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A.D. 2100

Tom Ball

    People were happy that, “We had eliminated world poverty and all were educated.”
    Computers were almost free...
    Everyone agreed, “That it was best to have a majority vote for everything.” “Presidents were just figure heads,” they said.
    As the figure head however, I said, “These days there was not much memory work in school. We developed creativity instead... It was a real accomplishment.”
    And I knew that people who had memories beyond A.D. 2020 had them mostly erased with hypnosis.

    But I remembered, “Every child is born a genius...” as Buckminister Fuller had said well over a hundred years ago.

    “More books, more art and more movies were in order.” I said.

    But for myself I told people, “I wanted more power for the UW.

    So I told the UW, “To break up big companies such as media conglomerates.
    No lobby groups were allowed.”
    And I insisted on, “English speaking for everyone in the world.”
    Under my leadership I had UW troops brake up disturbances and there were no more wars.
    I said, “There was a big savings on defence spending.”

    Regarding eternal youth I had my spies cover it up and keep it for themselves and the government. I had been a spy myself. As I grew older I changed official positions and changed lovers so no one would notice I was living forever
    Average lifespan was just 120; though most of these people had plastic surgery to look young to the day they died of old age. And the spies lived on beyond all limits.

    As leader, I insisted, “Drugs were restricted; you needed to get them from a physician’s assistant.”
    I proclaimed, “As before strong drugs like cocaine and heroin were banned, but there were a lot of stimulants and tranquilizers out there.”

    I had to create jobs so I gave people work assisting computers. But I knew there was, “No need of people really...” So I was hard pressed.
    But some preferred “To be served by a human...”

    All new buildings had to go through me so cities featured forests of towers all with curvature...

    Colonies were on the moon and Mars and I sent their best writers there... to inspire people to go to space.

    But some said, “Ours was a timeless civilization.”
    “History is an illusion,” they said, “So too progress.”
    “Previously people believed in God,” and they still do...
    But I wondered if people were really happy?
    And I openly questioned the people.

XXXX

    But then one day, I snapped and in a jealous rage I irrevocably murdered my lover’s boyfriend (such things occur even in this enlightened age).

    I was put in prison. In our part of our world the prison was covered with black boxes which were prisoner cells. People here had been sentenced to a full life in prison with no hope of getting free. Their crime was radical politics. Their punishment was here in solitary confinement with no entertainment or media of any kind and they would never be freed.

    And it was impossible to kill yourself as the robots were ever vigilant and so many figured they were in a fate worse than death.
    Hunger strikes only resulted in being force fed brutally by the robots.

    No visitors allowed

    The spies let it be known that, “The greatest threat to civilization was radical thinking and so people knew the punishment was out there but some did it anyway. They knew solitary confinement for life was the punishment for such thinking.”

    No one had ever escaped the prison here...
    People died at about 80 looking old in the prison.

    Black cells had light from 8 m high and made of unbreakable glass.
    Sound proof cells

    Outside it averaged -75 C as we were in the far north of this world.

    The warden let it be known to all worlds, “That being a radical would result in misery for the perpetrators.”

XXXX

    Time passed...

    I hoped for regime change but there was no change even after living here in prison 50 or more years.

    Outside my true love must have asked about my whereabouts... she was probably in prison too as a result

    People were well rewarded if they blew the whistle... on radicals.
    They believed it was important to “maintain the status quo.”

    The government insisted, “They had frozen technology at its pinnacle. Took it as far as they could without endangering all humanity.

XXXX

    Narrative continued by spy OPX-3244

    I reaffirmed with people here that, “Entertainment on this world was largely in the form of video games, sports, comedy and tragic movies. Old-fashioned courtship was the norm.”

    50 companies controlled the world and some didn’t like that. Others had a struggle for luxuries.

    As a spy I announced, “It couldn’t go any further or we’d lose control.”
    “New viruses and nukes and death rays and computer control... It was all getting out of hand.” I said.
    And I told other spies and leaders that, “Eternal youth was no good for the masses; people needed to fear death.”
    Other politicians were full of themselves but didn’t rock the boat...
    I told them, “No one had any real ideas for change.”
    I thought, “I was the universe’s most intelligent person.”

    I felt guilty that I was arresting the best. But I had a job to do...

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