Talk to Freud 01

     Adam and Sophie were running down the corridor, in hopes they wouldn't lose their pursuit. At the end of it they ran into a face waiting for them that they both knew well, and had seen following with the other remnants; that of Sigmund Freud. They both screeched to a halt, and pointed their weapons as Freud stood up from the makeshift office. (that he was staring over disapprovingly.) He turned to them.
     "Hello. I'm glad you managed to come all this way. I would hate to have waited around for nothing."
     Sophie spoke first.
     "You were waiting for us?"
     "We're always waiting for you. Every step you take we have traversed before you, and waited for you to follow."
     "Can you express that general message in a way that doesn't sound so stupid?"
     "No doubt I could, but I choose not to."
      He took out and lit a comically large cigar. Not that most cigars aren't comically large already. In fact, maybe it was just regular size.
     "Have you ever questioned why you're following us? Why you felt compelled to? As if it was simply fated that you had to spend all your free time doing so, even though you were left with plenty enough means to live reasonably somewhere? And that you have little chance of accomplishing much of anything by yourselves against us, at any rate?"
      Adam looked down, and tried to formulate an answer, but was unable. He knew in his head what he wanted to say, but it seemed like it would be a bit lacking in substance if he tried to say it out loud. He was no stranger to the type of person who could talk over you and make you look stupid even though you knew what you were talking about more than they did simply because they were better at talking than you.
      "Hmph. It was our doing, of course. You never even doubted that, did you? And you still chase us, as if somehow by doing everything we wanted you can somehow or will somehow outsmart us."
       Adam looked down, realizing the partial truthfulness of Freud's words. Then, upon further thinking remembered one other thing.
      "You're mostly right. I know one thing you don't, however."
       Freud looked mildly confused, for Adam didn't appear to be lying. (Freud obviously was proficient at telling such things)
      "Ah? And what would that be?
      "I wouldn't continue knowing something you didn't, if I told you what it was, now would I?"
       Freud looked annoyed.
      "I'm not… not sure what I expected you to say."
       Adam glared coldly, though he was sure Freud knew he wasn't really feeling what he was showing, trump card aside. Admittedly, his faith in his trump card might have been a bit misplaced, but logically it was the best thing he could go with right now. Anything which was outside the purview of his enemy could give him an upper hand when he needed it, which is the one thing he would desperately need if he was going to continue playing into their hands by following them.
       …If… it played out when he needed it.
       He was trusting his fate to it.
       He hoped it would not abandon him.
      Freud blew a dangerously unhealthy amount of second hand smoke in their faces.
      "Heh. Lost children. Never knew your parents. Never learned how to construct a valid purpose for your life. Chasing dreams. You're too easy to manipulate. Skinner was right; I'll give him that much, at least."
      "But you see… I know something you don't know, as well."
      Adam relaxed slightly, because he felt an oddly misplaced monologue about to be thrown in, on a character that was probably created just to express it. He wondered whether this was going to become a common thing.
      "I'm rather afraid that I shall have to tell it to you in the form of a story, rather than directly. It would make little sense to you straightforward."
      "It begins a while back. How long is of course neither here nor there; not because I do not remember, but rather because I am not permitted to tell you. Working under Hobbes, we were compelled and allowed to do many attempts for a society that you would not be able to do in these other places. (Or rather, perhaps it is simply that they don't. After all, the O.W.N. could no doubt make such attempts if they really wanted to. But they do not.)"
     "We set out to make an enclosed society free from all racism and sexism.(Easily done on planets where each city or smaller suburb is self-enclosed, and can be cut off from others if necessary) And of most major forms of discrimination. Obviously there have been many places through recent history which have claimed to try (or accomplish) this, already. Ones which thought humorously that declaring one's self-free from discrimination actually made it true!"
      "But we… we wanted to do it in actuality. To see if we could make a true egalitarian utopia. It was only one of the many utopias we tried. But we had better hopes for this one than some others, however. Obviously it could not be legislated into existence. We needed to go deeper. Into the very minds of it's citizens. Their deepest unconscious."
      "And so we did. Not in the ways you would expect from a fallacious society which thinks you can combine freedom and utility, but through alteration even into the core of people's being. The chips we designed have different versions of course. We designed ones which would jab themselves into people, and spread throughout them even into the depths of their brain and nervous system. Ones which could effect them beyond even a subconscious level, and eradicate these thoughts or even animalistic movements as they came up. It did not effect any other parts of their thinking or movement. They were still "free" in all very real senses of the word. Simply free to live in regulated equality."
      "…There were a few immediate setbacks at first. Ones which we had obviously predicted to within a small error ratio before embarking on such a task. Many people don't realize that the same animalistic drives which are tied to racism are the ones which control familial bonds. In our evolutionary past, people were by necessity driven to have no or little care for outsiders. The care we have for our internal family collectives is actually an addition to the norm; not the other way around. We are driven to care for and protect them because it is what gives our own genes a greater chance for survival. Those on the outside are mere… competitors…" It was evolutionarily healthy to see those who were different from you as a faceless mass you could eliminate at will without feeling for. Your very resources of your own survival might have depended on it back at that time!"  
      "Where was I… Ah, yes. And so; families were broken up. They felt few ties to eachother, and loathed the constant negativity... But this mattered little. The whole society became their family. They felt at home wherever they went."
      "But… time went on… and what was once new became no longer an unexplored frontier. What was once a vision of an infinite branching path of futures became a simple reality that people knew they were never… going… to be able… to escape."
      "And it happened. Most people don't realize that every part of their everyday lives is entrenched in this dissonance. People value success because they psychologically feel reinforced that they are better than others. Even the enjoyment they derive from physical carnal pleasures is rooted deep in biological discrimination. It is much more than sensual. It's reinforcing of power and control. A subconscious manifestation of this…"
     "…Heh. I equated it once to being like penetrating an entity with a spear. Power…"
     "…But you see, your body is perceiving itself as part not of a simple master/slave relationship, but a complex complicated organic process. One which even on both ends is full of both control and futility. It's related obviously to what we already knew. That such carnal relations are obviously most commonly a thing used to take out the frustrations one has with the real world. That it is a thing designed to make people oriented in it's own internal schema, and so to care less about the outside. Necessary for the survival of the genes, of course..."
     "And so… people began to be disinterested in sex. (Not to say they even partook in it less. Just were less fulfilled by it. Hell, we recorded them trying to do it more to make up for it's diminishing effect at that time) Disinterested in accomplishment. Their hated of themselves that all beings feel lost the ways it use to have to dampen itself. What some others called temporary actualization. And… as always. When one hates one's self… they begin to hate others."
      "…But they couldn't. The chips would not let them. It would let them be angry at individuals, but not scapegoat whole groups. But they did… all the same… The chips could not override humanity's ways to find out how to be petty and weak. Their innate desire of strife and hatred."
      "…But like I still said… they couldn't. It wouldn't let them orient their hate to specific groups. And so… over time… they began to hate everything."
      "Once it was set in motion, society fell apart from the seams. People turned to indiscriminate crime at anyone they thought had money. (so much for being non-discriminatory, eh?) They became too depressed to work. Too depressed to carry on as if life meant something. Murder was not overly high, but suicide… depression. Alcoholism incapacitated society to beyond what was capable of carrying on. Starvation was going to set in, due to people abandoning the job of creating food. And all this was too fast for us to do anything."
      "…And so… we did the only thing we could. Even if we had tried to undo what we instilled in them, it would have taken forever to solve the problems in that way. So we wiped their minds. Turned full control of their bodies to the chips, and make them little more then a mechanical robotic hive-society which lived in biological vessels. It was for their own survival. There was nothing else we could do!"
      "They had no emotions… no self… so they could no longer complain."
      "…"
      "This city was on the moon, of course. Earth's moon. So much radiation is there now that we had to relocate anything that was worth saving, and bring it back to a colony on Earth. There would have been mass rebellions for the government of Amasia if we had not tried to save as many people as possible. So we did. We brought them back. Many of them had the process slowly reversed, and were reintroduced into society, like nothing at all had happened. Though many more also died from the process, or were unsaveable."
     "…But… we learned something. Your societal lies based on love and tolerance are nothing more than illusions. False décor you like to put on to get along better with those you claim to love. But we… we're done with such things now. Our new society will…"
     "…"
     Adam shuffled his feet slightly.
    "What do you intend to do now."
     Freud snapped out of his silent reverie he had entered.
    "Unimportant. You may recognize the name of the city, however. It was called New Clavius."
     Adam started.
     "That's… that's the city I grew up in! I don't remember any of th…"
     Freud Puffed on his cigar again.
     "No doubt you don't of course. But why don't you? I assure you that I did not merely make this story up for my own amusement."
      Adam felt like he could believe him, but wasn't sure what to make of it. Sophie appeared to be having a similar difficulty sorting it in her head, though she did not say anything.
     "Not that it matters. I have been ordered to kill both of you right here. Perhaps if you survive you can go on to find the truth for yourselves."
     Adam and Sophie looked back up at Freud, with angry expressions.
     Freud stood back, and raised his hands. Beams of red and blue light shot out of him, and all around the room. Then, he began dividing. His head and body began to go each in two different directions at once, stretching as they went, and finally dividing in half. Each of these new forms then resolidified into a whole human shape, one red, and one blue. The red one spoke first.
     "I'll crush you. I'll destroy every last piece of trash which gets in my way!"
      and then the blue one followed suit.
     "I'm sorry. Adam. Sophie. This is for the greater good. I'm afraid both of you cannot be allowed to live any longer if we are going to succeed. I'm sorry."
      The red one picked up a rocket launcher from the pile of weapons behind it which was there, but which I didn't mention yet for some reason, and the blue one picked up two pistols.