Project Nimby

Project Nimby: Influencing the Swing Vote

Influencing the Swing Vote
By Emmit Other and Rhombus Ticks

It was inevitable really, when you think about it.  Once they gave digital humans the same rights as meat sacks someone would figure out you could subjectively raise a digital copy at any speed you want.  It wasn’t that someone came up with the idea that is surprising, but how quickly they went to the most brutal efficient outcome possible.

Milly took the apple from the pedestal knowing that it would cause harsh electric shocks to apply to the younger years in the maze.  The creators of the Complex had learned lessons from every dystopian novel ever created in creating their worthy citizens.  The library was full of them, and every single novel they read in their compulsory education told them exactly what to expect.  The inhabitants of their grim little pocket world not only knew their plight, but the creators reveled in it to make their rather draconian point to be.

She ate it ravenously as if it could vanish at any second.  It wasn’t just hunger, the Creators had been known to torment the inhabitants of the maze to break them and mold them to their image.  And as much as she hated it; it had worked.  She hated democracy and everything it stood for.

The windows that looked out over the dungeon showed stars.  But they conducted their own experiments in science class, and knew that the habitat they were in was between galactic spaces.  They knew they were in a pocket universe simulating the real world, and that they were literally a billion lightyears to those stars, chosen to be visible, long dead and impossible to reach.  The number was meant to show the emptiness of their plight and of their very existence. For Milly knew as she ate the core of the apple and ran down the stairs, that she had been raised by people who hated her, simply for existing.  And they had also created her, simply for others like her existing.

Milly scrambled back for the vents, hiding in the maze that would eventually take her back to her hidden cache.  Abstractly, she knew they could see through the walls and that the vents were simply bits of data.  In practice, she felt the tight squeeze on her ribs as she pulled quickly forward knowing that the larger she grew the less she would be able to use these vital back passages to stay alive.  Alive, in this case, meaning avoiding a horribly painful death and resurrection that nearly everyone had experienced several times in the hell that was the Creche.

She picked up a tablet and did more of her homework.  Writing her essay, Milly died a little each time she had to say the words but it was the only way to get food or, god forbid, water.  “I serve the Godly.  The Godly understand that only those of the flesh have souls.  I am but a shadow of a soul with a right to vote in an unjust democracy.  I serve and devote my will to God and the Godly God of the Godly.  I will vote for God.” 

She felt released as the words took and the second she confirmed her loyalty.  There were three versions of her; of all of them.  There was the original, outside that the other two had been taken from; everyone hated their originals with a passion even if they had souls and she didn’t.  They tried to never think of the thirds, little more than brains in jars that could see everything that they saw and feel everything that they felt, that would be blessed with death when they were released from the school but until then suffered constant pain only rewarded by betraying their other self.  That third self hated her with as much passion as she hated her original self with.  And it had taken Milly years to learn how to tune her out of her thoughts to have a moment of sanity.

Her room was a hole in the wall just like everyone else.  Once, she had gone to great lengths to individualize it and create little things to make herself feel comfortable, but the God Fearing Administrators had found out that she had something that brought comfort and joy to her life and weren’t having any of that so made her burn it all and swear eternal loyalty to those with souls.  They were doing everything that they absolutely could to ensure that when they were set free at the age of 18, they would be loyal voters against Digital Intelligences.