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XOR Dreams: A Lovecraftian Cyberpunk Part The Second

It had been many months since World War III, and in many ways it
both exceeded and and underwhelmed my imagination. Then the robot rebels came
and went, then the super computer overlords. On the run from dream-scanners,
and found myself hoping for some kind of release from my misery. It started
out as technology designed to scan your brainwaves testing for issues related
to sleep apnea, but gradually evolved to watch over developments of deviant
personality traits. And now I sleep in wait wondering whether they will come
for me again.
I consider myself more of a diarist, though I can see the confusion
with science fiction. But my life is not a fiction book. I call my new friend
Ravina, who was short. Coming up only to my chest, I wasn't much taller than
a tall woman myself, being not much taller than five foot four. My long black
hair covering my mirror shades. We slept together on the futon, while me mind
reels from lack of internet connectivity. I had given up intranetwroking, even
for developing small home networks. Now any network controlled by anyone
besides our masters was already illegal, and soon cash would be as well. I
long for the days of girls in wooden shoes, tulips, and windmills. I long for
the days before the sun went out above us. At one point I had wanted children,
but it's to late now.
We're children beneath the darkened sky.
Beneath a shadowed sun.
My body was meat.

I once knew a guy who would meet trolls under a bridge, although in actuality
they were just homeless people trying to find a place to live. Even so, he
would thrust them with one of his daggers, and watch as they reel in extreme
pain. Needless to say, I wasn't friends with him for very long. Only for about
a year. When I had left Ravina's house, exchanging phone numbers, I kept her
as a network contact while I was off the wire. I would explore bridges in the
suburbs outside of the city, and find colonies of soldiers that had survived
the war, and made their life terrforming the total darkness that was the
underground sewers. Cardboard cut outs were repurposed into makeshift houses,
where they stored cookware. Some of them had become bandits, because society
didn't want them. I met two that were roasting rats on a stick, while I
thought only of Ravina.
What we think of as sewers today, where actually ancient battle grounds built
by a culture far older than Ancient Sumeria, possibly as much as 18,000 years
in the past. And now, in the year 2019, we live in the aftermath of the great
repurposing back in the 1970s. But certain figures on the walls and statues
give clues to this far ancient culture, who rode on flying wings that reached
the sky. And now, here we are, eating roasted rats underneath the holographic
metropolis, wondering when the bridges far above us will eventually fall and
kill us.
-- I wouldn't give them one a year, said one bandit.
-- What makes you say that man?
-- See those columns above? They're already cracking. -- He pointed to the
seemingly seamless column, implying that that was the one that would
eventually collapse. It was an unstable life, not much better than the tail
end of the nineteenth century, although they probably thought this was better
than when they were rebuilt by their masters over in North Korea all those
years ago. -- It's inevitable.
Indeed, the only reason they're still alive now, is do to a kind of genetic
modification, that allowed their body to regenerate from radiation poisoning.
But throwing up all the time do to their immune system made this aspect
a miserable existance. I adjust my mirror goggles, and then crash on my
futon.
Nothing like sleep.

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LWFlouisa
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