"Surrealistic Pillow"

Hyperchan - /FreeTalk/ - Onset of the New Millennium Thread

Anon6: Here’s to another millennia of loneliness, /FreeTalk/

Anon22: We’ve had hundreds of threads like this recently. Go read the FAQ. If you’re feeling lonely, just download a free Alt-I

Kagamin: Eh, wouldn’t go for a random Hypernet bot. Speak to your doctor, you can get a free licensed therapy chat-bot

Anon22: They restrict the topics and conversations on those tho. And less customizable

Yoyodyne3: Not too mention you can’t jail-break licensed chat-bots

Anon6: I don’t want another Alt-I companion. I spent 18 hours using Five-Sense-Experiences yesterday. 18 HOURS!

Anon6: Idk what to do anymore. I heard rumors that if Congress doesn’t up the UBI stipend, in the coming decades it won’t be enough to get housing anymore

Anon6: No house and I can’t remember the last time a girl talked to me

Anon6: I haven’t showered since August

Yoyodyne3: Good Lord man, it’s November

Anon22: Wait I thought Congress was voting on upping the UBI? And creating an oversight committee to audit the War on Nothing

Kagamin: Both died on the floor this morning

Kagamin: Late-Stage-Utopianism. That’s what’s causing all these issues. Things have been good for so long that the people in charge don’t know how to govern anymore. They relied on supercomputers, but two major supercomputers are proposing different policies, and Congress is gridlocked between their two factions

Yoyodyne3: Source?

Kagamin: You can source these nuts dawg

Anon6: I JUST WANT SOMEONE TO TELL ME IT’S OKAY

Kagamin: You need to step outside and join a face-to-face community. There’s hundreds of Do-Nothing meetings everyday all over the galaxy. Things are so good and advanced now that you don’t even have to step outside anymore. You have to make the actual effort

Yoyodyne3: Look I agree that the government’s failing and we need to step outside, but please man not the Do-Nothings

Yoyodyne3: Bunch of “artists” sniffing their own farts

Yoyodyne3: Weebs and losers who’d rather blame the War on Nothing than their own personal weakness. We’re all looking for Something and they think talking about your feelings and pretending to be intellectuals will solve their problems

Yoyodyne3: You need to be strong. Join the Polymermen

Anon6: What’s so good about them?

Yoyodyne3: I was a sailor for the Kepler-452b flotilla. Made lifelong friends, worked out every day, felt like a man

Yoyodyne3: And Lawrence takes care of his own. Let’s just say a lot of that harvested loot led to me having a very nice penthouse :)

Kagamin: And Lawrence has ten mansions. That’s why Do-Nothings oppose the War, nobody’s keeping track of where that wealth goes

Yoyodyne3: Lawrence earned that wealth. Don’t see why you got a right to it

Anon6: How do I join the Polymermen?

Yoyodyne3: We got a general on /war/. But meet us in person. There’s hundreds of Polymermen rallies everyday all over the galaxy. If you’re on Earth, there’s a huge parade in Chicagoland this weekend

Yoyodyne3: Lawrence is a great man. If there’s anyone who can break the Congressional deadlock and revitalize humanity, it’s him

Yoyodyne3: I’d go as far as to call him the Caesar-Messiah

Kagamin: Idiot, there’s no such thing as the Caesar-Messiah. Thinking a strongman can fix all our problems - do you know how many times that’s gone poorly?

Yoyodyne3: ‘Cuz it hasn’t been the right man yet

WhiteRabbit67: Of course Lawrence isn’t the Caesar-Messiah. Lawrence is a man, and an old one at that. He won’t live forever. He’s fallible. The Caesar-Messiah is human perfection.

Anon6: Tell me more about the Caesar-Messiah

WhiteRabbit67: The Caesar-Messiah will arrive with the coming fourth millennium. All you need to do is believe. Caesar is strong for you. Caesar is brave for you. Lawrence would be just another dictator. Caesar is eternal.

Kagamin: ^crazy

Yoyodyne3: ^crazy

WhiteRabbit67: You don’t need to be a man. You don’t need to be an intellectual. You don’t need to be anything but yourself. But society has taken that from you. Reality has placed all these unnecessary burdens upon you. Reality itself is to blame. The Laws of Nature are the great cage. But don’t be afraid. Caesar is here. The True Harmonic Future is coming.

Anon6: Thanks, I needed to hear that

Anon6: What can I do to help?

WhiteRabbit67: Come to Neo-Neon Tokyo.

==========

In the sandy dunes and mud-brick homes, the Prefect of Judea raised his hands to the roaring crowd. He sat upon a throne of honor in the amphitheater, clad in white toga, legionnaires and courtesans to his sides. Hundreds, if not thousands, were in the stadium - Samaritans, Hittites, Neo-Assyrians, Phoenicians, Babylonians, Israelites, Persians, Greeks, Arabs, Egyptians, Ammonites, and the newcomers, the Romans who sailed from the sunset lands to west - all dressed in wool clothes, worn-down sandals.

Gladiators dueled below, swords clashing, no mercy for the defeated, whether it be man or lion. Each time, the Prefect turned his thumb down, and the crowd roared to the bloodshed. After a solid afternoon of carnage, the Prefect stood and declared, “Bring out the Seleucid pretender-heretic!”

A chorus of boos rang out as legionaries tossed the false prophet to the center of the arena.

The Prefect rested his chin on an idle hand. “So, you’ve come to claim Judea?”

Grace Pillow struggled to her feet, legs and feet all scratched up. She pushed her raven-hair out of her eyes. “You know what I’m here for,” she said, all matter-of-factly.

“Very well. Romans believe in fairness, after all. Defeat my champion, and Judea shall be yours.”

The Prefect and crowd all laughed at that prospect.

“Should you lose…” The Prefect didn’t say anymore, merely running a thumb across his neck while sneering.

Grace cracked her fingers. “I like those odds.”

The crowd’s attention turned to a dark tunnel on the opposite side of the stadium. All of Judea seemed to tremble with each footstep of the champion. A snickering legionnaire handed Grace a wooden sword. She spun the sword in her hand, gave it a swing, tested its weight. Yet even she started to sweat as the champion continued his long walk, the crowd’s cheering louder and louder, until finally, with the Prefect’s arm raised and the roars growing into a crescendo-

Hercules emerged from the tunnel, a mountain of a man, dressed in heavy steel lorica segmentata across his torso, steel helm with red plume, massive warhammer wielded in one hand, muscles upon muscles, biceps with their own biceps, snarls within snarls. He swung his hammer across the air, the subsequent wave of wind enough to force Grace down to a knee.

Hercules readied himself, the Prefect grinned at his audience, the crowd swelled into a bloodthirsty frenzy, the arena shook, and Grace rose and pointed her sword at Hercules.

“Dance with me then.”

Hercules started off fast, big blows, enough to wipe out a siege weapon in one strike. Grace, despite her injuries, was nimble, deftly dodging the strikes. Greeks booed and Ammonites hissed. The Prefect fumed, then nodded at legionnaires down below. A group of them advanced in a wide circle, javelins ready. When Grace got close, they forced her back towards Hercules. The amount of space available to Grace was rapidly dwindling.

The warhammer screeched as it swung for Grace’s head. She ducked at the last second, rolling in the sand. When Hercules moved for the killing blow, she threw a stream of sand into his eyes. Hercules roared, Grace rolling backwards, taking out a legionnaire's legs with her sword, his javelin dropped into her waiting hand. Heracles leaned back, arms raised, furiously wiping his eyes.

“Here’s your Shirt of Nessus, big guy.” Grace rammed the javelin through an unprotected armpit. When it came out the other side, Hercules let out a death wail, then fell backwards, the sound of his collapse echoing around the arena.

The crowd went quiet. The Prefect went pale. The legionnaires didn’t know what to do as Grace retrieved her javelin from Hercules.

“J-Judea is yours,” the Prefect admitted. “Just leave me be.”

“You know why I’m here,” Grace repeated, moving closer, leaving footprints in the digital sand.

“Legionnaires, kill her!”

But Grace was faster, already heaving the javelin right for the Prefect’s chest.

And then it was over. With the hacker and his virus defeated, the amphitheater began flickering, transitioning from mud-bricks and sand to lines of green code. Regaining control of her movements in the real world, Grace pulled off the Five-Sense-Experience headset forced upon her, and Judea was gone.

She cracked her neck in the Chicagoland penthouse and gazed down upon Kenny Franco, who would’ve been a fat man with a neckbeard in another life. Well, he still had the neckbeard, as he lay sprawled out on the ground of his apartment.

They met on a message board years back; Grace gave him a copy of Eden’s Apple; Kenny found the time capsule hidden in Chicagoland, housed within the old Bean statue lost beneath the city and the sands of time. When Grace learned of this, she tracked him down to his penthouse, only to be captured by his jailbroken Five-Sense-Experience that thrust her into his odd fantasy of antiquity. But now that she was free, she retrieved the time capsule from Kenny’s bedroom, melted the lock, nodded at the contents, and went on her merry way. Kenny’s set-up, too overheated from the digital illusion, smoked and began to burn.

Kenny, coming to his senses, eyed his doomed set-up. He spoke into the flames.

“I knew…technology was a prison…I’ve spent months in my Experiences, wanting to go back to the real world, unable to quit…you…you destroyed that illusion. You saved me, when no one else would. Are you…are you the Caesar-Messiah?”

Grace gave him a slick smile.

“Come to Neo-Neon Tokyo.”