How many thoughts do humans have each day? If you're not a Prolific, the answer is fifty to seventy-five thousand. How many of those thoughts have value? All of them.
1 THOUGHTS
“Jacob Ashton,” the woman in the suit called out at the front of the lobby. I gained my feet and gave her a nervous smile which she returned with cold disinterest. She was tall and slender, and her graying hair was pulled back in a neat bun. “If you’ll please follow me to the back.”
I walked across the grime-coated linoleum floor as I followed the assistant to the exam room located behind a reinforced steel door. There were others in the lobby, waiting for their exams. Some of them, mostly young like myself, had a nervous spark of hope, while the veterans sat with something that more or less resembled a disheartened sense of duty. The other people waiting in the lobby faded away as I walked. My heart pounded in my chest as I prepared for my three-year evaluation, the evaluation which could decide my future for the rest of my life.
“Any health problems we should know?” she asked in a flat voice.
“No, ma’am.”
“Very well, if you’ll have a seat, we will get started.” She pointed to a cushioned red chair.
The woman’s heels clacked against the surface of the floor, and I took a seat in the chair. I breathed deeply and tried to collect myself, though I knew the jittery nerves wouldn’t affect my performance. I heard that this wasn’t going to be like a typical thought collection session, but rather a system presenting challenges for my brain to solve, problems I wouldn’t remember when waking up.
The restraints on the chair latched around my arms and legs, and I tried to keep my breathing calm.
“Just relax please, Jacob,” the woman said as she rubbed an icy alcohol wipe on my forearm, the strong scent flooding my nose and bringing about more anxiety.
“Will this hurt?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
The woman gave a sigh, indicating she’d responded to the same question many times. “Yes, it will, but only for a second.”
She slid a long IV needle into a large vein in my arm, and I winced. There was a cold sting as the fluids slid into me.
“Your session will take about four hours, and you’ll be paid for your time regardless of whether we select you for a unique Government position,” she said as she put the headgear with the neuro pads on my head.
“Breathe deeply for me, Jacob,” the woman said as she injected a blue fluid into the IV bag that hung above the chair. The color trickled down the tubing and connected with my arm. I breathed in several deep breaths as my vision went white and my head began to spin.
Hours later, I awoke with the impossible feeling of weightlessness and weighing a ton. Worse, balancing my head proved difficult and my limbs felt like rubber. The IV tube was coiled and replaced back in its position on the bag, and my arm was bandaged. The chair still bound my wrists. The woman walked over and flashed a small light into my eyes, her voice faded in and out as I tried to focus on the shifting light.
“How did I do?” I asked.
“The system is still evaluating your performance. There were a few… anomalies,” she said, apparently choosing the word with care.
“Is everything okay?”
“Yes. We just need to see if something malfunctioned in the system. Nothing to be concerned about. If anything, it will be good news for you. Do you remember anything from the test?”
The strange thing was that I was actively processing information in my head during the session. I recalled the problems I was solving. They made little sense in a logical way, but I remembered the strange, distinct geometric shapes and patterns of light and color.
“Lights, shapes, and colors,” I responded as I fought to remember the distant events through the haze.
“Probably a dream or the side effects of the IV serum,” she answered. “You’re free to go now, Jacob. We will contact you if you are of interest to us.” She unfastened the restraints, and I started back toward the lobby.
“Please collect your payment and vouchers from the desk.”
I returned to the reception desk in the lobby and waited behind a few other Thinkers before it was my turn. As I walked up to the desk, a re-purposed Enforcer robot confirmed my identity with a retina scan before handing me a summary sheet of the session, and a week’s worth of drinking water and food vouchers.
Name: Jacob Ashton
Age: 16
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Test: Tri-Annual Aptitude Evaluation
Session Length: 04:00:00
Thoughts: NA
Thought Originality: NA
Aptitude Assessment: NA
Base Value: 600 Credits
Originality Bonus: NA
Tax: 192 Credits
Total Payment: 408 Credits
After exiting the Government building, I walked forward on the dark street. A tattered bandana wrapped around my face shielded me from the wretched smog that stagnated down in the Slums of New York, the synthetic cloth providing suitable protection for short excursions. It had been worse so I couldn't complain. I wanted to get the hell out of the Slums, like everyone else. A partially corroded vent on the filthy asphalt groaned then shot a blast of scalding steam up toward me. My old sneakers protected my feet as I jumped off the vent with drowsy reflexes. Despite knowing these streets quite well, one could never predict the sporadic pattern of the vile vents coming from below the ground.
New York was built skyward; the history lessons I had learned taught me that there was once only one level. Now, New York consisted of four levels if you count the Undercity which housed most of the utility plants and farms.
Neon signs illuminated the hazy air in the Slums and advertised their goods and services. On each sign hung a camera that looked onto the street. I kept my hood over my head as I walked through the Slums—I found it better to go unnoticed.
For the past three years I had been on my own. I had my own flat, paid my own bills, and worked my own hours. There weren’t many employment options, so I did what most others did: I worked as a Thinker. In other words, I sat in a chair for four hours every day with electrodes and neuro collectors attached to my head. Working as a Thinker was the best way to earn a living within the confines of the law.
The Thought Collectors stored all thoughts as data for the Collective Thought. Absolute Knowledge was the end goal, the goal considered to be perfection. The Government promised everyone they would be well off, never having to work again once they completed the project.
As I walked, I looked at the faded posters as I always did, the relics of a grand purpose.
‘Your thoughts are valuable!’
‘Only you can help us achieve Absolute Knowledge!’
‘You are special!’
The faded red ink looked dull compared to the bright colors on the posters. Children sat reading books on verdant green grass, others were climbing trees. There weren’t any trees in the Slums anymore. One of my neighbors, Mr. Barton, used to have a tree in his house, a ficus he called it. It must have cost him a considerable sum of money, but he said it was well worth it. Mr. Barton swore it made the air in his flat fresher, but I couldn't tell. The air filters took care of most of the smog anyway.
After I had paid my bills and eaten, I would put all of my remaining money toward educational lessons to improve my thought output and quality. The Government promised more pay for those who purchased an education. Education was the key to Absolute Knowledge, they said. The digital lessons weren't cheap, and Mr. Barton used to berate me for spending everything extra on them.
“You won't earn more. Believe me. I used to spend everything on education, trying to get out of the Slums. The payments never increased. Once you are born in the Slums, you don't leave,” he told me.
I walked to the nearest grocery store, a large building denoted by neon green lights and an increased presence of Enforcers. All the stores had large gates and were lined with Government issued linoleum flooring. I grabbed a plastic cart from one of the stands at the entrance, the dull green material having faded long ago. Despite the hour and assuming it was before curfew, the grocery stores were almost always crowded. City run stores were split into two sections, vouchers and credits. The voucher section contained basic, cheap goods such as bread, canned soups, and frozen meat. The credit section was much more expansive, but the prices were high—something I wanted to avoid to get out of the Slums.
Many people were browsing the closely watched aisles of goods, congregating and discussing the rumors of the streets. An Enforcer walked up to a group of young men that stood huddled around in a tight cluster, unmoving for several minutes. Most of the Enforcers in the Slums were older models deployed in the riots that took place when I was around four years old. They were bulky things with heavy, geometric plate armor, hydraulic servos, and large energy rifles welded to their arms. They were painted matte black, and the Enforcers that worked outside were often coated in a layer of rust. They had a single lens system on their heads that gave them vision.
The Enforcer gave a gruff beep, indicating the group of men needed to stop loitering. It took a series of aggressive steps forward until they moved. The people in the group complained and protested their innocence as they continued to shop.
Not wanting to attract trouble, I grabbed the necessities – a loaf of bread, a few cans of soup and vegetables, and one luxury item: a pack of mint chewing gum. The pack of gum wouldn't be covered by my vouchers, but it also wouldn't cost me too much. Chewing gum was a far cheaper vice than smoking cigarettes, something many people in the Slums did. I approached the automated console and bagged my groceries in a brown paper bag, then inserted the voucher and twelve credits for the pack of gum. The light above the exit gate turned green, and I was free to go. The Enforcers guarding the door scanned my bag as I exited the store.
I popped a piece of the mint gum into my mouth and chewed slowly after walking out of the store, the tingling sensation flooding my tongue. I raised the frayed bandana back over my face and moved at a brisk pace, heading home. The artificial lights of the ceiling faded, and the smaller streetlights crackled to life, their light pale and dull. I looked at the scratched mechanical watch on my wrist. It was already eight PM.
The door of my flat scanned my retina and opened with a click. I walked in and closed the door as fast as possible, preserving my fresh air. I put my drinking jug under the Government owned water pump. The machine quickly consumed my voucher and dispensed one gallon of drinking water. Some people in the Slums filtered their own water so they could trade their vouchers for other things, but the salt water from the tap wasn't safe to drink, and I didn't trust their filtration process. It was a good way to get sick or worse.
I would wait awhile to eat. Not only did I want to savor the piece of gum for as long as possible, but I was also still feeling sick from my testing session.
Suddenly, a sharp spike of pain jolted through my head and I collapsed to the cold floor of my flat. Geometric patterns flashed behind my closed eyes; the image of my surroundings burning into my mind. Colors danced around the gray floor and sent waves of pain shooting through my head. I tried to scream but couldn’t. I heard my TV power on and opened my eyes to see a flickering screen. There were words on it, blurred by my distorted vision and the splitting pain reverberating in my skull. I read a single sentence:
‘You’ve got my attention now, Jacob.’