" . . .
Corporation Rule #1
They who control the present control the past.
Corporation Rule #2
Iconography Of The Family Will Not Be Tolerated.
CHOOSE!
The Past
The last great civilisation to rule the earth were called the Capitalists. They governed for centuries under blue skies and those skies inspired them to invent the blue technology. At the height of their power they could, it is told, travel in to or out of the blue at will. Then the heat began, slowly at first, gradually increasing until life could no longer endure it and radiated men ate radiated men. Those who had fallen prey to the eradication policies were considered fortunate, many others died at their own hand – the plutocracy however went underground. Finally the storm arrived, great fires swept the cities the Capitalists had erected in their own honour. For many years the ruins of the Capitalists' civilisation stood blackened – testament to the futility of their math and size of their ego. Nomads wandered the earth collecting what had survived the climatology atrocity. They called these artefacts the Cultures. That is the story of the Capitalists and the extent of their ruination. They are now consigned to the recycle bin of history as the Old People. We honour their plastic culture.
“The trouble with plastic culture is that it's prone to melting.”
The Cook
The Present
What cannot be undone must be left alone. If one begins any undertaking with the variable, one must expect the end result to vary. There is no blue sky. The sky is orange. Those controlling the present call themselves the Cultivores. They are the fifth dynasty to attempt to conquer the earth. Their lands are known as Cultivation and these lands are governed by the Corporation. From the infrastructure known as Capital Investment they pay homage to their forebears. They idolatrise the Cultures and they buy and sell time. They have no enemies, no theologicals and no bad math. Theirs is the time of great achievement, a time when all must serve for the benefit of all. They have built the first great wonder of the new world, and that wonder is called the Wall of the Sun. Unlike their ancestors they will not attempt irreducible sums, instead they will wait, wait for the much heralded blue to re-emerge. This is the story of the present and how it will eventually re-engineer the past. They are the New People and their blueprints are wired for sound.
Corporation Rule #468
Excess Noise Pollution Is Punishable By Sonic Radiation Treatment.
The Fable
It is said, in the insulated towers of the Corporation, that the theologicals will one day try to rise again. That an emissary from another, as yet unknown civilisation, will carry with her the sacrements and testaments of old lore and will be known as the Duch. She will attempt to distribute these spores of antiquated legacies among the peoples of Cultivation in the hope they will repent and follow her divine light to a fraudulent salvation. Only one man can prevent Cultivation from being infected with these tainted tenets and that man will bear no title or address but instead a number (known as the irreducible sum). He will travel to the very edge of Cultivation to the Gates of Philanthropy and the great Wall of Sound to pass this Duch unharmed through the portal back to her own. This is the fable and its outcome can be manipulated by time, math or incompetence. Remember, those with blue eyes never tell lies.
A Note On The Math:
Please remember that the Math is not Time. Time is an altogether different quotient and it has no master other than Captain Sensible, leader of the Venturists.
0 – Choice
'CHOOSE!' The Brigade guard shouted at him as he stood at the intersection of the blue and yellow industrial zones known as the perfect square. He nodded politely at the guard then started along the wall. Of course in theory there was always a choice, apart from when there wasn't.
Corporation Rule #4
Freedom Of Choice Is Encouraged So Long As The Choice Made Is In Line With Corporation Guidelines.
Naturally he chose left, toward the blue zone where he worked. A fact that was obvious to the Brigade guard because he was wearing a blue star. He'd often wondered what would happen if one day he chose to go right, what would the guard do? He'd never seen anyone make an unwise choice.
He walked the wall every day. The Corporation called it the first Great Wonder of the New World and during its construction each New Person had been ordered to donate something to its erection. The Corporation named it The Wall of the Sun. Everything the New People had delivered had been built into it. It was a towering monument to their achievements – or so it was said. Occassionally he would search for the blackened brick he'd contributed, the one he'd found near the area known as the Mission. It was a futile search, just another irreducible sum, there were too many bricks and his had vanished among them; as he himself was just another number in the Corporations's adding machine waiting to be tabulated. When the Corporation had unveiled the wall they had told those gathered that if they could go into space they would still be able to see the it. 'So what?' the person next to him had said in dismay, 'If I could go into space the last thing I'd want to be reminded of was Capital Investment, especially when I could see the real deal!' Comments like those were becoming more regular he'd noticed and people were less inclined to report such to the Brigade.
The wall stood for hope and inspiration. Its entire length was blue apart from the huge yellow sun and it had taken all of the blue left in the world to paint it. Blue had become to the New People what gold had been to the Old ones. The wall could only fall when the real sun re-appeared. There were corporation slogans on it - advice for the good of the people, advice meant he supposed, to encourage loyalty and deter curiosity. Passing the wall again on his way to the D&D as the first streaks of Orange appeared above, he read:
Get Busy! Get Happy!
You Are Either On The Clock, Or Off It!
Embrace Alternative Technology!
Keep On Rocking In The Free World!
Spermologically Speaking – Unauthorised Breeding Is Below Contempt!
Toolman Strikes Again!
Save Gas!
Sociopathic Behaviour Will Not Be Tolerated!
Opinions Are The Sole Domain Of The Opinionated!
Remember – Curiosity Leads To Insobriety!
Choose Life!
Remember! Those With Blue Eyes Don't Tell lies! It was the last one that always caught his eye. His brown eye. Everyone had them, a result they said of the atrocity and its aftermath, some genetic malfunction and on account of the sky having been orange by day since forever after – brown eyes dealt with the orange better – the New People had evolved to suit their climate. Corporation people had blue eyes, though many of the people he worked with said that Corps were using Blue Rays, lenses that altered their eye colour to make them appear superior. There was much more of it now – discontent - nothing made any real sense.What, for instance, was alternative technology? He paused to read a Bulletin stuck on the wall near the D&D – it was from the CIB – Climatology Investigation Bureau and it said that the real sun wouldn't appear for some considerable time due to prevailing currents. Further along he read another missive from the Brigade, it told him and everyone else that sighting a Straynger, or as they were more commonly known, a “Duch”, and not reporting it, could lead to eradication. Strayngers, carried the “Theologicals”- the deadly spore. No one he knew had ever seen one and most thought it was just another scare tactic.
He worked all day in pursuit of diligence and then walked the wall again as dark fell, their night, a crimson streaked black without hope, devoid of constellations or galaxies, a dirty black lid on a dirty black life. In his communication hole was a note from the Corporation advising him he could re-test for a Bluetooth in one year's time. He studied the note as if it were the key to escape, escaping the insanity, the slogans and the rules of the Corporation. Rules were everywhere and there was a rule for everything, just how people kept abreast of them he'd never fathomed. But a lot didn't, more and more were just punching out, disappearing from the greater scheme of things and heading out, somewhere, anywhere. A lot headed for Urban Jungle, that much he knew because many of his fellow New People talked about it incessantly. It was gold, they told him, a glittering oasis of non-conformity; there were no rules and there were Dandy Eunuchs and Plastic Reginas, all just waiting to serve anyone. Of course those kinds of starry-eyed tourists never mentioned the bounty hunters, the re-congifured renegades and Machine Girls the Corporation used to hunt down anyone stupid enough to make a bad choice. Still, it didn't seem to matter, each day he turned up for work someone had just vanished – either out on the run, already dead, or on their way to Denial wishing they were already dead. He climbed into his cot and lay there listening to the sounds of locos thundering past, industry never slept. He looked at the Bluetooth re-examination notice again the next orange, he'd already failed the thirteen “If” questions twice, even with extra study. If he failed a third time he'd never get a position above what he held now – a manual. He had no Bluetooth, no title and no address, just a number. Number 111023, that was his name and it was indelible and tattooed on his forearm just in case he ever forgot it. He belonged to the Corporation. There was nothing new under the Wall of the Sun.
Corporation Record/ Person ID 111023
Eyes: Brown.
Status: D&D Employee.
Current Whereabouts: Capital Investment.
Patriot Colour: White.
Convictions: None.
Corporation Comment: Model Citizen.
Achievements: None.
Title/Address: None.
How Earned: N/A.
. . . There was war in the air as he walked the wall. The Blue Sky Hunters had been at it again overnight, daubing the wall with angry red slogans about the new dawn.
. . ."
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