Mandated Happiness

By Clayton Tucker

In Mandated Happiness, automation and technology have eliminated all (real) jobs, made resources effectively infinite, and even cured death. In this brave new cybertarian world, bots control everything with an iron fist, using an all-in-one social media platform called Lifestream to control the masses.

With &l

• Language: English
• Publisher: Atmosphere Press
• Release date: Feb 15, 2019
• ISBN: 9781644400494

Book preview

MANDATED HAPPINESS

MANDATED HAPPINESS

by Clayton Tucker

atmosphere press

Copyright © 2019 by Clayton Tucker

Published by Atmosphere Press

Cover design by Nick Courtright

nickcourtright.com

Cover photo by Sebastiaan Stam

No part of this book may be reproduced

except in brief quotations and in reviews

without permission from the publisher.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Mandated Happiness

2019, Clayton Tucker

atmospherepress.com

To those lost but not forgotten,

Corbin Minchew and Johnny B, and to those who struggle

in the shadows of their demons.

CHAPTER 01—MANDATED HAPPINESS

Location: Macau

Time: Present

A buzzer rang in the dark. The lights turned on as Rick opened his eyes. He was confined within a white, sterile, and metal room. He knew where he was, but he wished it weren’t so.

Salutations Rick, and welcome to Macau—Vegas of the Sea! This is your 57,053rd body. Your yearly mandated one-day work starts in thirty minutes. Is everything satisfactory? said the robotic nurse within the walls of the Waking Pod.

Rick sighed.

He pushed himself from the metal, mostly vertical but slightly tilted back bed. As his feet hit the floor, the Pod door before him slid open. He stepped out, paused, and looked back inside. A trapdoor just beneath the bed opened. From the small opening emerged a new blank human template, seemingly rising from the void. It had no features, no personality, no spark of life. Two mechanical arms from each wall grabbed the body by the shoulders, lifting it entirely out from the trap door. After placing the body on the bed, a third mechanical arm from behind reached around and stabbed the body in the lower abdomen with a long needle. The machine hummed as it injected the body with nanobots, causing the body to slowly morph into something new—someone new. The door closed before Rick saw the end of the process.

He stood motionless in the Arrival Port. For the briefest of moments, the Port reverted to an airport terminal, where instead of Pods there were gates to planes. This vision of the past soon faded away like a mirage. He closed his eyes as he uploaded this vision to his Lifestream account. Lifestream: the comprehensive social media platform that integrated the digital and the physical. See something interesting? Take a mental snapshot and Lifestream it. Thought of something funny to say? Consider the words you want to say, record yourself saying them in your mind, and Lifestream it. Felt like venting self-righteous indignation about the topic of the day? Lifestream it in 280 characters or less. Rick, curious if any others saw a similar vision, mentally accessed the Lifestreams of those around them. While his eyes were closed, his mind’s eye saw what the people around him uploaded. He saw someone’s mental snapshot of the Arrival Port, he read another’s brief statement on why they hate the color teal, and he saw himself through Jade’s eyes.

Rick opened his eyes and looked to his right to see his old friends, the Misfits. They were Jade, Winston, and he couldn’t remember the third one’s name. He froze like a deer in the headlights of panicked forgetfulness. They, sensing Rick struggled to remember all of their names, waited in dead silence. Instead of making a fool of himself, Rick closed his eyes and thought to himself: Computer, show me the last time I was with the Misfits.

Location: Sydney

Time: A Century Ago

Rick and the Misfits stood outside of Sydney’s Arrival Port. Rick told them he wanted to leave the group. After spending so many lifetimes with them, he just wanted something new. Winston didn’t take it well. He was furious and bombastic—or, in other words, his usual self. Jade, while displeased, was more cool and sympathetic. With death cured and life eternal, she understood some people may grow bored with others and search for something, or someone, new. Novelty was simultaneously in high demand and impossible to find. Even Violet nodded in agreement.

Location: Macau

Time: Present

Rick opened his eyes as he remembered everything.

Jade, Winston, Violet; it’s been a while.

Indeed it has, said Jade as she extended two fingers in a thin V shape before her face with her palm facing inward. As she looked at her empty hand, a cigarette materialized between her two fingers. In truth, the cigarette did not physically exist in the real world. Instead, it was augmented reality. While she knew the cigarette wasn’t real, she could still feel the sensation of holding it. Light, she mentally commanded. The end of the augmented cigarette lit ablaze with augmented fire. She took a drag and felt a rush of energy as nanobots in her bloodstream changed her brain chemistry.

How have you been, Rick? Still on your quest for meaning?

It never ends.

Ain’t that the truth, said Jade as she took another drag.

Awkward silence consumed them all. Many wanted to speak, but none knew what to say. What was there to say that hadn’t already been repeated a million times before? Wanting to end the silence yet failing to think of anything new, Jade reverted to the age-old topic all brought up to cease the silence.

So, you excited about your yearly one-day work?

Is anyone ever? I just don’t understand it. The bots already do everything, the entire economy is 100% automated, so why must we have to work? It’s nonsense if you ask me.

"Oh, Rick. Work is good for people, people undoubtedly and absolutely have to work, and the bots are just so…gracious, to allow us to work one day of the year even when we don’t have to," said Jade with a playful smile.

Gracious? Yeah, right, said Winston.

Watch your tone, Winston. You wanna just invite a policebot over here. There are easier ways to get their attention, said Jade.

Oh, come on, Jade! There’s no reason to fear them! The bots are spineless machines that don’t give a damn what we think! We’re free to say whatever we want. Watch, I’ll prove it. Winston inhaled. Fuck the bots!

His head exploded in a puff of pink. As his body fell to the ground, the nearby policebot, a hovering drone with orange spider-like eyes and metallic tentacles, returned to its usual patrol route. Rick and the Misfits looked at their fallen friend. They couldn’t believe it. The bots killed him!

All people within the Arrival Port slowed to a halt. While their bodies stood motionless, their minds rang, their eyes glazed, and their memories altered. All were seemingly asleep until, moments later, they awoke and continued as if nothing had happened. Although most were aware of the temporary mental blackout, it concerned no one. It was just a mental hiccup; a slight glitch that occasionally happened due to having their minds connected to Lifestream. It was a simple syncing error, a harmless lag. Mental hiccups had happened before and would likely happen again. Everyone was confident that mental hiccups were absolutely not malicious.

Rick and the Misfits looked at Winston’s body. None of them remembered what happened to him. The last thing they remembered was Winston talking about how much he completely and utterly loved the bots. The memory was perfectly clear in Rick’s mind: Winston was professing his undying love for the bots when, without any kind of warning or reason, his head exploded. The memory felt so real that it was undeniable; it felt as real as gravity itself. And, as with all other things in life, he assumed whatever felt real must be the truth.

A new idea came to his, and everybody else’s, mind: Winston’s head didn’t randomly explode, he was assassinated by the terrorist group called the Resistance. Yes, it was undoubtedly the Resistance. How could he have forgotten? Poor, innocent Winston was standing around when the Resistance and their terrorists attacked the Arrival Port. It was due to Winston’s brave sacrifice that the attack was stopped before more damage was done. Rick and all others were certain of this truth, and no one in any way, shape, or form suspected that a false narrative was downloaded into their memories.

Rick, Jade, and Violet waited around Winston’s body chatting about their recent exploits. With death and reawakening an everyday occurrence, or, for Winston, an every hour event, no one gave it much thought. Broken body? Reawake. Wanted a new look? Reawake. Wanted to travel somewhere? Reawake. Felt hungry, tired, or hungover? Reawake. Had nothing else better to do? Reawake. Since Lifestream uploaded everyone’s every moment—thereby syncing everyone’s every thought, emotion, and memory—reawakening did not cause any memory loss, personality loss, or any other loss. For this reason, reawakening was not considered true death, otherwise called permadeath. Instead, it was regarded as merely waking up from a deep sleep.

Minutes later, a nearby Waking Pod opened. From it emerged a white-clothed Winston. He looked the same as the old; the only difference being that he still had his head. As the door slid closed behind him, he looked at his new body. He commanded his omnisuit to turn black, which it did moments later. He walked to the Misfits.

Winston, it’s good to see you have your head again. Thanks for saving us from that terrorist attack.

No problem! Those Resistance terrorists had it coming! No one fucks with Winston! Winston said as he stood over his former self.

Rick and the Misfits walked to the Arrival Port’s north exit. People were all around. Some were short, others tall; some were as wide as a tree, others as thin as a rail; some had normal skin, while others were fluorescently strange. For all their differences, one thing was consistent with each: the expression in their eyes. Their eyes were not dead, but they were not wholly alive either; each had the eyes of a person under the influence of narcotics, the eyes of inauthentic happiness, the eyes of a person swimming in the seas of fake ecstasy. Rick commonly wondered what his eyes look like from their perspective.

For every person, there was also a sentient machine. The bots, in many ways, were as diverse as the people: some were the size of a car, others the size of a cat; some hovered above as a hummingbird, others scurried below as a mouse; some looked precisely like metallic people, others were metal boxes with wheels. The purpose of the machines, as far as anyone knew, was simple: to serve the humans.

Rick and the Misfits stepped out of the Port into a hazy day. The sky was bleak, the air acidic, and the ocean gray as a corpse. The sea completely surrounded the Port. The only way into the nearby city was via a hovercar. As they walked onto the oversized landing pad, a vehicle lowered itself before the group. From the eye’s perspective, it was merely a long, red rectangle with a circular couch indented in the middle. As they loaded inside, Rick instructed the hovercar to take them to the Historic Macau Tower.

The city buzzed with activity. Vehicles and drones of all shapes and sizes scurried through the air; large, oblong transportbots moved their goods, policebots zoomed to and fro, and multi-person hovercars and single-person Omni-Vs transported people. The city’s towers were big and bulky, each serving as a little island in the sea. Holographic advertisements dotted the land and sky.

The location of Rick’s work was unlike the rest of Macau. Whereas the other towers were new and were partially swallowed by the sea, this tower had its very own seawall. It was more needle than bulk and was very old. Most of it was just cement, and its only floors were near the top.

The hovercar approached the Historic Macau Tower. As it did, it leveled itself with the tower’s improvised landing pad. Rick and the Misfits disembarked, and the hovercar flew away the moment they were all off.

People filled the single large, circular room around the tower’s core. The sight of customers filled Rick with grief; the bots, sensing his negative feelings, unleashed a miniature explosion of ecstasy within his brain. He was ready and happy to work! The Misfits got in line as Rick gleefully snaked his way through the crowds towards the staging area until he found a metal man. While shaped like a human, its figure was squared rather than smooth. It was Rick’s boss—a bossbot. As Rick neared it, instructions and work policies were downloaded into his mind. He immediately knew everything there was to know. He walked passed the bossbot and through glass doors, entering the outside ledge that ringed the entire floor. A group of customers stood in wait.

Greetings folks, and welcome to one of death tourism’s classics: the Macau Bungee-less Jump! We are over 200 meters above the ground. No need to worry about the water though, this tower has a specialty seawall! Just for our valued customers!

About time! If I knew I would have to wait this long, then I think I would have rather died! declared a man.

Well, then have at it! Jump to your heart's content!

One of the guys, with a smirk on his face, pushed a girl off the ledge. All laughed, especially when the pusher himself was pushed. One by one, the group jumped off the ledge. As they fell, for just a few short seconds, an instinctive fear kicked in that washed away their desensitization to reality. Their hearts raced with adrenaline-fueled excitement, causing them to feel alive—if only for a moment.

That was the essence behind death tourism—it was the only way people could feel something authentic, and thus feel alive. Since curing death killed the concept of new and exciting, among other things, boredom was treated like the flu, with death tourism events being the flu shots. No one feared true death from these events, otherwise called permadeath. The reason why was simple. There were only two laws in all of the world. The first being, Death is hereby illegal.

After a few other thrill-seekers jumped, a couple asked Rick for a pair of knives. One of the outside walls was a nano-printer: a machine that used a pool of nanobots to construct simple objects. Rick ordered the nanobots, which acted as a liquid in their natural state, to arrange themselves into the shape of a knife. Once in their desired configuration, they locked themselves into that exact arrangement. Rick took the blades and gave them to the couple. The man and woman dueled against each other. Their duel was less of a fearsome fight and more of a deathful dance. The woman stabbed the man in the chest. He didn’t even flinch. There was not the slightest flicker of pain in his eyes, for the man felt no pain whatsoever. He took his knife and stabbed her in the heart. The two, now holding each other in their embrace, jumped off the ledge. The whole episode left Rick feeling alone.

Time zipped by until the Misfits reached the front of the line. Instead of jumping, however, they decided, upon Jade’s urging, to wait until Rick’s midday break. They chatted frivolously until something caught their attention.

An odd-looking, sullen man entered the staging area. His hair was white, his skin wrinkled, and his body worn; he was, somehow, old. This confused Rick and the Misfits. It had been years, decades, even centuries since they had last seen such a sight. Rick tried to access the man’s Lifestream, only to learn he was disconnected. He was beyond the control of the bots.

The old man crept to the edge and kneeled. All listened as he mumbled, I grow tired of this purgatory. I am unhappy.

The man fell to his end, kicked from the very ledge from which he kneeled. It was Rick’s foot that did the deed. Waves of confusion inundated Rick.

Why did I do that? What came over me? Why wasn’t I in control of my body? Also, why was he unhappy?

His mind hiccupped, erasing Rick’s thoughts and much of the memory of the old man. A new false narrative was downloaded into his and everyone else’s minds: It wasn’t Rick who kicked the man, nor was it the bots, rather it was vile and villainous Resistance. After the old, but he wasn’t really that old…in fact, Rick was now certain the man was young. Very younger. Younger than Rick. And he was happy. The happiness. Damn the Resistance.

In truth, the real reason the man was kicked by Rick was because he violated the second law of the world, Unhappiness is, too, illegal. Since the man’s mind wasn’t connected to Lifestream, he needed a physical push.

Winston, now bored, challenged people to ledge-side fights. His fierce energy guaranteed him victory after victory. Where he lacked in skills, since he honestly had none, he made up in pure strength and seriousness of intent; in other words, whereas most people treated these fights like fun little games not to be taken seriously, Winston treated them with a mentality of give me full victory or else I drag you down with me. While Rick found such a mentality made Winston look a little foolish, it was entertaining nonetheless. This all changed when Winston’s next competitor was Violet.

Violet was the quiet type. She never spoke. Not a single word. This never seemed to come from a place of shyness or weakness, for she had the hardened eyes of a warrior. She just couldn’t, for whatever reason.

There was a special connection between Winston and Violet. It was so evident anyone with a pair of eyes could see it almost immediately. Nobody knew why this special connection existed. Winston couldn’t understand it, though he very much felt it, and those who tried to access Violet’s Lifestream only found corrupted data and missing memories.

Location: Unknown

Time: Shortly After 2084

Winston and Violet stared at each other as autonomous machines of war flew around them. The war they led was soon to be over as one turned against the other. They had lost.

Location: Macau

Time: Present

However Winston and Violet met, Rick thought, was lost to time.

Violet won the battle against Winston. He never stood a chance. After her victory, she too leapt from the ledge to reawake.

Rick and Jade stood in silence as more thrill seekers came and went. Something seemed to be on Jade’s mind. Rick debated if he should ask or just access her Lifestream account to see what she was thinking. Instead of asking, he accessed her account.

Location: Sydney

Time: A Century Ago

Jade stood stoically as Rick walked away after saying he wanted to leave the Misfits. She had to keep a calm demeanor; otherwise, Winston would blow a fuse, though being calm was the last thing she wanted. Anger swelled within her.

Location: Macau

Time: Present

The anger never left, though it was well contained. Rick felt her anger as if it were his own.

You just accessed my Lifestream, didn’t you?

And here I never realized you cared.

I care for everyone in my crew. Which brings us to the point, is your little quest over? Are you ready to rejoin the Misfits?

I don’t know. I need to think about it.

Okay. Just realize whatever choice you make, said Jade as she approached the ledge, it needs to be your own.

Jade, with her heels off the ledge, looked into Rick’s eyes. With her arms held outward, she leaned back, only to become a picturesque red dot upon the Earth. Rick stood there, looking down at her former self. She seemed to be an eye—a pupil of black with an iris of red. He knew it wasn’t the end of her. He knew she would soon reawaken, that she wasn’t gone, but for some reason, her fall still felt like a loss.

Go to Miami. You will find what you seek, said a mysterious voice behind Rick.

Rick turned around to see a shadow of a man. He couldn’t quite make out the features of the person; it was as if Rick’s vision was being actively distorted.

Gravity itself seemed to shift as Rick lost his sense of balance. He felt as if the world was pulling him back towards the ledge, until, alas, he fell.

A buzzer rang in the dark. The lights turned on as Rick opened his eyes to see the familiar sights of a Waking Pod.

What just happened? Who, or what, was that shadow?

"Salutations