Full Thought Management Suite - Part 1

Short story. In a dystopian Amsterdam where thoughts are self-controlled, one rogue mind becomes a threat.

"I must not fail."

These words slammed through Florent's head as he sat in the subway taking him to work. The ride was almost instantaneous, yet long enough to force him to face his thoughts, like being stuck with a creepy neighbor in the elevator.

The train emerged from the darkness of the tunnel into the night of that freezing January morning. The skyscrapers of Zuid shimmered in the distance, drawing the morning crowd like a beacon. Despite the air-conditioning, the train's windows were fogged and dripped with condensation.

"Your whole career depends on this presentation.”

"The chairman of the board of directors made the trip from Riga."

Florent had to do violence to stop the whirlwind in his head. He closed his eyes with all his might and blocked his breathing. The veins in his temples immediately swelled. His face became so red that the person next to him moved away. His effort paid off: he managed to interrupt the torrent of words in his mind or divert it in another direction.

"It's going to be okay."

"I've prepared myself."

"This isn't my first rodeo, SHIT!"

Two travelers turned in his direction. He realized his mistake: the words came out of his mouth instead of bouncing in his head. The other people on the train hadn't blinked. He wasn't the first person to have such an outburst this morning.

Weddings, surgeries, job interviews, live speeches... There was no shortage of videos of breakdowns ranging from embarrassing to downright cringe. But on the subway, there was no shame, it was one of the few places where people could let themselves go willingly to relieve the pressure.

Managing thoughts wasn't complicated. Florent had a decade of experience under his belt. He had started when he entered high school on the advice of his parents and principal. The European government had tried to regulate these practices so that universities and companies would not use Thought Management as an admission criterion and would not encourage it indirectly. But they had failed. Parents begged their offspring to take up the practice quickly, fearing being downgraded socially.

Initially reserved for the elite, the technology quickly became accessible to the masses. The most popular model, the Ceuse 101, cost no more than a phone. More advanced algorithms didn’t guarantee better results — like a race car, they required a skilled driver (besides being more dangerous).

Thought Management undeniably made anyone more productive. By controlling their thoughts, students could accomplish in six months what used to take three years or longer. Most Harvard freshmen were sixteen nowadays.

Nevertheless, the technology wasn’t perfect. It was possible to manage one's thoughts, but controlling them ultimately was impossible. The most recalcitrant ones always surfaced, like roots finding a way to break through the city’s concrete. Suicides had been on the rise, but it had little impact on TM’s adoption. Users had come to accept the risk, like lung cancer from cigarettes, car crashes, or getting stabbed while doing groceries instead of arranging a delivery.

Florent had been preparing for his presentation to the entire Austin Lab core leadership team for a week. He had been given a team of twenty people to create a new space travel offering for families. Such a project was massive. His direct competitors were eighty-person start-ups working on a two-year time horizon with twice the budget. But Austin Lab had ranked Florent as a Superstar because of his many successes in the business. The mini-cruiser model he had launched last year was already Austin Lab's moon fleet bestseller. As head of the marketing team, he implemented a new algorithm that doubled the return on investment for advertising campaigns.

If this new project worked, he could claim a seat on the executive committee. If not, the company had an endless supply of talent and ambitious projects to test it. His career wouldn’t be over, but it wouldn’t go much further. He’d remain a simple executive — stuck in lackluster senior roles with titles that sounded good on paper, but invariably lacked what he was desperately after: true leadership power.

An ex-superstar.

Changing companies at twenty-six was not impossible, but it was a complicated process that required a seasoned lawyer. The resigning employee's thoughts were full of trade secrets far too valuable to fall into the hands of other companies. It meant years of grueling, costly litigation. Florent would be in limbo, forgotten, never able to claw his way back to the top. He was in the big league, and time was playing against him.

No. Failure was not an option.

He stepped off the train and felt the cold, muggy wind, passing through the many bodyguards securing the executive carriage passengers’ way to the exit.

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Want more? Read part 2.