On Monday mornings, I send out a story via email: ultra-brief tales of 1,000 words or more, usually in genres including horror, science fiction, and the supernatural. Those stories collectively are called Once Upon A Time. I’ve also published several ebooks and compendium volumes of those stories so far.

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Here's story 207, of 240 so far.

Best Behaviour

We made the concessions one at a time, over the course of years, so that we barely even noticed it was happening.

First, they came for the criminals. Greater integration between the justice system, policing, the welfare state, and employment agencies enabled a shift towards widespread social punishment systems rather than imprisonment. Electronic tagging and tracking was linked to personal finance within a cashless society, allowing the creation of invisible, pervasive, virtual prisons of opportunity and purchasing power. Those convicted of crimes simply couldn’t access more than the necessities of contemporary life, and their rehabilitation and repayment of debts to society were not only mandatory, but enforced everywhere and at all times.

As a result, crime dropped to negligible levels, and certain types of offence began drifting from fact towards history, and then eventually to myth.

Ubiquitous surveillance linked to identity systems made social integration and etiquette trivial matters; a fait accompli, to be accepted without viable recourse. Micro-sanctions became the norm during just a few short transitional months, and the unblinking and unavoidable eye of oversight was felt by everyone, during every public moment of our lives.

Antisocial acts, spanning everything from noise disturbance to obstructive parking to all forms of affray and plenty more besides, all began to vanish from daily life, with their occasional resurgence a matter of disgust, and bringing ostracism for the perpetrators.

As a result, cultural mores became universally aligned with societal principles and accepted standards of conduct, with the wheels of public and private life turning in tandem to always avoid the dreaded prospect of an excommunication in situ. People became content in their compliance with the treatment of others as they themselves wished to be treated; and the knowledge that transgressions would be swiftly and unfailingly penalised drained away prospective anxieties and smoothed interpersonal interactions on every front.

Next, they came for private industry, in particular its owners and employers. Obligatory integrations with national oversight systems turned business practices into extensions of national policies, creating what was heralded as symmetrical watchfulness: ensuring not only that citizens continued to be observed and assessed while at work, but also that their employers toed the line of workers’ rights and wider legislation. The workplace became just another venue for life under the law, with no room for abuse or selective interpretation.

As a result, workplaces became representative and fair, balanced and focused, and more activities of value were accomplished within fewer hours, because of the twin forces of prohibition of overtime or exploitation, and the socially-ingrained drive to provide value and to direct oneself towards personal fulfilment. The problem of the past, it quickly became clear, was not indolence or apathy, but rather just the uneven reward proposition of a sustainable work ethic.

Next, they came for the doctors. As technology marched forward, fitness tracking gave way to universal health monitoring, with detailed biological insight centralised to detect illness at individual or population levels, proactively and without the need for personal approaches to care. Increasing automation and related infrastructure gradually shifted medical assistance to be at point of need instead of in dedicated facilities, for all but the most serious or acute conditions. All provision of interventions fell under the control of the state, and everything was governed by a triage of urgency and efficacy — including the needs of society at large. Private medical services vanished into the darkness of history, being anathema to decency and equality and fairness.

As a result, incidence of almost all illnesses dwindled, constant prevention became the norm, and vaccinations became trivial monthly events across the populace. Lifespans began to increase dramatically, in proportion with voluntary working lives, emotional and psychological health, and general perceived wellbeing.

There were bumps along the way, of course.

Those who defined freedom as the right to behave against the best interests of the self or others shouted slogans of curtailed personal agency, and a prophetic impotence in the face of nebulous dark forces of oppression, against which they themselves were the only possible bulwark.

Those, on the other hand, who defined freedom as liberation from pragmatic and historically-omnipresent fears of illness, poverty, victimisation, inequality, and bodily harm, debated it all from within their well-accustomed sense of safety.

There were protests, and violence, and politics, as those in power told all those without power that it was their personal power that was at stake. Some people are born desperate to bear the yoke, and will seek one out if none are already incumbent open them, and those people called freedom slavery, and called ignorance strength, and said that the past was the only acceptable future. But progression is inevitable, and can only be hindered or slowed, never extinguished. And so we progressed.

We find ourselves beyond it all now, looking back in bemused disbelief at what became so obvious in retrospect; so abhorrent in final perspective. We sacrificed isolation, and deniability, and secrecy, and deception, and ultimately we sacrificed paranoia and distrust. The answer was in front of us all along, hidden only by insufficient technological evolution, and insufficient willingness to truly look at ourselves.

Throughout history, we had sought to protect our ability to rebel against great injustice, without realising that it was those who rebelled unnecessarily every day, in mean and petty ways, who kept us perpetually on the precipice of disaster. In the end, the only thing we had to enforce was the thing that most of us were doing anyway.

So here we are, united at last. We are on our best behaviour, every moment, and we are happier for it.

JINX

KESTREL face a new and terrifying enemy: an all-seeing mastermind who already knows exactly who they are, and many of their deepest secrets. Nothing stays hidden forever, and the line between privacy and liberty is razor-thin…

Book 3 in the KESTREL action-thriller series.

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