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    Utopian Ordeal
    Utopian Ordeal
    Utopian Ordeal
    Ebook46 pages45 minutes

    Utopian Ordeal

    By Rushton Woodside

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    About this ebook

    In this story of the near future, Professor David Cunningham invents a device called the Cranial Tap, combining technologies available today. With some simple electronics and a complex computer program he enables the speechless to talk. The initial application enters society in use for dogs – causing a fun romp.

    But with governmental hands gaining control of human use the device becomes a flawless lie detector, and even worse, a thought sensor. Cunningham finds the end result to be far from his intent, with society as we know it undergoing drastic changes. Some are for the better and some not. He eventually dies a lonely death in isolation, wrought with sorrow.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRushton Woodside
    Release dateAug 6, 2011
    ISBN9781465796486
    Utopian Ordeal
    Author

    Rushton Woodside

    Born right at the mid-twentieth century point in Atlanta, still a sleepy southern city at that time. My mother's bookcase was filled with classics and I read them all before I was twelve, and re-read many. Steinbeck, Faulkner, Hemmingway and the like. For most of my life I have always had an active book going, if not two or three. Favorite types of books to read: Almost any genre of fiction, almost any non-fiction. I've travelled the country as a truck driver and as a rambler, and met thousands of people in thousands of circumstances. I've held dozens of jobs, from digging holes to making technical presentations in Board-rooms. I wrote a lot of poetry and songs as a teen. After a successful eight years writing computer programs and technical documentation I entered book retail, and stayed there for nearly twenty years. I read good books to know how to write, and read bad books on purpose to know how not to write. I completed my first novel in 2004 and it was published locally with great success. It was then that I got serious and studied many books on the craft, and began writing as often as possible. My seventh book is now in progress.

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      Book preview

      Utopian Ordeal - Rushton Woodside

      Utopian Ordeal

      (c) 2011 by Rushton Woodside

      All Rights Reserved

      This edition published by Smashwords.

      All rights reserved, no portions of this book may be reproduced in any manner, either electronic or physical, without written permission of the author. I hereby authorize Smashwords and its affiliates only to distribute this work electronically.

      ISBN Number 9781465796486

      Cover design, layout and setup (c) 2011 Rushton Woodside.

      Discover other titles by Rushton Woodside at Smashwords.com

      Generations http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/23526

      Sarasota Bay http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/21446

      Panther Run http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/21583

      Cowgirl Blues http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/21787

      Quitman County Prison http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/35266

      Every person and event that follows is fictional

      Wikipedia

      (Article revised April 12, 2347)

      The Cranial Tap, commonly known as The Tap, was invented by David Cunningham (born 2006) and first implanted in a human in 2041. It was a simple micro computer chip implanted into the cerebellum and was powered by the chemical processes of the brain. Through a simple database matching algorithm the electrical energy of every thought was compared to a list of undesired tendencies. When a match was made the thought was cancelled out before resulting action or speech could occur.

      It soon became the common cure for criminal tendencies. Among the emotions and thoughts that were programmed into it were anger, greed, jealousy, hate, avarice, prejudice and many more. Within a year others were willingly undergoing the process of implantation, primarily business leaders and politicians. Then The Tap grew in popularity as a solution to emotional imbalance, treatment of phobias and depression, and other psychological ailments. It became as commonplace as Aspirin had the century before.

      When the violence-based game of professional football was affected by a requirement of Tap implantation the United States went into an uproar. There were protests and rallies, some of which became quite violent themselves. Those arrested during the protests were then Tapped as the law required at that time for violent criminals.

      Home invasions and other property based crimes increased during this period as people with The Tap were unable to defend themselves. Rape quickly grew to be the number one crime. In 2045 over three hundred thousand instances were reported. Barely one in a thousand brought an arrest.

      Law enforcement agencies quickly found themselves to be grossly understaffed, and the word Anarchy was often used to describe the state of the country during that tumultuous decade. A state of Martial Law was established by the government. Industries failed. Unemployment surpassed thirty percent by the year twenty-fifty.

      The following years brought the United States into a medieval state where the majority of the population grew their own food and made their own clothing. There was very little to steal, and the sketchy reports available from that period indicate that crime began to level off and then drop drastically.

      Children raised by tapped parents never learned the negative emotional responses that had plagued mankind through history as they were never exposed to them.

      By the year 2200 crime was non-existent and a skeletal form of Socialist society emerged. Common Laws were formed. The most important was that any lawbreaker at any level was interred for life after undergoing a Tap and sterilization.

      World News Vids

      March 23, 2352

      ANCIENT MANUSCRIPT DISCOVERED

      An archaeological crew working in the north western foothills of the Rocky Mountains in North America made a startling discovery one week ago today: a journal written by David Cunningham, the inventor of The Tap. The journal was found in a remote log cabin atop the skeletal remains of an adult male, presumed to be Cunningham.

      The document was delivered to the Smithsonian Institute, where experts conducted a translation of the

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