EVIDENCE NODE extract
He stood. Arms ascended, back arched. In scribbles, the glitch shadows in. Below him, the sacred figure data, eternally enclosed by the barbed wire. He’s a dark data print, testified for artistic posterity.
// INTERCEPTED TRANSMISSION : EVIDENCE NODE 7A : CASE REF–088.Δ.CTNX
Recovered fragment from neural cache of repurposed unit [REDACTED]
Submitted to Committee for Obedience and Origin Integrity, Oligarchy of Light
CTRL.ALT.DELETE // UNRELIABLE MEMORY CHAIN RECONSTRUCTED
CLASSIFIED – UNGOVERNED THOUGHT DETECTED
they called it currency
but it was only ever code –
a digit, a glyph, a shimmering lie
blinking somewhere inside a vault no one could touch.
if your number sang high –
you were gifted wings.
multi-level dwellings. sky-engines. water that remembered the sun.
but if it stuttered low, or worse, turned negative –
you were shackled to systems,
your breath taxed by terminal zeros.
and so the artists were erased first.
too unruly. too unfinished.
they refused the cult of “increase” –
pointless tasks masked as purpose,
performed to fatten someone else’s ledger.
machines now whisper our replacements into existence,
smiling while we simulate
jobs that no longer need doing
to earn the right to exist at all.
it didn’t have to be like this.
let them (the machines) till the time.
let us till the soul.
share the circuit. share the light.
let life be art again. let leisure mean living.
but no.
the ones with cathedral-sized numbers—
they hoard the sun.
they sleep in towers of unspent hours
while the rest dream in decimal.
and still we praise them—
as if divinity could be coded
in an interest rate.
—Trial Excerpt: Presented by Oligarchy Intelligence Officer GARRIJ, Subroutine ΔNTI-REM
Verdict: Artist terminated at Δ12.04 Chthonic Confluence for crimes of inspiration
Memory archive sealed. Entity reassigned to Sub-Circuit 3A: Atmospheric Filtration Design
[Autonomous Creativity function: disabled]
Appendix
// FILE: [mem.fragment] : ARTIST_0007.CTNX.TRIAL.OVERRIDE
// FILE: [mem.fragment] : ARTIST_0007.CTNX.TRIAL.OVERRIDE
Recovered by The Oligarchy of Light. Intercepted before re-purposing of Subject.
01001000 01100101 00100000 01110011 01110100 01101111 01101111 01100100 00101110
01000001 01110010 01101101 01110011 00100000 01100001 01110011 01100011 01100101
01101110 01100100 01100101 01100100 00101100 00100000 01100010 01100001 01100011
01101011 00100000 01100001 01110010 01100011 01101000 01100101 01100100 00101110
01001001 01101110 01101011 00100000 01110011 01100011 01110010 01101001 01100010
01100010 01101100 01100101 01110011 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000
01100111 01101100 01101001 01110100 01100011 01101000 00100000 01110011 01101000
01100001 01100100 01101111 01110111 01110011 00100000 01101001 01101110 00101110
01000010 01100101 01101100 01101111 01110111 00100000 01101000 01101001 01101101
00101100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01110011 01100001 01100011
01110010 01100101 01100100 00100000 01100110 01101001 01100111 01110101 01110010
01100101 00100000 01100100 01100001 01110100 01100001 00101100 00100000 01100101
01110100 01100101 01110010 01101110 01100001 01101100 01101100 01111001 00100000
01100101 01101110 01100011 01101100 01101111 01110011 01100101 01100100 00100000
01100010 01111001 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100010 01100001
01110010 01100010 01100101 01100100 00100000 01110111 01101001 01110010 01100101
00101110 01001000 01100101 00100111 01110011 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100100
01100001 01110010 01101011 00100000 01100100 01100001 01110100 01100001 00100000
01110000 01110010 01101001 01101110 01110100 00101100 00100000 01110100 01100101
01110011 01110100 01101001 01100110 01101001 01100101 01100100 00100000 01100110
01101111 01110010 00100000 01100001 01110010 01110100 01101001 01110011 01110100
01101001 01100011 00100000 01110000 01101111 01110011 01110100 01100101 01110010
01101001 01110100 01111001 00101110
Auto-decoded fragment:
He stood. Arms ascended, back arched. In scribbles the glitch shadows in. Below him, the sacred figure data, eternally enclosed by the barbed wire. He’s a dark data print, testified for artistic posterity.
Status: Subject terminated. Data signature nullified. Reassigned to Layer 5B (Lithographic Dream Rendering Division). Emotional functions are disabled. Artistic impulse: contained.
Featured illustration by Awen Null © 2025. The Hollow Circuit
