The Eutopia Experiment

Etta spends all the time she can in her home away from home, where she rides her bike and plays arcade games. But when the time comes to go to her real home, she pushes a plastic button on the back of her neck to exit the Simulation.

The Eutopia Experiment is a short novel about where our world may be headed if the working class of all colors and creeds doesn't unite. The ruling class has divided and conquered to put the world in the current state of 2020. Thirty six years earlier, the Reagan presidency set the course of the country toward our current state. Thirty six year earlier than that, George Orwell foresaw the end of democracy and rise of the survelliance state occurring by 1984. It turned out to take twice the amount of time, but it's happened.

Etta's world is another thirty six years after 2020. The Eutopia is a simulation of the world as it was in 1984. The intent was for technology to be used to demonstrate how society could be today of it were truly democratic. But it didn't turn out that way. The Authority took control of government and censored the Eutopia. And now it's taken full control and is executing a plan to kill every person connected to the simulation.

See below for a sample from the book.




from The Eutopia Experiment by Steven S. Scott


The front’a the theater’s all windows, so to lay low we ride up to a solid wall and then walk our bikes next to it, up to the doors. We drop the bikes and peer in.

The doors are glass and enter on a hall that goes on into the mall. On the left’s the door to the theater. That’s all glass too, and the walls round it. Ed’s got her rifle at the ready. We don’t see nobody in the hall, and I open the door.

We sneak over to the theater door and peer thru that. We only see the clerk at the box office.

The song playin overhead ends and Casey Kasem's voice says “that was I Love a Rainy Night by Eddie Rabbitt. It hit number one on both the pop and country charts. It was knocked out of the number one spot by 9 to 5 by Dolly Parton. Now here’s another smash country crossover. This one’s been remade many times since the 1968 original, and charted all over the world. The most successful version stateside is by Juice Newton. This is Angel of the Morning.”

The next song starts playin, and we pass thru the theater door.

“See episode six,” says the clerk at the box office.

“We’re here,” I say.

“Every year that passed after 1984,” says the man, “made it more difficult to regain the balance. What remains today might still be salvaged, bring power back to the people, restore democracy. There has to be a political party for working people. There has to be a counter to Wall Street control of economic policy. Change like that doesn’t happen without a Revolution. The elite won’t give up a dime without a fight.”

“Shut up,” I say. “Play the game.”

“Play the game to win,” he says, “see episode six.”

“I know,” I say. “We’re here to play the game.”

A poster of Return of the Jedi’s plastered on the wall behind him.

“We gotta go in and watch the whole thing?”

“Play the game to win,” he says. “Get your surplus gear, and you have nothing to fear.”

Ed’s eyes are poppin. We got another clue.

“What did you say?”

“Hey!” A man’s voice shouts at us.

A dude comes outta the theater and stands there, holdin a shotgun.

“Who the fuck are you bitches?” He cocks the gun, real quick.

We drop behind the box office counter, and he fires a shot. I hear the body’a the clerk flop to the floor. Another shot’s fired and it blows out the window behind us, to the hallway we came in from.

I look at Ed. I fear our time’s come. But she’s got a fierce look, and she holds her rifle at the ready. I don’t even think’a mine. I’ve got used to it stayin strapped cross my back.

There’s a metal divider tween the blown-out top window and a bottom one, which’s right next to us. Ed points her rifle at it and shoots, blowin open a little hole. I kick the glass to knock it all out, and we roll into the hallway.

We get to our feet and run to the exit doors. Ed shoots it and the glass’s fallin apart as we bust right thru.

With a shooter comin after us, we go hide behind a truck in the parkin lot instead’a gettin’ on our bikes.

A shot rings out fore we’re behind the truck. It’s got huge knobby tires. I’m able to stand up, and Ed seems okay, so I guess we ain’t been shot.

The truck’s too tall to see over, so I crouch down to the pavement to look toward the theater. I see two cowboy boots standin on broken glass in front’a the doorway.

The door’a the truck opens over my head, and Ed climbs in. I follow her. We keep low, outta sight’a the truck’s side window.

“Let’s drive this thing,” says Ed.

“We can’t!” I say.

“We gotta, or we’re dead! Sum’un had’a drive it here.”

The inside’a this truck’s got less buttons and knobs than other cars I’ve been in. I’m lookin up instead’a down, like evry other time I tried to start the car at my house, or watched Ed try to start the big black one in her driveway.

I look up at the steerin wheel and I see a rabbit’s foot danglin on a chain. I see the key in the ignition. I hadn’t known what a key was before, but I get it now. The Chevette didn’t have no rabbit’s foot. But I wonder if it had a key in there too, and the big black car, and we just never saw em.

“Turn the key!” I say.

I don’t wait for Ed. I reach out and try to crank it. But it won’t move. In my fright I push against it when I try again, and then it turns. The engine rumbles to life.

Ed sits up quick and stomps on the pedals. When she hits the gas, the engine roars but the truck don’t move.

“Hey!” cries out the man’s voice. “That’s my truck!”

Ed stomps the gas again. “Why don’t it go?!”

She grabs a metal stick with a handle on the end behind the steerin wheel and yanks on it. The truck lunges back alla sudden, ridin up on another car behind. Our butts slide on the bench seat, and my legs fall outta the open door. I hold the seat with my hands as best I can, and I clamber back in and shut the door.

The dude runs up and reaches to open the door on Ed’s side. But Ed pulls on the stick again and the truck lurches ahead. She slams on the gas and we go tearin cross the parkin lot. I try to look thru the back window to see what happened to the dude, but a rebel flag’s draped over it.

Ed’s drivin’s so wild that we swerve to the side and go right over another car. But she gets the truck goin straight nuff to fly out onto the street and we tear up it, away from the green lights behind us where we started the game.

Ed can’t keep the truck goin straight. We drive in and out of a ditch on the right side. We clip a car comin the other way. It stops and honks at us, but we keep goin.

“You musta sucked at the drivin game,” I say. “You don’t get points for hittin shit here. Don’t get the cops after us!”

“I know,” says Ed. “Don’t worry. I got this.”

She slows down, and then it keeps on the road better. We drive a bit, then we look at each other and bust out laughin. I find the side window knob and crank it down.

“Woohoo!” I cry and hang my arm out.

Ed lowers her window. “Fuck yeah!”

After laughin a bit more, Ed says “where we goin, anyway?”

“Dunno,” I say. “What did the movie guy say?”

“He said that’s my truck!”

We laugh again. “No, the clerk.”

We both try to think. “I don’t remember,” says Ed.

“Me neither,” I say. Gettin shot at makes you forget other shit.