Killing for Google With a Song in My Heart

The first thing that they ask you is what video games you play. It’s not about skill or anything of the sort; it’s a matter of personal preference. Let’s be honest: if you’re piloting an APOU; they aren’t going to be able to do much to stop you from killing them. Yeah, I heard about the incident in Stockton, but that was isolated, they caught the people, and that level of sophistication in explosives is incredibly rare.

They ask you about your interests because that’s what kind of company this is. They want you to be happy. They want to make the world a better place. There are a lot of people out there who want to paint them as the bad guys, but really, aren’t you glad that they are the ones carrying this stuff out? Think about how things were before. Our system was inefficient, unfair, and ill-equipped to meet the world as it became.

So yeah, if you’re into first-person shooters, you’ll probably get set up as an APOU pilot. They’ve been experimenting with having automated pilots, especially since that case with the guy who got a bit overzealous and didn’t realize that there was a kindergarten behind his target, but that wouldn’t have helped there anyway. The idiots didn’t keep the kindergarten’s registration up to date, so the AI wouldn’t have recognized it anyway.

The system isn’t perfect, but it’s getting better. I mean, that’s all we can really hope for, right?

On a history show, I heard that people used to freak out about the government watching them all the time. There’s a book that a guy named Eric Blair wrote - he did that under a fake name - where this thing called Big Brother watches people all the time. As opposed to what? Not being watched? That’s a recipe for undocumented killing.

Have you ever heard of advertising? It was this thing that they used to do back in the old days before our biometrics just slotted us with the things that were best for us. Can you imagine people and apps just trying to get you to buy things that you might not need? When things were really primitive, yeah, we used to hunt and gather for our food, but even when the technology was available, people still insisted - for years! - that they knew what food they should eat and what clothes they should wear.

That’s what a lot of the Indeps want. They think technology has gone too far with telling us what food will best fit our nutritional needs and affect our moods. We still get to choose things; it’s not like were completely mindless; we just don’t see the need to be stupid when we can be smart about things. I get to choose the aesthetics of my living space. I have an entire range of clothes I can wear based on my fit and budget. I even sent you an NFT so that you could have that heart-shaped locket printed from your artificer. I more or less rendered that by hand. It’s a pretty wild process. Try it sometime.

A couple of times, just out of boredom, I’ve flipped to manual control of my virtual entertainment, but it’s not fun. You just get lost in all of the choices you have to make. Honestly, Indeps think that they’re so much smarter for choosing, but the human brain just isn’t equipped to confront all of the things we have available to us. It’s fine for them, but we really need the Armored Peace Officer Units to keep them in check when they start doing things like launching cyber attacks and actual physical bombings of information kiosks.

You want to be a luddite? Fine. But don’t try to force me to be.

You don’t have to pilot an APOU if you don’t want to, but we are a Google family. Always have been. Your great grandfather used to talk about having to use a speech interface to ask the network questions and order things. Sounds pretty wild, huh?

I met some Amazon people once during one of the peace accord meetings. They were pretty much what you’d expect. The Bezos really left an imprint on that company. The whole thing feels so Darwinian. Did you know that they’ll only let you become a Prime if you commit to having at least three children? That just feels really insane. You actually have to digitally sign a document called a Population Increase Commitment. Okay. Yes. You know about the PIC papers, but do you know what happens if you fail to meet your commitment. No, they don’t murder you or anything, but the rumors say that there’s a second tier - they call it a Sub-Prime membership. Everything’s late. You get overcharged. A lot of the stuff that you get issued from them ends up being counterfeit. No, I don’t know any of these things first hand, but how could you? People changing set ups is pretty uncommon; I don’t think Apple will even let you do it. Google still takes refugees from AliBaba and Amazon, but I have a sneaking suspicion that they’re going to deploy us APOU pilots to stem that tide pretty soon.

If we give charity out to everyone, it’s going to affect our lives at a certain point, too. And then where will we be?

I’d be hurt if you went with an Immediate Consciousness Termination, but I get it. Existence isn’t for everyone. I doubt you would; you’ve got half of my genetics anyway. And you can always opt for a full time consumer placement, but I’d warn you against it. The commitments for getting an actual job with Google are not that demanding. I fly an APOU mission about once every couple of days. I do it right from the Home Nexus Interface. It’s rare and actually kind of dangerous, but I’ve heard of a few jobs with Intel that would place you in the Indep camps as a plant. Not that the Indeps would do anything to you, but you might get wasted by an APOU - usually it’s the Apple people who do the investigate/eradicate sweeps, but we do them, too. Can’t have people crashing in our space, trying to claim that they own the land. Can you imagine that? Personal ownership of land? The whole concept is mystifying to me.

I know, people used to do that back in the old days, but all it ever created was problems. They’d pass the land onto their kids. Their kids would pass it on to their kids. And what happened if you had a bunch of kids and not enough land to parcel out between all of them? Fighting. That’s what would happen. Your own family members fighting amongst themselves over clumps of dirt that would be there when they were all dead. What would be the point then?

Of course, back in those days, the government owned all of the land anyway and could find a reason to kick you off of it if they felt like they needed to. Google doesn’t lie. Hell, not even Amazon would tell you anything like that.

I sort of wondered what you’d be when you grew up, as far as if you’d be an employee or a full time consumer. They say that the algorithms already know when your base aminos are being processed, but to tell people about that as early as they could takes some of the mystery out of life. It would be like fate, I guess.

It would be really neat - I know, that’s sort of a silly word - if you joined the APOU pilot corps. We could go on missions together. Two weeks ago, we cleared out a nest of Indeps back in what used to be Old Vancouver. That was the first time I got to try out my new flamethrower mod. You should have seen it. The amount of destruction that thing can produce is unreal. One of them threw a brick at me. A brick! Hit me right in the camera, but you know those APOU’s: didn’t even scuff the carbonamel. One of these days, I’m going to get a pass to go down and actually see my APOU in person. I know, I know actual visualization these days is so old school. But I’d like to be able to actually see it live.

Maybe, we could meet in person, too. That would be amazing. Don’t worry, I wouldn’t do anything pervy, like try to shake your hand. My dad used to talk about how your great grandfather hugged him. Can you imagine that kind of contact? No wonder people had diseases like they used to. Gross. The Indeps, from what I understand, still do. They even reproduce… well… I don’t think you even want to know about that. I’ll just… Yeah, if you want to do the research on it, I don’t think it will get you any visits from security or anything. Just… Weird.

All right, that’s all I wanted to say. I just wanted to make a pitch for you joining the APOU pilot corps. Let me know what you decide whenever you feel like it. I was mostly kidding about meeting up in person, but if you’re interested in doing that, just let me know when. I just got a notification about it being an optimal time for me to hit the hay, so I’ll talk to you again soon.