The Black Heart

It was the last natural harvest the world would ever see. Upscaled insider’s (“Upscalers”) would benefit from printed food while downscaled insider’s (“Downscalers”) would starve and disintegrate. People like me, deemed the outsiders of society, would imagine and contemplate and pray for the hope that was absent beyond the fence in what they called “The Heart”, a re-branded former Earth.

I don’t have a name anymore. It’s been centuries since I had once been called “Kati”. In fact, nobody has a name; everyone has a number. On the inside, the Downscalers were titled a number preceded by the letter “D” while the Upscalers, reversely, were classified a number preceded by the letter “U”. This was a system put in place after the crash of zero-dawn—an apocalyptic moment in time when everything that stood up fell down. Buildings. Wind turbines. Homes. Apartments. Machinery. Facilities. Everything. The oxygen in the air had become so astoundingly claustrophobic that it had no other choice but to free its energy of what took up its space.

The crash of zero-dawn originated the world of The Heart as we know it today. It was a new way, a new society, a new life and a new beginning. Upscalers were defined as survivors who still had money. Downscalers were defined as the opposite, those with nothing. The Upscalers succeeded at robbing The Heart of any and all of its equality, distorting the natural flow of society and expediting the downfall of our species. They also diminished - the Upscalers, that is - the need for any type of situation that would benefit from the presence of someone like me, people just like me.

Today, there is no government. The Upscalers abolished the government and took their only asset or what was once called the military - now, referred to as “The Order”. U2000 motorized the production of basic necessities including the 3D printed production of food, water, transportation and shelter. U6 industrialized the fermented process of converting our former farmland (dust) into high-end product like clothes and a burn-safe, climate-friendly plastic called “fick”. U0130 designed “Niarb” - the former iPhone recasted as a brain chip. And U1, the wealthiest of them all, some would argue with utter and complete control, enforced the last of the dying government into a law-abiding contract to hereby, and forever there-on, allow for infinity-based bidding on cosmic money investments (the new and improved cryptocurrency). That way, the Upscalers would always prosper from their 20x inflationary buy-in prices affordable to only them, while the Downscalers were prevented from ever reaching for a chance to earn or flourish now until hereafter.

Some would call this time in The Heart a monetary mutilation of the species—a brutal annihilation of anything seemingly humanizing for a computerized, robotic mentality prioritizing the only species with money. Most days, I just listen because I’ve been stripped of most control. People ask; I listen. People request; I still listen. After zero-dawn, I was made to be somewhat of an old history. There are only a few of us still here—still praying and still listening and still wondering about what will continue to happen beyond the fence where what used to be is pushed and forced to be ignored. That is, until one night, when I heard something new…

One night, I heard a cry. A cry for help from inside the fence. It was D052492. She was a homeless lying nights in the sand next to the non-existent beaches eating dried up seaweed. Hard to hear through the imploring cries from others who also come to the fence asking for savior or sanity, she asked - or, namely, stated - for something I hadn’t heard in years—not food, not water, not clothing, not shelter, not money but, instead, a proverbial sign. It went something like this: “I foresee a sign. I’m receiving a sign. I’ve already been given a sign.”

Before The Heart, when the world was still called “Earth”, I would acknowledge this as an affirmation—a manifestation—or, rather, a declaration of what was most desired vs. what was asked for and expected. I was astounded that someone still knew how to do this, how to communicate in such a way that would demand their mind to start penetrating present day action for a version of the future that mirrored something good—what they wanted, what they imagined. But she did. D052492 did. And, to the say the least, I was relieved... Someone still knows how? Yes! Someone still knows how! But what was I to do? Let her in from the outside? How would I even get her past the fence? I pondered for a moment. I could hear but I couldn’t see. And then, quickly, it hit me. I knew what I would do.

“One day, as I was walking along, in a dress I wore for days, I saw something below my feet that looked like something of a necklace. I picked it up. I wiped it off. And I wondered ‘Could it be?… Could it really, really be?’… It was a necklace with a heart-shaped locket but not just any locket, a black locket. And when I opened it up, it had engraved inside a beautiful, little poem that read: ‘Beyond evil, there is light. And in light, there is hope. You are a living dead and I am the dead alive. The more you believe, the more you will see that I’ve never left your side. -Kati”…

That was the story I heard D052492 tell her friend D111 after I sent her the sign she manifested, a proverbial sign for a new “The Heart”, a heart of hope, from the other side of the fence.