Iniuriose

“So, what’s the catch?” asked The Man who was across the desk from Gally, and was funding the project. 

“Catch?” Gally asked, “There is no catch.” 

The Man looked at Gally with disbelief. “There must be a catch.” The Man said. “There is never not a catch with a project of this multitude.” 

Gally looked at the man, thinking of what could classify as a catch. She then said to The Man: “Well, I guess the catch could be the secrecy this project would need throughout its use.” 

“What do you think would happen if news of this project got out?” The Man asked. 

“My team is running the numbers as we speak, but we know it will not be good.” 

As Gally stopped talking the man sat back in his chair, picking up and admiring a Fidget Spinner that was lying on his desk. The Man’s desk was full of antiques from the first iPhone, to a piece of The Titanic. He loves those sorts of things. 

“When can the project go into effect?” the man asked, his eyes still on the Fidget Spinner. 

“We can start as soon as the funding starts,” Gally said, eyeing the knife Jack the Ripper used to kill his victims as if it could be used against her by The Man if she did not answer some of his questions to his liking for they could not begin as soon as funding started. She and her team still had to work on some of the kinks. 

The Man took his eyes off of the Fidget Spinner and onto Gally as he started to speak. “Give me five minutes to think.” 

Gally nodded and then started to look around the room. She observed how the room was fully made of premium wood, with a couple of bookcases around, filled with books, but also more antiques. She also observed how the room was on the very top floor of the building, showing how The Man loved to be on top of everyone else. 

“Hey.” The Man said, pulling Gally back to reality. “I want to think about it… Alone.” 

“Yes, of course,” Gally said as she stood up and started to walk out of the room. 

“Shoo, shoo.” The Man said as she opened the door, making shooing motions with his right hand.

Gally closed the door as the man watched her. When she shut it she noticed the accountant eyeing her. “So,” she said, “how did it go?” 

Gally looked up at the accountant and said: “I think it went alright.” 

The accountant clapped her hands in applause and motioned for Gally to sit down in a chair across from her desk. As she walked over to the seat she realized that she was not fooled by the accountant's hope. She knew that The Man was ruthless.  She knew that he does anything he wants for anybody, for he was on top. When she reached the chair she sat down and pulled out her phone and texted the lead engineer for the project.

Gally

How far are you from fixing the kinks in the system?

Delivered

Julian

A little more than a week ma’am.

Delivered

Gally

A week?!

Delivered

A week!

Delivered

We don’t have enough time for a week! Get it finished by the end of today!

Delivered

She then turned the phone off and shoved it into her pocket, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. After a couple of minutes of doing this, she opened her eyes and put on a fake smile. She then looked at her smartwatch and saw that it had been three minutes. She covered her watch up with her sleeve again and turned back to the accountant. 

“How long have you been working here?” Gally asked. 

The accountant looked up at Gally and said: “Only a couple of days.” Gally looked at the accountant and then said: “Wow… What happened to the last person?” 

The accountant then smiled and said: “Oh! Well, she was thrown out of his window after working here for a day!” 

They were silent for a minute until Gally said, "Right… so-” but she was interrupted by an intercom on the accountant’s desk that said: “Send in… Gallous… Galloid… Gall… Ga- whatever her name is!” There was then a click as The Man took his thumb off of the button. The accountant looked up at Gally and said cheerfully: “Good luck!” Gally nodded as she jumped up, took a deep breath, and walked into The Man’s office.

She closed the door behind her and found The Man staring at her. 

“Come on in.” He said. “Sit down.” 

Gally went over to the chair in front of The Man’s desk. The office was silent until the man made a click with his mouth and said: “Well, I have given your proposal a thought and it would give everyone a raise in happiness, and that would mean a raise in profit.” He then said, “But, it would be very expensive- Is that correct?” 

“Yes, it is,” Gally said, nervously. 

The man then gave a lengthy: “Yes… Also, the implication that if anyone found out it would be the end of me and my business, but my business is already on the brink of being extinguished. Soooooo… Yes. I will accept your offer. I feel that it will help rescue my company and the world from the brink of collapse.” 

Gally felt all of her worries leave and be replaced with happiness. “How much does it cost again?” The Man asked. 

“Forty quadrillion dollars,” Gally said with a smile on her face. 

The Man immediately jumped up from his chair saying: “Only Forty quadrillion?! You should have started with that!” He was obviously kidding. Forty quadrillion dollars was an insane price even for someone of his class level “Giver ‘er here!” He stuck out his hand, to which Gally did the same. They met in the middle and shook. The Man held Gally’s hand for a mysterious amount of time, which is when Gally took action and pulled her hand away from The Man’s. 

“Well… Thank you, sir.” She said, smiling awkwardly. The Man nodded and sat back in his chair. Gally then opened the office door, walked out, closed the door, and walked away, filled with happiness that her project had finally been funded. Now she just needed to get it ready.

Gally lay awake at midnight on her sofa thinking of the day behind her. She had finally gotten her project, which she had in the back of her mind since she had been a child, funded. The world would be so much of a better place. There would be no reason to abandon the earth when the project had fulfilled its purpose. Gally realized that she needed to do something. She grabbed her tablet and turned it on. She then went to the “Word Document” app, opened it, and pressed on a document that had over one hundred thousand words in it. This document was titled: “The Work Process Diary”. This is where Gally typed in everything that happened that day, especially the things that happened which had something to do with the project. She pressed the edit button and started to type. 

March 5th, 2265,

This will be the last thing I say in this diary, for my project has finally been funded! I'm still not sure what to name it though… I will figure it out sooner than later. Of course, I could name it the name of my company, but that would ruin the fun… Anyway, since this is my last entry, I will sum the whole project up for people who are allowed to read this diary but do not want to read the one hundred thousand words that it holds. The very first entry that I made talked about what the project is. And this is just more in-depth, for I know more about it now. The project is a program that takes every single human on earth, yes all twenty-eight billion, and puts them through a number of tests. Five to be exact. These tests measure how good they are as a person. Everyone over 75% good will be set free. Everyone else will be terminated. But it is for the greater good of the earth, for as you probably know, the crime rate has been up significantly for the last one hundred years, and it is taking a serious toll on the economy. Just one thing. No one must know. This diary is not for mass production. It is only for the select few - me and my offspring who I personally choose and trust. You must not tell anyone about this project. No one must know. Not even the family of the people who are too bad for this earth. We will blame it on something else like: “They died at the hands of the police” or “they died from a drug addiction.” Something that is going to make the families rightfully disappointed in their children, grandchildren, niece, or nephew, etc. Something that is deserved. After I set out the rules of the project and how it was going to work for the first couple of years as I came up with it. I then started to give updates about it day by day (see pages 20-32). I then stopped giving in-depth explanations of what was happening daily, for nothing was really happening. My team and I were just working out kinks in the system, and how we would get the whole thing funded. Nearing this entry (which had been the longest yet) I started to talk about who we were trying to get to fund this (The ones who rejected us have targets on their heads for later…). Now, that leads me to this entry, which I do not need to summarize. Before I sign off on the diary I need to add one note from earlier today. When that man asked me what the catch was, I lied. I said that there was no catch. He persisted, and I then told him that the only catch was that no one can know. I was still being untrue. No one can know, but that is not the major catch. The major catch is that he would be helping me and my team pull off the biggest genocide since The Mass Killings over Oil during WWIII. Of course, he did know what he would be helping create, but I did not want to remind him. Still, whenever I think this thought, I try to remind myself that we are only killing bad people, and this is for the greater good of the earth… Sorry, I just drifted off… Anyways, yes this is my last entry. Goodbye. See you in the history books.

Gally Parker,

CEO of Parker Survey Systems