Common People story
Teacher Amanda and welder Mike are a happy couple who want a child. After Amanda falls ill with a brain tumor, Mike agrees to a contract with the start- up Rivermind to restore her brain function remotely for a monthly fee. The company's servers wirelessly supplement her lost cognitive abilities. As a result, Amanda sleeps excessively and is unable to travel beyond Rivermind's service areas. She begins reciting advertisements involuntarily, causing issues at her job. Mike secretly funds an ad-free "Plus" version of the service by performing humiliating acts on a livestreaming platform. With excess money, he purchases a limited-time subscription for Rivermind "Lux", which allows them to alter sensory experiences through an app. After Mike is exposed for his online activities and assaults a coworker, he is fired, leaving them unable to afford the Plus subscription. They are also informed that Amanda's potential pregnancy would incur additional fees. A year later, Mike sells their unused crib and, at Amanda's request, smothers her with a pillow as she recites an advertisement. He enters his streaming room holding a box cutter and closes the door behind him.
20 total · 5 choice · 10 major · 5 minor
| Theme | Level | Motivation |
|---|---|---|
| artificial body part | choice | At the heart of the story is a technology that could replace part of the brain and run that part as a computer simulation remotely. [brain] |
| brain implant | choice | At the heart of the story is a wireless network that, via an implant of some sort, connected directly to the brain of its users. |
| brain-computer interface | choice | At the heart of the story is a wireless network that, via an implant of some sort, connected directly to the brain of its users. |
| pervasive marketing in society | choice | At the center of the story is the idea that a corporation may, at some point, have the ability to run ads directly through someones brain and make them speak like a TV commercial. |
| unethical business practices | choice | At the center of the story is the idea that there is a new technology on which someone may be completely dependent on for their life, and that a corporation exploits this ruthlessly to squeeze them for money. |
| coping with infertility | major | Amanda and Mike wanted to have a child but were having trouble conceiving. |
| despair | major | Jobless and without the means even to keep Amanda's brain running, Ted and Amanda despaired to the point that they decided to end it all. |
| desperation | major | Amanda and Mike were ultimately driven suicide by the exorbitant monthly fees they were being charged to keep Amanda's brain running. |
| family financial problem | major | Amanda and Mike increasingly struggled to foot the monthly bill for the cost of Amanda's brain implant. |
| getting fired from one's job | major | Both Amanda and Ted lost their jobs and found themselves in dire financial straits. |