There are plenty of conspiracy theories about. Ideas about how power really works and who holds it behind the curtains. They don’t know so they have to guess. They get so close sometimes and at others they are hilariously wrong. They don’t have the perspective to see the world as it is. They are ants trying to appreciate the world as an eagle above might see it. There too many obstructions, too much just out of sight. They could never appreciate the scale of the truth. I find it hard to fathom myself, and its my job to keep track of this stuff. It is my job to keep humanity in check.
The year is 2011, most of the world think that they know how far technology has advanced. They have no idea, they can’t see the hold it has over them or comprehend the ways it could change their life.
My organisation owns equipment that far exceeds the current perception of development because we don’t want the public to know about it and if we don’t want you to know something you forget it. We can make you forget anything. It was possible over time with radio to do the same thing but took infinitely longer. With television and the internet we can spread deletion broadcasts faster and more effectively than ever before. Therefore our influence has grown exponentially. This isn’t quite mind control but has applications far exceeding it. We can erase people from the collective consciousness as if they were never born. They wander, dazed in a world that remembers as little about them as they do. They should have known not to get in our way but few who have known are allowed to remember. Those who do live in fear and often become useless as a consequence. They shut down when faced with the possibility of deletion, unable to make the choices they are employed to for fear of upsetting us. Such an occurrence prompts a rewrite, the subjects life is altered to avoid notice of the pattern that follows knowledge of the web. This means that they will live radically different lives and is at times a more lengthy process than a deletion.
I work on projects like this, removing or rewriting those who get in our way. It’s gruelling and ridiculously complicated but infinitely interesting. There are myriads of possibilities for reinvention when it comes to rewrites which is why I prefer them to simple deletions. It’s a bit like being a career’s advisor but I guess it’s more of a dictatorship, I look at the possibilities left when the person’s life is severed from their previous position of power. Some go on to have successful careers in the arts or other facets of politics as if they had taken an entirely different road some time before. These changes are near instant depending on the exposure to media of those attached to the subject.
We are the puppet masters who tug at the invisible strings that bind humanity. Memory is the most binding thread of connection, when severed the string will snap leaving the puppet helpless. Without memory humans are a fragile empty shell, too easy to brake. We purge them of all their sins and render them helpless. These broken souls don’t last long, the world is cruel to the innocent.
I often wonder what would or will happen to me should I outlive my use or slip up in work. Will I be discarded in the same manner as the rest of the tools of the machine? I have no means to prevent my own rewrite should I be deemed risky or unnecessary.
I guess my only security in this job is to be as useful and efficient as possible. Therefore I remain diligent and focussed. If I knew the identity of those who occupy higher stations in this work I would have the opportunity to perform a subtle rewrite that would force them to reveal the web about me willingly. I’m sure they have measures in place to prevent such actions but nonetheless I have prepared a program protocol in the event of an opening. I want out of this mess if I’m honest but I’m too useful to let go and not important enough to be kept as I am should I leave.
I was recruited by someone in the guise of an employer who was little other than a pawn played to get me on board in this travesty of morality. The woman who explained the process was the first to disappear once my team had been assembled. She was disposable, more so than I but a demonstration of my employers ruthless pursuit of obscurity.
I tried to find her not long after and was warned that such an action would land me in the same situation. I have no means of communication with my employer other than the terrifying letters they leave me when I fail to pay attention. They always catch me off guard which would suggest that my employer works in the same building but could merely mean they have overwritten one of my collages to send me the note and forget.
Until I make a choice I will be a slave to the fear of deletion. My greatest chance of freedom would be if I could make it beyond the broadcast range of visual and auditory technology before the deletion sequence was broadcast. Then all I would have to do is remain hidden in the wilds of the world for the rest of my life.
I could move the to the forests of the Amazon. Plenty of tribes have lied there undisturbed by the rest of humanity for millennia. I might stand a chance there, surrounded by poisonous animals and dangerous pathogens. Maybe I’ll try that out.
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