Net Neutrality

The suite on the sixth floor of the Trump International Hotel, Washington D.C., was decorated in chestnut and tan. The headboard of the king size bed was carved as if it was a coat of arms of some legitimate monarch, and was trimmed with fake gold, which poorly matched the Kremlin red, velvet throw pillows. Like the room's single, useless accent wall, the curtains were a brutal cerulean, suggesting a space that conceals more deception than the dark seabed of a Vladivostok harbor. In all, the suite was reminiscent of something a Tsar might have once maintained, perhaps as quarters for secondary guests in some Eastern Palace. Nevertheless, on that particular Pennsylvania Avenue afternoon, Ajit Pai, FCC Chairman, felt anything but secondary. 

Ajit rolled over on the sheets, letting his chesthair peak out from his robe, and then stretching all the way from his scapula to his calves. Laying beside him, Lowell C. McAdam, CEO of Verizon Communications, picked another chocolate covered strawberry from the bowl. He placed it in Ajit's mouth, letting his hand linger on his former General Counsel's lips just a moment too long.

"You know I love dessert," Ajit said, "but I hope you have something else for me."

"I don't recall you ever being so direct before, my Sugar Plum" Lowell returned, clasping Ajit's buttocks.

"Maybe those FTC boys go easy on you," Ajit answered, pulling away, but only a little, only for show, "but I'm from the FCC, so you better show me the cash first!"

Lowell sighed. He spun off the bed. He sauntered over to the bureau and picked up a leather briefcase with two silver latches. Lowell showed Ajit what was inside: stacks and stacks of crisp hundred dollar bills.

"Just to be clear," Lowell explained, "every last cent of this is to repeal net neutrality. You're giving me that ass for free."

Lowell pounced down on top of Ajit, groping at him the way a crude man only does to a prostitute. Ajit loved feeling bought and paid for. He giggled and squealed, and the two men kissed.

But suddenly, the passion and privacy of the suite was shattered by a flash of light and a thunderous clap. The hideous furniture Ivanka had inexplicably wanted credit for rattled along the carpet. When the two lovers and conspirators regained their composure, there was a strange young man and woman standing before them, wearing tattered jeans and leather vests. They both had AK-47s draped over their shoulders. The woman punched Ajit hard in the jaw.

"Are you Ajit Pai the FCC chairman or Ajit Pai the cricketer!" she demanded. Her face was stained with dirt.

"What? Who are you? Where did you come from?" Ajit asked, favoring his chin, his whole body quivering.

"FCC chairman or cricketer!" the woman shouted again, brandishing the AK-47 at the frightened, half naked businessman, and lobbyist pretending to be a guard of the public interest.

"FCC!" Ajit replied, "Yes, I'm with the FCC!"

"You know why she had to ask that, motherfucker?" the rough man began, "because the only other famous Ajit Pai was a fucking cricket player, and where we come from, Wikipedia pages take twenty minutes to load, unless you pay an extra $9.99 a month! So all we really had to go on was the fucking disambiguation page. You know how hard it is to tell an artificially intelligent time machine where you want to go, when all it can access are the goddamn disambiguation pages?"

The man picked Ajit up, and threw him onto the bed. He did the same to Lowell.

"Your little side deal here," the woman explained to the telecommunications executives, "let me tell you how this goes down. First, you repeal net neutrality for some chump change kickback. Then, of course, all the asshole ISPs start tacking on surcharges for people to get on pretty much all the good websites, until nobody could afford more than one. So, the same thing happened that always happens when you force people to choose teams. Society broke apart completely. Soon, the Youtubian Republic was throwing molotov cocktails at the Facebook Moms, and the Netflixtariat were being roun

ded up by the Insta-thots. Nobody talks to each other or shares anything, and it is terrible."

Ajit and Lowell looked to the door and windows, thinking of any possible escape. But there was none. They were hostages of an uncaring power who had no concern for their well being.

"But there was one silver lining to not having the web you're used to," the rough man continued, "Without an open internet, nobody else got to find out that we finally cracked how to build a fully operational time machine. We didn't tweet about it or do a single AMA. Because why would we? There'd be nobody online to see it. That means we were able to skip all the bullshit and just travel right back here, right to this moment, before you two fucked each other, and then the whole country."

"Are," Lowell stammered, "are you going to kill us?"

The time travelers laughed, then stuck peculiar glowing orbs on the lovers' chests.

"No, we're not going to kill you," the woman replied, "instead, we're just going to send you boys into the future you're trying to create. And we'll stay back here in 2017, when things were at least only halfway terrible."

"What? No, you can't!" Ajit shouted.

"Sure we can," the man told him, "because time travel has no regulations. I thought you loved it when technology has no regulation."

The woman pushed a button on a strange remote. The suite filled with another flash of light. Ajit and Lowell embraced. They vanished.

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/do-not-repeal-net-neutrality