A Fable

One day in Sustenance Intake Room 14-C of Cog Production Facility 17 Northeast:Declassified five citizens were talking during their twenty minute Sustenance-Grade Work Interruption.

"Do you ever wonder," asked Robert 00110, "what the cogs we work on here do? Or what they're used for once they leave the Production Facility? We all build tiny machine parts, but we don't even know what kind of machine they're part of."

"I don't know what we're building," said John 11110, "But I'm sure that it serves the greater good of our glorious Society. Our Leaders tell the Facility Controllers what to build, and they tell us what we need to do. The reward of all of our hard work is the knowledge that we're fulfilling our responsibility to Society." He ate the last chunk of Worker-Grade Sustenance on his tray and washed it down with the last of his quasijuice.

"Now I am finished with my consumption, ahead of schedule," John 11110 continued, "so I will report back to work immediately. I suggest you all attempt to finish consuming soon as well, so that our department will do its best."

The other four citizens quietly watched him go.

"I always breathe a little easier when that John is not in the room," Robert 00110 said. "But what about you, 10100? What do you think we're making?"

"I can't know for certain, of course," answered John 10100, "but I think we're toiling all day to build the very things that make our lives miserable. We unknowingly make the locks on the Facility's doors, the electrodes that prod us when we work slowly, the cameras that watch us in our homes, and everything else that binds us to a life of drudgery and suffering. We're trapped building the cage that holds us, and the Facility Controllers laugh at us for that."

"I can't think like that," said Christopher 01001. "I couldn't sleep at nightcycle knowing I was helping create things that make people suffer. Even though I fear you could be right, I believe the things we build here become part of one of the few things that make our lives more bearable, like televisions or the distilleries that manufacture synthetic gin. If I thought we were making things that hurt people I don't think I could do my job without breaking down into tears.
"What about you, Mr. 00110? You asked the question, so what's your answer?"

"All I know for sure," said Robert 00110, "is that whatever the parts we build become they help Society. We're repressed by the Leaders and beaten down every day by Society, so whether we build the locks and 'trodes that keep us working or the televisions and gin that keep us complacent and stupid it benefits Society in the end, and that harms us. I want to sabotage our cogs, but I don't know how because I can't figure out what they do.
"It's your turn now, William 00100. What do you say we're building here?"

"I think," began William 00100, "that the cogs I make become parts of the electrodes that shock us, the guns that kill citizens trying to escape, the machines that torture suspected traitors, and the devices that are used to experiment on random citizen volunteers."

"So you're a defeatist like John 10100?," asked Christopher 01001. "Are you certain that we're helping make things that hurt and kill us?"

"I'm not a defeatist," said William 00100. "I'm more like you, Christopher 01001. I think we're all making things that hurt and kill us because it's the only way I can do my job. I can't stand you guys. I hate all of you, always have and always will."

The End