Reconstitution and Recycling
Soylent Red is people!
There. Now that I've gotten that miserable comment out of the way before some smart-aleck said it, we can get to the real flesh & blood. PLC has made major strides in making sure nothing goes to waste, and I'm proud to present my Service Group's commitment to Alpha Complex's survival.
Friend Computer's sense of civic duty, combined with the low rate of resource replenishment from the Commie-infested Outdoors, has made Reconstitution & Recycling the fifth primary concern of Alpha Complex (right below Hygiene and Punishment). Studies show that only .00012% of all resources aren't recyclable, given enough time and ingenuity. Let me share a few examples with you...
Citizen Corpses
We all know that according to Information_Distortion guidelines, we can't reveal to low-clearance citizens that 64% of low-clearance gruel is made up of low-clearance citizens. We can't just secretly haul all the dead off; even the lowliest Infrared knows those bodies have to go somewhere. Thus a certain ratio of bodies must be assigned to non-edible tasks to quell vicious truths.
Reactor shielding has been done to death, so I was delighted when PLC rolled out a new task: Troubleshooter decoys! Intact corpses are shipped off to Sector EGP Mortuary Services for preparation. They're treated with an anti-decomposement solution (to lengthen shelf life), have their internal organs replaced with crumpled-up old forms (to reduce weight), and are decked out in fake Troubleshooter uniforms (actual Troubleshooters rarely die intact). Then they are shipped off to PLC outlets across the complex for assignment to high-risk Troubleshooting missions.
The program has been a resounding success. Over 501 hazardous situations have been avoided due to these post-mortem loyalists, including Liquid Safety Checks, Enemy Weapon Calculations, and Altitude Gauges. However, Troubleshooters get into extra mischief with them around. Few can resist the urge to imitate a squeaky voice for the decoy1 as he's paraded in front of Commies or hurled into a live electric grid. There's reports of schemers staging mock suicides, twisting them into obscene positions, and dropping them onto clones from very tall buildings.
Rest assured that such behavior should quickly vaporize once the "Your Corpse and You" training courses begin. As more and more of the decoys are used for practical purposes, we'll wonder how we ever lived without the dead.
Liquified Citizens
Unfortunately, the massive amount of clones subjected to Molecular Dissolution Reactions during the Toothpaste Disaster left very few potential Troubleshooter decoys. The non-edible ratio still had to be maintained, so PLC had to come up with another use for liquified clones.
The winning solution came from one of my minions, who noted that the organic sludge had high levels of potential energy stored. A few modifications later, half of all LA Area vehicles are running on Organic Juice. There's enough Organic Juice to keep them running for 8 more monthcycles; by that time, our Organic Engines should be efficient enough that it would be cheaper to continue producing Organic Juice than switch back to primitive, nonrenewable fuel sources.
Four Reactor Foam
In the wake of the Four Reactor cleanup, we were still stuck with over a sector's worth of Kappaboromethylgin (dubbed "FRF" by the Troubleshooters gathering it). After extensive testing, R&D noted that FRF gelled at room temperature and had a high insulation rating. PLC quickly got to work developing developing a new line of Gel Thermos at low, low prices. As long as it doesn't get hot enough to explosively liquify2, it should keep drinks cool longer than the Average Active Troubleshooter Lifespan3.
Metal Shavings
These scraps of Technical Services maintenance are a key ingredient in Happiness Energy Bars. Not only do they provide clones with their hourly allotment of iron, but ingenious citizens use them as improvised magnets.
Luckily, a similar proposal to add Uri-Glutonium332 as a vitamin supplement was defeated before its role in the Toothpaste Disaster brought its dangers to light. The manager responsible for killing that has received a commendation for his service to Alpha Complex and placed under surveillance for being a suspected precog mutant.
Code
Even code must be recycled under Friend Computer's guidance. Mediocre code never dies; it's just redistributed to lower-level systems. Deemed "Code Crawl" by critics, this practice not only saves time, but it makes Friend Computer's systems a time capsule: when you look at Red-level Form Processing functions, you're looking 30 yearcycles into the past.
Any efficient system has its problems, though, and the obsolete code used in low-level Legacy_software led to massive errors during the Toothpaste Disaster. We should bring low-level code up-to-date with high-level code or, at the very least, write code faster to increase trickle-down speed.
Commies
Even these vile beings are reconstituted in service to Friend Computer. The few unlucky ones that aren't shot on sight are interrogated and reassigned to Mandatory Volunteer Penitence (MVP) work, such as Citizen Hazard Experiments, Electric Grid Fuses, Yogurty_Overflow_Response_Tests Victims, and the ever-popular Reactor Shielding. After they have been "reformed", they provide corpses for recycling, continuing the eternal cycle!
Footnotes:
Refs: Information_Distortion, Legacy_software, Uri-Glutonium332, Yogurty_Overflow_Response_Tests
Commentary:
Ah, yes, dis is like my bread an' butter. Ain't no business worth doin' what don't sooner or later need t'make somethin' disappear an' stop bein' recognizable as what it was.
An' dis Organic Engine'a yours intrigues me. Sounds like a very important project, wit' some significant potential for d'future'a all'a Alpha Complex, y'know? Important project like dat's surely gonna come under some fire. Whole lotta Power folks maybe not gonna like dat so much. Not t'mention all d'Commies dat would want t'see such an important project fail. Important project like dat... 'sgonna need some protectin', I think. 'Cause it would be a shame if'n somethin' was t'happen t'it.
-- Knok-U-OUT-7