Uplandia – A Short Story

“Check out the new girl I found. When can we get her here?”

Rex breathlessly asked his partner Alan, pointing to a particularly stunning girl in the video he brought down from the central operations server.

“Why don’t you leave the scouting to me?” Alan replied with a sigh, “Remember how the last one turned out?”

Rex did in fact remember how Shauna, a beautiful Lowlander from two years before, had killed herself during Transition. He knew not to question the reasons directly, which would have resulted in banishment to the Lowlands, but rumor had it she just didn’t know how to deal with a clean task feed. The lack of activity in Uplandia had driven her to madness.

This wasn’t uncommon for new citizens and was, in fact, the reason central operations started the Transition program 20 years prior. It allowed those leveling up to adjust to Uplandia gradually, shed their Lowland mentality and ease into a higher class of society. It still made no sense to Rex. After all, wasn’t the Lowland feed an awful mixture of tasks, trashy ads, and low quality documentaries? From the comfort of his Upland existence, the thought made him shudder. It was almost enough to make him want to follow Shauna’s act.

An Uplandian by birth, kept separate from the task rabbits below him, Rex would never really understand how Lowlanders thought, but held a deep rooted fascination for them anyway. He was convinced they were the most interesting citizens to be around. Their combination of innocence, wonder and strength intrigued him. Their ability to plod on and complete their lifetime of relentless menial tasks for points, humbled him in a way, and gave him his best ideas for how to improve the algorithm.

“Don’t worry. This one will be different. I’ve been observing her for the requisite amount of time,” Rex replied, trying to hide his annoyance. He could get her here without Alan’s approval, but it would be tricky. “Well, it’s about time you took a girlfriend. Fine, let’s level her up,” Alan conceded.

At the end of the day, bringing up a new recruit wasn’t an especially difficult task and Alan didn’t mind giving it a shot. The girl’s chances of making it through Transition weren’t great, but it was important to keep algorithm writers happy.

While Uplandia represented a quasi-democratic society, the means by which its citizens were chosen, usually was not. Denizens were either selected at birth to be children of Up, or promoted from the Lowlands after attaining a certain “Skore”. The Skore was a highly complex algorithm, which calculated points based on the completion of certain given tasks. These tasks kept Uplandia running smoothly, and its citizens in a state of near perpetual leisure.
As Skore algorithm writers and members of Intellitasks, the most critical part of Uplandia’s central operations, Alan and Rex were two of the very few Uplandians who actually did any real work. Lila’s Transition would include algorithm training, a means to both occupy her mind and gain intelligence on current Lowlander algorithm gaming mechanisms.

“Tomas, do you know what’s wrong with my feed?” Lila’s voice rose with palpable fear, “Intellitasks isn’t streaming. I was planning to task all day so I might have some chance of catching up to your Skore before Labor Day.” “It’s ok, babe,” Tomas said gently, in an effort to assuage her fears. “Is the rest of your feed working? What’s on now?”. “Well, I have ads. I always have ads. By the way, we need to check out the new theater and will get 10 reward points for bringing each other,” she absentmindedly responded. After all, the couple that plays together, levels up and stays together. “No Intellitasks though? Really? Do you think it could be a Break?” Tomas asked, more to himself than to Lila, as he pondered the situation.

Breaks were quiet periods of time, usually requested, though sometimes forced on certain Lowlanders when their periods of productivity were abnormally high. It wasn’t considered good citizenship to complete tasks much quicker than their peers and was thought detrimental to long-term productivity.

“If anything, you should be the one getting a Break,” she responded in frustration. “Your Skore is up 2.6% week over week from mine. At this rate you’ll level up without me! I still don’t get it.”

“Babe, you know we promised not to leave each other behind. And besides, I had this weird task today that ended up dropping my Skore by almost 8%,” said Tomas with a twinge of disappointment, adding, “It was actually about you.”
Suddenly Lila’s Intellitask popped up a task to report to Elevator. It offered triple points and was marked “Priority.” This was the kind of task she had been hoping for and she streaked out the door without so much as a backward glance at Tomas.

Startled and confused, he ran after her to see what had happened. He managed to catch her just as she rounded the corner to Elevator, and a familiar feeling of fear filled him. The fear was usually from worrying about unfulfilled tasks and unearned points though. “Lila, what’s going on? “ Tomas yelled. “No time. It’s triple points and marked ‘priority’, ” she threw back.

All of a sudden, his task that morning made sense. He too had been given a triple point priority task. Some Lowlanders went their entire lives without receiving one. This had been his first. It was to write a short composition on Lila’s habits and likes.

The task was particularly difficult for him, as she spent most of her time on tasks and all they ever really talked about was leveling up. The only time the couple’s minds weren’t occupied with the feed was when they drank alcohol or did drugs, but because that lowered their Skores, they rarely did it anymore.

Tomas’ inadequate answers must have been the reason for his Skore’s precipitous drop, he reasoned. The instructions had also bizarrely asked for Lila’s sexual habits and preferences, something he found especially strange, yet there was never time to question these things…only to finish the task for maximum points and move on to the next one, scanning through countless ads to get there.

“Tomas, my Skore. Look. It’s gone way up!” shrieked Lila. In fact, the readout on her glasses showed a significantly higher Skore than that morning. “Wait, I’m getting another task.” In a matter of seconds, Lila’s face contorted in concentration as she read the 90-character task, then passed through a wide range of emotions. First she broke out into a huge smile, followed by a look of fear, then something they were equally surprised at. Lila began to cry.

“What is it?” Tomas asked, fearing the worst. Dramatic shifts in Skores were not uncommon, and sometimes resulted in the strange emotion of crying, though that was rarely preceded by a smile. If Lila truly was in need of a Break, she could be sent to “Recovery”, a place from which no one ever came back quite the same.
“It isn’t…” he dared not speak the words.

“It says I’ve leveled up. I’m to get on the Elevator and report to Transition,” she said quietly, as if by merely speaking the words, they might not be true. The news left them both speechless. After all, it was a moment most Lowlanders would only dream about. There was no time for questions. In order to level up to — and remain — a citizen of Uplandia, the only rule was to never question how or why you were there. The algorithm is perfect.

Tomas was too busy running after Lila to notice that four new tasks had come in his feed, two with Priority status. In missing these, his Skore dropped by over 10%. He couldn’t believe it. He debated telling her. He wanted to promise her he wouldn’t miss another task, if he died trying. He knew the truth though. Some have it easier, and they don’t know why. They know not to question. Accept your fate and you may be a lucky one. That’s how it was. Lila stepped into the cylindrical Elevator, her feed already silent. The doors closed quickly around her leaving no time for a proper goodbye.

Illustrations by Benjamin Rabe.

About the Author

Gabriella Draney,

Co-founder and Managing Partner, Tech Wildcatters

Gabriella Draney is Cofounder and Managing Partner of Tech Wildcatters, a Top 10 seed accelerator for technology startups. Most recently she was with HP Growth Partners, an early stage venture fund in Dallas, where she served on the Board of CelAccess. She co-founded an aircraft scheduling software company in 1998 that ended in a profitable exit, then went on to work for Morgan Stanley in private wealth management.

True to her entrepreneurial roots, she left to follow her passion for nutrition by opening a specialty foods retail store, and simultaneously spent three years consulting with numerous Dallas-based startups on strategic planning, finance and fund raising.

Gabriella received her MBA in Strategy & Entrepreneurship from Southern Methodist University as a Cox Distinguished Merit Scholar, during which she interned for Silver Creek Ventures. She graduated Magna Cum Laude from the University of North Texas with a BBA in Finance.

Gabriella currently serves on the Board of UNT’s School of Arts and Sciences, the Dallas Regional Chambers’ Innovation Council, and the newly formed Mayor’s Star Council and Digital Strategy team. She lives in Dallas with her son Philip.

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