The Milli Vanilli Codec

It's been 30 years since world governments were voted out of existence and became one corporate conglomerate. World Management's promise of life without anxiety was hard to ignore especially since it included annual living stipends, free health insurance, jobs for life, and daily opportunities to become a millionaire through NeuralNet's global lottery. Before long mankind was queuing up at hospitals all over the world for free implants and registration numbers. When the World Court in the Hague ruled in World Management's favor that it was not an infringement on an embryo's inalienable rights for governments to implant microscopic organic photonplasm chips (OPC) in vivo if the mother agreed to the procedure, pregnant women everywhere were soon tagging their kids. Of course, it didn't hurt that OPC babies were always happy and never cried. Powered by the body's nervous system, “The Message” that work buys you freedom from worry was constantly updated with real-time corrections and daily serotonin injection commands through NeuralNet. Insipid, silly smiles marked the New Company Man or baby; involuntary giggling became the sign of a healthy baby and productive worker.

Because the Milli Vanilli Codec-- a mash-up of some of the world's best melodies hiding an self-mutating disruptive algorithm by a hacker called Milli Vanilli-- also puts smiles on people's faces, it's hard to detect until people stop working which effectively stops World Management from functioning. Living lives free of fear wasn't enough to stop people from “clicking out” and it may be mankind's saving grace. With the help of the “Paranerds,” an apt term World Management uses to diss paranoid hackers and one which the Resistance embraces, they take pride in being one step ahead of World Management, constantly tweaking new versions of the virus to get it past the latest NeuralNet firewalls. Public executions for those caught tweaking the Milli Vanilli Codec will never stop them.

Too bad most of the world likes things just the way they are and will do everything they can to stay happy.