Total Subversion

A Story from my Upcoming Sci-Fi Collection

Hello everyone! I have been working on releasing a collection of sci-fi short stories, and wanted to share one of them with you guys. Very interested in all types of feedback at this stage.

Total Subversion

Mira looked at the bright green sign outside her tiny boxroom that she had just signed the week-to-week contract for. It could barely fit her specialized subculture bed, and she had thrown out her banned political books to make the place work, but at least she was finally living in The Edge District. “Total Subversion,” the sign read. Mira was furious, because Total Subversion had recently fired her when she was living in The Public Quarters last month in a much bigger boxroom. Now their designated opposition startup had decided to build its first headquarters in her new backyard. She was sick of her life being reduced to a character in some short fiction story. 

“I will torch Total Subversion to the ground!” 

Mira angrily sipped her smartdrink and looked at herself in the tiny mirror attached to her specialized bed. “I am a cancelled badass. I am beyond the Overton Window. I am a truth-teller.” Her eye shadow was smeared from last nights poetry reading at the Kill Salon. She checked her inbox and saw that only robots were interested in speaking to her.

“I never should have moved to the Edge District,” she thought in distress. Outside the door of her boxroom were other citizens of The Edge District, most of them clearly working for Total Subversion with their expensive tattoos of fancy darkmemes and bands she had literally never heard of. She wanted to let each and every one of these sellouts know that Total Subversion was run by a horrible woman by the name of Lenora Ruby. 

She stepped outside of her boxroom and began approaching people on the street of The Edge District. “My name is Mira and my life matters!” She exclaimed to the people who passed her by. “Total Subversion is a corrupt company run by a lady named Lenora Ruby who has no idea what is really gone on at the Kill Salons we have built with our bare hands.” Most of the citizens ignored her, but one of them took an immediate interest to her concerns, as he was living in a tiny boxroom himself. “No shit!” this man with a shaved head and I Killed the West t-shirt told her. Mira couldn’t tell if this was one of those obscure band shirts, an ironic statement or a literal one,  (maybe all 3?) but she didn’t care. He was willing to listen to her story about Total Subversion.

“Total Subversion used to employ me as a mememaker,” she told him. “They let me go because they are a morally corrupt company that has no respect for workers rights. Ever since then I have been reciting poetry for free, and my only source of income involves sending spam to spas in Boston. Lenora Ruby is the enemy.”  The young man looked at her with empathy. “I hate Total Subversion,” he told her. “They are designated opposition. I have been living in The Edge District for seven weeks, and ever since they set up here the entire character of our neighborhood has changed. I might as well just move back to The Public Quarters, huh?”

After two more weeks, Mira and her new friend had rounded up a faction of citizens in The Edge District to set Total Subversion on fire. Literally. They were done being abused and mistreated by a woman who had no idea what it was like to run a Kill Salon. Lenora Ruby was about to meet her end. Several workers of Total Subversion died in the fire, and Mira’s entire faction got away with it because nobody in the normieworld wanted anything to do with Total Subversion. After Total Subversion was completely desolated, Mira and her new friends began reciting more poetry at the Kill Salon, but none of them were able to find new jobs.

Five months later, a new designated opposition startup had moved into The Edge District. They were called Optimism Incorporated. Their workers had no ironic band t-shirts. They did not have fancy darkmeme tattoos. They did not have any tattoos at all. They didn’t even live in boxrooms, yet their startup was forcing the majority of citizens in The Edge District to move back to The Public Quarters. Mira was sick of being unable to afford American technology, so she went into Optimism Incorporated to apply for a job. “No sides but my own,” she told herself in the mirror attached to her specialized bed. 

“My name is Mira and I used to work for Total Subversion,” she told the lady at the front desk of Optimism Incorporated. “I helped get rid of Lenora Ruby and her cancelled hipsters so you guys could move to our neighborhood. Welcome to town! Are you guys hiring mememakers?” The lady at the front desk called security. “One of the Kill Salon radicals is trying to get a job here,” she mentioned in a robotic voice. The security guards, dressed only in pink leather, escorted Mira back to her boxroom. A week later, she moved back to The Public Quarters. All the Kill Salons had been shut down, but at least she had taken down Lenora Ruby.

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