The Big and Little End

Dougie was rumaging through some of the ancient technology he found in the attic of his grandpa's house. He had found an old-school tape recorder and his gramps had saved double A batteries. At age ten, nothing is more exciting than figuring out how energy is stored in a battery and can change to mechanical energy. However, Dougie did not expect to hear the words on the tape within the recorder. It was labelled with a script he had seen in the past. He had been told it was cursive writing, but that had been eliminated for years now. It reminded me of a picture with writing on the back that his mom had told him was a birthday card. Paper had become an artifact and most had been eaten or worn out. This tape looked like a golden thread and he was curious about what it did. He figured out how to turn on the machine and heard the story within.

"Mama, I cannot help it. I thought my friend needed some of my sandwich."

"Darling, I have told you before, in this world, firstly, you are not allowed to think, and secondly share your rations with another. We are here to make the Lilliputians great again.

"I’ve told you the story before of Jonathon Swift who explained how wars were fought because some people, the Little-Enders,  wanted to crack their soft-boiled egg on the pointed end and others, the Big-Enders, on the rounded end. We are united on doing what we must to uphold this matter of national pride and abide by the structures of society, and you my little darling cannot make a difference into how it runs but must run with it or else."

"Or else what mommy?" little Tommy asked with wide-eyed innocence.

Mamma’s eyes began to well with water. She knew she had endangered him by loving him and offering him part of her rations of nutrient-rich food that could enhance brain development. Perhaps this was all her fault.

The world had changed with AI and the global transition to political parties, sponsored by the richest in the world. They were the self-appointed new gods because money  was power. Their power was in using the pawns were simple enough to trust them.

Before the change, people went about their lives, accepting work was needed to reciprocally provide a service that permitted food and housing. The change was slow for the longest time, then that exponential change happened in all areas of the world. They were asked to work harder and do without what makes life worth living.

It was as if the rising ocean temperatures had  reached the critical level for popcorn to pop. The increase of floods, droughts, earthquakes and hurricanes  left many people reeling. This was the time that government control of information began feeding information into the web. Humanity was now being controlled like trees who share roots in the forest. The mycelium of information passed almost at the speed of light. It was easy to integrate malware into the programs. Information was over-abundant and there was no time to triage truth from falsehood.

Around this point, the brain-computer implants were offered to the Big-enders and Little-Enders. The cranial and digital implants were not too painful, and courses were offered to learn how to use the programs that allowed instant information to be accessed about weather, sports, GPS coordinates and music. The learning curve was only as steep as individuals wanted to climb.

Of course, mandatory agreements had to be signed to use the programs, but the masses were confident that these were government controlled and required to prevent harm. There were several cases citing the prevention of suicides, killings and thefts. The government offered much information about how was going to make Lilliput great again.

Of course, Mamma had signed up for the implants for herself and little Tommy. It would offer an advantage to them both and make life easier. It was paid for by the government and was a real gift, or so she thought. People had been told that in the agreement that no one read, that the implants measured varying chemicals and were linked to an AI super processor.

In the past, there were several cases of old-school pagers being blown up and killing factions who opposed the current regime. Implants were said to avoid this vulnerability. What was not shared was that they held their own insidious grappling hook into the mind and body of the wearers who were the innocent victims of technology.

The governments had acquired the ability not only to acquire but decipher information of  the economy and  most recently, biochemical structure of their slaves, the workers.  The Big-Enders had united with a global conglomerate and were running the Earth as a Hive. However, the Queen Bee was an amorphous beast run by economy, for economy. If and when individuals had thoughts, the biochemical monitors recognized them and like diseased bees in a hive, the killers were sent to destroy them.

The first time Mamma saw the effect she thought it was all in her imagination. Brain tumours abounded in a small commune where individuals were joining forces. Everyone thought it was because of fertilizers and pesticides in the runoff water that went into the well. Then came increased incidents of colon cancers, thought to have been caused by processed meats and nitrates. Autism, breast cancers, and other cases increased. There was no way to lobby for the increasing number of Aspergers cases, but there was no need, they were abundant enough in the Big-Enders who knew how to protect themselves.

About two months after the announcement that over 90% of the working class were on board, the new government issued edicts demanding that workers were paid in provision stamps from the local big businesses, owned by the mega-donors. The workers were reimbursed for work with payment for food from the chains of the mega-donors, utility bills, mortgages and even travel.

Currency based on credit cards and banks was being dissolved because they were at the root of corruption of high interest rates. Savings were being described as a greed mechanism and removed for the people's safety.

The laws continued to change, stating that the weak could not be supported by the system if the country was to be great again. Mandatory eugenics was performed on those termed terminally ill, including those who were deemed old. The definition depended on social status.

That night she held onto her beloved and accepted that when you close your eyes, there is no controlling what your subconscious might see and think of the reality you have witnessed during the day. Normally, the food injected with chemicals controlled thoughts, but by offering little Tommy her food, they were not regulated as intended.

 She had seen how deviants, with biochemical markers that showed empathy, and thinking beyond making the country great, by being the cog they were born to be in the wheel,  were being ‘upcycled’ or as the leader said, ‘up circled’. That meant the flesh and blood of she and her first born, who she had spent endless hours caring for during sunny days and dark sick nights, could be removed for even having this thought.

She slept thinking that she was over-exaggerating her importance. She was a nobody and having that thought could not really hurt her.

The next morning, as she lay in bed holding onto her little one, the Frozen Dead barged her house.  They snatched her and Little Tommy from bed. They disappeared into the invisible history known only in tales of the Little Enders, who had become the slaves for the Big-Enders, because of their own choices.

Dougie finished reading the story. It left him uneasy so he calmed himself by placing this third finger on his thumb and tapping three times. This increased the dosage of dopamine into his blood made him feel calm and loved and he went out to play, with all of the thoughts he had felt gone, until that night when he slept. The next morning the Frozen Dead Air responders came and removed him.