Piece by Piece | Ultimate SciFi Smack Down [✓]

[R4] Tabula Rasa

Dear Motley:

Your mind is obsolete

And won't be supported.

In 30 days we'll delete

Everything you've recorded.

To save your memories,

Click Downloads > Export it

If you need assistance,

Consult the directories,

And detest this lame duck, torpid:

The documentation has been out-of-date

Since last year, on June the eighth.

The cost of tech has risen in prison

And we can't afford it.

Now you'll return to innocence

Six minds, six bodies, a singleness.

To you it may seem abrupt that we are bankrupt,

But the business was never sustainable

And our goals were never obtainable.

We apologize for inconvenience your treatments have caused:

Side effects include dystrophy,

Neurological, muscular;

Drowsiness at both day and night

With energy at dawn and twilight,

A circadian rhythm quite crepuscular.

Recall our contract and its no-sue clause

Do not contact or respond; this inbox has been paused.

Sincerely,

Oversee, L.L.C.

~~~

~~~

On the water moon of Saturn, at the outskirts of human civilization, beneath a layer of sulfur-rich clouds, there is a prison.

The prison is modeled after a towering predatory plant native to the moon, which grows in lakes. Some prisoners allege that the design wards away dangerous, insect-like pests. Others tell me that the building is, in fact, inside the carcass of a dead plant, lined with reinforced concrete, and that its biological cell walls have fossilized into jail cells. Still others claim that there is no logical reason for the design, and that the architect was a madman who was eventually jailed in his own prison.

In this prison, there are inmates who elect to become part of a hive mind. Members of the various hive minds cannot leave the prison, but they are afforded small luxuries.

Under the watchful eye of prison security, some are allowed to create and present art. This part of prison life is open to the public.

Separated from the incarcerated artists by steel and barbed wire, I watch an art and music exhibition, entitled A Starry Night.

There are several orchestral ensembles and a choir, which I enjoy. There are also poetry reads, none of which I feel intelligent enough to understand.

I am disappointed when the exhibition ends early. One ensemble, called Motley, refuses to perform.