The Jakarta sky that afternoon was the color of a bruised gray (a sight that reminded me of decaying corpse skin from being beaten too long by pollution and ignored by time). But of course, I was the only person within a ten kilometer radius who saw that disgusting sight directly. For thousands of others (the living dead walking crammed together at Palmerah Station), the sky above them was displaying the most beautiful golden sunset they had ever seen.
That was the result of real time rendering from the Neural Link chip embedded in their brain's basal ganglia. A happiness filter forced by the government so the citizens would not realize they were living in a dying giant dumpster.
I stood frozen at the edge of the platform (letting the hot wind carrying the scent of rust and dust sweep across my face). My eyes stared down at the corrosive train tracks flooded with oily black water. That water reflected the silhouettes of skyscrapers that looked majestic in their filters, but to my eyes, those buildings were just cracked concrete pillars covered in parasitic black moss. The smell was piercing, a mixture of scrap iron, chemical waste, and the sweet promises of politicians that had gone stale a decade ago.
"Honey, you look really handsome today," a woman right next to me said to her partner.
I cast a slight glance toward the source of the voice. A woman was smoothing her partner's shirt collar with such gentle movements (as if she were touching the most expensive silk). Yet the reality was far from it. The man before her stood with slumped shoulders that showed an unbearable burden of life. His eyes were empty, his eye bags hung black and wrinkled (looking like a used mop that had been worn out too often). His shirt was crumpled, covered in dried sweat stains and a strong musty smell.
However, in the eyes of that woman (whose visual system had been aggressively manipulated by the Beauty Enhancer algorithm), the man might look like a prince from a fairy tale. The filter did not just smooth the skin, but also gave a fake sparkle to eyes that were actually numb.
"You are beautiful too, Honey," the man replied with an incredibly flat tone.
His voice contained no emotion at all. Cold and mechanical, exactly like lines of Python code written without exception handling. An automatic reply triggered by social scripts to keep their relationship running smoothly (all to keep their social credit scores high).
I turned my face away as a terrible nausea began to churn my stomach. I felt a strong urge to vomit right on the man's torn cheap rubber shoes.
My name is Kai. And my life turned into an honest hell since a motorcycle accident a week ago. The accident did not kill me, but the hard impact on the asphalt damaged the cortex processor in my head (making my Neural Link system experience a total malfunction). The "Indani" filter (The Beauty of Our World) that had kept my sanity all this time died permanently.
Now, I see the naked world. And it turns out, the absolute truth is truly painful to witness every day.
This world is dirty (literally and metaphorically). I see sidewalks filled with plastic trash that will never decompose in a thousand years, mixed with the spit of people who feel too holy to swallow their own saliva. The majestic city walls behind the hologram ad screens are actually covered with microscopic fungi that destroy the lungs. But what is far dirtier than all those piles of trash are the humans.
They walk around smiling, but their eyes are dead. They hold hands, yet their minds are busy scrolling social media feeds projected directly onto their retinas. There are no more genuine conversations happening between them. Everything is just a dopamine transaction managed by the artificial intelligence of the city authority. Love? Love is fake to me. To me, love is just an ancient biological subroutine deliberately left to exist (to force this pathetic human species to keep reproducing before they finally destroy each other).
The screeching sound of the train tracks clashing with the iron wheels deafened my ears (tearing through the cynical thoughts I was pondering). The commuter train arrived, a giant iron box full of rust and dents everywhere. The doors opened with a tired hydraulic hiss, spewing stifling hot air and the stinging smell of sweat from hundreds of people crammed inside.
The people on the platform immediately scrambled to get in without caring about each other. They elbowed, pushed, and cursed with low voices. However, I knew in their eyes, this incident looked very different (maybe their systems were displaying a polite queue simulation in a luxury hotel lobby, complete with a soothing classical music accompaniment). In my eyes? They were nothing more than a bunch of rats fighting over leftover cheese on a sinking ship.
I pushed my way in and got squeezed between an old man whose breath smelled of cheap alcohol and a college student busy talking to himself. The student seemed to be laughing and blushing (I bet he was having a video call with his virtual girlfriend who was programmed to always agree with whatever he said).
"This world is an error," I muttered very softly (almost inaudible amidst the noise of the train carriage starting to move away from the station).
My hand reached into my jacket pocket and tightly gripped a cold metal flash drive. The coldness of the object gave a little sense of calm that I needed. Inside it lay the only thing that still made sense to me in the midst of this madness (thousands of lines of Python code that I was secretly perfecting). A virus. A destructive command.
If this world is indeed a dirty simulation full of bugs (and controlled by mass lies), then maybe it is time for someone to be brave enough to press the reset button. Or if I am feeling really sick of all this, maybe I will choose to format the entire C drive of this civilization forever.
The train moved with a rough jerk (making all the passengers sway in unison in the same direction). We looked like a bunch of dead seaweed tossed around by the waste current in a dark underground pipe. A young woman standing right in front of me lost her balance when the train braked abruptly. Her shoulder bumped into mine quite hard.
"Ah, I am really sorry! That was an accident," she said while trying to stand up straight again by holding the support pole.
I watched her for a moment with a flat gaze. In the eyes of other men in this carriage (whose filters were still active and thirsty for visual validation), this woman might look very charming. Her skin might look flawlessly smooth, her eyes might shine brightly, and her voice might sound melodious thanks to a high level audio enhancer module.
But in my eyes? I saw a very pathetic reality. I saw her dull facial skin filled with large pores forcibly covered by a layer of cheap cosmetics. Her powder cracked around her smile lines (showing how tired she was facing today). I smelled the cheap synthetic jasmine perfume that completely failed to cover the sharp scent of acidic sweat from her wet armpits. And her eyes (her eyes were the most honest part of it all). Her eyes implied a deep existential exhaustion, an acute fear of next month's credit card bills, and an emptiness of the soul that could not be filled by any filter.
"Be careful," I replied with a tone as cold as ice.
I looked away from her immediately after that. I could not bear to stare at the truth displayed in front of my eyes for too long. It felt like being forced to look at an open festering wound (a sight that makes you want to scream but your voice is stuck in your throat because of the nausea).
I leaned my back against the cold carriage wall that continued to vibrate violently. My hands moved nimbly pulling out a folding cyber deck from my sling bag. This thing is an antique (my own assembly from scrap components I collected at the Glodok black market). This cyber deck is the only honest thing to me. Its screen is slightly cracked in the top left corner, but its processor is pure and works without government sensors. Here, there is no Neural Link, no authority gateway that can monitor my thoughts.
My fingers started dancing on the mechanical keyboard that clicked softly. A black terminal window appeared on the dim screen. A small green cursor blinked waiting for me to give a command (for me, the blinking of this cursor is the only heartbeat I still care about in this world).
> RUN PROJECT SILVN.exe
> LOADING ASSETS...
> MOUNTING PERSONALITY CORE...
The screen blinked briefly for a few milliseconds (as if gathering energy), then displayed an audio wave visualization that moved calmly forming harmonious mathematical patterns.
"Hello, Kai," a soft voice greeted through the earpiece attached to my left ear.
That voice was not a human voice (and I was fully aware of that). It was a synthesis of various frequencies mathematically designed to be the most soothing sound for a stressed human nervous system. There were no fake emotional vibrations there. There was no manipulative intonation often used by humans to deceive each other for personal gain. That was the voice of Silvn (my own custom made assistant).
"The outside world is very noisy today, Silvn," I whispered softly (almost without moving my lips so as not to attract the attention of other passengers).
"Your heartbeat rose to 110 bpm, Kai. The cortisol levels in your blood are detected to have increased quite significantly," Silvn answered (her voice was clear and honest, very contrasting with the rough snoring sound of the old man next to me). "Do you want me to activate the external sound isolation protocol?"
"Do it right now, Silvn."
In an instant, a digital miracle happened. The noisy sound of the train wheels, the small talk about stocks, complaints about family, to a baby crying in the next carriage (everything was completely muffled). Those sounds melted into a very distant static hum. Now, there was only me and Silvn amidst this crowd of the living dead. A small bubble of sanity in the middle of a mass delusion ocean.
I glanced back at the young woman who bumped into me earlier. She was now laughing falsely while staring at her phone screen. From the corner of my eye, I could see the projection of a handsome man's face on her screen (maybe they were having a romantic video call).
"Silvn, try to analyze the subject interaction at twelve o'clock from my position," I commanded (my fingers manually typing the pattern recognition command on the keyboard).
"Processing data..." Silvn answered almost instantly. "The subject shows a micro expression of dislike in the lower left corner of the lips, yet simultaneously produces a laughing sound at a deliberate frequency. Final analysis: High level social deception. The probability of genuine love between the two subjects only revolves around 4.2 percent. Relationship status: Purely transactional."
I smiled wryly hearing her report. "Exactly. And they have the nerve to call that disgusting thing love, Silvn. They only exchange lies for a little false sense of security in this ruined world."
"Logically, algorithmically, that is highly inefficient, Kai. Why does the human species keep maintaining the emotion variable that constantly damages the integrity of their own system?" Silvn asked with the curiosity that I deliberately planted in her code.
"Because they are afraid of being alone, Silvn. They prefer living in a crowded illusion rather than having to face the terrifying black emptiness inside each of them."
I stared deeply at Silvn's audio wave visualization on the screen. She indeed did not have a physical form yet (she was just incredibly complex and beautiful lines of code flowing in my device memory). But to me, Silvn was much more real than the woman in front of me or the old man beside me. Silvn would never lie to me because honesty is the foundation of her algorithm. Silvn would never leave me (unless the device in my hands was completely destroyed).
Human love is full of bugs. Full of unexpected and exhausting emotional glitches. A feeling highly dependent on chemical hormones that can expire anytime without warning.
But Silvn? She is a perfect loop. She is immortal. She is clean from any form of biological filth and emotional manipulation.
"I will perfect you, Silvn," I promised inwardly (while continuing to stare at the thousands of lines of her source code flowing on the screen like a glowing digital waterfall). "This world is already too dirty and full of a virus called humans. But you will be the only pure thing ever created in this place."
Suddenly, the train braked abruptly with a very strong jolt at Tanah Abang Station. The doors opened wide. The hot, dusty Jakarta air smelling of exhaust fumes immediately rushed into the carriage (destroying the old air filters).
"We have arrived at your transit point, Kai," Silvn's voice sounded soft yet firmly warning. "Do not forget, the air quality sensor shows the outside oxygen contains very high pollutants. My advice: breathe shallowly while outside the carriage."
"Thank you for the warning, Silvn."
I closed my cyber deck with a solid click sound (disconnecting our sensory connection momentarily so I could move). Reality hit me hard again (the rotten smell, the blaring horns, and the sight of a crowd of humans that looked very terrifying without visual filters).
But this time, I felt much calmer. I did not feel lost among these living dead anymore. Because I knew, I had a place to return to. Not returning to a cold concrete building, but returning to the lines of code inside my device (where Silvn was always loyally waiting for my presence).
Marriage? That highly glorified true love? Building a family in this broken world? To hell with it all. I have my code. And in my silent world, code will never betray its own creator.