Welcome to The Baby wants It’s Bottle Poetry Inc. Podcast, a creative project by Martin Anton Smith a NZ based creative. In this episode, I read part two of my Dystopian Sci Fi Novella, “The BiitCard Hacker” Lets begin!
Marcel was a worker from the topmost worker class “zilo”. This meant he had his own very comfortable, 75 meter square studio apartment. It was of course mostly white and grey colored, very spartan, and like Marcel, perfectly square. Other than the slimline maglev bed, Its biggest feature was the walls. The walls were something else, they were the spirit of the dwelling. The walls allowed for “screen mode “or “Hologram Mode”. Marcel loved the The holographic mode option, was used often, and was currently enjoying “WW1 – Battle of the Somme” re-creation. The holographic technology was amazing, so much so it was scarily close to reality. The closeness was so good there had some cases people had been tricked into the experience, and believing they had died and returned as spirits.
Marcel loved epic “Battle of the Somme” as it made him feel alive, and also – weirdly – it made him feel more lucky than horrified, as he knew at heart he wasn’t really in battle. He loved the vicariousness involved. His favorite part was when he felt a bullet zing past his ear, and hit the helmet of the soldier behind him with a “ping” sound when the bullet hit one of one Soldiers behind him. Sometimes he chose “Ghost Mode”, where he was inside the scene as a “Ghost”, but when he really wanted fun he chose “Action Mode” where he could be actively engaged with the other characters and surroundings of the holographic reality. In the “Battle of the Somme” this meant he could bayonet a German intruder, flick rats off his face, smell the death, get temporary mustard gas blindness, use the Vickers machine gun to mow down the enemy, go over the top to certain death and even play baseball or cricket with his fellow troops on the slow days of battle. “Holographic Reality” was the most popular entertainment by revenue in the 22nd century. In the 22nd century entertainment via “brainwave controller” was second nature, and face to face communication was discouraged socially, especially amongst the ‘lower classed Aruk’s and Qoz’s. Throughout the centuries ruling elites, be they “democratic’ or “authoritarian” had been weary of the mass population freely communicating without their guiding hand of propaganda – the 22nd century was no different, just more technologically able in its subversion. Thus the StarPeople and their puppet Viceroys, were far more successful in keeping the masses in place, than other epochs. The “Holigraphic Reality” games and movies were an excellent diversionary tactic, one among many employed to dumb down the masses and keep them in a perpetual state of social isolation..
After an extended night alone with holographic entertainment, Marcel woke up in his “Zilo” Class workers quarters, and wiped away the sleep from his eyes. The wiping of sleep from the eyes was a typical “Posterity Sub coding Rule” or PSR , in the ever present lines of code in the Brain interface unit or “BIIT” – Yes in 2103, having sleep in your eyes was still a thing, the StarPeople had decided to allow this some ancient physiological routines to continue, rather than simply edit the Human genome to do away with it. The StarPeople kept some ancient physiological practices, simply for the surveillance movement detectors sake – being “too still” was not a good thing in computer AI Based surveillance, as was being to “fast”. Marcel now free of sleep in his eyes now, as always and just like everyone else said the ‘Obeyance Mantra’ with Ulysses. Ulysses was suddenly appearing, holographic avatar of the State. Ulysses was the personal face of the almighty Aurora AI system of governance. Ulysses was a foreboding character: 7 foot tall, heavily bearded, long hair, eyes containing what seemed like the licks of flame, dressed in a regal dark grey gown and also hovered half a foot over the ground. Despite Ulysses hirsuteness, he was of course, immaculately groomed. In short Ulysses was otherworldly and had a presence of deep deep authority and wisdom. Marcel and Ulysses begun speaking in unison.
“Whether An Aruk, a Qoz or a Zilo, We Are All Working Together For The Same Goal Of Peaceful and Sustainable Contentment, and We Recognize Without Full Obeyance to Aurora and the Governing Viceroys, this can never ever occur. I Pledge My Full , Complete And Enduring Obeyance to Aurora. I Recognize The Encompassing Authority of Aurora, Our Forever Master and Leader, Who is Always Right and Never Wrong, Who Is Always Right and Never Wrong, Who is Always Right And Never Wrong”. Marcel, like all 3 classes said it without thinking, it was forever burned into his brain.
With that said, Ulysses dissipated and Marcel could have breakfast. The Zilo classes had full access to a room service option which had all the old fashioned nutritious food of prior centuries, except of course it was printed from scratch, not grown as it was up until 2053. He simply said “Hi RoomTech, can I have some 20th century cereal and black filter coffee” – and the meal slowly materialized in from of his eyes in roughly 5 seconds. He ate it greedily, as he was famished from the WW1 hologram theatrics last night. Then he thought about some light exercise around his quarters. In the Aurora controlled Earth world People still walked, but the BiiT CARD permissions didn’t allow to jog or run, unless engaged in the designated and heavily scheduled aspect of Sport. Sport was not called sport in the 22nd century, Sport was deleted and renamed with the more suitable “LeisureWarmth”. He went for a 10 minute stroll around his unit, engaging the AFRICAN WILDERNESS GHOST holographic option.
Under the StarPeople Aurora system many “old world” habits and ceremonies were allowed to continue – e.g. “hair cuts” survived, though “haircut was now a “Scalp Refinements” or simply called “Refscal'”. Haircuts were still done via a “barber” (Though now called a “Rebrab”), but of course the Rebrab was a Hologram program, not a real person, and the hair was vaporized without any odor rather than cut. People still chose their own clothes to wear, although the options were limited to 500 outfits in total, 100 for men, and 400 for women, with no tailoring except on “Zilo appreciation Day”, where female Zilos could customise a pil box type hat, with color or a cloth frill or stripe or short faux feather or a faux daisy, rose or buttercup flower. The StarPeople (and their agents the Viceroys) still wanted to allow females to partially compete socially via clothing, another simple “Strategic Subcoding R” or SSR. Of Course there were no physical “Shops” to buy clothing, or anything physical for that matter – it was simply delivered immediately via materialization (for food and small items) or for more complicated items, like clothes for example, it was via ‘regional aurorahouses’ the modern version of a warehouse/factory.
The system of payment under Aurora via a social score configured cryptocurrency, which was a three tiered digital currency now since 2043 called ‘Joytoken’. Joytoken currency was tiered for each designated class, with the names Arukerium for Aruk’s, Qozcoin for Qoz’s or Zilodient for Zilo’s. The great thing about using the Arukerium, Qozcoin or Zilodient Joytoken payment system was the unlimited ability of the State i.e. Aurora to surgically control the buying and selling of the three classes. For example if holographic screensaver sales were down in the Qoz classes, they could designate 100 bonus Qozcoins so long as the minimum LeisureWarmth hours had been earnt that month. Loans were available, but were indexed by Class and social score, with higher classes being favored, especially Zilo’s. Aruk’s could technically get loans, however the success rate for an application was capped at 3%, no matter how high this classes social score was. Qoz’s loan applications were capped at 25% and Zilos at 75%. Savings rates would operate similarly with interest rates capped at -.3% for Aruk’s, 1.1% for Qoz’s and 1.7% for Zilo’s, however poor social score ratings in any period could erase these savings percentages downwards to a cap of -15%. This social carot and stick action oriented monetary system of trade and was they new form of the early 21st Century’s “monetary policy/quantitative easing”, but instead of the “Federal Reserve Bank ” the 22nd equivalent was operated Aurora, Governed by the Viceroys (who dealt with appeals lodged by the Aruk Qoz and Zilo classes), as the agents of the StarPeople.
This economic ,monetary and financial system did not have salaries or wages, but had floating exchange rates for various behaviors, as issued by the “Supreme Council of Joytoken Shadows Rates” (or JSR for short). E.G. a Qoz class working as a AurorHouse Fulfiller, and being adjudged by Aurora to have fulfilled an order on time for a Coat and Bowtie, coupled with a positive emotional state reading, (as surveilled by the the data analytics from the Biit Card Brain interface) meant for that order, 37 Qozcoins were immediately paid to the workers digital account wallet. Each Quadrant had independent coin/social score exchange rates, to cater to its custom needs.
Marcel, Being a technician, who works on the core Aurora cards, he was given the best possible access to the 7th generation “internet”, except it was now, since 2027, called “TheSubject”. He could communicate freely on all manner of interesting holographic modules, this meant that he had full clearance for his Zilo class privilege’s and, naturally, all lower level Qoz and Aruk levels. Marcel also had full access to the mid-class level filter – the “Qoz TheSubject filter” , which on top of the craftmanship material, there was access to the ability to study Calculus, Geometry and Electronics, as well as full access to 1950s and 60’s Rock N Roll era . The lowest level “Aruk” class “the Subject” filter, allowed only manual task oriented tutorials, and associated discussion boards, and of course AURORA state broadcasts. The setup of the Brain – Aurora interface system the ” BiiTCARD” of an Aruk citizen, meant they couldn’t literally think of asking about any theoretical level interests, such as, lets say, differential equations or philosophy – the BiITCARD brain implant Aurora interface simply didn’t allow it, and for good reasons. Manual workers minds should not, under any circumstances, ever be allowed to expand, this would make society unstable, as the rigid class system fractures .
The next and officially last filter was his class designated limitation filter. The Zilo class filter allowed full access to all other branches of Physics and Mathematics, coding and hardware development. He had access to the only 99% surveilled chat portal for Zilo to Zilo Class communication, where once every 100 Days a “free Unsurveiled Day” was scheduled or FUD meaning only the worst traitorous “code red” keywords were surveilled. This rule allowed Zilo’s to feel somewhat rebellious, much like teenagers were before 2051, an allow no serious consequences resulting to the social structure of society. He had a culture based permission with full access to the work of the Masters in the Arts and Music in the 19th 20th and 21st and 22nd century, and the associated available historical books. A smattering of Politics and History was allowed – but in terms of past warfare, only a selection were allowed: The Boar War, WW1, WW2 and the Cold War Era and finally the ‘MindWar’ era of 1990-2022. Essentially, in terms of WAR only a 125 year window was known to have existed. These special ZILO privilege’s was enough to allow the Zilo class much to discuss, but not so much as to feed a rotten feeling that the early 22nd Century could be better organized by the Viceroys, and the StarPeople.
The overall theory of inventing a 3 tier based system regarding internet access was to completely disallow intellectualism in the lower Aruk and Qoz classes, but allow a certain intellectual freedom to the ‘Zilo’ classes, to allow them to feel “smart” but not ‘too smart’, as to cause further downstream “Obeyance Outages”. On top of that, as it would be counter productive to bar this higher need, and then ask of the same creativity to work on the next Aurora updates, or design new apartments and living spaces . It is also worth mentioning for all 3 classes mild exercise was allowed and encouraged. There were myriads of cycling velodromes, where all classes could mix freely (though still surveilled) in social competition. There was a form of indoor tennis, which was exclusive to Qoz and Zilo’s. Finally, Zilo’s had exclusive access to a 22nd century version of “Golf” – only one club was allowed, and of course the turf was artificial, and involved augmented reality – the 22nd century had no time for the quirks of 20th century golf, no 19th Hole Clubhouse drinks, no practice range, and no need for clothing rules – they were already strict.
Marcell was now wide awake and now overall, was now feeling quite happy with himself, he was counting his recent victories over the last few days: He had had a great physical holiday set in in St Kilda Melbourne 2010, thanks to his great work over the years at Dreamscape Reality BiiTCard Systems, where he had worked extremely hard as a tech configuration expert, working on the Card/Brain interface system which reports biodata back to AURORA. He had in truth and in secret from Aurora , been his own double agent over the years and decades. He had done the hard technical work, the had clandestinely hacked his BiiTCard with encryption. This hack was only possible because of his rare medical brain ailment – a highly alkaline brain, which was able to act as the only exploitable “bug” in the BiiTCard interface in his brain. With this hack he exploited Aurora’s only loophole, was able to have the gift of emotion and tribality, and most importantly had access to past history of the 2051 Starman Reconfiguration. Marcel was the only worker class citizen to have genuine knowledge of the dystopian mental and physical imprisonment that had happened to Earths people, from the time of Starman Reconfiguration. He was the only one who could free the workers, all of them, the Aruk’s the Qoz’s and the Zilo’s.
…………end of pt 2………pt 3 is coming very soon… in the near future…..
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