The Signal

The Great American PsyOp - A Short Story

Travis was happily married and the father of 3 young children, two boys and one girl. He and his wife were active in the community and their kid's lives. They took their kids roller skating, went on hikes, and to the park. They tried to keep the kids active and disengaged from the screen. Both Travis and his wife, Stacy, wanted to give their kids a more traditional upbringing, hard to do when the school system hands the kids a Chromebook on their first day of class. Therefore, they ended up pulling the kids from the public school system and homeschooling. 

Travis was aware of the decline in lifestyle that had taken hold in the United States. Inflation due to mass social and military spending was wiping out the middle class. The Right vowed to fight it, but did nothing. The Left spent even more tax dollars because they had always hated the middle class. Their goal was to have the 2 groups. The elitists that were rich and powerful and then everyone else. The Right knew this was their goal but only a few would speak out, while the rest sat idle so they too could be on the side of the elitists. This was easy to see for anyone with an IQ above being a brain dead corpse. So Travis took precautions to make sure his family was ready for any event that may have an adverse effect on supply chains and living standards. 

The problem was, Travis utilized the internet. The companies tracking his purchases and movements on the internet, all funneled that information to the elitists and their agency snoops in the government. There, an AI created by a private search company and licensed out via government contract, was able to identify Travis as a threat because he exercised individuality and held to the foundation of what the USA should be. He valued his traditional family and he was prepared for anything the enemy within would throw his way. Except, he wasn't. 

Michael Sands came into work as usual. He worked for one of the government's black site agencies and had been recruited from the NSA, a now not so black site agency. His job was to identify and carry out narratives in real time. What did this mean? 

Using an AI, he would identify a threat, in this case, the AI had determined that Travis was this threat. He would decide how many story points of difficulty he would need to apply to the mark, and then, again using the AI, insert modifications and manipulations into the information that Travis would see via the screens that he was still using. The narratives were anything from mass shooter, abductor, extremist, rapist, serial killer, to any of a number “rails” needed to create the story. In the case of Travis, it was as a mass shooter. This algorithmic signal would target the mark and subtly change the way the mark thinks, acts, and behaves over a set time. It was all very much a game to Michael, since he would never talk to Travis. Travis was a  living, breathing, human, but only a gamed target to Michael. Michael never lost sleep over the games he played. Sociopaths were the new pencil pushers and number crunchers of the government agencies. They were willing to do their job and devoid of empathy. The perfect government employee.

At first, it was only a small change to news feeds. Then more sensational events were added. Narratives were created to make Travis feel more alone. Stories of wives planning to take the children seemed to be popping up more. Community collapse and a world war were just around the corner. Travis feared his bank may be one of the next to close. A slew of ever present dangers made themselves more and more apparent daily. To the point that one day, the signal to SNAP, was sent out, viewed subliminally via screen, and Travis loaded up his guns and took action at a fairgrounds. Travis became a passenger in his own head. His body acted as if on remote control. Inside, Travis was screaming but, outside, Travis had become a murderer. 

To everyone who knew him, that day's events had been out of character for Travis but his digital footprint was evidence of his mental state. Some of that digital footprint had even been created by Michael and the AI. Travis had been shot and killed by the police that day.  He could make no defense for the narrative that had been created for him. Travis, a living breathing human, became a controlled character in a sick game controlled by the elitists and government entities that treat the people like pawns on a chess board. Meanwhile, the talking heads would chatter endlessly about how this guy was an extremist, which in turn would steer the conversation of the public, and that in turn would be met with more legislation to control the populace. 

Beware your screens and turn off your devices or you too may become the next controlled PsyOp in the narrative that is modern America.