I woke to the sound of my holographic alarm clock graciously trying to shatter my eardrums. I started my perfectly timed routine for the day. 12 seconds to get out of the room, 15 to walk down the stairs, 20 minutes to gulp down six cubic inches of gray-purple jello. 32 minutes and four seconds to jog to work. Our exercise level was as strictly monitored as our education course. The morning was tapping away at our Holos and the afternoons were quite the same. All young children attended school until they learned how to read, speak and walk. I graduated before most people, earning me a less laborious job to dedicate my life to.

The polyester-microfiber elevator slid up the narrow black chute. When it reached floor 822 I stopped it and walked into my mini cubicle. I sat down at the table and pressed the button that levitated the flat Holo to a 62-degree angle. A face popped onto the screen. It was old and wearing a top hat the caption said " Abraham Lincoln" This was definitely a random useless photo. Tap, delete. A short documentary appeared in its place. This specific one was about the harmful GMOs in chicken. I almost broke into a laugh. Honestly, did these people think organic was ever going to be legal? I stopped myself before I laughed. Laughing took up time, and time was monitored down to the hundredth of a second. Tap, delete. Another face. Tap, delete. Tapping and deleting, I spent my morning the same way I spent the thousand before it.

Lunch was the usual mixture of tinted purple oatmeal and blue smushed jello. The purple was a nutrient that the FDA added to almost everything. Nobody except top officials knew what the purple fluid was. The general public did not complain because it gave you a clear feeling after you finished.

"Hi, Topi"; my friend Sera plopped her tray down next to me. Sera, like me, graduated pretty early so we coincidentally got assigned the to the same building. She was also responsible for the nickname that had sentenced me to a lot of teasing. Oh well, I didn't know there was going to be a boy named Tobi in my class. I also wanted to complain, why did I have to be named Dystopia? why not something generic like Emily? Alice checked her monitor, "I have 15 minutes left" she complained "It must be a busy day". We all had a assigned amount of time to eat our lunch that could range from ten minutes to thirty.

"I have 20" I replied.

"Lucky" she sang

"Not really, my afternoon shift is filtering through the files and lawsuits that go against the government."

"Deleting day?" She asked

"Yes of course". We spent the rest of our lunch chatting about the latest news. Sera eventually got up to return to work and I decided to go as well.

As I was tapping away at the Holo when I saw a strange caption under one of the files.

Missing family

2066 SabrinaC Dr

This file was almost thirty years old! The case was incomplete and the money was never paid. My monitor gave off a small beep. The message that flashed across it gave me a shock.

Delete file immediately

This is an order from the central gov.

Failure to obey will result in automatic imprisonment

With no hesitation I deleted the file and all links in it. Calls from the government were rare, but when they came they were to be first priority for the receiver. I proceeded to tap and delete the rest of the day with no more deviation from the regular routine. As I walked home I found myself wondering at the desperation in the message from the government. They had threatened imprisonment. This was serious. The prison center was the jailhouse for all criminals. It was called Alcaban, a word combining Alcatraz and Azkaban, two very notorious prisons. An architectural monstrosity, it stood 2000 stories high and covered 100 acres of desert. If you were lucky they would keep you in one of the middle floors where you were still in the troposphere and you could see sunlight. I started to walk faster, my thoughts were slowing me down. When I glanced down at my monitor a few moments later my heart almost stopped. My time of travel had been increased by two minutes. We were not supposed to think too much. The impact of thinking was obvious: wasted time. Two minutes is unacceptable, the government would be notified.

I started my next day with breakfast and a nervous tick. My knee kept bouncing and I couldn't stay still. Horrific thoughts filled my mind in the silence of my house. Scenes of being shipped off to Alcaban and dying of hunger, disease or asphyxiation. As I walked to work I was conscious of every guard on duty. One of them would step out of line and single me out, telling me that I needed to report to the courthouse immediately. I would obey quietly and walk toward the dark, looming structure. . . No, I would not think about that, I would calmly and normally amble toward my pristine workbuilding like nothing had ever happened yesterday. My nerves were stretched so taut that when Sera popped up next to me I gave a little inelegant shriek.

"What's with you today Topi?" she asked laughing slightly. "You almost jumped out of your skin!"

"I guess I'm just a little nervous about the trials". This was not completely a lie, the annual testing of job capability determined whether you would spend the next year sleeping on the streets or working in a fancy office building. This test was also proven to be a number one stress factor in the UST (United Sectors of Tashive).

"Oh ya, I'm stressed about that too". From there we settled into a conversation of the most tedious assignments we had ever gotten and the most interesting. I wanted to bring up the file from yesterday but it had caused me enough discomfort already and I wanted to forget about it. I gladly focused on my best friend. We stepped into the building laughing and got shushed by a dutifully irritated guard. Every officer on duty has to look slightly pissed off, its in their job description. I worked through the morning with an amused smile. Sera had that effect on people; she made them laugh and forget whatever worries they were clinging on. I, on the other hand, always seemed to make people uneasy. Yay me.

I stepped down to the lunch floor at 11:32 am. I scanned the room for Sera. She wasn't there. I sat down at an empty table; Sera was probably having a busy morning. Maybe her time would still overlap mine. Even if it didn't I could still find her after my shift was over and talk. Then, in the middle of a noisy crowded cafeteria, I got the one thing everyone feared most. The message on my monitor was straightforward: report to the main office now.