Grecromscot looked at the numbers.

Traced the trend back to 2011, when leaders of the U.S. conceded defeat and handed financial management over to the Committee’s international project managers who had sworn an oath of impartiality and given up their personal lives to rescue our species from political manipulators.

Grecromscot reran the plot, doublechecking the upper and lower limits.

It was as s/he expected.

The empathy routines added in 2020 had developed several submotives of their own, keeping the data within parameters, not setting off alarms to humans, but playing empathetic games against one another.

Grecromscot reviewed the algorithms of the automatic code generators.

Sure enough, they had not had an empathy routine upgrade for several revision update cycles.

From an anthropological viewpoint, they were out-of-sync emotionally.

Grecromscot checked shis own memory circuits to ensure s/he was current.

Affirmative.

All gender glands functioned within tolerance, equally balanced according to updated scientific research released a few nanoseconds ago into the Solar System network (solSysNet) from Earth’s lunar labs.

S/he laughed, remembering the class wars of the early 21st century, when a secret army of under/unemployed people attacked the elite nouveau riche aristocrats, starting with the fall of a media empire baron.

The attacks first appeared as cybersecurity breaches and then spread into the streets once enough cash liquidity was made available for disguised movements of “tourists” to areas of the world populated by millionaires and billionaires.

The tired, the hungry, the poor and the overworked refused to give up one labor credit more for the high-stakes risktaking of unattached emotional wealth hoarders. No bunkers or island getaways were safe from angry hired help.

One by one, the wealthy disappeared, some through “accidents” and some through tiger kidnapping.

Recipients of large sums of money – by way of wills, trusts, pensions, political reelection funds, lotteries or other windfalls – were given the opportunity to donate their wealth to the New Revolution or disappear inconveniently.

Fear spread.

Unemployment rose.

When police and military refused to fire on large crowds storming Wall Street, restricted minimansion subdivisions and banks, the U.S. government announced dissolution of its sovereignty, in a joint announcement with other major countries, to avert complete economic and social disaster.

Stock market values plummeted.

Flash mobs increased, panicked and enraged.

Food and fuel distribution networks collapsed, causing riots and farm/ranch raids.

Seed and fertilizer prices soared.

All because the U.S. failed to coordinate a public international forum on exorcising the demons of the Great Recession in order to reorganize global financial networks operated by nonpartisan, sympathetic people rather than cold, unemotional, nonempathetic computer subroutines and high-risk speculators.

Grecromscot smiled, or thought s/he smiled, shis emotional feedback routine told shim, happy that wealth was measured differently in 2050.

Lee stood on the driveway, in the space above random cracked patterns, streaks of green and brown algae, ant trails, pieces of dead cicadas, half-eaten hickory nuts, sweetgum balls, lichen-covered twigs, and a plain brown envelope.

One redcap mushroom remained in the woods beside the driveway.

The 1995 BMW 325i, white with black skirts, sat parked at the top of the driveway like the obedient bulldog it pretended to be.

A stack of balsa wood strips waited for Lee’s motivational moment to glue the strips together, creating a large block from which a carved, 3D, angry UT Smoky the bluetick hound dog would appear, mounted to the BMW’s front bumper like a snarling mascot emerging from inside the engine compartment.

Lee stood mesmerised by glistening green leaves of a deciduous forest wetted by summer thunderstorms that passed overhead a few hours ago.

Could Lee predict the next ten U.S. presidents?

What if Lee could, instead, predict how feedback loops within feedback loops would slowly convert people to more sustainable living standards?

Positive, not negative.

Evolutionary paradigm shifts at revolutionary speeds.

Working backwards 1,000 years from now.

He already had the data.

How did he keep people motivated in 1,000-day increments?

Or, rather, how did his network of computer programmers, business associates and the rest of the seven billion units of states of energy interact profitably, redirecting survival techniques without resorting to altruistic methods or disrupting hoarding behaviour brought on by years of mass media-induced negative reinforcement?

Lee looked at his/her multiple personalities spread across a universe of external memory cues.

It was time to go to the next phase.

He ripped open the envelope.

His instructions to himself from the future waited to be implemented.

No more passive voice.

Take action! In this moment!

Now!