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Life is Tough Living in the Year 3052
by Commander F. John Talon

Since the world fell under the iron rule of the Red Hat Linux Empire, things have been pretty peaceful.  Putting absolute power in the hands of a self-evolving intelligent supercomputer may have looked like an incredibly stupid thing to do, but all of the world leaders were drunk off their asses at the time and said, "Why the hell not."  So it must have come as a complete surprise when all of the world leaders woke up the next morning, completely hung over, and found that the supercomputer had turned out to be a fair and capable leader, and had even made them coffee.  Since then there hasn't been a major war, and except for the occassional obliteration of a minority group due to software incompatibility issues, things are running pretty smoothly.  That is not to say that there aren't problems with the system:  dozens of my friends and lovers have been brutally murdered under its rule.  But the funny thing is, I've only been caught once for doing it.  My name is Commander F. John Talon, Supreme Data Entry Clerk for Residential Records, and I must say that life is tough living in the year 3052.

I remember the story well.  My marriage had been going well, or so I thought, until I discovered one morning that my slut wife had been cheating on me.  Of course she had cheated on me dozens of times before and I didn't mind, but this time she had done the unthinkable:  she had slept with someone I know.  I know this shouldn't bother me, but it's really a pet peeve of mine.  But rather than immediately go out and do something drastic, I did what any rational person would do:  I let the incident simmer and boil in my subconscious for an extended period of time, and when I couldn't stand it any more I went out and did something really drastic.

So an hour later I found out that the best revenge comes to those who wait.  Since I happened to be in charge of sector 23X-VDSTD899-311K, I used my access codes to hack into the database, and deleted Rupert Snell's residential records.  It was an easy thing to do, I used my internal wireless computer and logged in while I was on the treadmill that same morning.  Deleting a residential record may not seem like a big deal to you, but you're an idiot.  When a residential record is deleted the area immediately becomes available, and Demolition Systems picks up the change and sends a team to clear the area and sell it to the next eager buyer.  Before another hour had passed Rupert Snell's house was replaced by Happy Puppy Tanning Services.  And since the residential record was deleted rather than modified, Rupert no longer had a residence on file and fell under the category of "Homeless Bum."  It took a couple hours to track him down, but Rupert was eventually caught, brutally tortured, and incinerated by the Clean Up Our Streets! program.

At first I felt a twinge of guilt over deleting my old college roommate like that over such a little thing like that, but then I remembered that I'm a half-cyborg cold-hearted bastard living in an unrealistic futurist dystopia, so what do I care?  Then I realized that the Snell family had connections with some of the lower appelate courts!  Shit!  I was almost in a state of panic for a while until I remembered the blackmail material I had with a member of the High Council.  I was planning on using that blackmail material for when I wanted a new flying car, but I decided that saving my cybernetically-modified hide from a lethal tanning was more important at the moment.  So I sent an encrypted email to a certain High Council member, and within minutes it was announced to the Snell family that Rupert had been accidentally deleted because of a computer error.

I figured that was the end of it, and I decided to celebrate by rubbing my genetically-enhanced body down with baby oil.  But I had not anticipated the foul mood the local XK334 server was in.  The XK334 had been taking considerable flak lately about processing too slow, and it was pretty pissed at me over being falsely accused of a computer error.  But since all computers were implanted with the non-overridable directive to help humans (Hey, we read Asimov, we're no fools), the computer decided to teach me a lesson by having my wife brutally tortured and incinerated.  It figured that when I lost the love of my life and the object of my jealousy, I would come to regret my vengeful actions.  Whew, lucky break!  I thought I was going to get punished or something.  Sure, I would miss the kinky sex, but in the end, won't we all miss the kinky sex?

Man, life is hard living in an unrealistic futurist dystopia in the year 3052.
 
 

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