Beyond Twilight – "Hellfire" (2001)

Before me now I see a dying planet

Captured souls with microchips implanted 

Radio-frequency identification (“RFID”) microchips were first implanted in pets and other animals over 25 years ago.

An RFID chip, which isn’t much bigger than a grain of rice, has a unique ID number that is recorded in a database when the chip is injected into an animal.  A veterinarian or animal shelter worker equipped with a scanner can read the ID number and go to the database to identify a lost animal’s owner. 

Millions of animals have been implanted with microchips to date.  According to the American Veterinary Medical Association, microchipped animals are much more likely to be recovered if they are lost or stolen.

An x-ray showing an implanted microchip

Three Square Market, a tech company located in River Falls, Wisconsin, is offering its employees the opportunity to have a microchip implanted in the little flap of skin that’s between the base of your thumb and the base of your index finger (which has a lot of different names – including the purlicue, the thenar space, the thumb crotch, the interdigital fold, the kagina, the pagina, and the flagina).

An employee who has the microchip implanted doesn’t need a card key to get into the building – all he or she need to do is hold his or her hand near a chip-reading device.

And the microchip would make paying for lunch or a snack in the company cafeteria a lot easier – just wave your hand at the reader and go.

Some people are concerned that the device could be used to make sure employees aren't spending too much time in the bathroom, or taking too long to eat lunch.

But the company’s CEO, Todd Westby, told a New York Times reporter that those fears are groundless:

[Westby] emphasized that the chip’s capabilities were limited.  “All it is is an RFID chip reader,” he said. “It’s not a GPS tracking device.  It’s a passive device and can only give data when data’s requested.”

“Nobody can track you with it,” [he] added.  “Your cellphone does 100 times more reporting of data than does an RFID chip.”

*     *     *     *     *

I don’t trust Mr. Westby for as moment.  

I’ll bet you dollars to donuts that his company is working on a technology that will allow wives and girlfriends to track their husbands and boyfriends with these microchips.  

Forget his cover story about enabling employees to gain access to secure building areas without a card key, or to buy a ham sandwich and a bag of chips in the company café without pulling out cash or a debit card.

This is all about women keeping track of the whereabouts of men.  That’s the killer app for implantable microchips.

*     *     *     *     *

I understand that it may be possible to wear a ring that contains a microchip instead of having the chip implanted under the skin.

That’s what I recommend, guys.  (For obvious reasons.)

*     *     *     *     *

  

“Hellfire” was released in 2001 on The Devil’s Hall of Fame, the first studio album from the Danish progressive metal band, Beyond Twilight. 

The Beyond Twilight website explains what The Devil’s Hall of Fame is all about:

[The album] deals with the personality of a human being, hacking his way through a computer into his own mind.  All the things he experiences on this journey are found deep in his subconscious. 

Someone has implanted a chip in his brain and he realizes that some of the files are corrupted while others are missing.  By hacking deeper into his own brain he slowly recaptures bits and pieces of his lost memory and the man commences on an adventurous trip through time. 

He relives past and future situations of his life, such as his own funeral – without being dead.  He falls in and out of love with the same female through different ages of time.  They meet several times through out the story, experiencing passion, anxiety, fear, anger and pain.  He finds the secret key to the strongest and most passionate love of human nature in sadomasochism.  He as the S, she as the M.  And together they live out their most intense dreams.  They are drawn to each other. 

This kind of thing goes on for quite a long time.

Here’s “Hellfire”:

Click below to buy the song from Amazon: