Island of the Unemployed

UNFORTUNATE SOULS

It was a gloomy, overcast, uncomfortably cold fall day. A mist fell from the sky, dampening everything below it. The smell of dead fish hung in the air. There was the occasional shout of an angry surrogate. Cranes whirred and clanked as they loaded cargo.

Hundreds marched involuntarily, single file in two long lines of humanity toward a sea port where two cargo ships awaited. Surrogates in blue uniforms and black combat boots brutally maintained control. One line was made up primarily of young adults with vacant looks, occasionally mumbling to themselves. The other consisted exclusively of the elderly, suffering from various cognitive and physical disabilities.

Only a few short hours earlier, these poor souls remained secure in their small living spaces, called work pods, when one of the walls suddenly opened, and surrogates stormed in. They were extracted from the room in which they had lived their entire existence, and transported to a world they had known only from depictions in films and the electronic pages of their virtual schoolbooks.

Each was conceived in a company birthing lab and placed in a designated work pod soon thereafter. From that point on they were insulated from the outside world, a world supplanted by one of the company's making. They spent every waking hour encapsulated in a simulated reality called the Grid, a ubiquitous virtual reality social network. It was the only reality they had ever known.

On this morning, they would experience many firsts. It would be the first time raw fresh air entered their virgin lungs. Never had they seen the light of day, nor felt a fresh breeze blow across their face. They had never experience rain falling or seen the likes of the immense ocean whose shore was now within walking distance. And never had any of them possessed the desire to experience any of those things.

This world was, after all, an environment from which humanity had invested enormous time and energy separating. Why would anyone choose to live in extreme cold with crippling snow storms? Or in heat with dried out crops? Or at risk of massive rain storms, and floods? Food could be difficult to come by, and clean water scarce. Their opinion of this environment was quite low and they had no reason to change it on this bleak, wet day.

The natural world wasn't considered entirely bad, however. It was, after all, where the investor community lived, but that was different. They had shelter and servants to cater to their every need, while company propaganda left the employees to believe they would quickly die from exposure or starvation if not for the comfortable environs provided by that ubiquitous, all-powerful entity.

Each person wore identical outfits consisting of white pants, a white shirt, a black belt, and black shoes. Clearly, there was a lack of effort to properly fit the clothing to the person, as some pant legs terminated halfway up the calf, while others dragged on the ground. The heads of the men were shaved, while the women wore exceedingly long hair. Each had a name tag pinned to them for reasons that were not obvious, since they were being treated more like cattle than human beings.

A confused elderly man with thick glasses obediently shuffled in line, trying to make sense of what took place around him. He was sure he wasn't in the Grid, but he didn't understand how he could be otherwise. Oh, yes! That's it! He suddenly remembered surrogates storming his work pod. That's what's happening! The company is sending me somewhere.

He had trouble remembering things lately. His mental decline had recently accelerated at an alarming rate. He had good days and bad. More recently the bad outnumbered the good. This appeared to be one of the bad.

He watched the sad parade of young persons in the line next to him, wondering what misfortune had befallen the poor individuals being marched. Most of them walked aimlessly in a daze, while others were visibly frightened. One confused young gentleman, whose clothes were far too large for his frame, was so disoriented that he veered out of line, and bumped squarely into the old man.