"Pa, back in the day-"
"'Mad, now is not the time to ask questions."

...

That was 10 years ago, I still remember my father vividly as the days pass by. It's not exactly a pleasant story, so I try to not remember most the time. Malaysia wasn't how it used to be back in the days, it was sandwiched in between a territorial dispute between the country's nationalist and China. In the end, China seized the country by force, with threats of nuking had the Prime Minister at the time, Anwar Ibrahim, not surrendered the country to the superpower. Looking back on it, it was a clear bluff, but due to pressure by the general public, Anwar had no choice but to declare the white flag. Now, there's constant surveillence over everyone in the country, with all citizens having to install a proprietary Chinese surveillence software on each of their devices.

"Please, just a bit more food! We have nothing to eat, but I don't care about myself, just let this child have food and water! My husband died a month ago and our rations were stolen, the least you can do is to spare some rations for a starving child."

I turned to check out the commotion, an Indian woman holding a child that looked like they're on the brink of death due to starvation. It was a gruesome sight, but what can I do?

"The army rations should be sufficient provision for everyone in the country, there is no exceptions that can be made, ma'am. Please understand that we cannot prioritise you over everyone else. The Great Motherland has much more important things to pay attention to, and they cannot put all their effort into you."
"B-but-"
"Comrade, take them away."

With that, the Indian pair was forcefully hauled away, leaving nothing but a lingering trail of plea. Since 2027, the Chinese seized Malaysia and forced the Malaysians into small areas in 4 distinct regions. Each regions were surrounded by a heavily surveilled wall. Each Malaysian had to wear a tracking device at all times. They used behaviour analysis AI to differentiate between a defector and a normal citizens. We call the AI "DaGe", or "Big Brother". No one knows how it works.

Fortunately, the Chinese government let us have some leeway in terms of working and life, so most of us are able to live a somewhat comfortable life in the country, even though the Chinese are oppressing us. Of course, there are many that are not so lucky, and crime is the norm these days. Our worth is directly proportional to the value we provide to the Chinese, which is likely why the Indian mother and child were treated so harshly. A lot of Malaysians did not care about the iron-clad ruling of Malaysia by China, as they gave the general public much more opportunities to work in high-paying fields like Cybersecurity, AI, and a lot of other fields. The light of Nationalism had died out, because China offered us much more benefits compared to our own country.

I continued with my journey towards a nearby workroom. I scanned the AliPay QR and paid for a room. There was a security camera in my room, ensuring that I actually do work instead of slacking off since DaGe is always watching. I don't know anything about the Old Malaysia. My father had always told me that things will blow over soon, but to this day, we're still being oppressed by the Chinese. Though, is it really oppression? Hearing my father's old stories, they couldn't have anything we have now because the government back then was too corrupt and had too little money to spare to help the Rakyat. They were constantly fighting amongst themselves, bickering like children. Isn't it fine that the Chinese are ruling over us? Personally, I don't see any problems with that, considering we're living better off now than ever before in the history of Malaysia. Well, yeah, I'm Malaysian, but what does that mean nowadays? Malaysia is part of China now, so it makes no difference, it's basic knowledge for kids.

I began tapping away at my keyboard, and each progress I make DaGe finds satisfactory, I get my pay. It's a revolutionary system, honestly. We used to sing in glory for DaGe, because it was both justice and punishment. Good Malaysians get paid, bad Malaysians get punished. That's the basic rules of life. After I was pretty much done with the code, I double-checked, triple-checked, asked enAI for clarification and further bug fixes to the code, and uploaded it to the SkIM, or "Sky's Simulator", or "Tian MoNI Qi". Cloud computing these days are way faster than 5 years ago, when this economic system first got implemented. I'm able to simulate a working robot in just a couple of minutes. I checked the time, and saw that there was still 4 hours left to my day. I checked out of the workroom, and wandered aimlessly.

I looked around, everyone seems to just be staring at their phones. Consuming what I assume to be TikTok. I decided I had time to burn, so I sit down and stared at TikTok all day.

Hours passed, I looked up and saw the sunset. I began to head my way back home. I sat down, watch TV, lay in bed, preparing for the next day. Another day in my life. Maybe I'll look forward to buying a new smartphone tomorrow, I heard it has a more advanced Neural Processing Unit installed that allows for live-rendering of objects in the surroundings through it's latest AI Model. The cost is subsidised by the government of China, so every Malaysian can use them. It's getting late now. I think I should go sleep.


Oppression now isn't going to be through violence or threats, but through comfort and life. The world is no longer reliant on physical resources, but on technological and informational resources, which can only be found in the recesses of the human mind. It's not a war for resources anymore, but a war for skilled labourers.