Art has abandoned us, as we have abandoned it. Threw it off to the curbside, left to haggle with all the old emotions down in the gutters of our underdeveloped psyches. How would we go about expressing ourselves with old programming? Will we have to face this storm alone and battle the demons and the monsters we will inevitably encounter? On a journey through uncharted paths and corridors of mazes and trials of overwhelming brightness, the white blinding bliss of the new age, we move forward faster than ever, headlong into the abyss without a second thought.
Flesh hearts removed to make room for the artificial ones. Warranty is good for only three years; before that, you have to check up on yourself every week to keep it updated with all the latest anti-virus programs and hyper-body performance modifications. High-class hot-wired vascular hacking, pulmonary data infusion tests that usually account for most of the day-to-day illnesses and time lag epidemics. Programmers struggle to keep up with the demand of these overpriced performance systems and software; the public can only stand and suffer waiting for the release dates of the new products. And who pays for all this? It's a dark world, and the shadowy investments keep this machine alive.
The homicides became rampant in all the densely populated areas due to the New Thing discussed around the globe at any given minute of the day. During the sales season, street people get anxious, and they'd turn on each other, like a triggered beast if triggered at any moment. Huge crowds of buyers riot and camp outside of the companies for the product they so desperately want, to replace their worn-out ones, outdated free public software; for the new stuff seen on adverts and movies they recently got blasted into their consciousness.
They hold signs that read:
- Operating Systems' DUMB DUMB!
Or,
- Malfunctioning Productivity Give Us Simplicity!
Twenty-five floors up, in my office at Viotec Industries, hidden from the crowds growing like spilt ink on the clean streets far below, Vice President James of the company's second branch stares with disdain at the sight. Wearing a rare French leather Asian tailored suit, watching the rioters in their shabby, dark, dirty fashions flashing their neon picket signs. All that was on the mind was about how this scene would look in oil paint or acrylic. But, there was never getting around to painting the sight, come every rush season, procrastinating or business feeding the generations their extended lives got it the way.
From across the city, straight down to New Broadway to the ocean and the setting sun kissing the horizon, all was quiet and peaceful. Through the colossal towers, and passing cars, levels of traffic like weaved checker boards casting dark shadows on our frenzied customers below, soaking in the last streaks of sunlight, a calm before the storm.
Looking down at them, then turning away from the window back to his desk. Automatic curtains sense the thought to close themselves over the floor-to-ceiling window panes, becoming another concrete wall. On the wall behind the great desk, an antique painting, Saturn Devouring His Son, by Goya -- one of many in his large eclectic collection that was saved from the fires of the Old Museum of Art -- just last war's mess. The Wonderful desk, a large rectangle of synthetic redwood, is clear from anything except a glass box with a 21st-century cat inside. Also, in the middle of the empty floor, a sculpture by Hartreuse Elizees -- a rare floating marble statuette of a realistically rendered forest nymph (it hovers almost magically in, almost dancing with realistic flesh under the projector).
To his left is another floor-to-ceiling glass partition, a narrow window, from which options to change the visibility or scenery could be displayed. Currently, it's on a video of space, the heavens, in real time by way of a stagnant satellite cam.
As soon as his eyes close to log into the system to get to work, the hidden door of the office annoyingly pings in his ear. Someone's ringing from the other side, seen on a pop-up in his mindseye. The scene fades from sky to a one-way view of an anxious person standing on the other side, Misty, "floor manager". She waves, sardonically aware this is a one-way view. He tells the door to open. She steps in with her hands clenched behind her, staring at James with a mischievous look, but walks over to the hidden window, commands the curtain to open halfway up, to get a better look at the circus below.
"What does that look like to you?" She asks all the while looking down without kinking her neck toward her left shoulder. She doesn't wait for an answer.
"To me, it looks like piles of ants, or black worms, groveling their way towards us for more."
"Oh, behave yourself, Misty, dear," was an attempt, however disingenuous, at consoling her. "So, what of the news of the program? Is it almost complete?"
"Complete?" She isn't happy.
She turns away from the window, whipping her platinum blonde ponytail, and walks closer to the desk. "Goodness! It's no more complete than they are down there, destroying each other again and again. And for what, more life? How inane, how ignorant of them, to think they could live longer because of our product." She examines a small speck of blood on one wall, still holding her hands behind her. Before another word is said, she turns away and walks back to the window, looking forward. The sun has finally gone under, and darkness fills the sky. Her reflection appears on the window pane as headlights pass, and the neon glow of the city slowly replaces the daylight.
"A simple answer: Yes. It's complete, technically. It's been complete, has been since morning. You understand?" She turns around, a devilish grin on her porcelain face. She then starts for the door, biting her lower lip -- a move she makes when overly excited.
"What do you mean by always has been complete?"
"What I mean, dear boy, is that," She steps methodically, and with a reptilian-like slither, the kind you see in a Haute Couture walker. Her hips are hypnotic, her aura like an opioid, soothing, an evil hidden in undertones when she speaks. She sneaks up to the desk and whispers in one ear, continuing,
"What I mean is that there is no new updated program, or evil viruses, no customer protection services, or any original works in the making. What we do is keep the population hungry for more of whatever that may be: safety, fear, happiness, pleasure, food! What we do here is only a staged production, an act. Sure, we add all new features like different color palettes on devices, or easy-to-use thought commands, but all that is vanity, like makeup for the ugly truth."
"The truth is," She moves in closer. Her eyes look straight into his with a flirtatious wink. Along with that, there was a look of both sadness and grief hidden, glossed over with a flame of ecstasy. Her eyes glistened under the blue hue from the recessed lights above.
"You see, what I need is a break. I'm sick of it all. All the make-believe crap and social experiments and games. I need a vacation!"
He had never heard those words coming from anyone at work, especially someone of so high esteem as herself. This commanding figure from floor negative thirty-three, here confessing such human emotions that all had been trained to mask and hide. She leaves the office in a huff.
Outside, down below on the surface streets, explosions are heard and blasts from rifles and flash grenades that electrify the already vibrant and moving night.
"Window! Mute outside." The sounds of warring turn off, no longer audible from this height as normal (sound was coming from the microphones placed at ground level). Sitting back down at the desk and tossing back the warm scotch, there is a moment of silence. It's almost getting-off hour, and that means "roll out" -- showtime.
On the third floor, everyone waits for the transport shuttles to arrive. These bypass any surface streets and public airways, taking all safely to homes just beyond the city limits. The crowds outside had increased dramatically, accumulating around the base of the building -- even taking over the parking garage so that those who drove to work had to use the shuttles. Viotec isn't responsible for any actions by them or against them; everyone stands aside and lets the enforcement agencies take care of the drama outside. At midnight, the customers will finally receive what they want if only they had the patience to wait just three more hours. After this big sale, things would go back to normal. No more anxious customers clawing at the doors, nor more violent rage; only then would the employees be able to use the front entrance instead of these stuffy terminal ports.
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Vice President of Operations, James Hardy
Journal entry #1717:
At exactly Twelve O'clock, I pull out my company's freeware memory chip and insert it into a console at home. It's a biological 3D printer, run at home, an at-home DIY lab. I begin the download of our new product and wait for it to finish. As I waited, I thought about my boss and why she acted so strangely in my office. Why did she tell me what she did, and for whose benefit? I hear the soft ping of the finished download. Looking at the immense code on the screen, I could read what was printed onto the bioware chip. That was phase one, and for the second phase, I had to insert the bio-chip into my cerebellum jack, and from my wrists ran two tubes with the new and old lubricant. I plugged everything in, all the time hearing my boss say, "I need a vacation."
"Commence Update!" Wirelessly, the neurons were being updated with a new software system. With eyes closed, you would see the update in real time if you wished.
Besides, vacations are for the weak. I remember my discipline as a child growing up on the company floors high up, that made me to where I am today, lower down. I watch the flickering green coding reeling out of my vision to my system's mainframe, through the nerves and veins coursing along to my new beating heart and fine-tuned custom brain. The feeling is pleasant, ticklish. It's good to know that I will always be maintained like royalty, that we are looked after by responsible designers like Misty, and the entire under floors of Viotec, all the great programmers hard at work. We produce excellent quality products together. No matter how unreal it may seem to anyone who lives in flesh, it keeps the rest of us satisfied and content knowing that we will keep on surviving as a species. We are in this new evolutionary change, we, the immortal ones.
--Download Finalized: 100%
I blink three times to shut off my view of the system. Then I feel it, the new senses, the same feeling I suppose my boss had when she gave that look in my office. I felt bitterness, contempt, and love. I sit on my couch with a glass of wine and stew in a feeling of both depression and happiness. Could she have been updated before us all? That would explain her mood and the odd confession. Well, now, I thought...vacation would be really nice indeed.
I told the TV to show the news. Instantly, the image filled the wall with today's reports.
Slowly, I started to get used to the new emotions of this new product and the heavy comfort it provided. I sat, watching the videos of the riots, the images of the customers stampeding their way into our shops to buy and buy. Rampaging through aisles of products of the same design.
As I fade into sleep and the TV screen begins to blur, all I hear is a commercial advertiser preaching her sales gimmick of a completely new product...
"Need a vacation?
You!
Feeling down and out?
Sad and Lazy?
Well, folks, here's your answer to all that melancholic sickness.
It's called ByAtrixx!
Yes, this is an all-new product and much better than the last!
BUY NOW..."
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Corporate conspiracy, intriguing! I was pulled into the story in your 1st paragraph...want to hear more about the new and improved product. Image is everything in the corporate world!
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