Ilinca

Cynthia's Recounting of a Time Before The Great Collapse

Hello. To whoever is reading this, my name is Cynthia, and I live in CropLand. I suppose that I am officially a “Deviant”, though I don’t like to call myself that–nobody here does. We don’t consider ourselves “Deviant” because we don’t consider ourselves to be anti-society. Uncompliant, yes, but not anarchists. That’s what that word means.

I’m writing this… because… Well, if I’m being completely honest, I don’t really have a reason to be writing this. I suppose I just want to prove that I was alive at some point. The only downside to living in CropLand is that once you’re gone, you’re really gone. Once your time comes, it’s really over. Before I fled to CropLand (I was born in The Borderlands, kicked out when I was 26), I knew a lot of people whose family members could live for years in the DrakePods, way past their expiration dates. And when they did eventually die, all their data was available for anyone to search, if one really wanted to. Their SocialCredit, their life stats, their total time plugged in, everything. The DrakePods could even simulate them, the way they spoke, the way they thought (though one couldn’t really say they thought, in the proper sense…), the way they moved. That way, they would never truly be gone, or at least not until people accepted the truth for what it was, which rarely happened. In CropLand, you only really live on in the memories of your close friends and loved ones. You can argue that it’s more meaningful that way, but the thing about memories is that they eventually fade. I realized that recently. I’m getting up there in age, so I’m thinking about death much more than I did before. Writing this is self-indulgent, I recognize that, and I apologise for that, but I want to make my mark. I want it to be so that, when I die, and after everyone who knew me has also passed, that there is some remnant of me that exists, somewhere.

I suppose I should start at the beginning. I was born in 2035 into a family of three: there was my mother, Daria, my father, Thomas, and my older brother, Marcus. Marcus was two years older than me. I had a pretty normal childhood for the average kid during those times. We were poor, but I wasn’t too concerned about it. Everyone was poor, and children don’t really pay attention to things like that, especially if we’re all in the same boat. I don’t remember much from those times. All I know is that, eventually, it got too expensive to keep living there, so we moved into a small 1 bedroom apartment that we shared with the Rogers family. That is a very vivid memory. First entering that place, I mean. In hindsight, it was actually a pretty nice place, but at the time, I remember feeling this overwhelming sense of dread when that front door opened in front of me. That’s what makes the memory so, well, memorable. The door opened on a small living room, cold and bare. There was no furniture, just a tarp laid out on the floor with some dirty pillows thrown sporadically on top. The only thing on the walls were a hanging bookshelf, an ornamental cross (the Rogers were Catholic) and a calendar. I remember hating that calendar. My mother would always tell me that things would get better in time, but the days passed and passed, and nothing got better. At one point, the old Sharpie pen we used to mark the days ran out of ink. That, or we just stopped caring to keep track. The days were too similar to distinguish. We would wake up, share a small breakfast, go to work or school, come home, repeat. Thankfully, we always had some food. It wasn’t a lot, but we never starved, like a lot of others did. My parents and the Rogers never told us kids where and how they got that food. They carried that information to their graves. I can only imagine what they must have put themselves through to get it.

Another notable memory I have is when the DrakePods launched in 2058. I remember hearing the announcement that they were coming one morning when a 6ixCorp spokesperson came to our neighbourhood. I was 23 at the time. I remember everyone being excited. At this point, nothing could distract us from the fact that we were very poor, and we were only getting poorer. I remember hearing on the radio that over 70% of the population of Toronto was homeless. We were just about to join them. We all signed up for the program, mine and the Rogers’ families. When we got our pods, I remember being so happy. I had everything I could ever want! Shelter, food (back then, the simulated food didn't have that metallic taste it acquire later on), community we were constantly connected to, amusement, you name it. The novelty soon wore off, though. I missed my family. Sure, I would see them in VR, but it wasn’t the same. I wanted to interact with them again, face-to-face, in real time, but every time anyone would exit the pods, a 6ixCorp official would tax us some Social Credit points. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that. The SocialCredit point system came two-for-one with the Pods. Everyone started with 20,000, and any infraction (anything that "indicated a participant was taking the program for granted") would result in a loss incurred. The more severe the act, the more points deducted. If you ran out of points, they would kick you out of your Pod and give it to someone who was “more grateful”. You would be homeless again, but this time, it would be worse. You would be alone. I remember my father telling me that nothing in life came for free. The DrakePods seemed to be the exception, because we didn’t have to pay for it. Little did we know, we did pay, just with our agency instead of with cash.

Slowly but surely, people were starting to realize what was happening. And people were angry. Before we knew it, the Great Collapse happened. It happened just as I turned 26. It started with people leaving the Pods. Each day, they would stay outside for a little longer, SocialPoint system be damned. Then they started to coax others out of the Pods. Then they started to transmit anti-Pod messages over VR. Then they started spewing Anti-6ixCorp rhetoric. Then they would break the Pods. Then they would protest. Then they would riot. Then, then, then. 6ixCorps got fed up with it, naturally, and started building the Inner and Outer Six Fences. Some people took their chance to flee to CropLans, then. The rest were forcefully evicted in 2066, me included. Anyone who received or interacted with Anti-6ixCorps content, regardless if they were homeless or not, were evicted, just in case. Of course, no official body will admit that… I’ve been living in the Borderlands ever since. My family is here with me too. Luckily, everyone managed to stick together. We left the Rogers’ behind, though… Sometimes, they send us letters with news from the inside. They are the only contact we have with the “civilized” society, besides the Scavengers. We write each other using pseudonyms. It’s too dangerous otherwise. Before going into the Pods, I was an artist. I’ve been drawing ever since I could remember. I used to copy the pictures from magazines I would find in the trash. I got pretty good at it. One day, during my first week in CropLand, an elder named Maya saw me drawing, and asked to see. She gave me some shading tips. It turns out that she used to be an art teacher before everything went wrong. She mentored me. As fate would have it, I eventually took Maya’s place as a mentor. I have 5 students: Rachel, Sarah, Michael, Bahar and Richard (he likes to be called Richie).

People talk about CropLand as if its some dystopian wasteland. It really isn't. I mean, sure, we are still technically homeless, but it doesn’t feel that way. Trust me, I would know. We have a real, tangible community here, where we interact with real people and work together toward real goals. This is real life. I don’t know what it’s like in the inner city nowadays, and I don’t care to know. Everything I need is right here.

I hate to end my rambling with clichés, but I wouldn’t change my life for anything in the world. Yes, I’ve suffered, but it wasn’t all bad. At least I can say that my life–a real one–was worth a damn.