The Panopticon, Essay Example

One

Chay stopped to take one last look at his face in the cracked mirror of a burned-out truck. It had taken him six months to find someone willing to give him one vial of bioxx, and once he shot it into his face he was going to look very different. He had never used the bioxx before, but he knew what happened to other people when they used, it. When it worked right, it was like a miracle. Within seconds of injecting it, a person’s face would start to get red and puffy, like bees had stung them all over. Over the next few minutes, the shape of the face would start to change, slowly at first, and then more quickly as the process was finishing. By the time five minutes passed the person’s face would look completely different, and it would be impossible to recognize them anymore. When it worked wrong, however, one of two things happened: nothing, or death.

Chay did not understand how bioxx worked. In fact, he did not really understand dhow anything worked. The world was filled with little boxes and screens and things to wear on your face or arms, or to inject into your skin or swallow or even put inside you in very painful ways. Chay did not know that inside the vial of bioxx there were thousands of tiny nanoparticles that were each like miniaturized robots, with their own on-board microscopic computers and software. If the bioxx was found from a good source, it would make your face look just like the picture on the box it came in. Chay did not know that once it was injected the nanoparticles moved quickly around under the skin, moving fat cells and cellulose and even tiny bots of bone into new positions, building up some spots, breaking down others, until the ol;d face was gone and a new face had appeared. As far as Chay was concerned, the bioxx was just like magic. But the again, so was everything else. He had no idea how anything worked, he just knew that when they worked right, bioxx could give you a new face and terrano could be used to make meat and skona made you kind of sleepy and very, very happy.  And when they worked wrong either nothing happened or you died. So far, Chay was not dead, which made him happy even without the skona.

Chay was just a few hundred yards from the border between New Texas and the Confederate States. He knew he would not have to face any live humans when he tried to cross the border, but he would be scanned by the sentries. As he got close to the border one or more sentries would come buzzing through the air and would hover hear his face while one of them scanned him. If he was lucky he would not have his eyes scanned, because as far as he knew there was no way to beat that kind of sentry. He was hoping that the sentries would scan his face and not find his criminal record. As long as he passed that test, he could cross into the Confederate States with no problem. If he failed the test he would be dead before he had time to know he had failed.

The bioxx he had purchased was supposed to make him look like a native of the Confederates, with the white skin and narrow nose that resulted from generations of genetic engineering and selective breeding. The skin tone on his face would not match the rest of his body, but the sentries this far out from Angel City would be too old to have been updated any time in the last ten years. As long as he looked right from the neck up he would pass. He took a deep breath, held it, and slowly plunged the needle into his jugular vein. It was hard to see his reflection in the dirty mirror, but the needle was programmed to change shape and direction as needed to find the vein. When he heard the beep that told him he had found the right spot he pushed the plunger, hoping he would survive.

Two

Chay was not sure exactly how old he was. Like most of the people he knew, he had dug out his infochip years ago, and without that he was just another one of millions of people with no name, no birthday, no number, no history. He seemed to remember the day he had his chip implanted, but it was possible that he had just heard so many stories from other people about their own implantations that he was confusing their memories for his own. He was not even sure what his name was. He thought it might be something like John or Juan, but it could just as easily have been Paul or Julio or Mikhail or one of thousands of other names. He had picked up the name “Chay” years ago, from a very old man who said Chay reminded him of a “revolutionary.” Cay did not know what “revolutionary” meant, he just remembered that the old man told Chay that he looked like someone who had died long ago. The old man did tell him that his name was spelled “Che,” but that did not make any sense to Chay so he spelled it the way he though it should be spelled. And he never did find out what it meant to be a “revolutionary,” or even how to spell it. In fact, Chay could hardly spell any words, but no one else could either.  The talk-boxes that he used to talk to people wo were very far away did all the spelling. If you wanted to write something to another person all you had to do was talk into the talk box and it did the work.

Like everyone he knew, Chay did not know where the talk boxes came from. They were just everywhere, like the bones of a city of robots that had been abandoned long ago. Just like he did not understand the nanoparticles in the bioxx, Chay had no idea how anything worked. He did not know that by the early 22^nd century most of the world had developed efficient systems to use the power of the sun, the oceans, and the wind to provide energy for phones, computers, cars, buildings, airplanes, and anything else that required electricity. He also did not know that once the world no longer had to burn oil for energy, the people who had all the oil became very, very angry. He did not know that these angry people did many things that made many other people angry, and that before long almost everyone was angry for one reason or another. Chay did not know that billions of these angry people had killed each other. He did not know that before they all became so angry, these were the people who had built the talk boxes and the carry screens and the pictures of people that moved and talked and did things that made no sense to Chay, like driving in cars or eating in restaurants or shooting each other or for being a different color.

Chay did not know why the lights on the street were dark until he approached and then lit up as he walked and then went dark again as he passed by until the next lights lit up. He did not know why he could step into an empty people mover and it would take him wherever he wanted to go. He did not understand that the people mover was able to read his brain waves, measure the temperature of his skin, track his eye movements and his heart rate, and use all this data to figure out where Chay wanted to go. Chay also did not know why he wanted to leave Mex City in New Texas and cross the border into the Confederate States. All Chay knew was that he wanted an adventure, even though he was not really sure what an adventure was. Chay was never hungry, because there was enough terrano to last a million people a million years, and the sun gardend with their own sentries and hoverlights produced tomatoes and peaches and lettuce and carrots and anything else he might want to eat without anyone ever having to pick up a shovel or plant a single seed. The only thing Chay knew for sure was that he lived in a world where he did not need anything, but he still wanted something. He just was not sure what it was.

Three

Chay watched in the mirror as his face changed. As soon as he had seen the red glow under his skin he knew he was not going to die, but he was still not sure if he would look like the picture on the box. Chay did not have to wait long to find out that his new face looked exactly like it was supposed to look. Chay stared at the stranger in the mirror for a moment and then headed for the border. Chay did not know that the nanoparticles would begin to be flushed from his system within a few hours, but he did know that the magic powers of the bioxx would wear off soon. That was fine with Chay, as he did not really like his new face. As long as it was pale enough to get him across the border he would be happy.

Chay took one last look backwards, seeing the glow of Mex City against the night sky, like a blue and green fire that burned without giving off any smoke. He had heard great stories about life in the Confederate States. It was a land where everyone looked the same, with the same blue eyes, pale skin, and sharp features. Chay thought of the name “Angel City,” and he could almost imagine that the people on the other side of the border were like real life angels who had come to live on the land. The people in the States had things called “jobs” and “families” and “children” and they drove things called “cars” and they went to places called “theaters” and “restaurants” and they had “parties” and they did and said so many things Chay did not understand.  As Chay got closer to the border he heard the buzzing of the sentries, but he was not worried. He knew that in a few moments he would be in Angel City, in the Confederate States of America.

Four

John Hardy watched the figure on the screen as it made its way towards the border. It was too dark to tell if it was a man or a woman, not that it really mattered. Hardy had seen the glow of the heat signature on the screen, and he knew the prisoner had just shot up some bioxx. Hardy laughed to himself, and wondered why anyone would ever be dumb enough to believe that stuff could help them escape.

I am not sure how effectively I managed to meet the guidelines and expectations for the RIP project, but I will say that it was the one that was most enjoyable to write. It gave me the opportunity to use my imagination, and to at least try to incorporate some rhetorical techniques I learned from the reading materials in this course. It was most influenced by 1984, but it was also influenced by LeGuin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas.” My approach was to adopt one of the main genre conventions of short stories and begin the story “in medias rens” or in the middle of the action. I tried to use technology from today and exaggerate it into the future setting, and to make it seem very normal. I did not want the world of Chay to be scary or threatening. I tried to emphasize that it was mostly boring, because technology was doing everything for people. In a way it was a satire of today’s technology, but I also attempted to make it seem like this world could actually come true.