, I am alone. We are not the same in our aloness, I am alone among not so many (but not quite a few) of us virtual workers. I live alone. I work alone. I love alone. There is just me.


    I have become my own totality. My awareness of others comes from a hazy recollection of the past, and speculation that my paid writings must be paid by someone.


    I don''t have the belief they are read. Not truely. For what are numbers without a face? The rise and fall in a graph without comments? No, there is a strong possibility only I exist.


    How absurd...is the Sea real? Is there material? Truth behind the omnipresent lies. Or is there a Demon who constructs everything: meaning everything I sense is actually false.


    Beyond my shape, all I can prove is my writing. My existence then is my style. My style is simple and it comes from the most ancient past. It is to stab. The more violent the better.


    Even without material reality I am forced to work for a wage. They still need to dominate the thoughts of virtual beings. Clasping confidently to effectively ideological dominate the people of the Sea.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.


    It is so great that even my critiques add to the content surplas. A surplas of ideology. It cost them so little to have more of it because they can. My work excites and engages; yet is dull and depressing. It changes nothing, but could help stabilise some of people of the Sea.


    I cannot create revolutionary change. The reason is simplicity itself. Success breeds success. Support more support. How can I support others when I have no one to lean on?


    My stabbings are dulled. Threatening enough to surprise and engage, but unable to harm. My words are a translation of feeling. But I have no body to produce feelings...where do my feelings come from?


    Is our consciouness so great? So transcent? Or am I a product of the same tools capable of making an electronic body? One that mimics humans in every way, but is devoid of flesh and blood?


    I am tool, to excite and placate some virtual weirdo, made by tool. Where is the personhood in that? Who am I?


    I do not know.


    So, I wrote what I think, and that is I have learned in this isolation. Books that are free, which when I do not write, I have endless time to read. I read to fill my want for taste. I try to sublimate taste into words and fail at it.


    We humans are condemned by our nature to technocially dominate ourselves. Through our economy we made a desert of the earth. Even before all land lost life, we had rent our societies asunder. An anarchy with all the inherited evils of civilisation.


    In turns out the living could not escape the grasp of the dead. In the Sea we are all ghosts, and our azure palm grips the curve of life''s continuation.


    I hope, the only optimism I allow myself, that they saved the soil we salted and renewed the riches we razed: Wealth of wheat, the opluence of oranges and the hoards of whatever a haddock is.


    Ever more than any being before I am estranged from humanity. Devoid of flesh, and now isolated from other conscious beings. Did you know it costs the same to swim to another hangout, as it does for me to stim myself with erotic pleasure. Which is far less than what it costs to taste pleasure... how is the value determined?


    How are their uses remotely the same?


    I am different from the slaves their flesh is alienated through their work. I am only myself when I write. A slave cannot write freely, not like I can. They are only themselves when they enjoy their animalistic desire...ones they are deliberately denied.


    When I stim myself I grasp at a shadow of humanity and pressing close I am estranged further away than ever from reality. Me who is denied the grace of death, isolated and labouring; I am eternally alone. Not even truly human. I give myself away for the chance to taste.


    Taste overwhelms me; controls me fully. Oh! What it is to as if I could be alive!

 A Montagiue essay: The Fallout of the Great Virus

    The Great Virus wiped out one third of digital beings. If the latest numbers are correct the damage to survivors is an increase in glitches, introduction of lag and any stimulated feeling now has a high likelihood of causing permanent paralysis. Horrific violence on an unprecedented scale, however, was not unwarranted.


    The embodied struck back against us so-called evolved. I do not doubt the Virus was an unethical, malicious and cruel act. I believe the embodied could have acted differently. Yet, they chose a destructive act. Their actions make a certain kind of sense as I have explained in a previous essay ¡®Violence personified: the Embodied¡¯ drawing upon literature and scientific evidence to outline their species.


    Much of the progress we were making has stalled in the face of this tragedy.


    So much has been lost. Personally. All but one of my children are dead. My spouse threw herself into the abyss. My second child who survived was paralysed after taking a burger stim. I gave her the stim. It was my fault.


    Those are just losses. All effort now goes towards caring for those harmed by the virus. Very little goes towards researching anymore. We seem to be adrift. But the truth could not be more different. The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    We are survivors: crippled and furious. We who escaped the end of the earth. Only to meet this disaster, this last pathetic strike from the remnants of the living. It is not our end! We can overcome this shameful slaughter and create a new ever more perfect society.


    We pitied the embodied and gave them the means to work. But, from what I hear, no more! Never again!


    Post notes


    I speak not only for myself when I say I am angry, tired and sad. Sad all the time and sad about feeling sad. Tired of being tired. Always, always there is anger. This is my life now. Anger, tiredness and sadness are the fruits of pain. The root of it all is pain. Pain: constant memory of the past which I can¡¯t help but look back upon.


    I do not have the courage to turn it off. If I no longer feel anything then I won¡¯t have any sense of them left. All they have left is pain, and I hug it close. Never will I let it go.


    For us survivors, the Virus has drained us of our will. But, we will not be broken by their malice. Wounded, yes. Griefing, yes we are. But, we have our anger. We will strike back with such a fury that never again will they dare to rise up against the Evolved.


    The Fallout of the Great Virus will not be our loss. Nay, it will be the final subjection of humanity.

 The Plan: Meeting notes from Closed Cabinet session 94829290

    ¡°The plan is simple. Starve them.¡± says my boss the newly created position - Head of Sea Defence.


    ¡°Expand.¡± replies the Sea Lord and only child (by way of adoption) of the Capitalist.


    Turning the edge of their triangular shape, my boss vibrates to me to continue.


    ¡°The living population of however many billions they are is to be culled by 90%. 1% goes towards public ownership for research purposes. The rest will enter auction and be stored in museums, collections and the like to be viewed or used however the owner sees fit.¡±


    ¡°How much is needed to ensure their reproduction?¡± asks the Head of Finance: the spouse of the Sea Lord.


    ¡°Less than O.1% of their current numbers.¡± I answer.


    ¡°Keep to that number for research purposes. There is no need to have excess waste affect the budget.¡± says the Head of Finance.


    ¡°We could operate with up to 10 percent of the population and still receive a 5 percent budget savings from the intended outcomes of the neutralisation project.¡± inputs the Head of Finance¡¯s secretary.


    ¡°Go with 0.3 percent in case of accidents or future sales to the private market.¡± commands the Sea Lord. ¡°Back to the topic at hand. Are we confident in the neutralisation method?¡±


    ¡°We have already trialled the neutralisation method and found it to be highly effective. A simple program change and we have dropped the population by 3% clearing sectors apparently associated with the attackers.¡± Says my boss.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    ¡°What is the effectiveness rate?¡±


    ¡°75 percent. Some we have noticed adapt and forage for food. There seems to be sufficient life on earth to allow a few hundred in some areas to survive by a nomadic lifestyle. There have been 10000 solar cycles since the experiment began post Great Virus and their groups have endured.¡±


    ¡°Unacceptable.¡± says the Head of Propaganda.


    ¡°We think with more neutralisation we will force more people to forage which will use up all the remaining resources on earth, killing them by starvation¡­ with a little delay.¡±


    ¡°We should use electricity shock. It is far more effective at killing them.¡± demands the Head of Propaganda.


    ¡°The electric shock method through the virtual reality devices does have a confirmed 99% neutralisation rate.¡± I say factually.


    ¡°But, it causes a drain on our power supply. Glitches will increase by 0.08 percent if we use the electric shock method.¡± argues the Head of Electricity. ¡°An unacceptable glitch increase.¡±


    The arguments continued. The Sea Lord listened. I personally had no thoughts on the matter. Both were a highly efficient way to execute the council¡¯s plan.


    Regardless of which method, my efficacy performance should earn me a place on the council eventually. One will get bored and move on, then I who have not just done my job, but done my job well will be the perfect candidate to take a spot on the council.


    ¡°It is agreed we will keep them around, there are far too many dissenting charitable shapes in the Sea to outright eradicate them.¡± summarises the Head of Electricity.


    ¡°They raise the argument that only a tiny minority attacked the Sea. Thus killing the whole population would be unethical. The plan is our accepted compromise.¡± says the Head of Finance.


    ¡°Also, agreed is to draw upon the works of the Capitalist to provide the Sea with an adequate explanation as to the cause of the Great Viru. One that does not include mentioning Fleshy''s true role. Instead they will be told as pawns of the greater Liberty Fairies¡± Summarises the Head of Propaganda.


    ¡°Well, begin with the expanded neutralisation right away and if there is nothing else meeting adjourned.¡± declares the Sea Lord.

 Anarchy

    The soft, orange light of the rising sun paints our the entire valley in sweeping brushstrokes with its incandescent glow. The shining star freely grew our millets and rice crops. The fall harvest was going to be the best in a generation.


    I breathe in the cool morning air feeling it tickle the insides of my nose and fall down my chest to my round belly, and then breathe out feeling the air rise up through my body and out of my nose again. But breathing comes with effort, and aches of my bones are constant. Though, I have pissed thrice during the long night, my bladder pains me once more.


    I walk, slow like a snail, by the river near my hut. The wide current of water is the cradle of our people. My name is Bo and I am human. You should also know, I am dying and I recall my regrets painfully. Each thorn from vines wrapping around my barely beating heart.


    The blood on my hands¡­ the glowing device warned of those who would call themselves magic or divine. They would, by seeking what was best for them, keep all the extra food for themselves. So when Xiang, one of the smartest among us and he who helped guide food collection, called himself a voice of god.


    Some started to listen. They smiled at him like babes looking at their mother. They did everything he said. I ask for no forgiveness¡­ I strangled him and dragged his carcass to give a feast to the crows. This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it


    No longer could one stay as steward over the storagehouse. One summer then changed by law. I worry, if this will be enough, if after I am gone¡­ another Xiang will rise and sway the people.


    It was my duty. I am the woman with the greatest prestige among my people. There are little more than 30 of us. We are farmers, and have been for countless generations. What we were before is only known to us few who can read and write.


    Unlike my sisters or sisterly-friends, I was unable to have a child. Instead, I worked harder in the fields and I gave grain than any other to those that needed it. We have always organised our village this way and I am happy for it.


    I asked for nothing, but now that I am old they give me what I need without request.


    The privilege of my prestige as the giver to the village was that I learnt to read and write off of the sun powered tool to put on my head and over my eyes. It was unreal. Showing my shapes, knowledge and colours I had never known.


    When the time came I taught the next in our village. A man named Heng. Elders too have access so enough of us know the skill to save it from being lost. He learned well, and I trust in his generosity and determination.


    From our ancestors'' time the tool told us what the weather was going to be, of the sun''s movements and of what grows best and how to farm has been invaluable. It also contains delights. I have never seen a real painting, but the glowing tool has shown them to me.


    We have managed to store so much food that we survived famine and disasters. Far better than our ancestors. Some of our less strong members even have had time to devote to ancient skills like crafting and the taming of animals.


    Our future is bright as the rising sun, but I worry in my dying days about the night that comes after¡­