Program
The crane blinking red and yellow pierced the horizon as it moved across the city landscape. He watched the ever-growing city through the glass walls, climbing higher and higher. The lights that once riddled the night sky were nowhere to be seen here. They were reserved only for those allowed to go outside the metal walls that once kept out the unwanted, and now kept the people in. Beyond the walls, other oases of concrete and smoke, owned by other corporations, spread across the dry, desert land. This was his.
The monitors plastered over his office walls flicked from street to street, watching for intruders from other companies and anyone who thought they could alter the order of things.
The upper-right screen against the golden-black walls lit up. The program had found a dissident. He tensed his body and watched as the automatic street patrol pinned the woman and her child down. He could hear their shouts and screams with no voice on. They called him a traitor, cursing his name. But without him, the child wouldn’t have grown so fat and soft. He fed them, clothed them, and gave them work and meaning. Without him, they would wander the desolate earth and fall into the hands of his enemies, who didn’t have his kind heart and saw people as vermin. He didn’t. He came from the same as the people. He gave them the right to climb up. They just had to behave and follow the nudges he gave them, and all would be fine; they would be fine. It wasn’t too much to ask.
He bit his lower lip and watched as the mother and her child were dragged inside the patrol van that had gotten there in less than five minutes. The system was working better every day. It could pick faces, pick intents from the little gestures people made. The mother and child could return to their task as soon as they went over the reintroduction program, and it could be as if nothing had happened.
He followed the van from screen to screen up to the facility down at his tower. He straightened his golden suit and headed to the elevator, where calming music greeted him.
“Take me to P five level,” he said.
The doors slid closed, and a quiet hum rose beneath the music.
The doors slid open, and he stepped in just in time to see the woman and her child dragged in. This time, he heard the child’s cry and his mother’s attempt to encourage him to fight, telling him never to surrender. His mother had done just that. But his mother, as the child’s mother, should know that with a right mind program, he had achieved so much more than she could have offered—maybe not out there, but in here, a good life was possible as long as you believed and behaved. The program had given him that, and it could give that chance to the boy too.
—
It’s been a long time since I wrote a dystopia short story. The last time I got one, I skipped it because I felt like I had nothing to offer the genre, but today, I dared to push past that and take a shot. I think with a lot of polishing, there could be a story here. Okay, we have seen the setting in other dystopia novels, but I think exploring the mind of someone who thinks they have the right to own a city and the masses could add something new to the genre. I find writing dystopias hard. It’s a genre with strong, long-standing roots and bones with clearly defined parameters of power imbalance, surveillance, and re-imagined society; often written from the perspective of those without power (not always). With this story, I would continue down the path of seeing the world through the rich and powerful, those in control, maybe add in those who work as guards and those who think the system is the best there could be, running with the ideology of those who genuinely think that the few should control the masses; that they know better. It would be interesting to see where it would lead.
What I got today was a voice-driven rags-to-riches dystopia, written in limited third person. My writing is a little shaky today, not having written for three days, but you have to start somewhere.
Thank you for reading! Have a day of revelations, and see you tomorrow ❤
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