The Virtue of Freedom, Part 1 (rewritten) (science
Posted on: September 21, 2013, at 01:16:31pm

She yawned, her white cryobed waking her and hissing open to yet another standard morning in her blue-lit room. As on most mornings, her first thought was that at least she liked the government standard color for single middle-aged adults' rooms. She stepped out, waited a moment to make sure her balance was regained, and stepped to the Holovice just by the graphic windowpad located across the room from her cryobed.
They may consider her crazy for not leaving the Holovice completely on automatic, but she liked having a small activity before the placidness of everyday work life; she felt it was a good way to make sure she was awake and alert. She activated the SenseNet first, then the window for the day's pleasant view; as she took a moment to stare at the peaceful scene of calm water flowing down a natural stone sculpture, her mind wandered towards the status of her life. There were no outcasts in this utopian society, a tradition stemming from finally realizing the need for teams and companionship during the end of the Final Wars, but she came close.
She shuddered as a thought suddenly raced across her mind; no, a small manual activity was a very strange concept here, but at least it was not nearly as bad as the history she studied and taught in an Older Edifice of Block 6 -- that wild approach to life the Twenty-First Centurions had; it had once fascinated her, when she'd known so little about how they really lived. The romantic vids didn't include a lot of reality, and oh, how dispelled she'd come to be not even a day into her job. But a job was a job, and once one had chosen it, it was permanent. But oh, how could anyone have survived in such barbaric times? How could women have enjoyed -- and in some cases even encouraged!! -- such lewd attention from such beasts as the men of those times were?!
She shivered again as she stepped inside the cleansing device which stood in the remaining corner of her room, but her morbid musings were melted away as if by the warmth caused by the sanipod's steaming.
As her morale improved, she took comfort in the predictability of a well-controlled life.