Challenge #27: The World Around You
Sitting on her bed in the room Danielle shares with five others, she hears them whisper about the woman who ran away last night from the dorm next door. She doesn’t need to join them; she knows why she ran away.
Danielle, too, can remember when it was like before Intellectual Mating. She remembers playing with the neighborhood children, both boys and girls, as a young child. Though her parents are gone, she remembers the story they used to tell about how they first met. That girl, Danielle thinks, she must have run away because she met someone, someone who was her Unequal and had an IQ of more than twenty points beneath hers. If his IQ was low enough, he wouldn’t be allowed to have children and would be given strictly labor positions until his body could no longer handle it. It’s rare nowadays for pairs to runaway, but both the men’s and women’s quarters have to swap supplies the other doesn’t have and, from time to time, they meet outside of their match, despite the raging river between them.
A bell sounds and all the women exit out the back door to the wide open space in the middle of all dormitories. The women line up to wave their wrists over the scanner to receive a print out of the workout they are supposed to follow today. Some women must lose weight to reach their optimum health while others only need to maintain. Afterward, they are released to the showers.
The bell rings for breakfast and everyone hurries out the door. Guards are casually walking around in the courtyard as women file into the cafeteria from the various residence buildings. She can also remember when life wasn’t dictated by bells and guards.
In the cafeteria, she waves her wrist over the scanner and the compartment under her name pops open. Each meal is created specifically for the health needs of the individual. She removes the tray and sits at her assigned table with her roommates and those from nearby dorms. She isn’t even allowed to have Unequals, those with IQs more or less than 20 points different than hers, as her friends, roommates, or co-workers in an effort to maintain an intellectually challenging environment; her schedule is especially calibrated to prevent her from even crossing paths with them. Nowadays, they don’t find people outside of the community like they used to and she’s known these girls for so long now, there isn’t anything left to say to them. Instead, she eats her breakfast in silence, until a guard approaches her and reminds her of the benefits of socializing for positive mental health and feelings of connectedness.
Another bell sounds and the women file past the conveyer belt, where they leave their dishes, out the door. Everyone is matched, according to their IQ and skill set, to a job that helps the community run successfully while maintaining a health level of challenge and success for its employees’ mental health. Danielle, because of her age, was assigned to be a teacher. The community thought it was best that the new teachings come from someone who’d experienced the ramifications of their old ways. She was never quite able to muster the repugnance of the other teachers, though, as she always thought of her parents as she was disparaging the old dating rituals and explaining to the class how Intellectual Mating was, literally, saving the lives of their future children.
At lunchtime, yet another bell rings, and the women file into the cafeteria again. Dinner is much the same. After dinner, though, they have recreation hours where the women get to participate in a skilled hobby. Danielle knits because her mother taught her when she was a little girl. Nowadays, it is not a hobby often chosen; the younger girls all want to work with technology.
There is an hour before bed designated for reading, but the books aren’t like the ones her mother used to read to her as a child. Those used to have made up characters doing fantastical things and many of them fell in love in ways similar to her parents. The book these days, however, were nothing more than the textbooks of yesteryear.
Everyone is made to go to sleep at the same time, eight hours before the wake up bell sounds, to ensure they obtain sufficient sleep. As she falls asleep, Danielle thinks about how every day will follow the same pattern as this until they have matched her with her Equal in the men’s quarters. Then she will be issued a different schedule but a schedule she must follow all the same, just in the couple’s quarters. They, just as a couple now, will still be sorted based on their IQs and their children sorted after that until no one with an IQ below average exists any more.
Danielle, too, can remember when it was like before Intellectual Mating. She remembers playing with the neighborhood children, both boys and girls, as a young child. Though her parents are gone, she remembers the story they used to tell about how they first met. That girl, Danielle thinks, she must have run away because she met someone, someone who was her Unequal and had an IQ of more than twenty points beneath hers. If his IQ was low enough, he wouldn’t be allowed to have children and would be given strictly labor positions until his body could no longer handle it. It’s rare nowadays for pairs to runaway, but both the men’s and women’s quarters have to swap supplies the other doesn’t have and, from time to time, they meet outside of their match, despite the raging river between them.
A bell sounds and all the women exit out the back door to the wide open space in the middle of all dormitories. The women line up to wave their wrists over the scanner to receive a print out of the workout they are supposed to follow today. Some women must lose weight to reach their optimum health while others only need to maintain. Afterward, they are released to the showers.
The bell rings for breakfast and everyone hurries out the door. Guards are casually walking around in the courtyard as women file into the cafeteria from the various residence buildings. She can also remember when life wasn’t dictated by bells and guards.
In the cafeteria, she waves her wrist over the scanner and the compartment under her name pops open. Each meal is created specifically for the health needs of the individual. She removes the tray and sits at her assigned table with her roommates and those from nearby dorms. She isn’t even allowed to have Unequals, those with IQs more or less than 20 points different than hers, as her friends, roommates, or co-workers in an effort to maintain an intellectually challenging environment; her schedule is especially calibrated to prevent her from even crossing paths with them. Nowadays, they don’t find people outside of the community like they used to and she’s known these girls for so long now, there isn’t anything left to say to them. Instead, she eats her breakfast in silence, until a guard approaches her and reminds her of the benefits of socializing for positive mental health and feelings of connectedness.
Another bell sounds and the women file past the conveyer belt, where they leave their dishes, out the door. Everyone is matched, according to their IQ and skill set, to a job that helps the community run successfully while maintaining a health level of challenge and success for its employees’ mental health. Danielle, because of her age, was assigned to be a teacher. The community thought it was best that the new teachings come from someone who’d experienced the ramifications of their old ways. She was never quite able to muster the repugnance of the other teachers, though, as she always thought of her parents as she was disparaging the old dating rituals and explaining to the class how Intellectual Mating was, literally, saving the lives of their future children.
At lunchtime, yet another bell rings, and the women file into the cafeteria again. Dinner is much the same. After dinner, though, they have recreation hours where the women get to participate in a skilled hobby. Danielle knits because her mother taught her when she was a little girl. Nowadays, it is not a hobby often chosen; the younger girls all want to work with technology.
There is an hour before bed designated for reading, but the books aren’t like the ones her mother used to read to her as a child. Those used to have made up characters doing fantastical things and many of them fell in love in ways similar to her parents. The book these days, however, were nothing more than the textbooks of yesteryear.
Everyone is made to go to sleep at the same time, eight hours before the wake up bell sounds, to ensure they obtain sufficient sleep. As she falls asleep, Danielle thinks about how every day will follow the same pattern as this until they have matched her with her Equal in the men’s quarters. Then she will be issued a different schedule but a schedule she must follow all the same, just in the couple’s quarters. They, just as a couple now, will still be sorted based on their IQs and their children sorted after that until no one with an IQ below average exists any more.