Homework

HOMEWORK

It's all Kevin's fault. If he hadn't spent the entire semester taunting and insulting me I would never have built the Follower.
I am at best a mediocre student, perfectly happy with simply passing my exams. I am not interested in a career in the Governing Bodies, so even if I finish as the last in my class it will be good enough for my purposes. My pride would not let this happen, of course, but as long as my grades were in the bottom half of the class, I was okay. Only those in the upper fifty per cent are automatically enrolled. The others have to pass further exams, and these can only be done voluntarily.
But Kevin would not let me alone. As soon as he realized that Anne was interested in me - or, rather, that I was interested in Anne - he was always pointing out my failings, my lack of ambition, my "stupidity". I became the joke of the class and, thanks to Kevin's cronies, the school's clown. It never occurred to him that I might have other plans and that obtaining good grades might interfere with them. Once you are in the top half of your class you are doomed to become a part of the Government.
It is a good life, safe, secure, with good wages, but definitely not for me. I was planning to set out on my own, probably on the outer fringes of known space, where fortunes could be made or lost in minutes but life was never dull. I wanted adventure, change, life on the edge and to achieve that I had to make sure I was branded useless by the people in charge. That is, useless according to their rules and only good to receive the basic subsidy our glorious society attributes to the lame, the sick and the dumb. No one starves, but only the best are called to serve. That is their motto.
If you think it was an easy job, then you must be really stupid. With my IQ I could easily ace all the tests and exams. Making sure I got just the right amount of wrong answers was extremely difficult. I never failed, but somehow my average always hovered just below the top half of the class. Not once did it climb above it, not even when twenty of the brightest students were demoted several places because of a prank that went seriously wrong. And that involved some serious calculations, I can tell you that.
I even had plans to write a manual about the whole thing, once I was safely out of the system. I figured it would be a best seller with people who disliked the "safe" life our society was dead set in ensuring for everyone, whether they wanted it or not. I was going to call the book "How to succeed in life by playing dumb". It could be the start of my fortune.
But Kevin spoiled all my plans and the glorious future I could have had. I can't really blame Anne, although nothing would have happened if I had not fallen for her. Whatever role she played, it was done unconsciously. In my sober moments I don't even believe she knew I existed. Not that she loved or even cared for Kevin. After all, she married Joshua, a simple, not too brilliant guy we didn't even know existed. He was years older than us, a neighbor from back home she was sweet on since she was a kid. He runs an agricultural compound and from what I hear that have been allotted four kids.
But let me go back to the beginning of it all.
I had just realized I was madly in love with Anne, the girl that always sat next to me in class. We had never spoken, but that was not a problem. She was very beautiful, with the kind of beauty popularized by the latest Real-Vi star, with a nice, musical voice and elegant, sinuous movements. She seldom spoke in class and her grades were considerably lower than mine. So I immediately assumed that she was playing the same game as mine, pretending to be dumb so that she could lead her own life. It never occurred to me that she might be just plain stupid. Not with her looks.
Kevin sat on her other side and he soon became aware of the way I looked at her. He wasn't the least bit interested in me or in her, but there was no way he was going to let one of the Stups pine after the class beauty. War was declared and operations took place in two fronts. On the one hand he actively pursued her - with indifferent results, I must add - and on the other he never lost an opportunity to put me in my place. Or, at least, in the place he figured was mine.
I let it pass time and time again, firmly determined to let nothing interfere with my ultimate goal. But when Professor Nobles announced the special project that would count for half the grade and Kevin started acting as if he had already won something broke inside me. I decided I would snatch the prize from him, no matter the cost. If in the process I could attract Anne's attention, so much the better. But beating Kevin and his cronies was all I desired. For once, I would show my true colors and be the best of the lot.
We had three months to finish the project and I spent more than a month researching the extensive archives of the University. I was looking for something special, some idea that would jump at me with a sudden flash of brilliancy. I ignored the most recent files, preferring, instead, the older ones, the almost forgotten entries that everybody ignored. If I wanted to find something different and unusual, than I had to look in uncharted waters.
Time was running out and I was beginning to despair when I found the glimmer of an idea. It came, believe it or not, from an old story, almost a fairy tale, from the legendary times before the space age, an epoch called the "Cold War Age" or, sometimes, the "Nuclear Paranoia Age". The language was difficult, with lots of unknown words, and the whole concept of a society without space travel and afraid of nuclear power very hard to grasp. But it gave me the idea I desperately needed.
I spent the next two weeks researching the technology I would require to implement the gadget I had in mind and scrounging (stealing, rather), the expensive parts it required. It was nanotechnology at its best and most of its components came from the Advanced Technology Department. Not that they knew that they were subsidizing me. Compared to what I had in mind their protection devices were a piece of cake.
Building the Follower was the easiest part. I have always been handy with tools, and even as a kid, back home, I was able to extract performances from our robotic tools unequaled even by our most adept workers. That had been my passport to this University, the finest in all habitable planets. I was not interested in what good grades could get me, but I wanted the best possible education. It could come in handy, later on.
It was finally ready, and with ten days to spare. It was really quite simple, a small sphere, the size of a large ant, smooth on the outside but incredibly complex on the inside. It was my implementation of the "spy" of the story I had read, but much more efficient and difficult to detect than a bumbling human being or a satellite. It could be imprinted with a certain person and would then follow him or her everywhere, recording, in image and sound, everything that person did, saw, experienced or said. It would fly, crawl or hide and due to its size it was pretty much undetectable.
Things might still have ended well if I had stopped at that. The assignment only required a written project, so all I needed was to present the basic idea and a few of the concepts involved to get a good grade. I was sure to beat Kevin and everyone else and, maybe, impressing Anne. Without the gadget itself the whole thing could be considered a fluke, a flash in the pan, a once in a lifetime achievement for a rather normal, not very brilliant guy. It would not endanger my plans for the future.
But I couldn't resist the temptation to test my contraption on Kevin. So I launched it and for the next few days amused myself enormously with his antics and, above all, with the knowledge that he had no idea his every movement was being followed. I had some good laughs at his personal habits, at the way he was rebuffed by Anne and a few other girls when he thought nobody was looking, at the many hours he spent studying the simplest matters. It seemed he was not as bright as he claimed and his grades were achieved with a great deal of effort.
His project was good, but not brilliant. As I said, I would have beaten it with just a written exposition. But the day before we had to hand out our homework I saw him secretly showing Anne the contraption he had built. She was so impressed that she even agreed to sit at his table for the end of the year award ceremony. And that sealed my doom.
I wanted to make her sorry for not going with me, even though we had never exchanged more than a few nods. So the next day I handed over to the Professor my precious sphere, together with all the theory and calculations involved in its construction.
Even then I had some misgivings. But as the weeks went on without any apparent consequences my mind was put at rest. I had a good grade, of course, the best in the class, but through a lot of hard work I managed to bring once again my average down to its desired level. I graduated just below the top half, low enough to be on my own when it came to choosing my future. Or so I thought.
I was happily packing my things, prior to leaving this over civilized planet forever, when they showed up. I don't know what kind of badges they showed me, because there was no need for them. They had Secret Body written all over them. As soon as I saw them I knew I could say goodbye to all my projects of adventure and fortune. Despite my grades, I had been chosen to be a member of the elite, to "voluntarily" join the topmost group of the myriad Governing Bodies of our society.
Kevin would have been floored, if he had known. This was all he had worked so hard to achieved, without success. These guys played by different rules. No one knew whom they chose or why those people were chosen. One thing was certain: having top grades was not enough.
And here I am, two years later, a most valued, if secret, member of the Society I had always vowed to flee. For a while I continued to pretend to be dumb, hoping to be thrown out. But that didn't work. Once you become a member, there is no way out. You are in for life.
So I took the other route, working hard to climb the ranks as fast as I possibly can. I have been promoted twice and I would not be surprised by a third promotion before the year is out. At this rate, I'll soon rule the Department, or, at least, part of it. It is what I'm working for. Maybe at the top there will be some freedom, some sense of discovery and adventure. It can't all be as dull and safe as it is now. And one thing is for sure: at least, life will be a lot more comfortable and luxurious.
The worst part is knowing that I am trapped. At first I had plans for escaping, running away when they least expected. But the thought of my little sphere stopped me cold. How do I know that they are not using it on me? I could, of course, design a detector. Knowing what I know, it would be fairly easy. But if they are spying on me with the sphere, they would I was doing it and could stop me at any time, keeping the detector for their own purposes. And even if they are not always spying me, how do I know that they will not launch the Follower at the crucial moment?
No, my only hope is to reach the top of this bunch. With my brains and motivation, it should not be difficult or take too long. As long as it doesn't lead me to another group, a sort of inner circle unknown to us all! It would be horrible if I ended up running the whole show.
And all because I wanted to impress someone with the brilliancy of my homework!
                             
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         Homework