The Optimized Factor

Everything is better when society is... optimized

Photo by Martin Martz on Unsplash

The Optimized Factor

William M. Carter

A Short Story

New Haven isn’t the largest metropolis, but it offers tree-lined streets, local cafés, and neighbors who still wave at every person who pa

ss by their front porches. It’s a good place to live and Roger enjoys the friendly people.

Over the past eighteen months, the city has become something more. New Haven is being touted as a model of urban perfection and is drawing folks from around the world to study a new optimized way of running a city.

Since Optimization began, crime vanished almost overnight. The homeless shelters have emptied, not by housing them in rundown hotels, but through what the mayor calls Optimized Social Programs. Moreover, traffic now moves in a more peaceful and flowing manner, even during rush hour. Buses are always on time, and school test scores are way up. Everything now runs perfectly.

Roger stood at his kitchen window, watching the morning commute drift past his brownstone. Every pedestrian walked in their proper place, and every driver maintained perfect following distance, on once messy roads. The joggers passed by at regular intervals, as if choreographed. Beautiful, really. So why did it make his skin crawl?

No horns blaring, no yelling. Where the hell is all the chaos?

Of course, an Optimized city must have the proper hardware to keep things running efficiently. New devices were delivered to every household as part of the Smart Living Initiative. Roger did not request it, but city services installed them anyway, including state of the art smoke detectors, thermostats, security cameras, and new special TVs.

Roger learned about the TVs by accident.

One afternoon, he had trouble with the new TV, when he saw something on the flat screen. He thought it was a spec of dirt, but realized it was a tiny camera recording his every move.

I watch TV, and the TV watches me… watch TV.

Everything was free, efficient, and every device was connected to the municipal network for optimal resource management. Whatever that means. Roger wondered what’s the catch. There must be something the city isn’t telling us.

His phone even began speaking to him, giving daily notifications. "Good morning, Roger. Your optimal departure time is 8:23 AM. Today's recommended route avoids construction on Fifth Street. Have a safe and productive day!"

Damn thing is annoying.

Roger stopped speculating how the system knew his name or his schedule. Everyone received personalized notifications now, it was just part of everything being Optimized. The city had explained it as advanced data analytics, cross-referencing traffic patterns, work schedules, and consumer behavior to create a more effective urban ecosystem.

Just tell us the truth. Optimization is a pilot program to control the masses!

He checked his watch: 8:22 AM. If he left now, he'd arrive at the community college where he taught history exactly on time, just like every other day for the past year. The predictability should have been comforting, but Roger felt like a rat in a maze, a very comfortable and efficient maze. Roger found it disturbing.

The walk to campus took him past the park where he used to meet Elaine for their morning runs. She'd been his neighbor for three years, an environmental lawyer who'd challenged every new development, and every zoning change.

She'd organized protests against installing surveillance cameras, and had questions about the Smart City Initiative, and she demanded transparency in municipal spending.

Elaine was definitely a rebel.

Then suddenly... she was gone. One day she was there, the next day Elaine had disappeared, without a trace. When Roger asked neighbors about her, they'd given him blank looks, as if she never existed. Her apartment now housed a quiet young professional who kept perfect hours and never caused trouble.

Roger reached the campus and paused for a moment. Students moved across the street in their usual patterns. Groups gathered in prearranged spots, and their conversations were the same as yesterday, and the day before that. Everything just seemed a bit too scripted.

In his classroom, Roger faced twenty-four students who hung on to his every word with unparalleled attention. No phones buzzing, side conversations, or challenging questions. Bland and boring.

When he'd started teaching history fifteen years ago, every class had been a debate. Students questioned everything, pushed boundaries, disagreed with him and each other. Now, they absorbed information like sponges and regurgitated it perfectly on exams.

It’s like they’re robots.

"Today we're discussing The Vietnam War," Roger announced. "Who can tell us how it started?"

Hands shot up with perfect timing. The answers given were memorized from the textbook, and each student built on the previous response without contradiction. Roger felt a chill creep down his back.

Give me back my analog world.

After class, he walked to the faculty lounge where his colleague Janet was grading papers. She looked up with the same pleasant smile she'd worn for months now, not the sarcastic grin he remembered from years past, but something more... consistent.

"How are your students this semester?" Roger asked.

"Wonderful," Janet replied without hesitation. "Best behaved group I've ever had. Very focused, very compliant. Makes teaching so much easier."

Roger remembered when Janet used to complain about student apathy. She had worried about students’ critical thinking skills and agonized over how to engage her classes. Now she seemed content with blind obedience.

"Don't you miss the chaos?" Roger pressed. "The debates, and questions?"

Janet's smile sputtered for just a second, like a glitch in a software program. "Why would I miss that? Things are better now. Efficient."

That evening, Roger walked through downtown, observing the cornucopia of city life. Restaurants filled and emptied at Optimal intervals. Pedestrians moved with purpose, their paths always in sync with their destination. Street performers played at designated spots, their music timed to avoid overlap. Even the birds seemed to follow patterns, roosting and feeding in organized formations.

He stopped at the newsstand where old Pete had worked for thirty years. Pete had been the neighborhood's unofficial historian, full of stories about the city's evolution, critical of every mayoral decision, and suspicious of every new development. Now a young man with a business attitude and a fake smile operated the stand.

"Where's Pete?" Roger asked.

The young man looked confused. "I'm sorry, sir. This is my stand. I've been here for... well, quite some time."

Roger pulled out his phone and scrolled through his contacts. Pete's number was gone. Even more disturbing was he couldn't find any photos of Pete on his phone either. He was sure he'd taken several over the years. It was as if Pete had been deleted.

Where are you, Pete?

That evening, Roger sat in his study, trying to make sense of what he’d been seeing lately. He pulled out a paper notepad and began writing down everything he could remember about people who disappeared. Elaine and Pete were just gone, and Janet who had scowled for years, was now the most pleasant person around.

Dr. Rosen, Roger’s personal physician, had been asking uncomfortable questions about the city's health statistics. A few days later he was replaced by a younger physician who praised the municipality's wellness programs. Roger never saw Dr. Rosen again.

The pattern was clear as day.

Anyone who questioned, disrupted, or failed to adapt to the new order were being quietly removed. Not violently, or dramatically, but completely, as if they never existed.

Optimization, you either comply or be deleted. Digital, one or zero.

Roger realized he could be next. His questions in faculty meetings, his skepticism about the city's rapid transformation, his inability to fully embrace the new program. These traits likely marked him as just another variance that needs to be adjusted, or worse.

Tomorrow, he would wake up at the optimal time, leave at the calculated moment, teach his compliant students, and return to his regulated existence. Everything would be perfectly synchronized for him.

Or perhaps tomorrow, someone else would wake up in his bed, teach his classes, live his life with the proper attitude and acceptable behavior.

He began to think whether he should just give in or try and get to the truth and risk everything.

Outside, the city zipped with the quiet optimization of a perfect system wearing a human face. The new society was like a computer rebooting itself to fix errors.

Who gets deleted next?

The End - Maybe