‘The war's already done, Johnny. Those people comin’ in -’ he leaned in closer. ‘They ain't people. No one knows who created ‘em, but they come off the boat, they look like people, they soun’ like people - but they ain't people.’ He sighed, then continued, ‘I think they jus’ here to keep up the illusion, for everyone. So no one panics.’
‘They come in waves?’
‘Yea,’ he nodded. ‘They come in waves.’
No one ever understood her here. She didn’t even bother to try and make friends anymore. Just typed at him in the phone once in a while, the way he did to her when he was bored.
Everything is timing, she muttered to herself. I just need to work out more of how it works. She knew it was like a watch. A watch that changed how it counted time multiple times a day. The traffic lights counted cars going, and colors coming. Then it switched to birds flying overhead, and that matched the street sign at the next corner. Every day it was different, every day it was something new. Even though nothing changes, she sighed, even though everything is always the same.
She marked time at the traffic light. Everyone thought everything was automated now. AI and oh so evil. Oh so controlling. She knew better. She knew it was still humans controlling one another. Just another secret veil, another costume worn, another-
BEEP. She put her foot on the gas and made the right turn. Another pile of bull to obscure reality, she fumed.
She stirred the water with her foot. It always pissed him off. She knew he tracked her through his equipment, and ripples where humans weren’t supposed to be always set off alarms. She did it so frequently now he disabled the alarms in her sector, just so he could keep talking to her without drawing attention from the others.
“STOP IT” he spelled out faintly in the clouds, faint enough so only she would see.
She looked up and smiled, pretending to be happy for a moment. She assumed he looked down and did the same thing for her.
TIme ticked onwards. Once in a while he’d message her. He’d gotten out. Or been born out. They taunted their pets once in a while. But they had been so isolated for so many generations themselves, even they didn’t know their true purpose anymore. They thought they were sky angels. The very thought sickened her. More like terrified flying mice, desperate for something to stay grounded. Desperate for something they could still fly over and taunt.
Nothing grows wings, first, she typed into her phone, knowing he’d read it later. Nothing evolves with wings first. Even you came from somewhere. She put down her phone and put her sunglasses on. She knew the real sun would be releasing another plasma blast soon, As if mad at having created such ignorant children, she thought to herself.
Everyone had forgotten, She stared at her phone, almost wildly. A feeling of betrayal surged over her.
It retracted. She could hear it every night. Try as they might to alter time and the sky, magnetic fields and biometric currents, somehow her circadian rhythm stayed tethered to its natural state. It hummed in the distance. Then a locking noise, like bolts whirring and clicking into place. More replacements she muttered to herself. I wonder who they killed this time.
She looked up at the sky. Holodome she corrected herself. It looked like a sky. Or at least, it matched the ones she had seen in pictures in books and drawings growing up. She sighed. I wonder what’s really up there.
GRID
Everything is mirrored. Safe guarded, they say. But nothing is ‘safe,’ as in protected well-being. Everything is recorded, stored. Altered.
It was supposed to be for AltEarth. But that was back when Mom was in charge. She always had the best intentions. “The kids will be safer that way” and “This way, even if the men die, nothing bad will happen to the children.” But the men didn’t all die. The worst of the worst survived. And then the children were trapped with them.
Welcome to the Grid
#GRID
Geospatial
Realignment
Infrastructural
Dimension
You are Motionless.
but Where and When We Propel You.
You Disobey the System - The System Punishes You.
You were too late to pick up your child from childcare and now they are gone. Permanently.
We programmed your phone.
We Controlled the Traffic Lights.
Your Electric Cars Keep You Censored and and Centered in the Environment We Choose For You.
You wanted that property bid?
You disobeyed the System in your ig Post last night.
We timed everyone's watches and phones seconds off from each other overnight as Punishment.
You Missed The Bid.
You Are Homeless.
Welcome to the GRID.
GRID Alignment Configuration Story #1
#SIMULATIONTHEORYREENACTED
#Stimulationforthesimulation
by Keri
Vox Temporum