OTIUM, The Error

Year 3023. The population of what was the United States is 4 million. A single state where individuals are named X followed by a number for men and Y followed by a number for women.

Mexico regained its territory from the mid-19th century which means that approximately Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Nevada and California are no longer part of the US population.

The east coast is flooded over 200 km inland.

In the north, a form of ice age has been in place for more than 100 years. Life has disappeared across Canada as well as all states bordering Canada. The Great Lakes and Chicago are buried under a 50 meter layer of ice.

What once represented Arkansas is the only place where life is possible. The 4 million inhabitants live underground in a network of dwellings that look like cells, permanently lit and heated by energy coming from the heart of the earth.

There are exactly 2 million women and 2 million men. Not very important to define the sexual character of these inhabitants since they have been reprogrammed. Sensuality, feelings, sensations, sexuality, procreation no longer exist.

There are no more children either.

This city state called Otium has a colony on Mars. Every year each of his subjects must go there to undergo an update, like a passport renewal. Everyone must comply with this task. No one has the choice to decide whether or not to renew their genetic heritage. The Centrus Computer takes care of that. Centrus takes care of absolutely everything, from the organization of your stay on Mars to the flow of ships departures and arrivals schedule.

On Mars, 70 million km from Arkansas, silence is absolute. The trip is done by cruise ship in 6 days.

The vital system that was initially planned by Centrus is reset naturally by the atmosphere that reigns there. Communication takes place not by language but by thought. The exchanges are fluid. The Otiumians are eternal.

None of their functions are impaired after these annual trips to Mars. These human beings are all the same adult age and will live as adults until the end of time. The population has remained at 4 million men and women combined for the last 400 years.

The feeling of revolt, of discontent no longer exists. Some 700 years ago what today has become the Centrus computer made a major error, a miscalculation. The entire population which was affected by an unknown virus should have been decimated in a matter of minutes. Centrus downloaded a computer program in everyone’s system so they could commit a mass suicide. If things would have been gone as planned, the 100% of the population would have disappeared. What was supposed to be a mass suicide has turned into another form of life thanks to a computer glitch