by Maniza Naqvi
Here, down in the valley, when the news broke, people were, as was to be expected, up in arms. A contract had been awarded to XNexst. It was for a system for monitoring citizens and to create a unified registry system for the identification and targeting of deviants: threats to society—those who do not belong to civil groups –those who refuse to belong to communities–those-who refuse to get jobs like the rest of us—those who refuse to play by the norms that were so clearly laid out for our collective good—you know— groups representing low proclivity to consume. These deviants, of course, are also those who do not belong to the clearly defined civil groups and minorities defined around allergies and who do not perform well on our happiness indexes—The system was meant to identify these deviants and dispose of them. Everyone must belong to a minority. And everyone must demonstrate that they are happy. Otherwise, the system cannot assign a value to them.
We were outraged. The proposal was to monitor all internet activity, perform a deviant survey based on deviant activities score card and then based on the score— link each of the eyes on screen or EoS and the deviant score to a national identification card for easy targeting and for initiating logging out and cancelation. Disposal was to be done through mobile disposal units—much like the garbage trucks that prowl through cities every night. In this case—after the deviating EoSs log out—yes—die as a result of a deep sensation of depression which would cause either a stroke or a hemorrhage—or both, after this, disposal teams would move in—unlock the codes on the computerized lock systems on buildings apartment doors, and houses—since now every single home conforms to code and this building standard —the disposal teams would pick up the bodies and throw them into the garbage truck to be taken to a disposal site for instant incineration.
Our people were horrified when this news broke. No attention to detail at all! In comparison, our entire proposal was so much better! Much more effective and cost efficient. Of course it was. We were the ones who had designed and implemented the happiness index monitoring system. Hello! An efficient measure of success as linked to each bank account: Happiness. So of course just as elegantly and relevantly, for this, for our proposal for XNexst we had proposed a much more sure fire way of logging out—without any risk of failure—It had a two-step approach if step one which resembled XNexst's approach failed, step two would kick in—in this phase an added doze of subliminal messaging would persuade the EoS to click on the fire arm and body bag facsimile option and then walk out of their dwellings to a point of pick up, PoP. Then on the sighting of the approaching disposal truck the EoS would get into the body bag and shoot himself.
Plus our proposal used garbage trucks which had built in functions for separating bones, blood and flesh. We had pilot tested the process in several locations when the opportunity had presented itself. And another one was coming up. Soft drinks are not the only product testing that follow our troops! In our proposal our system not only took the waste product and immediately disposed of it by incineration, creating fuel for heating while the rest of the waste product was turned to compost for organic farms. In addition to contributing to a green economy we had also noted in our proposal that our firm was one hundred percent minority owned and minority run. Our happiness index was well off the charts: in the top one percent of the top quintile. It was an air tight case. So for this to have gone to someone else—was a travesty. We are planning a strong protest. Such injustice has to be resisted.