This is my first piece of writing for my Writing Extravaganza, Again event. In this event, ten writers will take turns each writing one part of ten separate stories. Enjoy!


Jules and Ari meet.
What happens next?
If you want a happy ending, try A.

A.

Jules and Ari fall in love and get married. They manage to leave their underground microchip factory through hard work, a series of well-placed investments, and the generosity of their overseer. They buy a cozy home on the surface. Their investments pay off, and they are able to upgrade to a larger house in the quiet countryside. They have two children, who turn out well. Eventually, they open a factory of their own and the passive income allows them to retire early. They go on fun vacations with their family. Jules takes up writing and Ari enjoys birdwatching in her spare time. Eventually they die. This is the end of the story.

B.

Ari falls in love with Jules but Jules doesn’t fall in love with Ari. Jules is nice enough to Ari, but she mistakes it for romantic interest and pursues it in vain. In fact, Jules falls in love with another worker in their factory, a young firebrand named Emmett. So blinded by her love that she can’t see this, Ari continues to dedicate her efforts to winning Jules over. At first, she goes out of her way to be kind to Jules—she walks him back to his apartment after dinner, she offers to do both of their dishes, she learns complex and challenging dishes that she serves to him. Next, she turns to more overt flirting, playfully hitting Jules on the arm when he tells a joke, ruffling his hair when they sit together, and looking at him with the look that puppies usually give their owners.

Of course, this has no effect on Jules, who has eyes only on Emmett. But whereas Ari is of the mindset that hard work and determination will allow her to climb up the social ladder and leave this factory for greener pastures, Emmett is convinced that nothing short of revolution will be sufficient. Initially, Jules agrees with Ari, but as the months turn into years and nothing changes, Jules begins to attend Emmett’s secret meetings. Perhaps it is a consequence of Emmett’s alarming good looks or his eloquence when plotting revolution that sways Jules. In any case, as Jules begins spending more and more time with Emmett, and not with Ari, she knows that if she is to have a chance, she would have to try something more drastic.

Desperate, Ari puts on her reddest lipstick and her tightest clothes, and traipses down the hall to seduce Jules. Despite his obvious love of Emmett, Jules is weak—he is easily broken, and the two spend one wild and imaginative night of passion together. The next morning, Jules comes to his senses and realizes what happened. He spirals into a state of deep regret. He cuts Ari out of his life completely, and immediately rushes over to Emmett’s apartment to confess and explain himself. Emmett, being kind and understanding, comforts Jules and the two of them mend their relationship.

Ari, on the other hand, is not as fortunate. It’s not even Jules that gets to her: it’s everyone else. Word spreads about her misguided deeds, and she is quickly ostracized the rest of their peers. This radicalizes Ari, but not down the path of revolution but rather down the path of escape. Slowly, methodically, she plans out a path by which she can flee the factory and live a life of subsistence in the mountains. She doesn’t even pause to consider that if she’s lucky, the factory will send out a rescue party to retrieve her, and if she’s not so lucky, they will send a search team to kill her. You can see by this shortsightedness just how far gone Ari has become. Eventually, she executes her plan, stealing the overseer’s security chip and using it to leave the vault doors, which are normally sealed to factory workers. Even though her lack of friends means that no one snitches on her, she still doesn’t get far before the search party sent out by the overseer finds her and kills her.

Jules marries Emmett and everything continues as in A.

C.

Jules is the overseer of the microchip factory, and Ari is a young new recruit. Jules had already been married to his wife, Anji, for a number of years. Whereas Anji is tired and complains of joint pains, Ari is young and full of vigor. Jules loves Ari. Ari does not love Jules, but she does feel bad for him. Twice a week, Jules and Ari secretly have dinner together, away from the other factory workers. It would be bad for the two of them to be seen together in a compromising situation like that.

While Jules continues to dote on Ari and provide her with privileges the other workers could only dream of, Ari has her eyes on another factory worker, a feisty maverick by the name of Emmett. Ari wishes to eventually settle down with Emmett, but Emmett is more interested in giving his charged speeches to the other factory workers plotting revolution and escape.

In the meantime, Jules and Anji’s investments pay off and they are able to upgrade to a larger house in the countryside, farther away from the noise and grime of the factory. Their two children are turning out well, and they go on vacations together. Anji and the children have fun, but Jules wishes that he had more time to spend with Ari. Even so, Jules can’t leave Anji, because they have children and divorce is bad for their developing minds.

Ari remains unconvinced that revolution is the only way forward for the factory workers, and wonders if she would be better off strengthening her relationship with Jules rather than chasing the untamable Emmett. However, one day Emmett comes back from one of his misadventures with a few grams of rich people pastime, and after taking it, Ari’s dream comes true. Along comes Jules, who as overseer has access to all the rooms in the factory. Jules has no right being jealous, considering he has a family of his own, but yet he is hit with a wave of guilt and melancholy.

You see, Jules is already balding and in a dead-end job and marriage. He hates his wife and the departure of his kids for school only drives the two further apart. He suspects his wife is being unfaithful, but we know that not to be the case. Anyway, he can’t stand it anymore. He makes a call to the relevant government bureau and confesses his crimes—this is the weak part of the plot, but we can deal with that later—and a team is sent out to the factory. There is a one-sided firefight between the team and Emmett’s ragtag revolutionary supporters and Emmett and Ari and Jules are all killed.

After a suitable period of mourning, Anji meets an intelligent and sensitive professor named Helena and they get married. Everything continues as in A, but under different names.

D.

Helena and Anji have no problems. Tired of the city scene, the two of them scrape together enough savings to finance Helena’s dream of taking a group of individuals into space to escape the inevitable demise of Earth. Hundreds of years of unchecked industrialism have hit the world hard, and the climate continues to get warmer and dried. Forest fires rage in the nearby mountains, fueled by trees killed by voracious pine beetles. With a lucrative sponsorship from a futurist consortium, the two are able to construct and finance a cutting-edge spaceship equipped to take a small number of people to somewhere more suitable for life.

Just as well, as shortly after the spaceship leaves, the Earth is plagued by a series of natural disasters and wars, effectively reducing the planet into rubble. The rest of the story is about what caused the downfall of Earth and how the spaceship escaped from it. They do, but billions do not, but Helena and Anji are virtuous and grateful, and continue in A.

E.

Oh, but the spaceship has a malfunction. Something in the construction and/or design process caused the bodies of the ship’s passengers, in artificially-induced cryosleep, to be damaged beyond repair. The servers onto which their minds are uploaded, in contrast, remain functional. The rest of the story is about how the passengers come to terms with this development. They devote themselves to making the most of their electronic lives until the end of A.