lyman slade, on the 129th working day in the 14th year of his employment as a deputy population programmer, randomly selected four files from the pile on the corner of his desk.
he placed them in the center of the desk, and with a sigh, took the lid off the container of coffee he had purchased at the oftice cafeteria.
he placed them in the center of the desk, and with a sigh, took the lid off the container of coffee he had purchased at the oftice cafeteria.
every hour of his six hour day, he reviewed four files of four persons each who were scheduled to be consolidated into one person under the new plan.
the “new plan” which, in theory, only administrators and underlings of the population department knew about.
lyman took a sip of his coffee. if only the coffee were a little more drinkable, and the donuts a little more edible, he thought, life might be tolerable.
he opened the first file. it was a “d” file, describing four persons selected completely at random from the 20 billion inhabitants of the planet.
*
buford ae-13, an openminded underachiever with a youthful pompadour, from city 18.
oliver twist, an underachiever from a quiet town in the middle distance.
jesse james hood, a charlatan from behind the great wall of samarkand.
george washington, a flower seller and street performer from city 5.
*
lyman did not think this group sounded very promising. he took a sip of his coffee, and decided that, rather than try to describe exactly why he did not think they sounded very promising, he would order a preliminary test of them.
the first of his quota of 12 preliiminary test orders of his work day.
*
he picked up the second file - an “a” ftle describing four people living in the same building in the same city as each other.
the four persons lived in a building in a mediium sized city - city 223.
they were larry payne, a class 5 drone in a make work corporation.
shari blaine, an aspirant to fame writing romance novels.
kari wade, a drreamer 88 percent divorced from reality.
and harry slade, a temporary drone seeking status and security.
this looks like an easy one, lyman thought. i think i will process it myself.
lyman earned 2 bonus points for every file he processed himself.
to be continued
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