The Ranker
As Virtual Reality is on the spread, the government has decided to intervene and implement a Virtual Reality Schooling System. Our hero is incredibly smart yet incredibly unmotivated. As a result he is quite average... on paper. In the virtual world though, things are completely different. The variety of game options are able to keep our protagonist interested enough to apply himself. As the government places a restriction on game time according to scholastic merits, he must re-evaluate his priorities. In this world, ranks matter above all else. With only two school years left, there is not much time for him to fix his academic rank before jobs are assigned.
Chapter 1: Shiny Silver Capsules
"Alright students. It seems that things are going to go down a little differently this year. 'Differently' being the key word. 'Little' being the biggest understatement in the history of understatements." Mr. Ferguson, the homeroom teacher, announced in his usual melodrama.
"It seems there will no longer be a school as you know it. In fact, your grade won't even require school attendance with the exception of your sports requirement. Instead of educated, trained and real teachers like me, you will now be referring to a gaming system for your education."
Overly dramatic mannerisms interceded by sorrowful sighs of dejection where spewing out of Mr. Ferguson as he told his obvious tale of woe.
"So then, my last task as your teacher is to announce the following."
Mr. Ferguson prepared himself. His face looked like he was about to tell them they would all die of terminal cancer.
"Each of you is going to be given a capsule which will be installed in your home. This process should have already happened, and if not, will have happened by the time you get home."
There was the momentary dead silence of the baffled before he continued.
"For those of you who do not know what a capsule is. It is a virtual console, previously referred to as a gaming console, which allows you to enter a virtual world. For those of you who do not know what a virtual world is…"
A brief look around the classroom before he concluded.
"Yes. Okay. I don't need to cover that one."
Mr. Ferguson closed his holoscreen before he continued.
He took a deep breath before he went off-script and said.
"Basically I am here to tell you to go home and wait for your capsule."
The reality of the situation was starting to sink in and students were becoming restless with the prospect of having a capsule at their disposal at all times.
"However."
He cut off the budding commotion.
"Your game-time will depend on your academic merit. You are being issued a capsule as a means to your education, not your entertainment. That your entertainment must be taken into consideration when evaluating learning methods just shows how low our society has fallen."
This got the students' attention once more.
"You will be given a syllabus which you must complete in order to gain your final academic rank. Each assignment will offer credits which can be reimbursed in the form of game-time. The better you do, the more credits you will receive."
One of the usual 'overly involved' students raised her hand.
The teacher gave another melodramatic sigh and said in a resigned voice, "Yes Malory? What can I do for you on this fine, fine day?" Sarcasm was dripping off his words. He was annoyed he had to put up with the girl on this day of all days.
"How does the credit system work?" Malory questioned, ignoring his tone of voice. She was used to people speaking to her that way.
"Pretty straightforward actually. You do work. You get credits for that work."
"I see. If we have a capsule at home. Does that mean we don't have to come to school anymore?"
Mr. Ferguson gave Malory an annoyed look that he wouldn't have dared the previous week before continuing.
"As I have already said, no. Most of your subjects, such as English, Math… Biology… will be covered with your capsules. Physical Education however, will have to be covered in school."
He said aloud before muttering to himself.
-"I shouldn't have laughed at the PE teacher… It seems he's the only one not losing his job around here… Now it's me who is going to be the butt of all jokes..."
"I understand that most of us will excel with this new system... however."
Malory shot a boy in the corner a malicious look.
"What's to stop some of us from only gaming?"
The boy however, was too preoccupied with a spot on the ceiling to care. There was a stain, with a dubious shape that was calling all of his attention.
Mr. Ferguson held back an eyeroll and said.
"Well, I heard that the government has placed restrictions on all games. Until you have received your final academic rank, you can only play when you have accumulated enough credits."
There was another agitated stir in the classroom.
"What do you mean?"
Even dedicated-stellar-brown-noser Malory showed signs of distress.
-"As I said earlier. Your game-time will depend on your academic merit."
"You can't be serious!?" Malory was indignant.
"Yes. I am serious. Do you think I like it? I'll be out of a job because of it!"
Mr. Ferguson couldn't help but take the chance to expressing his own grief on the situation.
"As I understand it, each assignment has a set number of available credits. These credits will be granted in accordance to your individual performances. So the better you do… The more time you get to play... And the more you study… The more you can play."
A cacophony of voices broke out simultaneously as soon as Mr. Ferguson finished his explanation.
"But that's!"
"What!?"
"I don't believe it!"
"They can't just throw that on us like that!"
It wasn't surprising that the students were indignant. Every single one of them played a virtual reality game called Royal Road (even -pants), anything that got in the way of their game-time was akin to evil. Ever since the inception of Royal Road, everything other than school and the strictly necessary took place in the virtual world.
If people wanted to meet each other, they did it in game. If people wanted to date, they did it online. If people wanted to sleep… okay, technology hadn't gotten that far... yet, but 'virtually' everything else, even shopping, was done… well… virtually these days.
So, although there were many reasons that the students could be protesting the new system, for example… invasion of privacy, free-will or even democracy, the actual reason that there was so much protest was because the students could already tell their game time was going to be seriously reduced.
While the racket broke out, we unfortunately sidelined our protagonist. As you might have guessed… yeah, never mind, you probably didn't. Well. Anyway, he is the ceiling-gazer who goes by Cur and while everyone else in the room was shouting in agitation, he sat calmly, hands-in-pocket, and continued to gaze at the same spot on the ceiling.
It's not that Cur didn't care. It's just that he didn't feel there was anything he could do about it. When it came to the government, he knew they had the final word. He knew from experience that protest never helped and eventually died out as people began to see things the government's way. Cur was sure the same was going to happen in this situation, so he saw no reason to get worked up about it.
Plus, getting worked up about something… requires effort.
Cur never saw any reason to apply himself in anything he wasn't interested. In fact, the only thing he did apply himself in consistently was Royal Road. This aspect of his personality was of course the thing that drove our little Miss Goody Two Shoes Crazy, but more on that later.
Cur's attitude towards school was at best, lax. A very rare attitude in a society ruled by ranks. Everyone knew that having a good academic rank basically settled you for life, which is why most students tried so hard.
In order to explain the ranking system, here's a little flashback. After the unification of all the world's governments (a history lesson for another date), the big question was how to set up a governing system that was both equal and fair… for everyone. After much debate, the people came to a unanimous decision to create a meritocracy, and in this way the system of ranks was born. People could now no longer blame anyone else other than themselves for their shortcomings.
Ranks are flexible and change on a daily basis as new information is computed into the ranks. Each person has many ways of defining and identifying themselves in the system as there is a rank for everything. There are individual ranks which are computed based on a single person's scores, such as the aforementioned academic rank, there are ranks for athletics, popularity, artistry, common sense, aesthetic beauty, singing, you name it, there is a rank for it. Many of the ranks even have sub-ranks, the knowledge rank for example has the most sub-ranks such as the indigenous cultures of Old Australia knowledge rank. This type of ranks allow people to immediately know who the best source of knowledge for any given thing is. It also allows people with common interests to come together and discuss a thing they love.
Every rank is determined differently according to its nature. Many ranks are measured in standardized tests which citizens are required to take periodically, and encouraged to take as frequently as they want. Other ranks depend on the opinion of others and is thus affected by polls which people participate in. The aesthetic beauty rank for example is determined when citizens get assigned ten random people which they rank from 1-10 in terms of beauty. The average of the whole world is taken to create these ranks. Being that there is also a rank for how many polls a person participates in (a rank that gives other ranks a slight boost), the government has no shortage in people's opinions about other people.
The other type of rank that exists is the group rank, which exists in multiple forms. The most prevalent of which is the family rank. It totals all household member's ranks and divides them by the number of members, giving a per capita glimpse of the family. Other important group ranks are the ones for schools, grades, particular classes, teams, orchestras, clubs, you name it.
Ranks weren't just informational though, they also influenced an incredible amount of things. Good academic ranks led to high paying jobs, good singing ranks led to successful music careers, good popularity ranks led to good political careers, good aesthetic ranks led to… let's face it… any career.
Going by Cur's intrinsic intelligence one would have expected him to be amongst the highest in the academic ranks… but he wasn't. At the moment he was ranked at 28,737,918 out of the 60,419,003 students in his Grade Level, placing him a little below the average. He didn't really care though.
He got bored easily and often didn't even bother to complete his tests. Cur figured he could fix his rank later if the mood ever struck him, as long as he got a final academic rank it would all be fine.
No one else dared to think like this, changing ranks was much harder than getting ranked well in the first place. In fact, most of the other students had long cracked down on their studies. His class was in its tenth year of schooling, leaving only two more before the final rank would be assigned. After that rank was given… it would be extremely difficult to change it.
Immediately after Grade Level 12 all of the recently graduated students would be separated into four separate groups. These groups were decided in terms of ranks. The top 10% would go into a university of their choice to study something of their liking. Mostly, these individuals became doctors, lawyers or high-powered business men.
The next 50% would be placed into a university of the government's choice according to aptitude tests that were performed regularly. Those students would have no say in the matter. In fact, the lower you rank, the fewer choices you have.
The following 30% would be placed in either menial government jobs, community colleges or particular career courses. They were expected to start contributing to the workforce a year after graduation while the top 50% on the other hand would have another 5 years of study before they entered the labor force.
Finally, the last 10% were given the unwanted but necessary manual labor jobs. They often involved trash disposal, sewer treatment, factory work and environmental care. Although ranks were not set in stone, it was very hard to recover from the graduation assignment. If you ever wished to rise from factory work, you would have to pursue a community college degree or another form of specialized training on your free time while still managing your designated job. All of this while simultaneously trying to raise ranks that you must have let fall too low to begin with.
So if you screwed up your graduation ranking… well… you were screwed for life.
Cur didn't really care. You might call it overconfidence, or laziness, or you might call it self-deception. He figured he could fix his rank at the very end of his student career, right before it mattered. Either way, he continued to sit there with vacant eyes while the classroom raged on.
Malory was the only one who left the horde to give Cur a look of contempt. She was furious with him. Always had been, always would be. She considered him her archrival… even if he didn't know/care. She had the best sectional and regional ranks in academics and was even in the top 1000 (currently 982) of the global Grade Level 10 ranks. Cur on the other hand... wasn't. His rank fluctuated somewhere from the bottom third to the middle and back.
She hated him.
While she wholeheartedly studied for each rank-test, he would merely graze by. Sometimes he would get full marks (when a subject interested him and the mood struck him), while at other times he would get 0 marks (when he couldn't be bothered).
She hated him.
It was nigh on impossible to get full marks and she herself had only managed it a handful of times. The tests were purposefully constructed to be ridiculously difficult. The reason was that if thousands were constantly able to get full marks… how would those higher ranks be distinguished one from another?
She hated him.
While she labored away to increase her national rank by even one, he sailed by and invested effort only when the mood struck him. In her mind she had never beaten him even when she got 98 and he got a 0. Every time he bothered to participate his grade had been higher than hers. There had been one time when she had finally managed to get a full mark, and since Cur had also participated… she thought she would finally be able to at least manage a tie… he got a 102. (He had found a mistake in the test.)
She hated him.
Malory was the only one who knew about the discrepancies in Cur's grades. They were supposed to be confidential and the only public knowledge was the general rank itself which was computed with the average of all test scores. How a person got that rank was private. Not even the teachers knew of Cur's test scores since fingerprints served as signatures. That is also why he was never bothered or asked about his oscillating grades. They could not pester what they didn't know.
Malory however, knew. And it irritated her to no end. She wasn't supposed to know but her father was a very high ranked government employee who had access to personal files. In case you haven't noticed yet, Malory is an extremely competitive and nosey individual and so she decided to snoop around in the personal files of her classmates one night. She paid particular attention to Cur's file; he had annoyed her from the beginning with his laissez-faire attitude. His academic results stumped her and ignited an eternal fire of hate within her.
She hated him.
Her father never knew that Malory would check his files after every rank-test just to find out how Cur had done. With time her obsession became a compulsion. In class, her gaze was constantly going back to him, at home she would study until her parents fell asleep. Then she would immediately log onto her dad's account to go over Cur's files… again.
She could only access them on his computer though. It was one thing to go unnoticed while browsing. Printing it would be a completely different ballgame. Over time she had memorized all there was to know about him. She knew his height, eye color, weight, school rankings ranging from kindergarten to elementary school to high school, family rankings, social rankings, aptitude test scores… it was scary. Granted, the government knowing and keeping track of all of these things in the first place might be even scarier.
When she knew his files better than her own, she moved on to his family's. She had become a Cur-fanatic.
(The moral of the story is: Parents… don't use your daughter's birthdays as your password.)
She hated him.
Cur, on the other hand … couldn't care less.
He was wondering about the implications of what the teacher had said. If he understood it correctly, he would have to invest into his studies if he wanted to play. He was not particularly happy about that prospect. Not that he was worried about his performance abilities… he was just annoyed that, by the looks of it, he wouldn't be able to play as he pleased anymore.
That was quite vexing. The Virtual Reality of Royal Road had been the only thing that had held his interest long-term. There were too many facets and nuances for him to get bored like he usually did. As a result he was doing extremely well in the, apparently, only unranked activity that was gaming. Had there been a rank, he would probably have come in the top ten... at least. Unfortunately though, there was no such rank and he continued to be a low-to-middle ranker in all other things… that were ranked.
Cur was still considering the words the teachers had said before the crazy had broken out when -
"SIIILLEEEENCCEEEE. JUST SHUT THE -" Mr. Ferguson boomed.
And silence, that had been hiding in the corner, usurped the throne and reigned.
Thankfully he caught himself before finishing his outburst. He briefly closed his eyes and smoothed out his clothing in a habitualistic fashion.
"Alright kids…" He began in a calm and'composed voice… he was obviously pretending that the zoo-circus-carnival of students a few seconds ago hadn't taken place.
Malory raised her hand and Mr. Ferguson pointedly looked at every other part of the room.
"It seems that this is quite a difficult concept for you to grasp on such short notice. Fear not. The capsules are supposed to be outfitted with a self-explanatory tutorial and initiation through your registration."
He looked around the room with a curt little smile on his face before he continued.
"The ministry of education has given each student a 24 hours to complete this registration. It is mandatory for every single one of you. If you have not completed your registration within that amount of time, your family's rank will go down by 10 for every further minute you take to register."
He gave the, now seated, students an examining glance before he added.
"Well. I do not think I have anymore to add… After all I am now a superfluous teacher… Are there anymore questions before I let you meet your new school system and my replacement..."
He gave the class one final look.
"Alright. You may go."
He waved his hand in what looked like a tango gesture. The students understood it for what it was, and took their leave.
Mr. Ferguson turned to his desk while the students raced each other to the door.
Malory's raised hand was promptly ignored.
