(SCRAPPED) This Future Sucks: Chapter 2

Lobes coated with Dumbo juice. Legs running on full automation. Eyes admiring the strolling crowd on the pavements and monoliths shimmering in crystal.

My mouth alternates between grinning and frowning. The city shouldn’t be this beautiful. This is a techno shithole lathered with greasy consumer culture. Rich and poor defined in black and white. Death tolls are a typical Tuesday. Creds an obsession. Dreaming is an illusion. Look up the skyscrapers. The cred symbols. The safe life. Secured employment. Infinite privileges. Subsidized healthcare and housing. Fancy threads. Beautiful, rich devotchkas. Waifus. VTubers are the only acceptable form of cyberspace streaming. 3D streamers face a heavy fine or subjected to persuasive lobotomy. Total reconditioning. Vtubing is the correct business model of the streaming industry. Appealing. Relatable. Marketable. Profitable. Sandwich of creds gnawed by augmented, crocodilian teeth.

Half the time, I don’t know if I am really looking at a holo-ad giving me financial investment advice through a talking tiger’s head, asking if I have subscribed to TIG Inc insurance yet. I say no. The tiger’s paw strangles me. I thought it will crush my windpipe as it roars that I remain a fragile imbecile unless I subscribe to TIG Inc’s services and hire an agent. The tiger disappears.

MayCimb yells at me to upgrade my standard account to a premium. 5% dividend. Convenient linkage to existing MCTrade account, which I still do not have. More vague perks detailed in financial corporate babble.

Berjaya promoting the lucrative benefit of investing in the organ trade, its own shares and non-fungible pictures of its top management and board of directors.

Propose your soon-to-be-fiance with a Blazing Ruby. Only RM250,000. Ignore the RM. The ringgit is obsolete. Don’t call it RM. Call it creds. CREDS!

XAR offering discounts of a new set of silencers for the law and Corp War veterans. Leave the neighbours dreaming in peace as you silently carry out your assignment.

Quickie Injector. Now you can heal at the spot in full vigor. Be prepared for 48 hours of sleep. Seek medical help upon waking up.

Gerak Gasing Games. Children and adult’s game show featuring exciting challenges, death traps, and scathing, satirical commentary from synthcoke riddled stand-up comedians. Every weekend at 7 pm, available in TVs and online streaming. SimuJack compatible.

ConSec offering problem solving services involving security, arms, talent recruitment and disputes. The spokesperson has a Venus-flytrap for a mouth.

Let me speak while my IQ box is still smooched by Dumbo, okay?

Kuala Lumpur is not the metropolis that you’d expect in movies in your holo theatre or cyberspace. It’s not like in places like America, One Korea or Japan. No no.

Tsunamis of nauseating neon purple and pink. Holo ads. Corporate slabs. Malls. Slums. The four tallest towers, aka the Big Four, that are headquarters of Malaysia’s major players. Sure, Kuala Lumpur has all that. But for a start, compare today and its pictures in the online archive, dated way back to 2023.

Or more thoroughly, walk the streets right now. All that you know. And then go visit and pay for a virtual historical tour. Maximize the sensors. Transport yourself back to 2023. Now stroll those same streets. You might see a lesser scale of ultraviolence and misery, as well as older but still modern tech. You probably see lesser buildings than today. You might notice that a lot of the streets are void of people. This was the second year of COVID’s victory over the masses. The quarantine and martial law were still upheld. Despite all of this, you are still familiar with your surroundings. You immediately recognize this spot and that corner. You don’t exactly feel like a stranger in that timeline.

That’s the difference between Kuala Lumpur and other major global cities, at least the ones we know. The city landscape remains unchanged no matter how much magic glitter they sprinkled over and how many new Jenga blocks they erected.

Whiffing my Dumbo.

The Big Four and in some other places are also built as dedicated corporate arcologies. This is the closest you can get to so called rich sectors in the city. In the case of the Four, they are underground, only accessible from the elevators within the towers themselves. Other existing arcologies were built as independent zones. No need for reinforced barriers like dome or electrified barbed walls. Corpsec, the law or drones take care of trespassers or unauthorized flesh apes. If the verdicts or bombs don’t kill you or you are arrested instead, into the dog pound you go.

They have everything you’d want as a corporate citizen. Better food. Better tech. Better gear and cyberware. Better home. Licenses. More beautiful, maybe respectable vecks and ptitsas. Certified doctors. Cleaner air and streets. “Tasteful” aesthetics. As previously mentioned, your house and healthcare should be funded by your corp, though it’s up to the employer’s discretion.

Still, I read from a claimed liquidator online that the arcologies are no more dangerous than outside. Crime and zero empathy are still ever present, only more subtle, though if those get worse, they can explode in the public. If you get caught and fired for any reason, you will be booted to the dog pound or simply sent to exile.

In the megacorps working environment, you are a respectful citizen that must stay hungry and embrace the CEO mindset. Grab life by the horns. Protect assets. Draw charts. Write reports. Theories. Earnings. Diary. Organize. Invest. Conduct business plan. Manage pond scum. Attend meetings and parties. Get insulted as a fleshbag when asking for a date with a walking body of metal and circuits. Cry. Plan your retirement.

I’m not gonna waste my Dumbo time describing the streets. Death, ads, high tech, low life and creds are my summary. I’m so tired. My hand-me-down apartment is still a mess. The rent was inflated.

Regardless of clothes, what you often see among the masses, besides implants, are Lucid eyewear or headgears. Lucid patented and invented a more portable solution to interfacing with Kuala Lumpur’s technology and accessing cyberspace. For basic functions and some apps, you can still see meatspace ahead of you. Anything else and you gotta sit somewhere unless you want to bump into a psychotic retard or die in a crash or brawl.

There are a shitton of design choices to choose from. My current Lucid is an eyewear with green round visors. No temples. Just fix em on the bridge of your nose, right on your eyes. It won’t let go except with your hand. No harm in sleeping while wearing it too. I needed that to sleep through ASMR roleplays or by VTubers, though I want to castrate whoever was the insomniac dickhead that decided to keep midroll advertisements intact in the middle of an ASMR.

The rainbows and implant-riddled versions of my childhood cartoon characters are still in my living room betting chips. I want them out. I want to take the creds that is lying on the poker table. But I don’t want to be rude. So, I try to sleep.

Screaming and rage quitting. Loud insults. Sitcom laughter. Table flipped into the stratosphere. A fistful of bloodbath. Something whispered in my ear, asking if they can have a Coca Cola, deep fried fermented soyblock and some cans of Bioishi Farms-branded gooseberry flavored pâté from my fridge. I fall asleep. The guests leave.