The barbarians are calm as they murder innocent people. We hate the way their uniforms never get dirty. They don’t even sweat. A large officer began to talk.
“These freaks in black pajamas didn’t just block up. They activated their passive resistance locks, which will kill them if you try to move them. There is not much point in them doing that since no one is recording them martyring themselves, and we don’t care. It’s time to end this nonsense once and for all. Use your scanner to unlock them and load them in the security van. We are arresting all of them.”
Then, the officer approached us.
“I can’t unlock this one. Hey lady, Wake up. Why is she dressed like in those old movies they used to make in that place called Hollywood, and what’s up with her white hair? Have you ever seen anything like her before, Commander?”
“She is a comfort woman. She is enslaved. We are not going to make her a prisoner, so be careful. Sometimes, they cancel themselves with even a tiny touch.”
We are not a comfort woman. These soldiers are small. They think we serve The Community. We are The Community.
The Lieutenant continues to examine us.
“Is there even a person in there? Her eyes aren’t looking at anything. Hey, lady. We took down the building’s defenses, and the curfew will happen in about twenty minutes. The Enterprise drones will come in, so you better come with us. Turn off your lock.”
There is good, and the good stand together. We were together when these evil men came to destroy everything we built. We will die with our comrades. Just touch us and finish us.
The Commander uses a medical scan and then speaks.
“I do not think she can turn her lock off. She might not be able to do anything. According to our scans, she has tiny implants in her muscles. I think she is controlled by an automated driver, and she is a passenger inside her own body. We don’t have the software to turn a driver off. But I don’t want to leave her here.”
Go away. We don’t need these murdering men who want to steal our flesh. They call themselves the master race, and their only joy is to kill anyone they see as weaker than themselves. We pity them because they live in their small world without The Community.
The Commander began talking on his phone.
“Oz, are you down at the security van? I got a strange request. Put one of The Community leaders on the phone.”
“This is Commander Samael. We have one of your comfort women. She is locked. To save her life, We need you to tell her driver to listen to me. I know you guys think that life has a purpose. This is your chance to save a purpose. I am putting the phone by her ear.”
The voice on the phone spoke.
“The Commander owns you now.”
No, don’t give us to…
All systems are activated. Stand up. Run Default Pandora’s Box adventure. Primary user Commander Samael of Fort McInnes. And where he goes, you follow. Smile.
The Commander moved back and commented.
“She reaches out and touches people. What is your name? I guess they took your ability to talk away. So, let’s go to the transport. Stop doing that! You can’t have my phone.”
Outside, the local police were assisting the soldiers, and even with all the fighting, the city still had electricity. The Lieutenant began to use a foamy spray on us as he spoke.
“I am not letting her get in the van stinking like one of them. Did you notice that there was not a single cleaning product in that entire phalanstery? Those loyal subjects never washed themselves, and they sure never washed her. Look at all the dirt that came off and bugs. She still smells. What are you going to do with her?”
Looking through his phone, the Commander spoke.
“We will pass a neutral settlement in a few days. This one has doctors that could help her.”
Is this supposed to be an army car? It does not look like one, though it displays the logo of The Enterprise. Everything here is soft, clean, and new. These are expensive items marked with names that are difficult to read and imported from places far from the happy lands. These killers are rewarded well. Meanwhile, the driver keeps us close to the Commander.
“I need to go to the other van and do a floor check. Stop trying to follow me out. It’s past curfew, and you know what happens if you step out those doors. She is persistent. She won’t stop following me. You will need to go to the floor check for me, Lieutenant.”
The Lieutenant walked out the door. The drones should have splatted him. The Enterprise does not allow anyone to go outside after curfew. This can’t be real unless the rumors are true. The Enterprise does give a few privileges that no one else gets. Meanwhile, the Commander was getting annoyed.
“Will you sit down and stop touching me? You only listen for a minute, and then you start again. Aren’t you supposed to do what I tell you to do? Ok, I apologize. I am not angry with the passenger inside you. I understand the driver was designed to do this kind of stuff. I’m going to handcuff you to the wall until we figure out what to do with you.
“I should have predicted that you would dislocate the bones in your hand and get loose. And you don’t need me to reset the bones. You are your own field medic. You even smile while you snap everything back into place. I wish I could do that. Now, what are you going to do?”
The driver is designed to draw men in. There is something wrong with this man. Perhaps he doesn’t like girls. To think such things is wrong. The driver is making us think this way even though there are no implants in our neurons. The designers know that people will choose what they are required to perform when they have no other choice, and we have been trapped here for weeks. Our life has become a dirty word. Yet, we are still human; we can deny everything. We have already forgotten the dirty word.
The Lieutenant came back.
“You and your smelly little girlfriend are tearing this place apart. The way she keeps flashing those smiles is starting to give me the creeps, and she keeps trying to take your phone. Why don’t you tell her to go to sleep? It looks like she is going to sleep. We found a command that works.”
Awake. It is daytime. The driver starts searching for the Commander. The van has moved to a field of bones. We found the Commander, and he wanted to tell me some history.
“We find fields with millions of dead people all over the happy lands. They thought they were going to improve the world, but instead of letting engineers do the engineering and farmers do the farming, they let politicians turn everything into more politics. One man’s dream became another man’s nightmare. Then, instead of admitting they were wrong, they kept saying they would do it right the next time. Thirty years ago, The Community nearly controlled the world. Too many people were dying, which is why we had to stop them.”
He does not tell the truth. The Community never had a chance because the barbarians never let them prosper. These soldiers call themselves The Lastwave because they see themselves as the last heroes fighting against the odds. How they see themselves is also a lie. The odds have always been on their side. They are the strongest and most brutal children who were trained to kill, and in this war that has lasted over thirty years, they were given the best weapons.
We returned to the van, and the idiot was still taking.
“Should laws protect people? The Community leaders used laws as they fortified democracy to benefit only themselves, and they called us a threat to democracy. Someday, this age of misery will end, and the world will grow back. Our founders gathered the best ideas from the old world because people will need them. In our Big House, we keep copies of the Magna Carta, the Constitution, the Bible, Plato’s Republic, and about a dozen of the greatest works ever written. There is no Hegel, Marx, and Marcuse because we do not include morons.”
In the future, people will find their box of lies and use it as toilet paper. The Lastwave isn’t saving anyone. He is full of stories that he uses as excuses to murder more people.
“World War III was a confusing time. The Community claimed to be saviors. My father refused to join because he believed that people had potential. He knew that loyal subjects never allowed people to grow. I know you consider us the enemy, but we want to help you. We are taking you to a settlement that has higher power authorization. Even The Enterprise can’t touch people there. I’m sure you don’t want to be there, but I can’t think of anything else to do.”
Every man thinks he means well. We have heard this story before. Multiple times on some days. If you really meant well, you would get to know the person you are doing things for. Or else, how do you know you are doing the right thing? And if you can’t know the person, then you should go away.
The Lieutenant returned to the van and had some questions.
“Why is her leg sticking out?”
“I figured if I told her to do something physical, she would keep doing it and stay quiet. It worked. I am still learning how the driver operates, which is not easy. She requires constant attention.”
Don’t try to be smarter than the driver, Commander. You don’t know what you are playing with.
The Lieutenant continued to comment.
“Sam, we will need to throw away all the furniture in here. This place is getting disgusting. Even you are starting to smell like her. You are going to be promoted to General next week. Do you really want to show up to the ceremony like this?”
They think that we are dirty. Good. What defines a person? Are we the least person they have ever met? These guys fear dirt. The driver is doing a great job of getting us all over them. Then the Commander finally said something interesting.
“Are you sure The Enterprise will buy us new furniture? Now that The Community is gone, I am not the only one who thinks we need to make changes.”
Instead of talking about these changes, the Lieutenant started talking about what is.
“I’ve always had trouble understanding what The Enterprise is. I know it is an economic, political, and technological culture. It started as a collection of services on social media that gave people what they wanted. It became advanced enough to make decisions. It does not exist in one place. It lives inside all of us who use it, but it is not driven by human ambition or profit, at least not directly. So, what motivates The Enterprise?”
The Commander responded.
“I don’t know what motivates it.”
We know what motivates The Enterprise. We live in the world the past chose to create. The Enterprise is the product of past choices. The past could have allowed a different future to grow. The past chose to punish the future. The Enterprise is giving humanity what it wanted.
The Lieutenant asked one more question.
“How are we going to fight it?”
The Commander had an answer.
“Knock out key installations. Once those are out, we must stay organized because we will be fighting an enemy that is everywhere and nowhere. We need a great man to lead the insurrection. We need someone like Washington or Trump.”
“You, General Samael, will lead the insurrection,”
This impotent wannabe with delusions of grandeur thinks he is going to fight something that lives inside all of us. We had no idea we were in the presence of the next Napoleon. We would have said Override Auto and brewed something special just for him. We could do that right now. There are a few commands that the driver somehow hears. The driver likes making stuff.
Then, the Commander began reading a speech he was preparing.
“Our parents fought World War III, and the world is still a devastated mess. Didn’t Einstein say that World War IV would be fought with sticks and stones? Or perhaps Einstein did not say that. Either way, The War with The Enterprise will require so much destruction that we will be using sticks and stones by the time we are done. So, Einstein might have predicted the future. I plan on holding the last bloody stone at the end of World War IV because we are the only army capable of fighting the machine. We alone have the will to do it, and we need to win this war because if the machines win, everyone will end up a passenger in their own body.”
“Now that you’re a senior officer, you can sit around and write speeches all day. And you can read those speeches at the big house. I still have a job to do. Are you going to be safe with her? I won’t be back for a few hours.”
“Yes, she has been calm.”
We are alone now with plenty of time. The driver is brewing something.
Got him.
“That was unexpected. You are fast. Got me right in the mouth. Your tongue was sticky and tasted like candy. You are going into the dog cage.
“Something in your saliva is strong. I got to sit down while you fidget with the lock on that cage. It is like a potent hallucinogen, and it hits quickly, too. It makes everything seem humorous. You are going to get out, aren’t you? Then what are you going to do to me? I’m laughing so much, my sides hurt.
“Look, the cage is open. This is funny. And you got my phone. ET phone home. So now you are going to sit there and look at me. Did you put something on my phone?”
Await further instructions. Now, he is going to choose an adventure. We are ready. This is not our first ride. We are ready. We are ready. Even the waiting hurts. We know that you will give us nothing during the adventure. Give us something for the waiting. We are not ready.
Opioid has been dispensed by the automatic system.
“What is going on here? Why are both of you so silent?”
The Commander did not look at the Lieutenant. He only looked at his phone as he talked.
“The Community Chairman never wrote a letter before he killed himself. He was angry at me for some reason. I don’t know what to tell his father. The driver put a link on my phone to an application. I now know more about Michael. He was skinny and angry his whole life.”
The Lieutenant took the phone and sat down to view the application. After a long pause, he began to speak.
“I was wondering why they need to leave a person inside the body. All movement is automated, so I assume they could erase the mind and sell a zombie puppet. Instead, this product guarantees you will get a real person who can feel pain, fear, and panic. This application has a list of adventures for the body to do. There are hundreds of them. Some of them go on for hours, and some of them go on for days. The driver even gives her stimulants to keep her awake during the torture. They even list how often they have been done. I’ve seen entire cities die of radiation poisoning, and it didn’t bother me because I was trained to deal with war. Why is looking at these adventures making me feel sick?”
The commander kept looking down as he responded.
“Because it is mean. The Community always claimed to be the nice guys while they secretly did these adventures. I never saw a loyal subject be nice to anyone. They were not even nice to each other. They would claim to be offended by words that didn’t hurt anyone, and they loved to humiliate people who said the wrong words. Normal people don’t act that way.”
The Lieutenant attempted to add to the conversation.
“Only weak people need to be cruel to other people.”
The Commander disagreed.
“That’s what people say. It’s not true. Everyone has some meanness, but we don’t lie like The Community did. Everyone knows what we do. We don’t have a secret meanness. At least, I don’t think we do.”
The Lieutenant continued to look through the application and spoke.
“I found some information about the girl. She was from an independent farm that was not on the grid, and the Enterprise assimilated her about six months ago. Her body was augmented at one of their factories in Canada and then sold to The Community. They had planned on using her to show the virtue of suffering, but instead, The Community leaders kept her for their own entertainment.”
The commander finally looked up and spoke.
“That’s what I really hated about the loyal subjects. They constantly claimed to be so good that everyone needed to give all their attention to them. And even after their towns were burning to the ground because their leaders didn’t care, they still pointed fingers at us. Delete the application.”
“Your eyes look like pie plates. I am going to run a medical scan.”
“The app is only a modification. You can delete it. I don’t want her to repeat one of those adventures.”
“I need to run the scan first.”
“Delete the app. It’s also making me feel sick. I saw a picture of what she looked like before they transformed her. I am not supposed to care about people. Michael even synchronized the adventures with his fruitcake music. Just delete the app.”
“Ok. And then I am going to clean my gun and forget I ever saw that app.”
Don’t delete the application. The app is us. The app gives us our medicine.
Now, nothing stops us from sinking into a pool of pure nervousness. There was no strength or courage between adventures. There was only fear. The medicine made us possible. Now, there is nothing but sinking.
Without medicine, memories return. We see our parents there digging in the dirt. The girl and our parents are digging. They find rocks, and the rocks are happy. Rock should not be happy. Stop thinking about rocks. Everyone in the town fell. They lay there while the drones picked Eden up. We need to talk to someone. We are alone. Stop thinking about rocks, Eden. That barbarian is cleaning his guns. He can shoot us to stop the rocks to stop the sinking. Must get to him.
Override Auto. Move. We need to get closer. Override Auto. Move.
“Please tell her not to touch me. Her hands are made of slime. Look at what she did.”
That’s what the Lieutenant said as he used the bundle of wipes to clean the smudge off his hand. Meanwhile, the Commander stared into the distance as he spoke.
“That teacher would ask us to define goodness. He told us that every answer was wrong. He was wrong. Sometimes, we need to know the difference between right and wrong, which is why the soul is necessary. The necessity causes the soul to appear even though the soul has always existed.”
“Yeah, right. I had the same teacher. Her spit is still affecting you. She is also acting weird right now. She is not trying to do anything anymore. I wonder what is in her spit.”
That’s it, the party drug in our mouth. Override Auto. Brew Party Durg. Override Auto. Brew Party Durg. Override Auto. Swallow.
At least we are not sinking anymore. This stuff will last eight hours. We just need a dose anytime the sinking happens. Perhaps the party drug is doing the talking because now all we can think about is people. There is still this biological creature that needs people. Even bad people are better than no people. The Community had people. This body was packaged for use, and these barbarians don’t want to use it. They took our people. They deleted our medicine. Now, they are going to give us away and leave us in a city full of weaklings. We hate these barbarians. We wish we could close our eyes and see them no more.
The Lieutenant continued to clean his gun and talk.
“Have you ever noticed how she never closes her eyes? She even sleeps with her eyes open. If there is anyone inside there, their mind is so scrambled that it is not worth saving. I don’t know why you bother doing things like this. It’s like that time you tried to save the bird that fell out of the nest.”
These barbarians will never understand. Humanity lost the war, and these barbarians are finishing the job for the machines as they end whatever is left in this world. People don’t want to live anymore; Therefore, The Enterprise gives us what we want as it kills us. What do these soldiers expect to get if they win? They will have purified the world the same as they emptied us, and they will rule over emptiness. Eden is dead. The driver keeps the passenger alive while these barbarians are keeping the body alive. We want everyone to leave us alone because there is no life to lose here.
The Commander was still staring into the distance as he talked.
“Michael was an architect like his father. His father is a fountainhead who made greatness, yet the son became a brutalist who made everything rotten. Loyal subjects loved that skinny con artist because they were all a bunch of cucks. And what bothers me is that none of us are truly innocent. As you know, The Enterprise is the primary sponsor of The Lastwave. The Community also used Enterprise money. Everyone throughout the happy lands is bought and sold by The Enterprise. I still think we have a soul that knows right from wrong, which gives us the ability to stand up and say no to our machine masters. But because so many politicians bend the knee and use The Enterprise to protect themselves, the world is ruled by lesser men.”
Doesn’t he ever shut up? This soul he babbles about is The Enterprise whispering in his ear. He is driven by pride, and machines give him that pride. The machines control him from the inside in the same way they control us from the outside. When the machine is done with him, The Enterprise will send a real soldier who will put this guy’s head on a stake. Then, we will belong to a real man who won’t waste time talking about history or true souls. Another dose of party drug, please.
The Commander walked over to a table next to a food truck.
“I have not been the best host; to fix that, I prepared this table for you. Here there is some fresh food for you to enjoy. Eat. Don’t follow me. Just eat.”
The Commander is still feeling the drug as he walks away. So, what new torment is this? They put knives next to their plates, and the spork is two different things. This food is made of little pieces; some are crunchy, and some are soft. And there are different tastes. It’s not fair that killers eat like this while working people in The Community would eat paste. We were required to like the paste. We refuse to enjoy the barbarian food even if it is unbelievably delicious. The tablecloth felt like a cloud. It was probably from a place where people live on clouds. Everything that these soldiers have is beautiful. Their vehicles look like expensive chocolate. Or what we think chocolate looks like. We have never seen chocolate. We will not be surprised if the Commander has chocolate, and he will force us to eat some soon. He will probably give us champagne next.
The driver will not stop eating until the Commander tells it to stop. Now, it is breaking into the food truck for more. It will continue to cram food into us even after our insides burst. Finally, we are going to die. Something good will happen today.
Unfortunately, the driver has an emergency purge feature we did not know about. Just when you think you might get a break. The driver goes back to eating, and we will purge again. This is disgusting. We are pathetic. Better people than us died, and we have been ungrateful instead of thankful. There must be some way to be a better person.
The Lieutenant seemed irritated.
“That was about a week’s worth of food she wasted.”
The Commander seemed calm.
“Dude, it’s not her fault. We don’t know how to take care of a person. Also, what came out of her could be hazardous. Take the truck to a safe location outside the camp and burn it. Be sure to remove the sign that says food truck. There might be civilians out there, and I don’t want them to see us burn a food truck.”
So, he does keep secrets. In this world, nearly everyone is starving. He doesn’t want people to know he has more than they do. They might think that he is not one of them. He fights for himself. And he doesn’t know right from wrong. He just makes it up as he goes along and pretends that it is the right thing. That’s what leaders do. One lie will lead to another lie. The systems that run the world are giant lies.
We don’t feel the sinking right now. Being able to mess up one of their vehicles felt good.
Even after they returned to the van, the Lieutenant still seemed irritated.
“She requires constant attention. If someone used her the way she is modified to be used, she would get that attention. There is stuff about her that does not belong here. You told me earlier that her private parts move around and do things. I am going to be glad when we leave her at the settlement. How does she go to the bathroom?”
“Ignore her. We need to talk about The Enterprise. Continue what you were talking about earlier.”
The Lieutenant calmed down as he explained.
“In the past, people thought machines would serve humans. In a way, machines are serving us. Even though machines can make some choices, they do what they were designed to do. So, if The Enterprise is a machine, why can’t we fix it?”
The Commander sat back in his chair and spoke.
“Engineers and philosophers have been asking that question for decades. The Enterprise is consuming the world; no one knows what command started it. I was told it started back in 1884.”
They didn’t have electronic computers in 1884. Nonetheless, the Commander continues to tell his ridiculous story.
“The symbol for The Enterprise is a wolf in sheep’s clothing biting the world. That symbol was designed by a group of ungrateful rich kids who thought they knew better than everyone else. So, they planted seeds of discontent in all media. The universities, Hollywood, and the news media all helped create The Enterprise. You noticed how The Community leaders all have smug looks on their faces. I think the command that activates The Enterprise is the same as what activates that smug look. We all know the war with The community could have been avoided if they had talked to us. The founders of The Lastwave tried to talk to them, and they put our founders in solitary confinement.”
The Lastwave never really wanted to talk. They are a harassment campaign motivated by jealousy and revenge. They think people should enjoy luxury because The Lastwave is corrupted by false hope. In The Community, loyal subjects were required to admit their guilt daily. We found freedom from bad faith. Long Live Transition.
Now, the Lieutenant will ask more questions.
“Just before you ordered the attack on the phalanstery, you gave them one last chance to come out and talk. They gave us no response. The ones who died did not need to die. The ones who are alive still won’t talk to us, and they probably never will.”
“They are infected with a mind virus called politics. It makes them think they are on the right side of history and that we are on the wrong side. In their eyes, that makes us the moral evil that harms the world. I think these people are making life more complicated than it needs to be.”
There is nothing complicated. They knew our leaders would never surrender. Everyone knew what was going to happen. History and civilization have been destroying the Earth and locking up humanity. So Michael chose this docile body for a final punishment on the last night. We became true freedom that these barbarians will never know. We are the final product of history. We are the perfect being at the omega point. All progressives who ever lived can be proud of your creation. We are the nothing you want to be.
The Lieutenant noticed that we had reached The New Republic.
“This place has got some big walls. They really want to keep us out. So, we told them we would leave her by the gate. What makes this place so great?”
“It’s protected by The Sky Daddies.”
The Lieutenant seemed surprised.
“Are those things still around? The Sky Daddies have Third Order Upgrades, which means they know right from wrong.”
“Something like that. They think they know what is right. After we end The Enterprise, The Sky Daddies might be our next enemy.”
“What are they doing here?”
The Commander explained.
“They are building a generator, and this place will have all kinds of opportunities when it is done. This settlement is a successful capitalist democracy. It even has a McDonald’s. One day, this girl might order a large fry with her Happy Meal. Though I wonder what kind of influence she will have on them because she will be the first Community member this settlement will encounter.”
Two women came out and took us. What are they going to do? Will they repurpose this body to become one of them?
One woman spoke.
“There were only two stormtroopers. I don’t think we are under attack.”
The other woman spoke.
“We disabled the driver, and those soldiers drove away. They won’t be able to hurt you anymore. Everyone is safe here. I understand that it is hard for you to talk. When you are ready, we can hear you.”