A pale blue light creeped in through the shutters of Arnold's cramped and stuffy room. He slept, restless in his own filth and nightmares. His body lay upon trash and dirty clothes piled below him on the futon. His mouth agape, the beginnings of sleep apnea jerked his soft, grimy body irregularly and then subsided. The light was becoming stronger now, gently illuminating the posters on his walls. Superheroes smiled at his weak, unconscious form, seemingly unbothered by the mildew smell of the tiny, cluttered, one room apartment. 5:10 AM. His body phone sent a sharp shock up his arm and a rabid, irregular buzzing erupted from the sub-dermal infraspeaker EaZeeTaks embedded deep inside his ears. He jolted awake, immediately in a panic. Arnold slapped hard at the piezoelectric screen in his left arm, trying to turn off his UpnAtm Sleep Stopr. He had an older model body phone and hadn't yet gone in for his biyearly, legally required tuneup. He rolled around in agony on the disgusting futon, getting his soiled sheet wrapped around his neck as he desperately struck his arm over and over. The electric shocks were getting stronger and the buzzing more and more frantic. His breathing was being quickly cut off by the sheet and his rapid convulsions. He rolled off the side and hit his arm on the table as he fell, finally shutting off his alarm. Face down and breathless in a slightly wet portion of his shag carpet, Arnold composed himself. He thought that the faulty alarm would finally kill him that morning. No such luck. "I would never be lucky enough to die that easy," thought Arnold "No, given my luck I'll probably live forever." He faintly wondered what vile liquid his face was pressed against, but decided it was better not to linger too long on the thought. With some effort, he lifted his loose, pillowy form up from the floor and shuffled over to the window. The stench of his surroundings made it hard to breath, the air was too thick. He had to crack the window and some air in the room. Yanking on the cord to the shutters, Arnold tore the entire assembly down off of the window, it's environmentally friendly NuPlast mounting surfaces already partially biodegraded. A cold blue light of early morning flooded the room, blinding Arnold. As he reeled he made a mental note to buy new shutters as had forgotten to get new ones this month and for them to break was only to be expected. As Arnold's pale, glassy eyes adjusted to the light he peered outside. A snowy city in a dense, yellow smog. You would think that the smog would settle out a bit in the subzero temperate of the morning, but it only seemed to make it thicker, as if it were freezing in place. Huge black spires tore the sky in the distance, silhouetted by the light of dawn. The 'Heaven Cutter' class skyscrapers were popping up more and more over the past few years. Some brilliant builder, a man infinitely smarter than Arnold could ever *dream* of being, had come up with a novel method of using prestressed carbon fibers to reinforce an aerated concrete, raising it's tensile strength 3 fold and lowering it's density to a 1/4 of what it had been in the past. Arnold's empty, soulless eyes were fixated on the harsh and inorganic features of the Heaven Cutters. Their Trepost-Modern architecture an affront to any and all beauty of the past. Purposely gross and out of proportion as if to say "Fuck you. We don't need you anymore." to any beauty that had been possible with even rudimentary building techniques. The second smallest tower on the far left side was his destination this day. An asymmetric pile of cubes and cones, dwarfed by it's titanic neighbors, it barely even qualified as a Heaven Cutter. Rusty cast iron sculptures of humans in grotesque and lewd scenes hung off of every ledge and edifice, making homes for the ravens and vultures that hid above the smog line. No windows were visible except for at the very top floor which was lined entirely with mirrored glass. The Heaven Cutters were headquarters to the state-approved MAGAcorps that formed a few years ago. Because so many poor citizens, documented and not, were unable to afford even the most basic of human needs, the State approved modifications to the inefficient capitalist system and consolidated entire sectors of industry into single entities, the MAGAcorps, final proof from GEOTUS that Republicans were not racist. Housed in the brand new Heaven Cutters, the MAGAcorps not only directed business and lead production from the same buildings, but the executive leader bosses lived there. In the top floors of the Heaven Cutters, opulent, mansion-sized apartments were fully decked out with everything one could want, including their own slaves and concubines. Far below the leader bosses and offices were the production facilities. Entire factories devoted to producing unimaginable quantities of knicknacks and junky plastic figurines. At least, that's what Arnold's MAGAcorp produced. Far, far below the waste material processing facilities and factories were homes for the workerslaves. They were packed in like sardines in a cozy, family style living situation. The living areas were divided into cells and each cell had one kitchen with at least 50 microwaves and 10 refridgerators. Down the hall in each cell was the bathroom, which was basically an open pit that led down into a pre-processing vat which would be recycled into food and figurines. If any of the worker slaves were too drunk after their shifts to avoid falling into the pit, there was just about nothing one could do for them and they would be processed into toys and food for the amusement and nutrition of the workerslaves. The bathroom was also lacking any provision for bathing oneself so the works had to get lucky and hope to be splashed with some chemical solvent on the way to or at work. But for the most part, they didn't care about being clean. They were content. Located in the hallway between the bathroom and the kitchen of each cell were the Pahdz. The workerslave's personal living quarters. Each one was four square feet of heaven. Each was equipped with a lightly cusioned, angled wall to lean into for sleeping, an entertainment complex with all the coolest new Nintendo games and best superhero movies already loaded onto it, a VibroSucc WhorToob for getting off and clearning your mind, and a small shelf for your models and amiibos. The Pahdz were stacked 3 high and 50 wide on either side of the dank, poorly lit hallway. Rickety rope ladders hung from the ceilings to facilitate entry for those unlucky enough to have a top Pahd(z), but in the end they were still very lucky to have such a posh lifestyle. In contrast to the dark hallway, the insides of the pods were lit with harsh, blindinly white LEDs. The humming and huges amounts of EMF coupled with the non-adjustable lights in the Pahdz making it a little tough to fall asleep, even after a 19 hour double-shift at the factory far above so the Pahdz came standard with the new EaZeeSleips Rezt Siztum. When you leaned back against you sleeping wedge, all you had to do was swing your head hard into the headrest to trigger it. A needle was housed just below the padding and striking it hard enough could allow it to punch through into the back of your neck, injecting fentanyl(newly legalized) and antipsychotics to be injected into your spine. To help the sleep process along, a steel rod would then pivot out of the ceiling on a hydraulic linkage and strike the Pahd(z) occupent in the dome, lulling them into dreams. Such robust methods of sleep encouragement could be use because of the effectiveness of EaZeeTak's bodyphone alarms. The workerslaves had it all in the Heaven Cutters. Sure they didn't receive pay, but they got all the yummy goodies they could eat and were given an allowence of biodegrading figurines that they could put on their shelves. They had their Pahdz. They literally had it all. You couldn't ask for anything more! Arnold gazed longingly at the Heaven Cutters, dreaming of the day he could work his way up to the position of WorkerSlave and earn his very own Pahd(z). He was but a lowly PeonFool at the MAGAcorp and had to live in the crumbling concrete hellhole he now stood in. The time was 5:55. He had gotten lost in his fantasies again and found his forehead leaving a greasy blotch on the scratched plastic window in from of him. He slapped himself, "Stupid! Stupid idiot! You'll never become a WokerSlave if your dumb idiot head is always in the clouds! Now get out there and grind!" He yelled, beating himself madly about the head.