VERSION 497
Michael's New Strategy
(Disclaimer: I have no business connection with the Good Place. My only purpose in writing this story is to have fun and maybe share it.)
Michael sat in his office, thinking. It was a day since he had shut down version 496, after Eleanor had once again shouted "This is the Bad Place!" with Chidi, Tehani, and Jason all in earshot. He had to reboot pretty soon. Too much danger that Shawn would pay a surprise visit, find everything shut done, and realize that Version 2 was no longer running. And then he would find out about Version 3, Version 4…
But Michael needed time to think. There was something fundamentally wrong with the Good Place project that made it fail again and again, and he had to figure out what it was.
Of course there WAS a fundamental contradiction at the heart of the project. On the one hand, he had to let the 4 humans think they were in the Good Place, where they were to have an eternity of happiness. At the same time he had to make them miserable because – well, that's what demons did. And the misery side was what always led Eleanor to realize that they were in the Bad Place.
If only he could get Eleanor out of the project. Give her her own private hell, like Mindy's Mediocre Place. But making that big a change in the project would require permission from the Lower-Downs, and they would want to know why. Once they started becoming suspicious of Michael, things would really become Hell.
Unfortunately, Janet wasn't much use with a problem like this. She would keep his secret, as she was programmed, and she had access to all the information in the universe, but she didn't know how to USE the information. She would recite the information to whoever asked for it, and it was recipient who would know what to do with it. She was no use in trying to devise a complicated plan.
And it didn't even occur to Michael to consult the other demons in the "Good Place". He couldn't be dependent on any of them. It was bad enough that they all knew about the reboots; he HAD to keep them under his thumb, convince them that he had some subtle plan beyond their imaginations.
Could he keep Shawn continually distracted, so that he never tried to check on the Good Place? No, it was a bad idea to play with Shawn's head. If he found out and decided to retaliate, there were very nasty things that Shawn could do with Michael's head.
But the idea of Distraction – that sounded fruitful. What if could keep Eleanor and the others distracted, not with general pseudo-pleasures but with some of particular interest to them, so their thoughts never drifted in the direction of "Hey, this is the Bad Place".
He put out an announcement for the demons to prepare for Version 497.
