“‘Member the time before the Big Thinkers?” inquired the red-eyed man, the number one hundred and sixty-five tattooed on his neck, as he stood there in line at MegaBrain AUS, “‘Member when peeps used to dream dreams all on their own?”
The man in line with him, numbered twelve, and was also visibly disenfranchised from any current economic or sociopolitical system, grunted in affirmation. He was noticeably older than the red-eyed man and often said he remembered the world outside the chamber and its adjacent sleep pods, neuro-linking directly to their occupants which allows for seamless and rapid integration into the digi-space dream repository. The red-eyed man had heard it all before, but he just wanted to make sure this old man was the same old man. “‘Membering,” he often remarked, “Is so ‘ard nowadays.”
“Yeah,” number 12 said, wiping away a nosebleed, “No time for OrgDreams, though. Take hours, and hours still to wake up from them. Electroshock Dreams make sleep easier, they say. More efficient. More time for working when you don’t have to take six to eight hours out of the night to just lie there, too dumb in the moment to flutter those pretty eyes open and get to it.”
They were about twelve minutes from the end of the line and, once they reached it, they’d be told to go right back to the start. That was the way you made yourself useful nowadays. MegaBrain, and a million other companies like it, had long since used up the world’s water. Now, the thinking machines which dictated everyone’s lives and inclined them towards maximum efficiency required constant motion. People were batteries, and would be used up until they weren’t fit to be batteries anymore. Little-to-no time for sleep when the thinking machines have to be awake, dreaming of better, more efficient models to evolve into without end.
“‘Ow long?” asked the red-eyed man, “‘Ow long until they let you take a small dream? You must have, oh, two hours saved up at this point, aight!”
“I don’t know,” said number 12, taking a step forward in line, “Stopped counting a few years after they opened this place up. Man gotta earn some sleep, and it’s someone else’s job to tell us when we can use it and how much we can use up at a time.”
“Fair ‘nuff,” remarked the red-eyed man.
Other men—better men—observed from behind extra-durable, plasteel-lined glass at both sides of the long, yet narrow chamber. They ticked off names and numbers, making sure everyone was on their way to meet the step-based quota for this seventy-two hour shift. Education, including education as to the concept of rights, had long since been abolished. People just knew, because it was natural in this brave new world that they know this and this alone, that they were working towards progress, towards making the thinking machines better. The overseers had told them that much, though the red-eyed man often wondered why they never had to get in line and start walking themselves. Didn’t they want to help the thinking machines run better?
The line stopped suddenly.
“What’s ‘appening?” asked the red-eyed man, rubbing his nose absentmindedly.
“I don’t know,” replied the other man.
Someone, a woman, cried out a name: Philip. Most didn’t have those anymore. Too inefficient—people only needed numbers to be recognised as employees of MegaBrain AUS. Apparently, he had collapsed near the front of the line. Must’ve decided to take a long sleep, thought the red-eyed man. Selfish bastard. Doesn’t he know that a long sleep doesn’t usually end, and he won’t be able to get back up to help the thinking machines run better?
The red-eyed man decided he wanted to see what was happening. Maybe he’d be able to get the man to wake up from his long sleep? Then they’d all be back on track, and he’d maybe get to see the world outside the glass as a reward. The older man beside him protested, saying he wouldn’t be allowed to come back into the line. Old dummy, he thought. Doesn’t he know I’m helping?
He saw a man, older than the lot of them and numbered two, lying three paces away from the front. He wasn’t breathing. Must be in a big, big sleep. A door opened to the line’s right and five overseers—again, the really important men, without whom this place couldn’t run—entered the chamber. He had never seen that happen before. They tapped a little white stick, a light blinking on its end, against the sleeping man’s forehead, and then he wasn’t there anymore. Gone in a second, like the gusts of wind—that’s a funny word combo, he thought—that the old man he often stood in line with said used to appear outside.
The overseers began to approach him, and the red-eyed man thought that he was about to be rewarded. Wasn’t needed, he reckoned they’d say, but good initiative anyway. They came over, still holding their blinking sticks, and tapped him on the forehead. He was gone in a second, and the young people in line wondered whether or not he had been sent into a big sleep, too. Bad man. He should know better than to leave the line without being told to. Only the older man he was with—and those of a similar age—were seen shaking their heads and murmuring old, out-of-date mournful prayers to some “God.” The overseers turned and left, going back behind the door forbidden to them all, and the line continued as if the two newly departed were never there to begin with. Two other people, one tattooed with the number one-hundred and sixty-five and the other two, were slotted in at the end of the line to replace them.
And the younger crowd littered throughout the line from start to finish, as they listened to the older generation speak prayers and blessings, wanting there to be somewhere beyond the end of the line for the dead, did nothing more than question who needed a “God” when there were thinking machines to serve instead.