You wake up from an all too-familiar sound; a high-pitched, desperate cry. A woman walks by your cube-shaped apartment, though its size could barely justify it as a residence. An animal follows her, towed by a leash, vaguely resembling a human, but far uglier, slower and dumber. You reflect on this rather recent evolution, Homo simpians. It actually used to be able to breed with regular humans not too long ago.

The cry came from this animal – it wanted little for food, water, or play. It only sought that which it could never get: the affection of its master. A cruel existence, made even more so by the typical coldness of its masters, who bred such creatures only to torture them for amusement.

Whatever. Nothing you can do about it. You put on your beige, non-offending clothes and walk up to the food slot to collect your daily allowance of soymeal. What you’d do even for a scrap of good old fashioned meat…any meat would do. You start salivating at the thought of a steak that you’ve not had in many long years, but shrug it off quickly, lest it sets off the implant in your brain. You consider whether a moment of free thought is worth the risk of thought police kicking down your door, but finally decide against it.

As you walk down the government designated travel route to your work station, a woman drives by in her soylent-powered Bugatti Veyron X90, angrily demanding that you compliment her. You quickly heed, and tell her she has a beautiful necklace. The woman says she won’t call the thought police…this time. You wonder if soylent is really just made of soy, like they say…

Walking a little further, you turn the corner to see a decrepit building. This is your favorite part of the walk on the way to work. It’s difficult to keep your happiness level maintained under threshold levels here, but you almost feel like getting caught would be worth it. It doesn’t look like much, just another faded, abandoned building. Another remnant of The Great Equalizing. But in it held a treasure, more valuable than anything you could lay your hands on: memories.

In the far corner of the building, there lay a box somehow overlooked by The Intersectionalists, the cultural “purifiers”. You dare not go near it lest you set off any alarms, but you know what is inside. Artifacts of a bygone era. Metallic machines that could be used to create, communicate, seek knowledge, and even simulate intricate worlds.

But, they were of no use, only memories now. You reason, even if you could somehow safely stow them away, there would be no way to turn them on. Conventional electricity is scarce and expensive now. The Empowered Ones have yet to figure out how to produce it in vast quantities, as it once was. Perhaps they were too quick to kill all the engineers? You stop yourself from thinking down that line any further, and hurry on to work.

You see another woman about to drive by, as you near your work station. This time you are more alert, and preemptively tell her how nice her hair looks. She stops, leans out, and slaps you harshly across the face. Using her judicial powers granted from birth, you are now convicted of being a Class C rapist.

Darn. You were doing so well…