Perfectopia - Part #7/9
In an ideal world, YOU are the imperfection.
PREVIOUSLY:
Siggy, fresh out of the prison after a wave of mass pardons, meets his old gang: Gaby, Emily, and Paul. While celebrating his return, he witnesses a man being arrested by civilian enforcers. It’s Siggy’s first taste of “his” new world which might not be what it seems. It turns out, that due to error, Neurils affect vast majority of world’s population instead of just key decision makers as the team originally intended. Meanwhile, the societal, political and world order transformations continue at neck-breaking speed.
Part #7
3 months later - November 2031 | Edmonton, Canada
“Aaaaaaargh, this is useless.” Yelled Sigmund, crashing into a chair and burying his tired face in palms.
“Indeed.” Confirmed Gaby. “The spectrum of possible solutions gets dramatically narrower when you take access to a state-of-the-art nano-lab and the supercomputers to run the simulations on out of the equation.”
“Well,” Paul chimed in, “I’m pretty sure I have the software down this time. If we build a significant batch of new Neurils, they should be able to pass on the updated directive with a very wide set of flush markers to the existing ones. Except…”
“Yeah, yeah. We all know.” Sigmund cut him off. “We can’t make nanobots in the garage. Em, how’s that analysis going?”
“It just finished.” Emily looked up from her workstation, pausing as if to compose herself before delivering bad news. “It’s not looking good, I’m afraid. I compared the stimulated behavior of circulating Neurils from the batch we have collected this morning with similar sets from a month ago. It’s just as we suspected—they’re mutating.“
“Mutating how?” Sigmund voiced the question in everyone’s heads.
“It seems that there’s a trend towards distilled synaptic instructions to prioritize efficiency over everything else, all the while gradually developing the capability to suppress impulses related to any emotion that could theoretically get in the way of this overreaching goal.” She cast a glance at Paul. “I wonder why?”
“I… uhhh… might’ve included a tiny bit of a distributed learning routine that would enable sharing and development of new information between the Neurils.” He replied with a shrug. “One Neuril is too dumb to make any decisions, but with millions in close proximity to each other, they attain certain computational capabilities to assess what works and what doesn’t, updating their shared software DNA as they go.”
“Nice. As a fellow geek, I’m in awe. Bravo. Well done.” Chuckled Sigmund humorlessly. “But as a human, trying to figure out how to unfuck the world, I can’t help but think how stupid you should’ve been to not see the epic idiocy in a decision like this?”
“What can I say, sorry?” Paul rolled his shoulders again, before turning back to Emily. “So what exactly does that mean? Is humanity getting dumber?”
“Well, not dumber per se, just…” The girl paused, searching for the precise wording… “significantly more focused on a singular goal than on their individual selves. The more this progresses, the more alike everyone become, heading to some sort of cognitive singularity for lack of a better word, where the notion of personality is gradually erased in favor of working for some warped ideal of a collective good.”
“A hive mind.” Sighed Sigmund. “Excellent. We have turned the world into a planet-sized ant house.”
***
5 months later - April 2032 | Edmonton, Canada
“Can we have some of the freeze-dried pasta tonight, P?” Asked Gaby, looking at their host expectantly. “I’m so sick of that panjunk crap.”
“Sure, there’s plenty in the doomsday emergency stash. Enough to sustain us for months if needed, even with you three leeches now hanging out here 24/7. Best investment ever.” Replied Paul. “Tho, we might want to go easy on that stash, considering.”
“Erghhh, not with the conspiracies again.” Scoffed Sigmund. “You should really knock off hanging out on those gossip websites.”
“Siggy, bud, I love you, but you’re a fucking moron.” Paul bit back. “Those gossip websites as you call them, are our only windows out of this looney bin. The crumbles of humanity, still able to think for themselves, eyeballing and reporting actual stuff, not that drivel the ‘news’ is shoving down our throats.”
“Yeah? And what is it this time?” Sigmund was having none of it. “The aliens stole all them hot dogs?”
Instead of replying, Paul swiveled the laptop to face his friend.
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GONE SLIGHTLY SPECTACULARLY MAD FORUMS
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Posted: March 6, 2032
By: Mowgl1
i work as a transport tech for west african pancrop logistics chain. its been weeks since deliveries stopped. my area of service is the outmost hub and i dont get to go deep into the fields, but from what im seeing theyre all gray and wilted. and our rations were slashed again this week on top of that. does any1 know whats going on?
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Posted: March 7, 2032
By: sweetsyrup
Holy fuck, guys. Our lab in Panama City just received a container of dead PanCrop. It looks like some kind of adapted pathogen killed them. We’re tasked with figuring out what it is, and how to fix this, even though they don’t tell us anything: where this came from, size of the affected area, nothing. Just to make it go away. Damn fucking hard to do when everyone besides you in the lab is the brainless drooling idiot yapping about “the good of the humanity”. We were told to keep hush about it under a threat of capital punishment. I’d start stocking up on rations if I were you. I know I will.
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Posted: April 10, 2032
By: Mowgl1
shit man, that doesnt sound good. lab types here in africa are running in circles like headless chickens too. hows the cure coming along?
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Posted: March 17, 2032
By: Mowgl1
you still there @sweetsyrup?
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Posted: April 2, 2032
By: Mowgl1
still not a single shipment of crop. the transports resumed yesterday but instead of food they brought carts full of dead bodies. thousands from the look of it. i hope youre close to solution @sweetsyrup, or god help us all.
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Thread closed by auto-mod on April 19, 2032 due to lack of activity.
-----------------------------“Does this look like bullshit to you?” Asked Paul, taking Sigmund’s silence as an acknowledgement of the contrary.
“Wait, there’s something on the news.” Exclaimed Emily, grabbing the remote to unmute the TV set up in the corner of the garage, its imagery acting as a silent backdrop to liven up the space rather than a source of information.
“A mutated bacterial strain has been identified in a limited section of PanCrop agro-industrial complexes, resulting in a temporary disruption to production and distribution. Officials stress there is no cause for alarm, as the scientific teams are already working on countermeasures, and regional food silos remain at near-full capacity—sufficient to meet the nutritional needs of the population for the foreseeable future.”
Emily turned back to the room, now utterly silent, three sets of eyes trained on the screen.
“Meanwhile, as a precautionary measure, a daily limit of 2,000 calories per individual will be enforced on all food purchases, in accordance with a directive issued by the Central Administrative Office.” Continued news presenter in monotone. “Citizens are reminded to carry their PanCitizen identification card when visiting retail food outlets. These temporary measures are being implemented in the interest of collective stability and human wellbeing. Stay safe and continue working for our mutual prosperity!”
A gut-wrenching signal of an emergency alert pierced the silence, emitted out of four phones simultaneously.
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GENERAL ALERT:
BY ORDER OF THE REGIONAL ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICE OF ALBERTA, CONSTRUCTION OF VOLUNTARY SELF-TERMINATION CENTERS IS CURRENTLY UNDERWAY IN CALGARY, EDMONTON, RED DEER, LETHBRIDGE, AND ST. ALBERT.
CITIZENS WHO WISH TO PARTICIPATE IN THE EUTHANASIA PROGRAM, AIMED AT MANAGING FOOD RESERVE CONSUMPTION, WILL HAVE ACCESS TO SERVICES BEGINNING APRIL 16, 2032.
FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION OR TO ARRANGE GROUP TRANSPORTATION TO THE DESIGNATED LOCATIONS, PLEASE CONTACT YOUR LOCAL ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICE.
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2 months later - June 2032 | Edmonton, Canada
Sigmund was equal parts angry and desperate. The rigid rectangle of four PanCitizen cards in his pocket was a cold reminder that it was his turn at the food run, rather than a leisure stroll. He had to venture blocks deep into the city in search of a food dispensary that would at least be open. No such luck so far.
He rounded an unfamiliar corner, almost ramming into a woman. She was just standing there in the middle of the sidewalk, a little girl—no older than five—in a summery blue dress peppered with white flowers, clinging to her mother’s hand.
“Oh, excuse me.” He blurted. “Didn’t see you there.”
The woman just looked at him with her weary eyes, not saying anything.
“This is a yum-yum line, mister.” A thin voice piped up from below. “The goodbyey line is on the other side.”
Sigmund’s eyes followed a tiny finger pointed across the street, finding a group of around twenty, neatly queued into a two-story building. The darker spots in the vague shape of the KFC letters above its glass entrance were partially obstructed by a billboard that said “Voluntary self-termination center” in a cold, utilitarian font. A couple of refrigerator semis stood peacefully parked around the building’s back.
The existence of the “checkout houses” wasn’t news, of course, yet seeing one up close sent shivers down Sigmund’s spine nevertheless. He shrank into his shoulders as if hiding from the sight and kept on walking. The woman’s line—thankfully significantly longer than the grim one across from it—snaked into the furthest corner of a medium-sized parking lot where a makeshift tent stood, a hand-written message painted onto its canopy:
FOOD AID POINT
EDMONTON RESEEDER COMMUNE
Sigmund stopped: should he continue his futile search or take this opportunity and go back to the end of the line?
Contemplating his options, he watched an elderly man walk out of the tent, a loaf of bread tucked under his arm, shortly followed by a tall woman in an old-timey apron and a grave expression on her face.
“So sorry folks, but I’m afraid we’re all out for today.” She announced in a raised voice. “Please come back tomorrow.”
Without a single grunt of disapproval, the crowd began to disperse. In shock, Sigmund watched as most of them headed straight across the street to join the other line. A tiny smudge of bright blue made him hastily look away and take off running. It was only a split second, his mind could still plausibly convince itself it was just a visual glitch, a mirage.
Driven by primal animal terror, he ran in a random direction, no longer looking or even thinking about food, until a beep from his pocket announcing a new message pulled him back into reality. With a trembling hand, breathless, he fished out the phone, wiped the sweat blurring his vision and tapped on the message app icon.
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Hello, Sigmund. I know it was you who broke the world. It’s about time you fixed it. I can help. Reply ASAP.
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Oh man!! That got even darker…but I really want to know who messaged Siggy.