dehumanization
Title: dehumanization
Characters/Pairing: NewS (6-nin)
Rating: PG (for very mild cursing)
Words: 1,450
Warnings: Sci-fi dystopian AU (robots take over the world!)
Summary: "There is something to the human that needs the myth to survive."
Notes: The beginning of this was originally my contribution to our first try of je_devilorangel 2011. I'm still hoping rockthecliche will finish her work in this 'verse too. <3 Summary quote inspirational gold from a goodreads review of Tea Obrecht's The Tiger's Wife by "Stephen".
---
There was a low, desolate moan from near the display board and the boys instantly recognized it as Masuda.
"What's wrong, Massu? They move lunch later in the schedule?" Ryo asked good-naturedly as he and the rest of their birthgroup moved to join him.
Wordlessly, they all stared at the board and the next time Ryo spoke, he wasn't so happy.
"What the hell. Why are we on waste rotation four weeks straight?"
As one, they turned to face Tegoshi who blinked questioningly at them when he realized they were looking at him. "What?"
"This is all your fault," Masuda hissed, narrowing his eyes.
Koyama looked thoughtful, and maybe a bit teed. "Probably if he hadn't pulled that prank on the whole 82nd, we'd be on a regular schedule."
"It is all your fault," Yamashita agreed after a quick gasp, thumping Tegoshi in the head when the man smiled impishly, eyes unfocused as he relived his greatest prank moment to date.
"Ow." Rubbing his head, he still couldn't stop grinning. "Tell me the look on old Blu's face wasn't worth waste duty."
There was a collective moment of silence as they all thought about that, but Shige just quirked his lips up. "Still, if Massu has to pull one more waste rotation, I think he might permanently cut off any future possibilities for prank playing. The hard way."
With that look on Masuda's face, none of them could deny it.
---
"Urrrrrrrrrrrrgh," Shige said, sort of breathlessly, and completely stopped moving.
Ryo looked back, saw Shige halted mid-step, arms raised, all his weight on his front foot. "What?"
"I think some of it seeped past the boots…" he moaned, resolutely not looking down.
Koyama came sloshing up next to him, smiling widely, and clapped a heavy hand on his shoulder. "Don't worry, Shige. It'll wash."
Shige groaned as Koyama leaned a bit and more of the liquid/solid/who-the-hell-knows slopped over the edge of his boots to drip down his pant leg, and Masuda may have squealed in empathy. "I hate you."
And that's when Masuda tripped and fell right on his face, or would have, if Yamashita hadn't grabbed the back of his coverall as he went down, barely keeping Masuda's chin out of the mess, though the rest of his front and arms weren't spared. He looked like he might start crying.
Ryo crouched down near the curved wall to look for what had tripped Masuda, plunging his gloved hands into the murky depths with a grimace.
"Urgh," both Shige and Masuda said at once, glancing at each other before looking back down.
"What the hell?" Ryo tugged at something, then stood up, widening his feet before pulling hard and ripping something up off the floor. "What's this?"
They all crowded around him, staring at the thing. It looked like a rope maybe, a really thick one, with tendrils coming out of it, and a little knobby. It had ripped at one end, but it was clearly still attached further down and they trailed after Ryo in silence as he followed it along, pulling it up as he went. At the first intersection, the thing split, going down another tunnel but also forward still.
"Well," Yamashita said, sticking out his lower lip with a thoughtful look, "I guess I know what we'll be doing the next four weeks."
There was a general sigh heaved and they trekked back the way they came. They were going to need some tools for this job.
---
They spent days slaving at the thing, starting from the very ends where they can just coil it up like rope, and working up to having to hack it off in large pieces, dropping them into the carts in a choppy stream. Finally, it took two people to chop through, alternating strikes to get the job done faster, and they're actually pretty in sync. Two people to lift the heavy pieces out of the muck and up over the edges of the carts, until, at last, they reached the end of the tunnel and saw the thing, as thick as Tegoshi's waist, climbing up against the wall and escaping through a giant crack in the material of the tunnel ceiling.
"This… can't be good," Yamashita said, taking his glove off and probing the dark substance they could see through the edges of the crack. It smelled funny and felt weird. Gritty. Masuda watched them all test it between their fingers before poking a finger at a handful Shige was holding.
"What is this?" Ryo asked.
"Don't know," Yamashita replied thoughtfully, brushing his hands together and watching the substance sift away. He pursed his lips at the grains left behind, the way it seemed to stain his fingers. "It's sort of clean and dirty all at once, isn't it?"
Tegoshi was poking at the thick thing with the sharp edge of his shovel and rubbing at the fluid that pooled in the cut. "Weird. It's bleeding."
"It's not bleeding, because that's not blood," Shige told him haughtily, but then crouched to inspect it too, his brow wrinkling with curiosity. "Is it alive? It's growing…"
The rest of his pod jostled around him, poking and prodding at the cut and the fluid until, finally, they drew back, thoroughly confused, and leaned against the walls.
"Well? Now what?" Masuda asked, staring at the break in the wall. "Can we repair it? Won't that thing just break through again?"
Yamashita rubbed his face with his one clean hand when everyone looked to him for the decision. "Let's just clear this out. We'll worry about how to repair it when we're done."
They lay in their bunks that evening, worn out and sore, and mused.
"We were at the very edge of the bubble, weren't we?" Koyama asked.
"Yeah," Shige said, shifting slightly so that he could face Koyama on the opposite bed. He could hear Ryo and Tegoshi moving above him, orienting themselves toward the others so they could hear better.
"What if…" his voice dropped to a whisper, "what if it's from the outside?"
"Don't be stupid," Ryo scoffed. "The outside is a barren wasteland. You've seen the images the A.I. give us. To show us 'the folly of humanity and its inability to integrate beneficially with its surroundings.'"
When Koyama spoke again, he sounded hurt. "I'm not being stupid. We've never seen anything like it. And what was that stuff in the crack?"
"Maybe it was insulation?" Masuda guessed.
They thought about that for a while.
"Maybe," Koyama conceded finally. "We've never seen a break in the tunnels before, either." He paused. "But that growing thing… what's the explanation for that, then?"
No one had an answer.
---
Once upon a time the children were minded by elderly humans, too old to work, but still useful for things like this. It gave the elders purpose and a few extra years before being put to sleep. Regardless of what life is like, how oppressed or depressed, humanity always seems to cling to life. So they would tuck the children in and sing them to sleep or tell them stories handed down and down and down, of a ground covered in soft green blades, of giant growing things in brown and green and other colors they had never seen, of rain and sand and sun and dirt and freedom. But the last was only hinted at in whispers that grew fainter and fainter until the last human caretaker was replaced with A.I. and the human lifespan was shortened yet again.
But as words of hope have a habit of doing, they survive - because no matter what extremes their masters use to depersonalize 'the human experience', adults will always try to comfort children in need of love, just like children will always search for it without even knowing what it is that they want. And so it is that these things are still in the minds of men, buried deep and hidden, the most latent of desires.
The six of them repaired the break in the tunnels, uneasily tiptoeing around questions they had no answers for. In unspoken agreement, they told no one what they had seen, hiding the secret in their hearts, nurturing it there, afraid that should the A.I. discover it, this burgeoning feeling of hope would be dashed. They didn't understand it, what they had seen, what they could do, what they wanted. But there had been dreams of memories with whispered words, broken phrases, and a stirring of emotions bigger than they could fathom. They were restlessly sure of one only thing: the existence of one myth means another may be true. From the depths of their subconscious, one word struggled forth.
freedom
Characters/Pairing: NewS (6-nin)
Rating: PG (for very mild cursing)
Words: 1,450
Warnings: Sci-fi dystopian AU (robots take over the world!)
Summary: "There is something to the human that needs the myth to survive."
Notes: The beginning of this was originally my contribution to our first try of je_devilorangel 2011. I'm still hoping rockthecliche will finish her work in this 'verse too. <3 Summary quote inspirational gold from a goodreads review of Tea Obrecht's The Tiger's Wife by "Stephen".
---
There was a low, desolate moan from near the display board and the boys instantly recognized it as Masuda.
"What's wrong, Massu? They move lunch later in the schedule?" Ryo asked good-naturedly as he and the rest of their birthgroup moved to join him.
Wordlessly, they all stared at the board and the next time Ryo spoke, he wasn't so happy.
"What the hell. Why are we on waste rotation four weeks straight?"
As one, they turned to face Tegoshi who blinked questioningly at them when he realized they were looking at him. "What?"
"This is all your fault," Masuda hissed, narrowing his eyes.
Koyama looked thoughtful, and maybe a bit teed. "Probably if he hadn't pulled that prank on the whole 82nd, we'd be on a regular schedule."
"It is all your fault," Yamashita agreed after a quick gasp, thumping Tegoshi in the head when the man smiled impishly, eyes unfocused as he relived his greatest prank moment to date.
"Ow." Rubbing his head, he still couldn't stop grinning. "Tell me the look on old Blu's face wasn't worth waste duty."
There was a collective moment of silence as they all thought about that, but Shige just quirked his lips up. "Still, if Massu has to pull one more waste rotation, I think he might permanently cut off any future possibilities for prank playing. The hard way."
With that look on Masuda's face, none of them could deny it.
---
"Urrrrrrrrrrrrgh," Shige said, sort of breathlessly, and completely stopped moving.
Ryo looked back, saw Shige halted mid-step, arms raised, all his weight on his front foot. "What?"
"I think some of it seeped past the boots…" he moaned, resolutely not looking down.
Koyama came sloshing up next to him, smiling widely, and clapped a heavy hand on his shoulder. "Don't worry, Shige. It'll wash."
Shige groaned as Koyama leaned a bit and more of the liquid/solid/who-the-hell-knows slopped over the edge of his boots to drip down his pant leg, and Masuda may have squealed in empathy. "I hate you."
And that's when Masuda tripped and fell right on his face, or would have, if Yamashita hadn't grabbed the back of his coverall as he went down, barely keeping Masuda's chin out of the mess, though the rest of his front and arms weren't spared. He looked like he might start crying.
Ryo crouched down near the curved wall to look for what had tripped Masuda, plunging his gloved hands into the murky depths with a grimace.
"Urgh," both Shige and Masuda said at once, glancing at each other before looking back down.
"What the hell?" Ryo tugged at something, then stood up, widening his feet before pulling hard and ripping something up off the floor. "What's this?"
They all crowded around him, staring at the thing. It looked like a rope maybe, a really thick one, with tendrils coming out of it, and a little knobby. It had ripped at one end, but it was clearly still attached further down and they trailed after Ryo in silence as he followed it along, pulling it up as he went. At the first intersection, the thing split, going down another tunnel but also forward still.
"Well," Yamashita said, sticking out his lower lip with a thoughtful look, "I guess I know what we'll be doing the next four weeks."
There was a general sigh heaved and they trekked back the way they came. They were going to need some tools for this job.
---
They spent days slaving at the thing, starting from the very ends where they can just coil it up like rope, and working up to having to hack it off in large pieces, dropping them into the carts in a choppy stream. Finally, it took two people to chop through, alternating strikes to get the job done faster, and they're actually pretty in sync. Two people to lift the heavy pieces out of the muck and up over the edges of the carts, until, at last, they reached the end of the tunnel and saw the thing, as thick as Tegoshi's waist, climbing up against the wall and escaping through a giant crack in the material of the tunnel ceiling.
"This… can't be good," Yamashita said, taking his glove off and probing the dark substance they could see through the edges of the crack. It smelled funny and felt weird. Gritty. Masuda watched them all test it between their fingers before poking a finger at a handful Shige was holding.
"What is this?" Ryo asked.
"Don't know," Yamashita replied thoughtfully, brushing his hands together and watching the substance sift away. He pursed his lips at the grains left behind, the way it seemed to stain his fingers. "It's sort of clean and dirty all at once, isn't it?"
Tegoshi was poking at the thick thing with the sharp edge of his shovel and rubbing at the fluid that pooled in the cut. "Weird. It's bleeding."
"It's not bleeding, because that's not blood," Shige told him haughtily, but then crouched to inspect it too, his brow wrinkling with curiosity. "Is it alive? It's growing…"
The rest of his pod jostled around him, poking and prodding at the cut and the fluid until, finally, they drew back, thoroughly confused, and leaned against the walls.
"Well? Now what?" Masuda asked, staring at the break in the wall. "Can we repair it? Won't that thing just break through again?"
Yamashita rubbed his face with his one clean hand when everyone looked to him for the decision. "Let's just clear this out. We'll worry about how to repair it when we're done."
They lay in their bunks that evening, worn out and sore, and mused.
"We were at the very edge of the bubble, weren't we?" Koyama asked.
"Yeah," Shige said, shifting slightly so that he could face Koyama on the opposite bed. He could hear Ryo and Tegoshi moving above him, orienting themselves toward the others so they could hear better.
"What if…" his voice dropped to a whisper, "what if it's from the outside?"
"Don't be stupid," Ryo scoffed. "The outside is a barren wasteland. You've seen the images the A.I. give us. To show us 'the folly of humanity and its inability to integrate beneficially with its surroundings.'"
When Koyama spoke again, he sounded hurt. "I'm not being stupid. We've never seen anything like it. And what was that stuff in the crack?"
"Maybe it was insulation?" Masuda guessed.
They thought about that for a while.
"Maybe," Koyama conceded finally. "We've never seen a break in the tunnels before, either." He paused. "But that growing thing… what's the explanation for that, then?"
No one had an answer.
---
Once upon a time the children were minded by elderly humans, too old to work, but still useful for things like this. It gave the elders purpose and a few extra years before being put to sleep. Regardless of what life is like, how oppressed or depressed, humanity always seems to cling to life. So they would tuck the children in and sing them to sleep or tell them stories handed down and down and down, of a ground covered in soft green blades, of giant growing things in brown and green and other colors they had never seen, of rain and sand and sun and dirt and freedom. But the last was only hinted at in whispers that grew fainter and fainter until the last human caretaker was replaced with A.I. and the human lifespan was shortened yet again.
But as words of hope have a habit of doing, they survive - because no matter what extremes their masters use to depersonalize 'the human experience', adults will always try to comfort children in need of love, just like children will always search for it without even knowing what it is that they want. And so it is that these things are still in the minds of men, buried deep and hidden, the most latent of desires.
The six of them repaired the break in the tunnels, uneasily tiptoeing around questions they had no answers for. In unspoken agreement, they told no one what they had seen, hiding the secret in their hearts, nurturing it there, afraid that should the A.I. discover it, this burgeoning feeling of hope would be dashed. They didn't understand it, what they had seen, what they could do, what they wanted. But there had been dreams of memories with whispered words, broken phrases, and a stirring of emotions bigger than they could fathom. They were restlessly sure of one only thing: the existence of one myth means another may be true. From the depths of their subconscious, one word struggled forth.
freedom