Yellowbox

A bad factory in the modern world loses money for ever trying to produce, to meet demands that nobody in their right mind could want. 

A decent one just above breaks even.

A good one produces plenty of money to keep itself sustainable.

A great one... a great one helps a person keep the other factories alive by stirring the public interest, both in itself, and in other products. 

This was the core statement used nearly ten years ago during the early development of the NAA, or the Neural Assistant Assembly. 

Back then, in the early days of the design, it was a decidedly helpful little thing.

Its features were as follows: 

Personal Finance assistance, endorphin release, and daily news, selected by the computer that was now personally connected to your brain, to help YOU get the sort of news that you wanted to see.

If one were to list every feature that had made the NAA what it was now, it would take 13,254,875 pages, nearly one for every little neuron that floated around in that grey chunk of matter in your head, and every amazing new feature, was more insidious than the last. 

A few great examples:

Decision making - now your personal, difficult problems are taken care of for you.

Pleasurable spending- Every purchase you make that was considered "approved" by the makers of the NAA, in association with the UIG, Unified International Government gives you a rush of pure pleasure. 

"Natural world enhancement" - Block out all of the difficult, terrible little distractions of everyday life.Somebody said something that you don't like? Well, to you, now they didn't. Like it never even happened in the first place. 

Conversations between people that didn't exist, and never would. In the digital age of sorts, where the self seemed to rise up to staggeringly high above all else, the NAA was there to grip your mind, stretch it in ways that made you happy. Because the purpose of the NAA was to make the reality of the world match that of some twisted fantasy, even the people you surround yourself with might never be real. It could do that with ease. 

And it was now illegal to NOT have one. 

That's how you wound up here, packed onto a sweaty, cramped, stuffy little conveyor belt riding through yellow-screened walls, feeling the hot breath of the person about two feet behind you, about two feet or so, dressed up in disposable clothing, and in a sense, abandoned by those who were supposed to protect you.

This wasn't an act of free will.

This, or go to jail for implant rejection. Probably for the rest of your life, if you were lucky.

As the person two spots before you was suddenly plunged down between two, great steel walls, the muffled sounds of screaming echoed through the chamber. The line gave a visible wince, but nobody moved. 

Not even you. The screaming was only met by the bright flashing lights, loud corporate jingles, and smiles of the digital people that paved the way of the conveyor belt to your so-called "freedom" - not even here could you be alone with your thoughts. It made sense, considering that you would never be alone with your thoughts again. 

The screaming, in a way, reminded you of the cheering that was originally met with the most recent iteration of the NAA, described by the UIG as "the perfect path to the perfect modern world."

Your perfect little conveyor belt path. The conveyor belt whirred to life as the walls rose, and the person in front of you came to a stop in front of a window with a person dressed up in surgical gear behind it. Their hands seemed to have only the most basic of restraint, the excitement of a man getting to decide the rest of the future for you.

The walls fell but a foot from your face. The only human contact before you was your reflection on the perfectly polished steel.

Perfect.

If that was really what was going on here, then there would be no more pain, only smiles and an unthreatened world. 

Only four feet (not including the three-foot-thick steel walls) before you.

The walls hissed up, and all you saw was the back of the person before you, dressed up in vaguely revealing surgical garb, and a red patch of skin on the side of their neck, met full-on by a little yellow box that snaked up inside of them with a wire. 

The conveyor belts would move again, and you with them. 

Anxiety came with shortness of breath as the two steel walls closed behind you, and you came face to face with the trigger-finger technician who started a hazy near-orgasmic smile at you.

Twisted minds. 

And it was your turn to be twisted. 

The intercom inside your steel womb, your rebirth of glass, steel, wires would buzz out a command. 

"Turn to face the window. I want to see your face as I make your life better."

You didn't, but it didn't matter to him.

In his perfect little yellow-tinted world, you did, with a smile. 

He hit a button, and your clothing got unbearably cold, the reality of the numbing agent they packed in every surgical suit.Perfect, thin robotic arms tore into your flesh, making openings here, there, everywhere down your spine, your legs, your arms, and you were frozen stiff, the glass not reflecting an ounce of what was happening to you. Metal hands made your rebirth. 

The doctor smiled.

The chip was placed on your neck with a satisfying hiss, and for the first time in your life.. everything was so intangibly perfect.

Perfect tears fell from your perfect face, meeting the ground in such a way as to make glittering little perfect pools. 

The doctor smiled, and it was perfection. 

So did you.

Everything was perfect. 

Perfection.