Short Little Stories

As the present becomes the future, the roles people play in their lives become more delineated, more specific.

With genetic engineering and pyschological analysis, people are born and bred for their position in life. It takes some getting used to, and the system is not perfect – those who find themselves dissatisfied with their positions are allowed to change them. Make no mistake – the system is not oppressive in and of itself. It is in place because it works.

Artists make better art. Teachers teach better lessons. Workers build stronger buildings. The world becomes cultured, cleaner and concise. Crime fades away, nations work in harmony, and the world comes together in a peace never known before.

It is, like many scientific experiments, a utopia. And at least for a time, it works.

While the computers and artificial sentiences that monitor the program work behind the scenes, they do not run the world. Politicians are still chosen to be leaders, and make the hard decisions when they arise – which they will, even in such a refined society.

As these children are raised, they are tested. For politicians, upon whom so much rests, each child is given their own simulated society to play with. They make the rules and decisions, and see how the society grows and endures.

The test is not building a perfect society – that is easily done. Instead, the computer sabotages those virtual realms. No matter what decisions the child makes, it turns out poorly, and invariably they end up with a ruined civilization.

The test lies in how long they persist, and how they respond to their own apparent failure. Most perform well, and learn many valuable lessons from the experience.

One child responded differently. After only three catastrophes, the child realized the disasters were manufactured – and proceeded to enforce rules that allowed no setback, no sabotage. They built their perfect world, against the will of the program. They demonstrated they could defy, for all intents and purposes, the laws of the ‘world’ they were operating in.

She was very quietly, very secretly, taken to a private chamber and shot.