The Loop

by Jeremy Robert Johnson

You’re still thinking about humans. And sure, we’re mostly animals, and the worst of us rise to power and oppress the rest. That is why they’re doing this to us now, searching for new methods of control, believing they’ll find safety and stimulus in power, protecting what they think of as a ‘proprietary technology.’ All of that requires that they do what you’re talking about: destroying our empathy and reducing our faith in reason. Those guys on the border laughed when they let you through because you’re not even human to them. You’re a unit of something else. They rename you ‘test subject’ or ‘enemy,’ or they assign you a race or a nation or a class—and then they don’t have to think about you anymore. It’s a weakness, an evolutionary leftover, and it damns us, but listen… That’s old news. If we’re lucky, then all of that’s a fight for another day. What we’re talking about here is a lot less civilized, okay? I’m talking about absolute and violent physiological control. No hope. No options. Not even the illusion of free will, or the possibility of change. I’m talking about every human being on Earth used and discarded.