Okay, bringing this thread back to life:
I'm currently trying to develop the plot for a short sci-fi story project (1,000 - 4,000 words) that was assigned in my Computers and Society course, and which is due in April. [In my college the course number for this is CS 485 - but it's so easy, it could almost pass as a humanities course. And the professor, good old Bauer Sr., used to be my dad's professor nearly 30 years ago.] And the story has to begin with the sentence "I didn't think that computers and [insert assigned topic here] would change my life - then it hit me." My topic is 'Computers and Communication', and this is what I've got so far:
The story takes place in a futuristic dystopia, where the government is trying to ensure that each subsequent generation is more genetically advanced (i.e. most intelligent and free of health issues), all the while keeping the population growth under control. To that end, they have decreed that all marriages will be arranged by "Genetic Rank" - Rank A (the most advanced) people are to marry other Rank As, Rank Bs marry other Rank Bs, and Rank Cs (the least advanced) marry other Rank Cs.
The heroine [Rank A] is bored with her 'aristocratic' life and seeks adventure. And given her status, she has access to websites that host Rank B and Rank C chats (whereas Rank B and Rank C people don't have access to Rank A sites). She meets a guy [Rank C] on there who has similar interests as she does and who, like her, hates the ranking system - so they start communicating with each other via a hologram system (for anyone who's ever seen Star Wars, it's sort of like that except you can't even tell it's a hologram).
Over time, the hero and heroine fall in love with each other, and one day they decide to meet in person; they arrange a place to meet secretly, and so they spend time with each other that way every weekend. But one day, a government official finds them together, and he calls his team of officers to catch the lovers and execute them on the spot.
I'm stuck on the part where they're on the run and are trying to figure out how to escape - and the only way I can see this happening is if the officers find them dead. The question is, should I actually kill off the lovers, or have them take sleeping pills and then find a way to have them escape without an autopsy?
Thanks!
