The Corridors

 


Flash fiction by Silvatiicus Riddle

 

 

 

Titan Complex, formerly Princeton University

 

To: Records Department, Walton Building, Rm. 402

From: Anthropology Team, Buffett Annex, Rm. 2B

 

Issue: Package received from anonymous source providing further insight into the failed “Corridors” experiment, as conducted by former U.S. government. Items included:

 

 

Since the burning of the capitol, pentagon, and records buildings in 2054, scant few details of the experiment remain. The Insider Log reads as follows:

     

In the year of our cord  2053, we only use the internet once—to download Second Internet. From birth, the use of cuffLink neurotechnology implanted into the growing brain allows us to access our full potential in living the lives our predecessors could only have dreamed. The Corridors, offshoot of origin-internet, is a beautiful bastardization of the original, created by a single AI administrator referred to as the Intelligent Designer, or I.D. It was championed by those that longed for the pseudo-utopian internet that they knew as children, when the rift between the outer world and digital was new, exciting, clear, and honored. I.D. loathed what origin-internet had become: overrun by bots, spam, false information, the endless torrent of content-cows generating revenue for their respective platforms—on the promise that they may eventually escape the repetitive matrix of algorithms, rage-farming, and AI-generated idiocy. Bless these halls, so came The Corridors.

 

The Corridors are unique. As if a platform merged with an individual profile, expanded to the size of a small apartment, and further customized to represent the person (which, I have learned, is the word that I.D. used to replace the antiquated word ‘user’) and each corridor stacked atop one another to form a ‘complex’. In The Corridors, there is no work, no illness, no loneliness, no crime. Training begins from birth to year 10 in the crumbling outer world on how to utilize the system, then you’re in. The only requirement is that you live your life exactly as you would if the outer world hadn’t been destroyed by those that came before. I.D. learns from us, studies our choices, dreams, hopes, fears, and secrets. Every smile is measured, every wrinkle considered, every teardrop mathematically analyzed, as it so pleases Him. We surrender to his Terms of Service, as is His way. Praise I.D.

 

On the reverse side of the log is another note:

Your life is not your own here. You can never log out.

 

It is unclear whether the strikethrough was made by the user or the sender.

 

Lastly, a cassette tape transcript of one unconscious user, presumably made during the server breakdown (see: 2053 Love-Bomb Cyber Attack) near the end of the failed experiment, which led to the mass-tragedy event involving all 2,402 program users:

 

“[inaudible] The walls…glitching…gone…crumbled…in…error…the mirrors are showing…[inaudible]…not me…error…someone here…hello?...Who?...I.D.? [inaudible] Who is…? No…please… I.D…error…it was all [inaudible] lie…Wake up!…error…error… error…”

 

Another voice is heard speaking before the end of the recording:

“The Corridors have been deleted. Now you are free.”

 

Input: History—Former United States—Artifacts—Technology—The Corridors. To Be Filed.