The City of Dreams exists far above the world below. Promised as a utopia for those poor immigrants. A place of grey skyscrapers and mechanical whirring. A place to make your dreams a reality. They work only for the R.E.M. The R.E.M takes what it can and returns only enough to keep their people alive.
All the world governments at first opposed this city in the sky. They did not recognize its status as a free state. That changed quickly though. The City of Dreams output goods at such a cheap rate that no self-respecting nation would say no to their prices. Slowly, the rights of the citizens were removed, and the world started to see the people of the city as less than human. As the years went on, this became more and more acceptable to think. Finally, they were stripped of their title of human, and from then on called Units.
The Units of the City of Dreams were not working for their dreams as they were promised. They were slaving to make the dreams of everyone else possible. They were marked with a tattoo on their forehead, denoting their less than human status. It was a simple design, a circle with a “X” in the middle. This was the only difference between the residence of the City of Dreams and the people of the surface. The only symbol that was needed for the people of the surface to see them as lesser.
Now one day, A loud siren sounded from the top of the tallest tower on the island. It was loud enough to hear from the surface. For the first time in many months, the factories shut down. It signaled them to the city center, where they would hear from the R.E.M.
A new program was instituted on that day. The Units of the town would be modified and made machines. Their arms made metal and their brains half replaced with processors, they became things that seemed to be made by devils.
Their beds were removed, for they now needed no rest. Their breakrooms became extra storage, and life was bred in tubes. Any humanity the residents once had were now gone, as they were nothing but bones and meat with the mind of a machine.
Many years later, UNIT-A78 was born. Raised from a young age, A78 learned the role placed onto them. They would become standard factory workers, but there was a problem. A78 had its brain implants incorrectly placed. This simple oversight was the thing that would bring them to their knees. It retained something that the R.E.M had tried to eradicate, humanity.
It was night when A78 made its move. It tore out the tracker on the side of it’s head. Causing blood to start leaking out of its head. It had limited time to do what it needed to do, end the suffering of the Units. So, A78 made its way to the tallest tower, home to the R.E.M. It made its way through the city streets, empty of inhabitants. The massive walled visage of the R.E.M was in sight.
It climbed, higher and higher. Seeing over the thick walls of the island to see a whole world below it. A place of happiness and joy, but of people who were content to see the Units of the City of Dreams work day in and day out for their luxury. A78 wondered why the people of the planet were content in their suffering, and that not one person had not tried to help. These questions would stay unanswered to A78.
A78 reached the top. There sat the eye of the R.E.M. It twitched and moved in ways inhuman. The council of R.E.M had become something not much better than the Units of the city. An AI composed of the minds of the council. Unmoving and in constant pain. It also wished for death.
A78 without hesitation walked over to the eye of R.E.M and plunged its arm into the iris and pulled the eye out of it’s socket. Blood spilled out of the hole mixed with the nanomachines that kept the A.I alive.
Slowly the tower lost all its power. The island started with a great shake and descended to the planet below. A78 had done the most humane thing in the island's history. It was going to put the Units out of their misery.
A78 and all the other Units lost their life in the crash. The peoples of the world grew mad that their source of life was gone. World War broke out among those on the surface. After many years of Fighting, all that was left were just a few survivors. They blamed the Units for the downfall of man. That they suffer, because a Unit decided it didn’t like its place in life. Slowly, humanity disappeared from the world. Leaving only the corpse of what could have been great.