Title: A Wheel in the Machinery (part III of III)
Author: Dr Autux
Rating: PG-13
Pairing(s): N/A
Feedback: Desired
Characters: Canon and some minor fanon characters.
Notes: This is the third and last part of this story. It's epistolary and is thus meant to be read like a false document, journal etc.
Disclaimer: Metropolis (the manga) was created by the late Mr Osamu Tezuka and the 2001 anime is written by Mr Katsuhiro Otomo and is copyrighted by Tezuka Productions 2001.
Copyleft Dr Autux 2004, all rights reversed. This fic is hereby placed in the public domain.
A Wheel in the Machinery Part III of III
'When the people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called "the People's Stick".'
- Mikhail Bakunin, Statism and Anarchy
Date: 10 December Author: Atlas
All quiet on the western front.
Personal notes, encrypted:
I have been assigned to another nightshift. Basically its just another building 500 metres away and it includes no other means of work. But there is a difference, due to the importance of the roadblock being kept under surveillance there you are usually positioned two-and-two. Although one day my comrade was missing, in his place what did I find but a phoney?
I reasoned that it would be different. That it was ironic that robots were being used by the organisation. That it was precisely as when the empire's boundaries reached as far as to the Dark Continent. Then it frequently occurred that some of the native barbarians volunteered for service. Thus they were drafted and used to fight their very own race. They were armed with the lousiest weapons and fed with their squadron's leftovers.
In the light of this, how can I best explain the rage that fulfilled my bones and took me over the edge? How I during that time filled with adrenaline ceased to be the master of myself. I will here give a chronological retelling in the hope that it will shed some light upon it all when I read this over again once I've slept on the matter.
Anyway, as I wrote above. When I arrived I was enraged at the soulless creation's very presence before me. How it came to personify the utter act of disregard towards myself and my fellow man.
Are we humans to be replaced by these mechanical drones; are they cheaper, or perhaps superior to their flesh-and-blood counterparts? Madness I say, madness is it to be ruled by an ignoramuses, whom else would reach such a decision?
How have we transformed from a community of sincere volunteers to a mere militia or, may I say even a paramilitary force only to serve miser capitalists and what's in their and their pocketbooks interest for the time being? We exist in order to keep the interminable cleansing process going. In short to do what we can do in order to serve humanity and what's in its well being.
In short I flung the monstrous creation into the wall, smashed and stomped it to bits. It was like a defenceless puppy, trying desperately to hide itself from my kicks before it went, tottering towards the door. This was when I let my rifle put an end to that wretched creation.
I have spent some numerous nights at the library where I have hid away a very controversial manifesto. There are some writings that after you've read them change the course of your life, change the very being that you are. It is very old and I found it well hidden where it must have remained during numerous book burns. The language was partially rather archaic and generally hard to understand but with the help of an old dictionary and ample of time assigned to this task I think managed to understand the most of it.
I know realise that these guardians have become tyrants themselves. And that that their way will never lead to a change, the metallic drones will still wander upon our streets, inhabit our workplaces and toil free of payment day in, day out. We common labourers will have to unify if we are to make our cries heard of.
I cite:
'The proletariat goes through various stages of development. With its birth begins its struggle with the bourgeoisie. At first, the contest is carried on by individual labourers, then by the work of people of a factory, then by the operative of one trade, in one locality, against the individual bourgeois who directly exploits them. They direct their attacks not against the bourgeois condition of production, but against the instruments of production themselves; they destroy imported wares that compete with their labour, they smash to pieces machinery, they set factories ablaze, they seek to restore by force the vanished status of the workman of the Middle Ages.'
- Marx K., Engels F.
E-mail to Private Atlas of exclave N33, sector Y18
From: The Central Marduk Agency
Date: 14 December
Subject: Re: Resignation
This is an automated answer.
Your appliance for resignation has been received and is soon to be processed. After processing you will receive a reply to your enquiry.
Summary
This is the gathered communications for the agitator as requested by you Mr Minister of State. As you can see for yourself it mostly consists of pathetic rants and contains neither actual planning nor indication of an attack aimed toward the Metropolis intelligentsia.
On the one hand it is bureau policy to enforce capital punishment upon quislings. Albeit a sloppy censor failed to make notice of the behaviour so clearly indicated by his log book-writings whilst he was still in service (at the time of writing this the censor has already been hanged and replaced). On the other hand since the agitator's abode is not known and since it is no longer serving as a Marduk the task of localising it in Metropolis would demand vast financial resources.
In the light of this and after thorough assessment by myself along with several colleagues we have found that there is no reason to recommend that neither the Metropolitan Police nor the Metropolitan Intelligence Agency shall enforce the means necessary in locating and neutralising the subject at hand.
And if I may add on a personal note: I myself am of the opinion that the subject is nothing more than a harmless demagogue suffering from robotphobia -- that is to say if it is even alive.
Yours faithfully,
Signed Baroness T.W. Murdstone
Marduk Internal Intelligence Bureau
Author: Dr Autux
Rating: PG-13
Pairing(s): N/A
Feedback: Desired
Characters: Canon and some minor fanon characters.
Notes: This is the third and last part of this story. It's epistolary and is thus meant to be read like a false document, journal etc.
Disclaimer: Metropolis (the manga) was created by the late Mr Osamu Tezuka and the 2001 anime is written by Mr Katsuhiro Otomo and is copyrighted by Tezuka Productions 2001.
Copyleft Dr Autux 2004, all rights reversed. This fic is hereby placed in the public domain.
A Wheel in the Machinery Part III of III
'When the people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called "the People's Stick".'
- Mikhail Bakunin, Statism and Anarchy
Date: 10 December Author: Atlas
All quiet on the western front.
Personal notes, encrypted:
I have been assigned to another nightshift. Basically its just another building 500 metres away and it includes no other means of work. But there is a difference, due to the importance of the roadblock being kept under surveillance there you are usually positioned two-and-two. Although one day my comrade was missing, in his place what did I find but a phoney?
I reasoned that it would be different. That it was ironic that robots were being used by the organisation. That it was precisely as when the empire's boundaries reached as far as to the Dark Continent. Then it frequently occurred that some of the native barbarians volunteered for service. Thus they were drafted and used to fight their very own race. They were armed with the lousiest weapons and fed with their squadron's leftovers.
In the light of this, how can I best explain the rage that fulfilled my bones and took me over the edge? How I during that time filled with adrenaline ceased to be the master of myself. I will here give a chronological retelling in the hope that it will shed some light upon it all when I read this over again once I've slept on the matter.
Anyway, as I wrote above. When I arrived I was enraged at the soulless creation's very presence before me. How it came to personify the utter act of disregard towards myself and my fellow man.
Are we humans to be replaced by these mechanical drones; are they cheaper, or perhaps superior to their flesh-and-blood counterparts? Madness I say, madness is it to be ruled by an ignoramuses, whom else would reach such a decision?
How have we transformed from a community of sincere volunteers to a mere militia or, may I say even a paramilitary force only to serve miser capitalists and what's in their and their pocketbooks interest for the time being? We exist in order to keep the interminable cleansing process going. In short to do what we can do in order to serve humanity and what's in its well being.
In short I flung the monstrous creation into the wall, smashed and stomped it to bits. It was like a defenceless puppy, trying desperately to hide itself from my kicks before it went, tottering towards the door. This was when I let my rifle put an end to that wretched creation.
I have spent some numerous nights at the library where I have hid away a very controversial manifesto. There are some writings that after you've read them change the course of your life, change the very being that you are. It is very old and I found it well hidden where it must have remained during numerous book burns. The language was partially rather archaic and generally hard to understand but with the help of an old dictionary and ample of time assigned to this task I think managed to understand the most of it.
I know realise that these guardians have become tyrants themselves. And that that their way will never lead to a change, the metallic drones will still wander upon our streets, inhabit our workplaces and toil free of payment day in, day out. We common labourers will have to unify if we are to make our cries heard of.
I cite:
'The proletariat goes through various stages of development. With its birth begins its struggle with the bourgeoisie. At first, the contest is carried on by individual labourers, then by the work of people of a factory, then by the operative of one trade, in one locality, against the individual bourgeois who directly exploits them. They direct their attacks not against the bourgeois condition of production, but against the instruments of production themselves; they destroy imported wares that compete with their labour, they smash to pieces machinery, they set factories ablaze, they seek to restore by force the vanished status of the workman of the Middle Ages.'
- Marx K., Engels F.
E-mail to Private Atlas of exclave N33, sector Y18
From: The Central Marduk Agency
Date: 14 December
Subject: Re: Resignation
This is an automated answer.
Your appliance for resignation has been received and is soon to be processed. After processing you will receive a reply to your enquiry.
Summary
This is the gathered communications for the agitator as requested by you Mr Minister of State. As you can see for yourself it mostly consists of pathetic rants and contains neither actual planning nor indication of an attack aimed toward the Metropolis intelligentsia.
On the one hand it is bureau policy to enforce capital punishment upon quislings. Albeit a sloppy censor failed to make notice of the behaviour so clearly indicated by his log book-writings whilst he was still in service (at the time of writing this the censor has already been hanged and replaced). On the other hand since the agitator's abode is not known and since it is no longer serving as a Marduk the task of localising it in Metropolis would demand vast financial resources.
In the light of this and after thorough assessment by myself along with several colleagues we have found that there is no reason to recommend that neither the Metropolitan Police nor the Metropolitan Intelligence Agency shall enforce the means necessary in locating and neutralising the subject at hand.
And if I may add on a personal note: I myself am of the opinion that the subject is nothing more than a harmless demagogue suffering from robotphobia -- that is to say if it is even alive.
Yours faithfully,
Signed Baroness T.W. Murdstone
Marduk Internal Intelligence Bureau