It was only thirty years prior when the entire island nation of Hauwan did the unimaginable. It was in the news for many weeks as talking heads discussed the ethics and morality of doing such a thing. The leaders of Hauwan were approached by the mega cyber company Digital Enterprise. The delegates for the company heard of the country’s worries about global warming, fearing their beautiful nation would be underwater by the end of the decade. These delegates presented the people of Hauwan a solution to keep their rich history safe and secure, even along with themselves. Being a nation far removed from the technical advancements of First World nations, they were shocked and confused with what they were presented with.
Digital Enterprise has advanced, top of the line digital worlds. With their equipment, they can digitize the entire island, from every building, down to every last speck of sand. But this also included the people. Though they would no longer remain in the physical world, their entire being would be safely secured onto a data disc within the company’s servers. Inside their new digitized world, the people no longer have any worries from natural hazards, or even from hunger. They would now live in a tropical paradise for the rest of their days, happily and safely.
It was a long and arduous few months as the denizens of Hauwan discussed and argued over this plan. They were assured that this was to become the new normal for countries, and that they will be the first to cross the line that will get the ball rolling in this endeavor. Their ecosystem will remain wholly intact, and their presence will still to felt around the entire world, just like how people instant message each other. In the end, the leadership and the people of Hauwan agreed to this. In just over the span of the week, the entire island became deserted as what was once their was teleported into a digital landscape.
It was impossible for them to tell that they were now just lines of code in a computer, living in a simulation. Everything looked as it should, but beyond that, the people felt absolutely fantastic. Gone are the days of fatigue as all sorts of set backs of the human body are a thing of the past. Prosperity bloomed within the nation as only after a few short days, everyone was overjoyed with their decision. After many months of paradise, they felt like these days would never end.
But that was thirty years ago, and a lot can change in a few decades. Constant mismanagement and many bad days in court has lead the entire enterprise to financial ruin. They did all they could to prolong the inevitable. In the end, the entire enterprise went bankrupt and had to sell off all their assets in an auction.
Over the course of the thirty years, the country of Hauwan was steadily forgotten about as they resided in a special USB thumb drive inside of the company’s server room. Though, the people living within that drive were oblivious to what was going on in the outside world, workers were scouring through, grabbing things to sell in the auctions. One of the woman workers spotted the USB stick firmly plugged in the server. Pinching her leather clad fingers on the stick, she removed it and tossed it into a box of office supplies. In only a moment, the stick became buried underneath various objects. The nation residing inside the stick were dwarfed by everyday handheld items like pens or staplers. A pack of gum out-sized it, something can easily fit inside someone’s mouth, demolished and deformed by their teeth.
There was no oversight committee overlooking the operation. Even the people who were assigned to watch over Hauwan didn’t raise any concern as they were let out the door. No one knew that Hauwan’s sanctuary was now in danger as it shifted around in a package with piles of cheap junk. By the end of the day, it was loaded onto a truck, shipped away to be sorted and sold.
Many days went by before synthetic light flooded in the package the thumb drive resided in. Slowly the box was emptied out, and eventually the swimsuit magazine that buried the thumb drive was picked up. Being the last item in the box, looking so small in the empty space, a hand reached down to pick it up. Hoisted up in front of young woman’s face, with her fierce green eyes peering closely at the drive in her grasp, she let out an awe. “This looks so retro~ but I doubt anyone will buy it,” she said as she nonchalantly tossed it into a different box full of an assortment of electronic equipment. On the front of the box, it was labeled ‘Electronics / Online Auction.’
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“This looks like a great deal,” Natalie hummed to herself. The 45 year old blonde woman scrolled through the online auction, looking for the perfect sales. Being a manager at the bank that oversaw the bankrupt of Digital Enterprise, she got first dibs at everything. She saw a few things that would look great either at home or at her office at Chisai Bank. Some random motivational posters and office supplies made it into her shopping cart. As she neared the end of the auction list, she came across a slick looking USB thumb drive with over two terabytes of storage. “Oooooh, this would come in handy. I have so many pictures I need to offload onto something like that,” she said to herself. Adding that to her cart, she went to confirmed the order.
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Three days later…
Parking inside her three-car garage, Natalie stepped out from her red GT Charger. Grabbing her purse and a suitcase full of late paperwork, she was glad to be back home from a long day at work. Before she stepped inside the house, she was already undoing her heel’s straps, kicking them off with the rest of the shoes. Her sore bare feet felt great on the hardwood floor as her soles slapped against it in the quiet house.
“So glad none of the kids are home… hmm?” Looking at the kitchen island, she saw a stack of mail and a moderately sized package. “Ah, thankfully one of them got the mail for me.” Tossing her purse onto the island, and sitting her suitcase down, she began flipping through the mail. “Junk… Junk… Bill… Nothing special.” Tossing them back down, she turned her attention to the package. With her tired mind, it took her a moment to realize what it was. “Oh, right! The auction.”
Pulling out a box cutter from a drawer, she tore through the tape binding the cardboard box together. Flipping back the sleeves, she was less impressed with how the items were stored. She groaned as she didn’t want to have to sort through it as everything was just tossed inside without a care in the world. Instead, she picked up the box and made her way to her home office. Plopping the box on her chair, she turned and left so she could change into more comfortable attire.
Natalie took her time changing out from her business suit and skirt, as she contemplated taking a nap when she felt the softness of the bed when she sat down briefly. But being a business minded person, she knows time is money. Putting on an over-sized red blouse and a pair of loose fitting black and gray plaid pajama pants, she grabbed the lone bill in the mail before going back to her office. Remembering the box on the chair, she tossed the bill onto her computer desk with the rest of the bills as she reached for an empty box she got from eBay. Kneeling down and sitting the box to the floor, she started to pull items out one by one, as some things are meant for home, while others are going to her banking office.
Buried underneath at the base of the box was the USB stick, firmly trapped under a pink notebook. Even with all the time that has passed, everyone involved was none the wiser about Hauwan’s predicament. The overseers, the denizens residing in the drive, and even Natalie. Even when she lifted the notebook out of the box, which was 10x the size of the drive, allowing light to touch it once more, Natalie didn’t know she just uncovered two hundred thousand people from darkness. But in her own defense, they didn’t know it either.
Being the last thing to come out from the box, she held the drive firmly between her fingers. She wasn’t the type of woman who is overly dazzled by the looks of products, but even back when she ordered it, the slick looking USB drive looked neater in person. Holding it close to her bright green eyes to inspect it more thoroughly. The exterior seemed like alien hardware as a light cyan color emanated from the recesses. And with it being close to her face, and by proxy, her ears, she could hear a feint whirring noise coming from inside it.
Pulling it away from her face, she let out a huff as she thought why a USB stick would be act as if it was powered on while not hooked up to a power source. Twisting and turning to inspect it even more, her attention to it waned as she knew the bills were waiting. With a shrug, she sat it down onto her desk as she stood back up. Plopping down onto her chair, her mind focused solely on getting her bills paid. Ripping into each one and placing them strategically around her desk, the USB drive quickly found itself buried once again, this time under paperwork.
Clicking away furiously at her keyboard as she paid off her credit card statements, she’s already forgotten about her new technological device. One by one, the bills made their way into the paid basket. And when the papered bill covering the USB stick was paid off, Natalie picked it up without looking, and the drive was pushed off the desk. Fortunately for those residing inside that drive, Natalie has a dark blue rug decorating the floor around her computer desk. Landing silently as the thick carpet fibers broke its fall, it bounced underneath the desk, close to Natalie’s large imposing toes. Subconsciously, Natalie was flexing her toes, pulling up on the carpet strands held firmly between her toes. And while she was wholly focused with her bill stockpile, her toes came across the USB drive. It didn’t even dawn her that her foot found a foreign object as she carelessly trapped it under the arches of her toes.
While the USB stick was made with the utmost care upon its creation, the developers never considered it would have to be protected from some woman’s toes. Rhythmically and nonchalantly, Natalie squeezed it. With the drive being only as long as her three middle toes are wide, it fit snugly under their arches. An entire civilization, trapped underneath her foot.
While those residing inside the device were unaware, the danger they faced were very real. It was a long day at the office, and the air conditioning was broken, thus leaving Natalie’s feet coated in sweat. With each squeeze, her sweat coated the device, seeping into each decorative indentation. But what was more worrisome was her sweat squelching its way towards the connector: the only path between digital and real life. Should those become damaged, then Hauwan would never be able to return to real life, even if they wanted to. But even beyond that, the liquid nature of her sweat pose a danger to the circuitry, threatening the short out the entire device. They were at the whim of her sweat that could snuff out their existence.
Slowly the sweat crept towards the entrance of the connector. Natalie squeezed even harder as it felt good on her sore feet. The intense pressure made the outer shell creak. Subconsciously, Natalie considered it a challenge to break the thing held captive by her toes. She added even more strength as the shell was reaching its breaking point. Should that outer shell break, her sweat has free reign to seep in through the cracks, demolishing the circuitry.
“There..” Natalie sighed as she paid off the last of the bills for the month. She leaned back in her chair as she still played with the item under her toes. Now that her mind is free, she was curious as to what she was playing with. Keeping it clamped between her toes, she raised and crossed her foot against her leg. Pulling it out from between her toes, she let out a laugh. “Oops! How did that happen?” she said as she continued to giggle.
As she stood back up, she tossed the drive back onto the desk with a clack before she left the office for the rest of the day. The nation of Hauwan was spared a humiliating death at the feet of their new, oblivious owner. The USB drive sat there in the darkness of the office, coated in a film of smelly foot sweat. Luckily the shell is waterproof and the connector was spared from any damage. But what new dangers will they face in the future?