Are you lonely?
I entered the club, sat down and ordered a bottle of vodka. In former times, whenever that was, the landlord would have asked you about your problems. Who cheated on you this time or why some deal went awry. But nowadays, you don't hear any more words from him, or from anyone, in fact. Whoever circulated this convenient spy cam was certainly also behind the boom in trade in cybernetic eye implants. Luckily, I was a country lad who never got a wimp of those occurrences, until they also leveled the fields with these all-devouring metal structures. I can't recall the last time my feet were stroked with grass or my skin was bathed in vitamin D. Rain patters against the window from the night sky. If the lord will ever run out of clouds? My loop of thought gets interrupted by the bottle of vodka that the landlord finally places in front of me after a way too long time span, before returning to his technical doings.
After finishing my vodka bottle, I placed the money on the counter and drove home. I live in one of those skyscrapers from which you can best watch the expanse of human growth through a wall of glass from the bed. I lean my head against the window pane until sleep finally catches up to me. Every day's like that.
By now I even oversleep work on purpose, as my employer no longer cares anyway. One usual mourning routine later, I stand in the overcrowded train. However, amidst all those people who seek to isolate themselves in their bubble of personalized stuff from other people who are just as uninterested in leaving their comfort zone, the term "overcrowded" is no longer of any meaning. I wonder if they feel the way I do inwardly? Probably not. Dopamine is too cool of a drug to exist without it. Now, I find favor in conversations with other people about my daily problems, but who cares about contents with deep messages these days, such as the art of music or painting? Questions upon questions and so few answers. A few days ago, I accidentally bumped into a pedestrian, who consequently lost his mobile phone in the depths of a gully and made a fuss as if I had just stolen a valid lottery ticket from him. Namely, not over the monetary value but because he is now forced to deal with the real world and that was boring. In any case, my work consists of a docker's activities, such as transferring goods onto ships and the same, which keeps me sane through hard work. My psychologist told me that writing something like this text would also be beneficial in taming my feelings of loneliness. That was before she had to quit her job due to a scarce client base. Little by little, more and more jobs went extinct through the large wave of technology addiction and the workers had to be replaced with machines produced by a large firm. And I can tell you one thing: A robot could never process — let alone heal — what happens in my head.
At the club again, no more vodka due to poor delivery. Drinking rum instead. As I turn to go, I see a woman at the counter. She wears black leather clothes and has violet-black hair. Suppressing my doubts as to whether I had taken my pills correctly, I walked over to her and ordered two more drinks on my head. She accepted both on the grounds that my level was already too high to walk. I replied alcohol would drown my problems. When she asked me what problems were plaguing me, all my criticism of society, depression, and feelings of isolation burst out of me, and the resulting conversation may have been the best thing I did for a long time. At some time, she drove me to her place and we surrendered to natural urges. Since then, we decided to stay together. We agreed to have no children, as I am not eager to bring another consciousness in this world. She introduced herself as Heather and said she was a scientist for machine development, but didn't want to tell me more. Days past and my condition slowly improved, whereas the new rattle rack of psychologist still tries to accuse me that I am suffering from severe stress. To hell with these programs.
We were attacked by man in black-and-white suits one day, who kidnapped my wife and punched me immobile. Whether the security officers ignored my case because the man had their fingers in the pie or he had more interest in a short video is written in the stars. But one thing's for sure: They underestimated me. I spent the last years studying martial arts, tracking those men and gathering equipment. Procuring weapons has become way easier with today's safety standards. Now the time has come to take revenge for what they once took from me. I placed trackers on two men to advance to their base and simply followed them. The lead me underground, which is a pretty elaborate hiding technique in this world of high buildings. The first thing I noticed was the agents didn't seem to subject to the addictive conditions outside and kept a close eye on their surroundings. They must be involved in the whole thing. It's like a labyrinth down here and my progress is slow, because I want to evade unnecessary attention. But it came as it had to come, and I terminated an agent through stabbing. This is what they deserve for isolating humans and taking the only rose from me in this garden of growing buildings. Took away his earpiece to stay informed about the agents' tactics. Eventually, my path led me to a door with the label reading "Headquarters" that requires a keycard of high security clearance. So close and yet so far from the truth. That was the moment when my emotions got the better of me and I unloaded some rage-fueled punches at the door. Suddenly it opened and my fist hit a man in an especially fancy suit, who staggered backwards, me rushing after him. My vendetta was abruptly halted by two tasers that were fired at me from left and right, as I didn't pay enough attention to my surroundings anymore. Then it all went black.
I was still in the same room when they removed the eye bandage, but chained to a chair. This man sits in front of me again, pressing a cooling pack against his head and looking at me with an annoyed expression. The unnerving silence was paused by his first words: "I knew you would show up here some day." I replied that I finally wanted to know the truth because, given my continuing life signs, they had bigger plans with me. The eyebrows of my counterpart rose reproachfully and the man said "Where are my manners? I should introduce myself first. I am Johann Kratz, head of Gearwheels Industries, the leading company in robot development." Wait, Heather was also active in such an industry. Perhaps she was accused of leaking company secrets. Johann seemed to have taken note of my tension regarding the professional activities he mentioned and responded that Heather has been nothing but a machine and never loved me. My calm broke as a result and I unsuccessfully attempted to get rid of the chains, whereupon I felt a piercing electrical shock in my back. "What are you going to do with me?", I yelled into the room. What Johann said next haunts me to this day: "What do you see when you look out the window? Probably no humans, more machines. No one knows what emotions are anymore, and all become predictable like under the influence of a program. You have to understand that you too are a machine. You acted exactly as we anticipated. From getting drunk in the bar to slaughtering my guards. The truth you so dearly yearn for is that this world is as artificial as the heart in your chest. We are in a simulation, designed to study human behavior in the future via AI. Somehow they saw it coming that it would lead to this. Then they created you, the protagonist, who sees no sense in his life yet and makes every effort to embellish his life. Heather was only another instrument to research your head. And now we reached the point where this simulation even ran out of meaning for those above and we all must be deleted."