A week had past since Schwarzwald gave his speech about truth and of WormWorld. It got me thinking. I could feel a seed growing inside of me. Yet everyday felt like an endless repeat of cycles. Every move and every action; carefully choreographed and directed by the system. Careful nudging and feedback meant that we stayed on script. Schwarzwald would know what to say to feed me peace of mind, but that would just be me being fed script from a different source. I had to become my own source.
"AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!"
Everyday I trained myself. Readying myself for who knows what? Perhaps I was just waiting until my body and my Will to Power was ready to withstand an Atomic Bomb; and thus having the power to overcome all those who oppose me I would be without opposition. There would be no competition. Already for me this was the natural state; no competition, but then again, these days what organic being was even at the historical average?
At that impossible to reach point I would be unstoppable, there would be only myself to blame. How could I curse external factors for my failures when I had reached such powers?
And if I was still a failure after that point, I would merely think "the system truly is rigged!!" and thus perhaps I had learnt nothing, or perhaps there was nothing to learn other than I had no effect on my outcomes, whether thinking or unthinking; I was chaos, a roll of the dice, completely devoid of an internal Heisenberg system. And if so, then I was rare, and not to my advantage. Such was that of the Nooticers (We are Primary), there was only a few who nooticed, and the rest... they nooticed after explanation from the Primary Nooticers; like a passing of the Batons with factor 11-113 of weakening to the Will to Power through generation. IQ had only been falling, and soon there wouldn't be enough Primaries to cause nooticery effect saturation of the population; but, unfortunately I believed we had passed that saturation point long ago. The masses were just a few spinning plates in their minds short of an omelette. It was infuriating, but expected. Selection for good genes; 83% of the genome is involved with cognitive function. Without Darwinian selection through technological, and medicinal means... we had become unbound, and completely susceptible to retardeness. Some areas had industrialized a century or more later, and so our IQs were much higher than our geographical cohorts. We were the last of the higher man, yet still lesser than the 1879 man; the peak of intellectual being (correlated to innovation and civilization) who had infinitely less knowledge at their fingertips. And now the rest of the population, unable to see the future in which they resided... If only there was some way we could open up their 3rd eyes... Access to information seemed futile without the ability to correlate data... to nootice. What heights would the 1879 man have achieved had he had our knowledge of the gods?
If only there was some way we could open up the 3rd eye of post-modern man... To decalcify that pineal gland.
Sweat ran down my heroically epic torso, sparkling light glistened against my skin under the neon light. My shoulders bulged like coconuts, and my back was a beast upon itself.
These abs were illegal, I just knew it.
Perhaps it was an exercise of futility. What was the point of keeping myself in peak physical condition in the therapeutic state? After all there was a drug for everything... and for those too weak to go on, there was Medically Assisted Suicide (MAS). You could live well past 97 these days.
Obesity was preferred; fat slow cattle easy to control, average age of death 89.
503 strong men could take a city. But that was a thing of the past. There were no strong men now. No men with a mustard seed worth of faith in their hearts, souls, and in their bodies.
Even the foreigners who acted as enforcers, they too had been domesticated to the point of existing within a Simulacrum of a Simulacrum. Their violence inflicted upon us, was merely a going through the motions. A simulacrum of what once was; the quelling and squashing of the last drips and drabs of Will to Power; the desire to fight for existence. Gone. Extinguished. And so was the soul and body of man, just as Schwarzwald had said.
I felt okay even though I had only been beaten last week. The guard's weapons were designed to only inflict serious bruises. Those of decades ago could have done some real lasting damage with those instruments....
I hated it all. The fakery, the unreality, the forced roles we play. My thoughts.... this world. Tell me, how does it feel when your heart grows cold?
"Nuclear Fallout!" I cursed as I lifted myself, arms tired and burning.
I felt such animosity towards the guards, especially after my most recent beating. The anger at my captors, at the weakness of myself. That kept me going. It didn't matter who the guards were, or whose order they were following. All I really cared about was what was Beyond WormWorld.
I was close to finishing my 101. It was a miracle I was able to survive on what food the state had mandated to those with negative credits like me. Without occasional gift baskets from Schwarzwald I wouldn't be the 61 year old I am today. I still had 5 years until the average age of hormonal decline of man within the context of living free kicked in. Testosterone within Humans in captivity dropped at an alarming rate, to the point of decline being 19. Old men such as myself had many factors more times of Testosterone than the young 'perfect' NuHumans. And even amongst my cohorts, my testosterone was abnormally high, yet historically average.... Was I underestimating myself by comparing myself to those of no competition?
I knew I lived within a box. Within a cage; a mental prison. Within borders; not of nation state, but of economic zone. But never the less I simulated my ancestors. In my spare time I lived a Simulacrum in an attempt to connect with reality, carrying things, and big fauxing movements. Artificial stimuli to create the impression that I was living in my evolutionary environment, and not caught in a web of evolutionary mismatches by paedo-communo-fascist-post-modernity.
"101!" I screamed in pain, reaching my goal of pull ups.
I dropped, relieved it was the weekend tomorrow, that old fashioned time of rest. What was a weekend now? Just another digital day? I tried to hold onto some semblance of meaning, but days were meaningless. Everything changed and twisted until meaning removed. How else could you blanket on a new world?
I lent against my car, exhausted from my routine. I didn't like people seeing me train. My garage was the only safe place from prying eyes. Sometimes it got hot, but I didn't care. I just drank more water. Water was free (within limits).
I slapped my right hand against the door of my black 1973 dodge charger. There was no tracking devices or digital off switches. It was probably one of the last usable cars in existence. I had paid such a large price just to have it, but it was worth it. The benefit of the legal right to an unmonitored garage was just a bureaucratic cherry on top. One day I realized the cherry had become the whole cake. After all, it was illegal for me to actually drive this thing. No one had a garage, because no one had need for one, and so the legislation was not updated. A push and a nudge was all legislation needed to produce its desired outcomes. I was in Negative credit, but I didn't care. I had my fortress of solitude.
I opened up the last of the premium protein bars; only 70% insect 'meat'. I didn't know what the rest of the ingredients were, and I didn't want to know.
Schwarzwald's gift baskets and socializing with me lost him a lot of social credits. I was too negative for most, and truthfully I preferred to be alone.
Schwarzwald was one of the lucky few whose charisma impressed a high value no matter their behaviour.
We weren't equal. The system lied and papered over, administering to us fake truths and drugs. But the truth still stuck out like a sore thumb. We were not equal. Not even the NuHumans were equal to each other despite the engineering. There was no genetic code for the soul.
I got up and inspected my materials. Due to the Right 2 Repair (R2R) legislation I had a collection of tools, tape, and various other handy equipment. R2R3 made most of this stuff illegal, but a crime was only a crime when it was found out. No one would know of my duct tape, or that my car was ready to go. The Organics to Petroleum machine was a remnant of forgotten renewable technology.
I opened the large metal thermos flask. Only 5 more lithium batteries to go. The device would be ready soon. Oh how I had wanted to tell Schwarzwald. 5 more pieces to the puzzle. All this time... I couldn't wait anymore, what was I even doing with my life? My life? What life?
Anxiety and despair; a constant reminder of who we were. All the more reason to keep moving forward. The device was nearly complete.
...
I gave myself 17 minutes of leeway every time I entered my garage. I knew the system was jonesing to find a way to take the garage from me; dereliction of social duty or some shite. I could just feel it, and without the garage I would therefore have no place to store my car and have to give it up; never mind my illegal items...
If it wasn't for the 'perfection' of the system it would just make an amendment, but it could never admit its faults, because it was 'perfect' because it had deemed itself 'perfect'. If the system was a bucket designed to carry water, then it looked and acted like a sieve.
...
"Unit JLZ21347, you are due for transport!" I was reminded by the HR woman as I left my abode.
Liselotte still hadn't returned since breaking the 3.83. I was always tempted to fill out a 5.57, but scared that if she rejected that would be the end of me. She was 31 tears (I mean years) younger than me, perhaps still fertile enough to produce children with. I was too scared to take the risk of filling out the form in case of rejection and harassment punishment. People could seem nice and interested in friendly relations on the outside, but so many would exploit section 3, 5, and 7 for (VCs) Victim Credits. 'Trust Distrust' as the system reminded us; a carefully construed depopulation psyop.
Futility of motions
False hope preying on emotion
Feigned civility and kindness
Knives behind the eyes
Skerwering me whole
What a surpise
Anxiety of the unknown, of what the system would do to me, if it deemed me out for trouble. The anxiety choked me. I struggled for breath.
As I breathed deeply I looked up at the ol' Murphy house. I didn't know who lived there now, but there the apparition was. An elderly man in hiding, in the dark, blinds half drawn. That apocalyptic stare, unyielding. Curious yet afraid of the world outside. A reflection of my own soul...
...
I mentally prepared myself as I made my way to the shuttle station. My Lows went to Highs. This was it! The Big Day! If things went right I could reverse my negative credits in no time!
No matter how Woke I felt to things, the system always had away of reeling you in. My excitement to escape from negative credits gave me away. Perhaps I was a splintered person, living more than a double life. I had to, to survive.
I used my digital I.D. to access the shuttle station.
The African Guard went off script and started mouthing off about White people.
"Wypipo! Thinking da world revovles around yous! I don be eva da care about de culture wars! You cry about dey culture wars in dey country! But back in mein dey burn each other alive!"
The Guard spat off his racial epithets, assured in his own African 3rd World victim hood, basking in his envy. I ignored him, but couldn't help but witness as I waited for the shuttle, his removal and replacement. He was undoubtedly being sent to the incinerator... Guards were expendable. We all were. It was the organic matter being recycled by WormWorld.