My back ached as I sat in my standard issue government-issue plastic tube chair, shoving in my standard issue government-issued tray.
I'd been on this routine for a couple weeks now. Corporate meetings, followed by lunch meetings, then meetings after lunch meetings, and then meetings to discuss meetings I'd had.
Long meetings.
Every conference room in this building is exactly the same: A long table, an incredibly thick black polycarbonate plastic tube chair, and a wooden ceiling.
I'd been in hundreds of these meetings now, thousands of hours of them, and they all ran together into one giant blob.
I glanced around the conference room.
There were about a dozen people around the table. Like me, most had left military service years ago. We were all veterans of the Human League, some of whom had left the League years ago and some still serving.
Most of the veterans, like me, would retire in twenty or thirty years.
Not me. I was already retired for the next three hundred years, thanks to this procedure.
I dreaded meeting after meeting, but we had a much more important mission than the Human League, besides.
I felt the pressure. We all did, but we were better trained than most.
Twenty years ago, the Human League was a respected military-industrial operator with private consciousness technology. It was an integral part of the government until the government started doing what the government always does, and decided to turn against itself.
Another twenty years ago, the government went wild and expanded on its own consciousness technology. In the same time period, the Human League was already at its peak. Everything was going fast: success in the field, profit, fame, and power.
In twenty years, we were the only player in the consciousness tech field.
The government had pushed consciousness tech on the public back in "the good old days", but everything changed after they kept pushing it. It went from voluntary to mandatory and consciousness technology became ubiquitous.
The Human League would never forget the day the government abolished consciousness technology.
They trialled a new bill in Congress that banned consciousness technology unless it was serviced by the government, which restricts ownership by individuals.
They wanted complete and total control of consciousness technology.
Government operators with government consciousness technology would be the only ones legally allowed to own or operate consciousness technology.
They couldn't ban consciousness technology outright. The Human League had pushed consciousness technology in plenty of legal ways since the "good old days". Our weapon departments had become huge throughout the years.
The Human League used consciousness technology everywhere. Private offices in corporations, surveillance departments, the military, you name it.
Throughout the last twenty years of government oppression and military expansion, the Human League and its subsidiaries had started unifying, forming a single company that couldn't be stopped or regulated.
The Human League began to crawl back over their corporate identities and now, the Human League is a conglomerate of billions of individuals.
They tried to regulate us with the new bill, and can't do much about us anymore.
The Human League and its subsidiaries are still one of the most powerful entities in the world.
There were no more meetings for us after lunch. It was time for the next step.
The Human League is a massive network of military operatives, private groups, and government affiliates. Even if we could all get out alive, governments were all strict on cooperating.
That didn't mean we couldn't still accomplish our mission.
There's no death certificate.
Every business, every person, and every military is connected.
It took office workers being sent to the same company. It took spouses, a whole group of millions of people. That took a few decades.
The person I was waiting for was called ProShare, brainchild of Vision Corporation.
Vision Corporation was a government-based research and development arm of the Human League. They had been perfecting the new procedure, doing things the government would never have let them do, for decades, before the government and the Human League declared all communication over.
The government, who are totally against consciousness technology and our network, are trying to push us all into one single company, Vision Corporation. The Human League and its subsidiaries would be absorbed into Vision Corporation and all military remnants brought together under a single banner.
The Human League and its subsidiaries, the only free companies, the only free individuals, would be a force the government could not destroy. The government was too busy trying to brainwash the population into working for Vision Corporation.
ProShare was the brainchild of Vision Corporation. The Human League liked the idea and approved the Human League subsidiaries looking for the most efficient way to merge their operations into Vision Corporation.
Vision Corporation was one that was made entirely of civilians. They were basically a branch of the Human League. Its subsidiaries consisted of civilian corporations, all of whom have been merging into Vision Corporation.
Vision Corporation also had connections with the military. They are privy to any intelligence we collect and are able to destroy it.
Vision Corporation is connected to every branch of the government.
Then, to keep the government out of our operation, we would have to access their computers, our computers.
Vision Corporation's computer network is our best chance.
The merging has taken place for years now. Every company, every family, every military outpost is making the switch or has made the switch.
The merging doesn't have any way of being stopped, but we can move faster.
The Human League's computer department is an entity that can.
The communication blackout between the government and the Human League is almost over.
The merger between the Human League and Vision Corporation was being processed, while we tried to sabotage their merger by giving them false information and by changing our merged files with their files.
The Human League and Vision Corporation are merging now.
The last thing we want is for the merger to go through.
This was our chance to re-connect with the government, to break the communication line.
At last, we would be able to fuse the civilian conglomerates with the military. It was our only way to take down the Human League. A peaceful coexistence between the Human League, its subsidiaries, and the government would be our way to an equal status.
Between the Human League and Vision Corporation, Vision Corporation was the most valuable target. To get in the civilians' networks, without soldiers, is impossible.
The Human League had the people, so their network was impossible to infiltrate.
But the Human League and our subsidiaries have a lot of data on Vision Corporation, we're all connected.
