My name is John, and I used to be free.
They called it the "Unified System," a streamlined way to link your finances, your health records, your education—everything—into one integrated network. All facilitated by the State, of course. It was supposed to make life easier, they said. And people bought into it.
I should've known better. With every dollar digitized, every byte of data stored, I felt the State's noose tighten around my neck. Cash became obsolete. Anonymity, a myth. A sense of dread settled in, but it was too late; we had all been seamlessly, irrevocably woven into the System.
I didn't play along, at least not willingly. I became an outcast, a ghost in a world monitored by algorithms. But even ghosts can't escape surveillance. One day, the System flagged me for "Erratic Financial Behavior" because I was trying to use a small fraction of my digital money to buy physical goods, old books mostly. Silly, I know, but old books weren't monitored, they didn't collect data.Then came the "Verification Checks." Random cuts from my digital wallet, unexplained and irreversible. A fraction here, a fraction there—until I had nothing left.
No money meant no access to basic services. I couldn't buy food, couldn't pay rent. My social credit plummeted. I became a non-person, shunned by society, an anathema. Friends, neighbors, even family, they all disowned me, lest they be flagged by association.
I tried to rebel, to expose the System for what it was—a sophisticated apparatus for social control. I had evidence, data trails, patterns. But when I tried to leak it, my digital footprint was erased, wiped clean like I never existed.
As I sit here, in a tiny cell, writing on the last pieces of physical paper I could find, I understand the grim reality. The State didn't just control money and data; it controlled life itself.
Just when I thought things couldn't get worse, I heard the news. My family—my wife, Sarah, and our two children—had been selected for a "Pilot Program" by the State. The program was to "upgrade" citizens' System accounts to a "new level of convenience and safety."
I couldn't contact them. No one would risk communicating with a non-person like me. Still, I knew what this "Pilot Program" meant. I had seen the patterns in the data before my digital existence was wiped away. The State was taking the next step, implanting microchips to make the System "a part of you," as their propaganda said.
They were the perfect candidates: obedient, never questioning the System, believing that compliance was the path to happiness. It broke my heart to know that my defiance, my attempts to break free, had pushed them further into the State's grip. They became examples, shining beacons of what the "ideal citizen" should be.
Weeks later, a small, anonymous package arrived at my cell. Inside was a handwritten note on a scrap of paper. "We're part of the System now, entirely. It's wonderful. We don't have to worry anymore. You should join us, John. It's the only way to be whole again."
The handwriting was Sarah's, but the words were not her own. They were a template, a cruel joke by the State to show they could reach me even here. My family was now completely subsumed, their identities digitized, their humanity archived in some data center.
It was then that I realized the full scope of my tragedy. My resistance had not only failed to protect me, but it had also served as a catalyst for the State to tighten its grip on those I loved most. I had become the fulcrum of my own undoing and theirs.
So here I am, a remnant of a past age, writing the last chapter of a life consumed by the State, knowing that even this small act of defiance will be erased, like everything else.
And as I put down my pen, I understand that the System hasn't just taken my money, my data, or even my family. It has taken my very soul.
