Scripted Submission, by Dima

Written from end to beginning, paragraph by paragraph.

“Are there any questions?”

An instant hush swept across the room.  It came on so fast that the echoes of the angered frenzy that had prevailed a second earlier were still bouncing chillingly off the walls.  I had to fight back a smile.  I had their undivided attention now, and it was my moment of glory.  I looked out at the terrified students and spoke.

They reacted so predictably.  An uproar overtook the hall, each person enthusiastically latching onto and intensifying the spirit of violence and rebellion that jumped so quickly from desk to desk.  I had to roll my eyes; students always think they’re invincible.  This was part of the script, though.  With stupefying disregard for safety, the kid from the front with the dyed Mohawk wrenched the writing surface front the arm of the desk and hurled it at the guard by the front exit.  His aim was poor and it slammed into the whiteboard.  But that was the cue.  I nodded to the guard.  He very calmly lifted his assault rifle and shot, once, twice, blowing two holes through Mohawk’s head.  Blood and brains sprayed onto the students standing behind him.

“But you don’t get to ask any questions,” I replied, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world, “You have no original thoughts.  You are of no intrinsic worth.”  Long blonde’s mouth hung open as if she couldn’t fathom the idea.  The rest of the lecture hall regarded me with confusion.  I continued.  “You only get to live because I will it.  You will do as I say and you will agree with it.  If you are stupid or broken or can’t exist in the right way, you will be killed.”  I let the slightest impression of a sneer dance across my lips.

A girl with long blonde hair raised her hand and stood.  Ugh.  Blonde college students.  Even hearing the obtuse words that drop from their lips can’t shock them into the realization that are so very, very, very far interior to the rest of their peers, and not the other way around, as they think.  She spoke with an annoying whine: “Okay, so we all know that we’re here because we’re the smart ones.  Because we’re good enough for this team.  But an advanced so-ci-et-tee-“ she could barely even pronounce a four-syllable word, “-an advanced so-ci-e-ty demand democracy to functions at its highest most best, um, way.  So there should be a recourse.  How do we contribute when we disagree?  What if I have questions about the way you lead us?”  She wore a self-satisfied smile and the girls sitting around her were nodding.  I wanted to vomit.  I took a deep breath and moved in for the check.

“Because you are the best,” I explained, “Because you – and you know it – have the critical thinking skills your peers don’t.  Because it is people like you who have formed the basis of every advanced society that has ever existed.  Think about it.”  And they did.  And it takes very little thinking indeed to convince oneself that he is special and set apart from others.  They were only too happy to believe that I had chosen them out for their superiority, as far from the truth as it was.

“Why us?” I didn’t see, but the question seemed to come from a bright red Mohawk at the far right side of the front of the hall.  Now time for the hook.

This was the shock-and-awe moment.  The moment where you show them that you are serious about what you’re saying.  I raised a walkie-talkie to my mouth – it was mostly for show – and barked, “Security detail, enter!”  Each of the four doors of the room burst open and my twenty-three guards, all dressed in black full body armour and each bearing a terrifying semiautomatic rifle, filed quickly in a took up positions along the walls of the lecture hall.  Two, one, zero, and there it was, the collective gasp.  They were of course wondering if those weapons were real and this was where I had to play it carefully.  “These are your guards!”  I proclaimed, “They are yours to help you become the best you can be!”  The shock turned into excited, and I let the students buzz amongst themselves for a few seconds.  There would be a question soon enough.

“So you’re going to make us, into, like, the ueber-mensch?”  Some skinny boy with brown hair that needed cutting piped up.  An obvious philosophy major.  I hid my disgust with him and nodded solemnly.  The boy beside him, with frosted tips – ah, now I see, two homosexuals.  That made sense – frosted tips shouted out now.  “How’re you gonna do it?”

“You are ready to be groomed!  There is a great work to be done in fixing this sad world, and you are the people to do it!”  I paused for two seconds, waited for the conflicted expressions to appear, and then continued on with my line.  “It’s going to take a lot of work.  It’s going to take a lot of learning.  Your very natures will be changed.  But you are going to become the people you need to be!”  Now was the time to be silent.  The questions would come.

Here they were.  Another group.  Another hall full of college students.  I don’t know where they were gathered from.  I don’t care.  I just needed  young people.  People who were expected to take up odd lifestyles.  I needed a people who were to become mine, to do my work, to become my work force.  A work force with no resistance.  This is actually surprisingly simple to accomplish.  There’s a script, one I use with each group, and it invariably produces the results I need.  Gah, I hate students.  But they become very useful drones.  And... here we were.  Act two.  I’d just finished the “I’m sure you’re wondering why I’ve gathered you here” spiel, and now for the tension to grow.  Open curtain.