This journal entry differs from the rest of the entries in #723323's journal. For whatever reason, this entry seems to be a narrative from #723323 detailing his final days in eerie detail. The Central Government is unsure of what to make of this, so it is included here for any government employee reading this to try and decipher.
Lars Sheldon awoke in his bed to the sound of sirens screaming outside of his bedroom window, “typical,” he thought to himself as he tossed the coarse, government issued bedcovers away from his body and onto the floor. As he sat up a ray of sunshine hit him directly in the face, searing his eyes and forcing him to raise a hand to be able to see. From behind his hand he glanced at the digital clock embedded in the wall, the neon blue numbers stared back at him unblinkingly. According to the clock it was 11:32, this fact pierced Lars’ consciousness much as the ray of sunlight had pierced his eyes mere moments ago.
“I’m late!” the young man exclaimed as he jumped out of his bed, his feet hitting the cheap linoleum floor with a soft slap. As quickly as he could, Lars began to prepare for the day that he was supposed to have begun hours ago. He pulled on a blue jumpsuit that was every bit as coarse as the bedsheets that he slept in. Emblazoned on the cheap fabric was an iron-on patch with ‘#723323’ sewn into it in bright red numbering. Brushing his teeth with a plain white toothbrush and standard issue government dentifrice flavor #4 (the cinnamon one) he hurriedly placed two pieces of the gray bread that comprised his breakfast every morning into two open slots on his kitchen counter and pressed the silver button next to the slots, within coils began to glow red hot. Quickly Lars continued to prepare for his day, returning to his bedside he removed his N-600 handheld computing device from the charging bracket on the wall. Scanning quickly past several irritated messages about his lateness from Iris, his boss, he looked for any important updates that could have come from the Central Government during the night. There was nothing of importance, unless one considered banner ads for the gray, blocky, personal motorized vehicles that the government peddled to its people was to be considered important.
A small sense of relief washed over Lars, at least he did not have to worry about any unpleasant surprises coming from the government that day. In his relief Lars glanced quickly towards his closet, daydreaming about spending his day in there rather than wasting another second at his meaningless job hand copying tables upon tables of data for the ever present Central Government. If only he could walk over to the closet door, undoing the numerous locks which held it closed from the outside, he could pull open the door and walk into his sanctuary to reveal…
DING!
Lars jumped, woken abruptly from his daydream. His breakfast was ready. With a sigh Lars walked over to the toasting slots in his counter and removed the now toasted bread. Munching quickly he grabbed his N-600 and shoved it into his jumpsuit before making for the door.
Throwing open the door he walked out into the sunshine that had disturbed his sleep less than half an hour ago. Descending the white steps outside of his door Lars glanced back at his abode and saw… white. Behind him was a massive apartment complex so massive and white that it might as well have been the world’s largest cube of sugar. Lars glanced left and right down the sprawling alabaster colored walls seeing nothing but the same until the oppressive whiteness disappeared from his view. Normally when he exited his apartment Lars was accompanied by people exiting from the countless doors (identical to his save for serial identification numbers printed on each one, similar to his jumpsuit) that dotted the complex every fourteen feet, as dictated in the plans for residential buildings published by the national department of architecture.The absence of people exiting from Residential Block #713 was unusual to Lars, it made him think of how the Central Government’s extensive economic planning had rendered life a monotonous slog. He thought of the tragedy that had befallen the United States when Soviet Russia had perfected their economic planning software , MoscowNet, during the Cold War. Using mainframe computers the size of warehouses the U.S.S.R had been able to analyze enough data to completely streamline their economy down to the most minute details. They had optimized their workforce, placing workers into jobs that catered to their most salient skills, with the brightest minds of course being assigned to the development of military technologies. Everything in the Soviet Union had become regulated. Entertainment, caloric intake, clothing, and even ‘romantic’ partners had been assigned according to the decision making of machines. They had used MoscowNet to cut their entire country’s operating costs while simultaneously boosting their GDP by nearly threefold. Of course, in the context of the Cold War the United States had had no choice but to adopt a similar approach to their economy in order to keep up with the great red bear of the north, lest they ran the risk of being dominated by the ever-so-powerhungry Soviets. Now the two countries remained locked in an everlasting struggle against each other, both fighting mathematically perfect wars against each other with computer generals at the helm.
Nearly eighty years had passed since the two superpowers had passed the reins to the machines, yet the computer algorithms, and therefore life itself, had remained nearly the same since that point. Neither the central government of the U.S.S.R nor the U.S. had dared to allow their magnificent computing power to devolve into the hands of the people. The only piece of technology that laymen were afforded was the lowly N-600, a cheap piece of plastic and silicon that was useless for anything besides receiving messages from Central or sending work-related messages to colleagues. Any substantial computing power was reserved solely for the Governments and the weapons developers who worked tirelessly to outsmart computing facilities with trillions more nodal connections than their brains could ever hope to have.
For the second time that day, Lars sighed. As he turned around and crossed the street to his job in Data Reproduction center #146 he contemplated the stagnation of life in his reality and let a wave of grief wash over him, for he and his countrymen had been reduced to mere variables in the churning minds of the mainframes. Moments later Lars entered Data Reproduction center #146 and was immediately greeted with screeching from Iris:
“WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN YOU ARE CURRENTLY 3 HOURS AND 56 MINUTES LATE FOR YOUR SHIFT AT DATA PROCESSING TERMINAL #557455!” his boss screeched.
“I apologize Iris I must have slept through the wallclock’s alarm this morning it won’t happen again” Lars replied.
“IT HAD BETTER NOT, ONE MORE TARDY TO WORK AND YOU WILL BE REASSIGNED TO WASTE PROCESSING FACILITY #9091223 FOR A MORE SUITABLE POSITION!”
“Got it Iris, thank you” Lars mumbled as he keyed his identification number into the touchscreen display built into his bosses torso, clocking in.
His boss whisked away in a huff, no doubt off to reprimand another hapless underperforming worker. One of the drawbacks to having a robot for a boss was that she never tired, and never cut him any slack.
Morosely, Lars sat down at his desk and began to copy numbers from one spreadsheet to another, taking care not to move too slowly lest he feel the wrath of Iris again. Lars despised his work, but he had no power to change his situation, so he worked to avoid being reassigned to an even less desirable job.
Four hours later at 5 o’clock on the dot, Lars exited Data Reproduction center #146 and made the forty foot walk back to his home. Once inside he immediately made a beeline for the closet door that he had fantasized about earlier that day. Undoing lock after lock he threw open the door, and for the first time that day he felt a surge of happiness as he looked at his most prized possession, a 3.5 by 5.5 block of cheap plastic and silicon. The object looked strikingly similar to the N-600 that he carried throughout the day with him. It was in fact an N-450, an older model of the same technology that the N-600 encompassed, but this N-450 embodied a key difference from the N-600 that made it worth thousands of times what the N-600 was. This N-450 operated on an older model of the USos operating system that used less sophisticated security technologies that the newer N-600. Because of these security flaws, dedicated groups of hackers, the most wanted criminals in the world, had been able to jailbreak the older model N-450’s, enabling the handheld devices to use their hardware in a variety of ways far more colorful than the restrictive boundaries of USos on the N-600’s. These N-450’s could allow their users to access a rudimentary information sharing network, named Paradise Springs, set up by the same hacking groups that did the jailbreaking in the first place. Of course, jailbroken N-450’s were highly illegal and anyone found to be in possession of one did not fare well.
Lars did not care, he powered on the device and began typing commands into the text interface. It took a detailed set of commands and passwords to access Paradise Springs so as to disallow any government activity on the network. Lars had had to seek out the seedy blackmarket located within one of many garbage dumps surrounding his housing complex in order to purchase login credentials from a man in a mask, they had cost nearly five months salary.
Once logged into the system Lars was greeted with the most beautiful sight that his eyes had ever seen. He had logged into Paradise Springs many times before, yet the sight of the sprawling discussion forums and hypertext links laid out before him now never ceased to make him feel giddy. Here one could access information about nearly any topic they so chose, pictures and stories from other users around the world dotted the digital landscape, making Lars feel as though he was a part of an actual community of humans rather than a puppet in a computers grand play.
Quickly a link glowing bright blue caught Lars’ eye:
LOVERS CLICK HERE! Heartthrob.net is the single greatest forum for those looking for love on the entire Shadownet. Hundreds of unique users are already here finding mates not prescribed to them by Central. Let love run its course as nature allowed and visit today!
Lars felt a flutter in his chest. He had never been assigned a wife by the Central Government, he often felt as though this lack of compassionate companionship was the single greatest source of the crushing sense of hopelessness that he felt every day. He clicked the link.
Immediately he was greeted by a screen full of smiling female faces, the tile-like layout of the illicit dating service allowed him to scroll through pages and pages of women who all struck him as more beautiful than anything he had observed in his life prior to that moment. He clicked on the profile of a woman who caught his eye, Nichelle. She had almond shaped hazel eyes with peered into him with an intensity that almost made him gasp, even though they were confined to a screen the size of a playing card. Her skin was the color of rich caramel, and soft hair fell around her shoulders in curls so small and uniform that one would have thought it to be wig if they didn’t know better. Gripped now by the desire for something true and worthwhile in his life, Lars sent her a message:
‘Hi, I know this is forward, but you are striking, are you interested in having a conversation with me?’ He sent the message before his nerves could convince him otherwise.
‘This is crazy, but I was thinking the same thing about you. you seem like someone I could get away from this fucked up society with.” She replied almost immediately.
Lars’ heart jumped into his throat, he couldn’t believe it. This was unlike any feeling he had felt before, it felt authentic and right.
‘That’s insane, I know i'm getting ahead of myself but I felt the same thing when I saw you, I have to find a way out of this matrix that Central has placed us in. I have to leave” Lars knew he wasn’t considering his words but his emotions overrode his mind.
‘Seriously, me too. I hate this life, sometimes I wish that I could just plot a coup to overthrow this government, maybe use some of those fancy weapons they have on the mainframes themselves.’ Nichelle responded instantly.
‘Me too, I hate the Central’s oppression, one of these days I’m going to snap and do as much damage as I can before they take me out.’ Lars’ felt good venting his emotions to this woman that he had just met. Nichelle had not responded by the time that Lars continued.
‘I’m going to do it one day you know, There will come a day when I can’t take anymore and I finally do it. You can do it with me if you want to’ Lars waited for a response.
One minute passed
Two minutes passed
Three minutes passed and Lars began to wonder if his reckless words had scared away this woman that he had just met. Suddenly three dots appeared at the bottom of the textbox at the bottom of the screen, Nichelle was typing. Lars eagerly awaited her response.
‘Gotcha, scum.’
Lar’s heart began to beat harder than it ever had before, what this beautiful girl have meant by that?
Suddenly Lars heard his front door being opened, rather he heard his doors cries as it was torn from its hinges by nothing but brute force from the Compliance Police squad positioned outside. Four heavily armed and armored troopers entered his house. Lars could do nothing but sit silently inside of his closet and hope that somehow he was not found.
He listened to the heavy footsteps of the troopers draw nearer to his hiding spot, any hope Lars had of remaining hidden evaporated as he realized that Nichelle had been nothing more than a Central Government mimic, planted to catch deviants and lawbreakers like himself. Knowing this he could only resign himself to the fact that the troopers knew exactly where he was. The footsteps reached his closet door and paused only briefly before that door was torn away from the frame. Revealing the four troopers in his home. Lars began to plead
‘Please! I didn’t mean it! I would never do something like that you have to believe me! I couldn’t I, I’m ju…”
Lars’s voice was silenced as a bullet ripped through his head, he fell to the ground with blood pooling around his lifeless body. His brain’s gray matter finally brought a smattering of color to the painfully white walls.
The four police troopers clunked out of the room without a word, robots have no need of conversation, and they do not cut any slack.
Outside, life continued.