For some the world is teetering on the edge: frozen in the moment right before the fall, weightless and helpless. Their lives in suspended animation, not yet willing to give up the fragments of what they had lived and accept the New Order but incapable of doing anything about it. Mostly they are too traumatized to fight back, or too deeply in denial to see the danger, but those too complacent are the first to succomb to the Machines. Convinced that someone or something would come to their rescue, or that this was just a temporary scare that would blow over, they go on about their daily lives. Until they start disappearing. Not physically, but mentally, their brains reset by The Machines. Whispers in the compound say someone in the Resistance has figured out how they are doing it and has harnessed the technology to create new memories to replace those lost. Some say it's an abomination to implant the artificial memories into those poor souless bastards, letting them believe they know themselves. But who's to say we aren't the abomination? After having witnessed some of the things I've seen down here, I can't help but think somtimes that the shells of people walking around out there are the lucky ones... But things aren't all bad. At least there is plenty to keep busy. You'd be surprised at how much there is to do to maintain the semblance of an infrastructure that we all so feebly cling onto. So many people have had to be replaced that the training is constant. In my new position, I have to communicate to the ones who have made it outside compound and track their progress on missions. It's risky business since the Machines can detect our signals and there's no encryption known to man that can stand up against their decryption algorithyms. Numbers and signals are their world now, not ours. In between the training, I somehow find a little time for things outside of the realm of just surviving. I've started painting again, of all things. The paints aren't real paints of course, true pigments are too hard to come by these days. I use left over "coffee" and "tea" in lieu of watercolor, maybe a berry or two if I can spare them. I'm making a painting of a koi for my mother, if she's still alive. Tomorrow is her birthday.