text: Franklin pushed through the revolving door of the Social Revenue Service Annuity Center at 7:50am just as he had every morning for the last twelve years. Even though it was morning, it was dark outside except for the flashes of lightning. He was relieved to be out of the driving rain. Shrugging the rain off his shoulders, he walked past the empty guard desk and waved his right hand over the turnstile, pausing briefly for the green LED flash after the chip scanner had logged him into the building. Hearing the ding of system approval he pushed through the chrome bar and shuffled toward to bank of elevators. He shifted from one foot to the other waiting for one of the lights above the doors to identify the door to the rest of his life. Another ping and he stepped into the elevator alone. Like the turnstile, the elevator recognized his RFID sig and took him directly to the fourteenth floor. Without looking up of acknowledging any of the others in the office Franklin moves down the center of the cubicle farm to the third row, made a left and arrived at N-1436. He removed his still dripping coat and threw it over the hard plastic “guest chair” not minding the remaining drips of rainwater that sprinkle the fabric of the cube. It is the only weather his workday world ever sees. Someone years ago had taken to calling this section of the office Murderer’s Row. The guy even made copy paper street sign and hung it outside the entrance to Franklin’s cubicle cul-de-sac. It got him fired for misuse of government funds. At least that is what the form said. The truth was calling the bureaucrats on this row murders was considered insensitive given the nature of their work. Franklin always thought it was funny. He dropped his cell on the charging pad and the projected image of the SRA logo blinks into existence on the silver white panel in front of him. Smiling he remembers the days of passwords, two factor and other biometric. Now his implant tells the cube who he is and diisplays his first task for the day. Franklin’s official designation was Social Revenue Administration Case Analyst, though his email signature read Annuity Counselor. The SRA had created by an Act of Congress in 2032, soon after the Social Security Trust Fund was determined to be hopelessly insolvent. The austerity riots across the EU inspired the terrified politicians to actually work together on a bipartisan solution. In a brilliant and rare moment of insight, some Congressman decided it would be a good idea just to combine Internal Revenue with Social Security and Social Revenue was born. With a wave the agenda paged to the first case. The first of sixteen names he thought. Sixteen stories. Sixteen recommendations. Every day. Three thousand days. Always sixteen. \ Case#A203317308B Date of Maturation: 2044-9-30 Name: William Arthur McKinley DOB: 1982-10-1 City: Fayetteville, Arkansas Diagnosis: Senile Dementia, early stage Alzheimer’s Prognosis: Degenerative Remaining Residual Social Value: $13,527 Estimated Social Economic Impact: -$1,325,425 Accelerated Benefit: $42,000 \ Franklin checked “APPROVED: No review required” on the screen and hit submit. He then sat flipping through news stories on the internet for the remaining twenty eight minutes of the mandated half hour review each case received. \ Case: #A203317308B Date of Maturation: 2044-9-30 Name: Mary Louise Horton-Miller DOB: 2002-10-1 City: Fayetteville, Arkansas Diagnosis: Melanoma Prognosis: N-Stage Remaining Residual Social Value: $5,242 Estimated Social Economic Impact: -$2,425,000 Accelerated Benefit: $65,000 Again “APPROVED: No review required” \ And so Franklin’s day progressed. Case after case of elderly or terminally ill people being approved for accelerated benefits. \ The most innovative part of the Social Security Solvency Act of 2032 was the establishment of the option for accelerated benefits. The idea of paying pensioners every month until they expire had proved too costly so there must be a better solution. Everyone, the authors reasoned, has some intrinsic value to society. That value can be expressed in monetary terms. At any point in life, or so the accountants argued, you can determine how much value you have left to contribute to society. Not only does every life have a value, society also incurs a cost for supporting that individual. This can also be reduced to a monetary value. There naturally comes a point when the cost of sustaining a citizen exceeds the value of their contribution. If one were to compare it to a mortgage, that citizen would be upside down in their value to society. When this occurs it obviously makes good fiscal sense, or so the politicians concluded, to consider liquidation. Unfortunately they were unable to just arbitrarily order such things with pesky things like civil rights in the way. There was however just too much money to ignore. One suggestion had been to exercise the concept of eminent domain on the lives of burdensome people. This was a little to far but once again money was the answer. People needed an incentive to liquidate. An annuity as it were. The regulators developed a complex algorithm that determines what percentage of an individual’s remaining social benefit they will be offered, plus a reasonable uplift, that they would receive immediately. These funds could be used anyway they like. Settling debt (a mandatory prerequisite) A child’s education. Philanthropy (highly encouraged). Donated to the state.(Very highly encouraged) After payment the citizen would then be liquidated, saving society untold billions. After two hours reviewing the first four cases, exactly thirty minutes for each, Franklin pushed back his ergonomic desk chair and shuffled toward the elevator for union mandated fifteen-minute break. Standing on the observation deck of the thirty-ninth floor he watched the movement of the tiny insect like people and cars in the streets below. It reminded him of videos of the blood stream and cells moving through the body carrying nutrients to and waste away from all of the important organs. He liked to think of the city as an organism and that was his job. Helping to move the old and dying out of the way of the new and growing. After fifteen minutes exactly he was back at his desk. Franklin waved to the next appointment and for the first time in twelve years something new happened. \ 10:15 End of Assignments 10:30 - 11:00 Counseling Center 2 \ Nothing for the rest of the day. This was exceptionally odd. Every other day, Franklin would spend the afternoon sessions with candidates. That is what he called them. The algorithm did not just evaluate people who had recent diagnoses or reached a certain age. Those were usually processed automatically and informed through the mail or by field offices of their options. The algorithm evaluates every one. All 1.2 billion citizens in the country. It does not simply look at one’s health but also takes into account education, performance, skills, social media profile and personal relationships. To be honest no human is really certain how the value is calculated. That is the thing about self-learning artificial intelligence. It is sort of a black box. The AI sets the value and from that moment forward the amount you can receive ticks down. For the good of society and your loved ones, of course you would want to liquidate as soon as possible. The usual term was thirty days. Enough time to settle affairs, take a final vacation, tell off that rude neighbor that has been putting his garbage can in front of your condo instead of his own. One could always request more or less time but it was the counselor’s job to make sure the length of term was equitable. And by equitable that meant best for society. There were even bonus programs for the counselors who met targets for minimal accumulated term during a review period. Franklin had never received one. Troubled by what this could mean Franklin shifted in his chair. Perhaps there was a meeting and procedures were changing. It could be a new head of the department. That must be it. The director had changed every four years and he had only known about it through email. Franklin had never seen them before but that must be it. He felt odd too. A tightness in his chest. Sweat beading up on his forehead. Still he sat. Five minute walk to the counseling center. Five minutes before I should leave. What to do? He spun in his chair to ask the man in the cube across from him, forgetting that this desk had been empty since the sign incident. What was his name? Franklin had never even known. He just learned about the dismissal from an inter office memo and paid no attention to it. Come to think of it there weren’t any other occupied cubes on Murder’s row. One by one they stopped showing up but Franklin had never taken notice before. They must be letting me go he concluded. He’d experienced this before. Knew what it looked like. Questions flooded his otherwise unencumbered consciousness. Should I take my coat? No I’ll come back for it. Will they let me? How can they do this? Will there be a severance? Surely the union will have a say. Franklin looked around for someone to ask, but realized he didn’t know anyone of the dozen or so people he saw scattered in the mostly empty cube farm. He took a breathe and resigned himself to keep his composure. His dignity. Yes that was important for a man. &#x200B; His hands trembled as he pushed the elevator call button. He stepped in and the system again recognized his sig, checked his calendar and chimed “Destination 2nd Floor.” In the enclosed space he found it even harder to breathe. His chest felt like a huge weight was on top of it. &#x200B; Surely this is just anxiety and nothing more. Should I go to a doctor he thought? No. Maintain my dignity. Take the news like a man. Make a plan. Move on. That is what you do. &#x200B; Franklin stepped off the elevator, turned right and through the frosted glass double doors of Counseling Center 2. He had never been in here. His sessions had always been in Center 1. A left turn off the elevator. So many new things. &#x200B; There was no one at the reception desk. There never is anymore. Just a screen that read “Franklin Moss - Room C “and an arrow pointing to the left. He walked down the stark white hall to the third door on the left. Another screen inviting Fanklin Moss inside. &#x200B; A white plastic chair sat in front of a simple conference table. At the other end of the table was a large plush office chair. It is the kind of “executive” chair Franklin had in his office all those years ago when he had been an insurance adjuster. In the chair “sat” a hologram of a blonde woman in a blue suit. Another person would have found the image attractive but Franklin had stopped noticing those things a long time ago. &#x200B; “Mr. Moss, thank you for joining me. Please sit down” &#x200B; “I don’t understand what is going on. Am I in some sort of trouble?” &#x200B; “Not at all, Mr. Moss. Please sit down and we will review your case” &#x200B; He recognized the script and fear seized him. He felt the sweat now pouring down his neck and pulled unconsciously at his collar. He steadied himself and tried to take deep breath. His chest felt like someone was slowly squeezing it in a vice. He felt cold. &#x200B; The holographic counselor seemed unaffected by his state as he squirmed in the hard plastic chair. &#x200B; “Mr. Moss, I am required to inform you that this conversation is being recorded for quality assurance as well as compliance purposes. The Social Revenue Service has determined that your residual social value will shortly cross the threshold for solvency. Were you to receive medical attention for the coronary event the system has predicted you will experience at 10:38AM, society would incur a cost of $852,138.98. As your position is being eliminated, to be replaced by interactive counseling systems such as myself, your remaining social value if you were to find other employment would be $128,175 for a period of one year when a second coronary event would occur with 78% certainty resulting in a further burden on society totaling $1,327,886.42.“ &#x200B; A lightning bolt of pain shot down Frankin’s arm. He clinched his teeth and struggled to inhale. Barely aware of the sound from the counselor across the room. &#x200B; She continued, “In an effort to optimize the benefit to society, the system elected to allow you to continue your role as “ a brief pause and the voice changed to a male tenor that said “Case Analyst” - returning to the female voice - “ until this time. It is now my privilege to offer you this annuity of $17.38 as incentive for voluntary liquidation for the good of society. I realize you may have many questions and I am here to assist you in any way. Mr. Moss, do you have any thing to ask?” &#x200B; Franklin’s eyes and teeth clenched, his right armed gripped his left shoulder digging into the skin but he never felt it. Then a release as Franklin’s body relaxed, slumped over the arm of the chair and the last air in his lungs escaped. &#x200B; “Mr. Moss. You may ask me anything at all.” &#x200B; The minutes ticked by. The long lashes of the hologram blinking every 7 seconds. &#x200B; At 10:58 she spoke again. " Thank you Mr. Moss for your contribution to the solvency of the Social Revenue Safety Net. The funds from your annuity will be delivered to your beneficiary of record." &#x200B; The hologram winked out of existence. A door in the back of the room slid open and two orderly bots rolled in, collected Franklin and carried him to yet another new place. &#x200B; At 11:00am in room B, the hallway door opened and a lovely blonde hologram in a blue suit said “Ms. Anderson, thank you for joining me.