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Set your story in a society where everyone is constantly aware of unwanted surveillance.

Posted in Dystopian on Jan 20, 2023

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✍️ 27 stories

Hey Streamer

Shortlisted for Contest #182 ⭐️

With any luck I’ll be able to eat today. The food court of the Silver Gardens Mall is notorious for the greasy factory produced shit that corporations insist is technically edible, but a bottom feeder like me doesn’t have much choice.I see the place is packed with squirming bodies. Seniors, students, families. Lots of have-people. A band of high school boys throwing fries at each other. They don’t even know they’re haves. A couple more years and they’ll learn.All of this, under the watchful eyes of the PanoptiSafe surveillance system. Beady ...

73 likes 109 comments 109
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My Apology to You for Camp Crescendo

Submitted to Contest #182

Content warning: Themes/mentions of physical abuse and death***I apologize in advance. For the lateness of this, and for any details I get wrong. Twenty years has been nothing but one long tidal wave, crashing onto the beach of my memory. I can never quite recall what all I told you out there, how much of myself I let you see. I only know for certain how it all ended.***Camp Crescendo looked like any other summer camp you'd find in Iowa, and maybe that was the problem. Not as though I'd been to any other summer camp. But I imagined, as Mr. A...

49 likes 58 comments 58
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Sunset in Burma

Submitted to Contest #182

Note: I have retained the historically correct place names, though they have since changed.I promised myself I would tell this story when I came to America in 1974. And I tried. But then I found out that most people didn’t know Burma was a country in the first place. I couldn’t tell a story about what was happening in a country that didn’t even exist in their mental geography. That’s something people can’t hear.To be fair, I didn’t hear what I was being told either, even though I was there. Not until a letter travelled halfway round the...

37 likes 38 comments 38
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New Eden

Submitted to Contest #182

“You are entering New Eden’s demerit-free zone,” the voice on the tannoy system announced. “For your own safety, all demerit-positive citizens must turn back now… Remember, rations are a privilege. Demerits are a scourge.” I hear these repetitive warnings day after day after so many others, that I’ve lost count. They are a constant reminder of the oppressive regime’s total control of the populace. The long line of green-overalled men and women, shuffling slowly past the automated scanner, share a mutual fear of the machine that probes their ...

35 likes 29 comments 29
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I KNOW YOU SEE ME

Submitted to Contest #182

I see all. I am poised in many places. In the stores downtown. In your phones and watches. In your world I will always see you. You. You who works the days and nights at an office building, high up over the world. I see you through the glass from a bird's eye view. It is not something I haven't seen before. Every day I see you. And you knew it. Everyone knew it. I see all people. I watch them sometimes. I prefer you, though. You, a simpleton of the metropolis. Like a field of flowers. Like how all of them are the same to those superior few...

21 likes 8 comments 8
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Influenced.

Submitted to Contest #182

Skimming through today’s Featured Filters, I smile, then frown, then purse my lips and blow a kiss into the smart mirror. I spend fifteen minutes tilting my chin and twirling my body, examining the different filters’ effects on all the angles of my face and figure, eventually settling on “Retro Sunrise”, a golden glow that illuminates my skin, smooths my wrinkles and blemishes, extends my lashes, and bleaches the tips of my dark blonde hair to a shimmering ombre sunrise of creamy yellows and soft orange. It is a very conservative look; no bo...

18 likes 4 comments 4
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Grave New World

Submitted to Contest #182

“With technology tracking us everywhere we go, “cosplay” may be our best defense against surveillance” Annalee NewitzDear Violet, 06/03/2055I hope you are well and happy. I wish I’d emigrated to New Zealand when you did. Americans can’t get asylum anywhere! So I’m in the same little house at the edge of Detroit where you and I grew up. It is much safer in this part of the country. Florida is practically gone and is almost an island. People left Florida in droves, mostly old folks like you and me, and migrated to nearby states, which are unha...

18 likes 14 comments 14
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Beat You with a Shovel

Submitted to Contest #182

Content Warning: Threat of impending doomNo matter where we are, Uncle Julio always ends up the center of attention. He’s not trying to be the center of attention, yet it happens all the same. At his bar and grill, he usually sits at the same corner of the bar, with a group of laughing, talking friends who go silent if he leaves them for only a minute. At the bars in the town where he grew up, people congregate like moths around a porch light, slapping him on the back as the Packers game blares in the background. At my Grandfather’s house, w...

14 likes 9 comments 9
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Dinner Party

Submitted to Contest #182

Jake heaved himself out of the deep passenger seat of Paul’s rented sportscar and sighed heavily. Paul had just parked the car by himself to avoid the confusion that might come with knowing whether or not he needed to tip the valet. Even though Paul was much better at pretending, he knew that both he and Jake were out of their element, and he didn’t want the rest of the world to see an awkward interaction. Paul climbed out of the driver’s seat much more nimbly, adjusted his black bowtie, and swung the car door shut with the flourish of...

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One Day In the Nursery

Submitted to Contest #182

One Day in the Nursery  Willy: “God dammit! Do they ever turn the #%&! lights off around here?! How the hell am I supposed to get any sleep?!” Nate: “Do you eat with that mouth?! Watch your language, Willy! There are ladies present.” Gert: “Knock it off, Nate. This is the 21st Century. We don’t need any of your machismo-laced, pretentious bravado to protect us. We can take care of ourselves.” Prissy: “I think it’s sweet, Nate. It reminds me of Sir Lancelot of the Knights of the Round Table.” Willy: “Hey, Pri...

13 likes 7 comments 7
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Augmentations & Ice Cream

Submitted to Contest #182

Note: This story contains brief references to mental health (intrusive thoughts), death, and self-harm. On the day of Raven’s fifteenth birthday, the monitor was installed in her right arm. It was standard procedure, and it had been in place for as long as anyone could remember. Even those who were part of the upper class, such as Raven, were unable to avoid the augmentation. Fifteen for less than a day, Raven sat in her chair and watched the monitor move under her skin. It provided a constant pain, one she had been told would never truly...

12 likes 1 comment 1
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Breakout 2.0

Submitted to Contest #182

Slinging low over the trees, the Bell V-s80 Valor helicopter angles in, a lethal locust descending in a joyless moon. Rotors tilting to hover configuration, she banks into the landing strip. General Huxley Longfellow, in fatigues, steps to the tarmac and salutes the two aids on the ground. Running low, they dash to a Quonset hut a hundred yards away. As they enter the room twenty men stand to attention while four civilians huddle at the end of a long conference table. The general, after a lifetime in the military, recognizes when t...

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Under The Surface.

Submitted to Contest #182

Everyone knows of the cameras in the streetlamps and on the tops of every doorway. On certain benches or decorative pots filled with plants. They are aware they have no red light, or shuttering lens to announce their presence, but are there all the same.  Most try to turn away from them, as naturally and innocently as they can. Often it is useless, and all the seemingly meaningless movement does is put them in front of a separate camera, resulting in a tingle that goes up their spine. These small rebellions against security protocols ...

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وحدة الوقاية (The Prevention Unit)

Submitted to Contest #182

(Brigadier General Mohamed) العميد محمدI started out in the police force about 10 years ago. Never asked why once. I always figured my superiors knew what was best. ملازم، نقيب، رائد، مقدم، عقيد، عميد، لواء..(Lieutenant, captain, major, lieutenant colonel, colonel, brigadier general...)That’s all I knew. That's all I know. The more stars and swords you have on your shoulder, the more authority you have. And the more authority you have, the more you know. I had to follow orders. No matter what, orders were orders. Orders were my law. The...

12 likes 6 comments 6
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Social Conscious

Submitted to Contest #182

Sharon’s gut wrenched when the thought bubble appeared on her screen, “Would you like to reconsider your search request?” She typed, “I have a code.” “Enter code.” “8836473b74” “The Premier has personally selected the following resources for your learning.” Nine articles about euthanasia appeared on the screen. Before the title of each was the crisscrossed infinity logo of The Premier. Sharon reviewed all the titles and clicked on “The Premier chooses Grisentia over self.” Once on the landing page, she saw that it was an article from The Yum...

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