The Chip Fair

This story is another mind-worm that just wouldn’t go away. When a writer has a mind worm the only way to get it to go away is to write and publish the story. I don’t really like it, but some of you might. My last mind worm was very well received.

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WARNING! All of my writing is intended for adults over the age of 18 ONLY. Stories may contain strong or even extreme sexual content. All people and events depicted are fictional and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Actions, situations, and responses are fictional ONLY and should not be attempted in real life.

All characters involved in sexual activity in this story are over the age of 18. If you are under the age of 18 or do not understand the difference between fantasy and reality or if you reside in any state, province, nation, or tribal territory that prohibits the reading of acts depicted in these stories, please stop reading immediately and move to somewhere that exists in the twenty-first century.

Archiving and reposting of this story is permitted, but only if acknowledgment of copyright and statement of limitation of use is included with the article. This story is copyright (c) 2025 by The Technician.

Individual readers may archive and/or print single copies of this story for personal, non-commercial use. Production of multiple copies of this story on paper, disk, or other fixed format is expressly forbidden.

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The Aurilian society had been peaceful for longer than anyone could remember. There was no war or crime on the planet of Aurilia. Some said it was because of economic prosperity. Some said it was because of very strict law enforcement. Some said it was because hunger had been eliminated. Some said it was because the mentally ill had been artificially removed from the Aurilian genome. But the true reason was the Chip Fair.

Despite economic prosperity, strict law enforcement, abundant food, and the manipulation of Aurilian genetics, violent crime… and wars… continued. Then international researchers found the root cause of all of the disharmony. People were not who they wanted to be, where they wanted to be, and in the jobs that they truly wanted. Thus was born “The Chip Fair.”

Young people were allowed to grow and be what young people everywhere tended to be… until they became eligible for the Chip Fair. The Chip Fair was held every three years and every young person on the entire planet between the ages of eighteen and twenty had to report to their regional fair. The proper and complete name of this year’s fair is “The Two Hundred and Ninth Triennial Evaluation, Sorting, and Life Assignment Event.” Government workers called it the ELSA event, but everyone else just called it the Chip Fair.

Every adult on Aurilia was chipped, meaning that they had a data chip imbedded in the front of their skulls which contained everything about them, their name, their date of birth, their banking data, and many other things… but most importantly it contained their classification. If you moved or changed jobs, the chip could be edited, if necessary, at an official registry office. Bank balances and transactions could be added to the temporary registers at home or at point of sale locations. But there were two items on the chip which could never be edited. Those two items were the date of birth and the person’s classification.

Children wore a small amulet around their necks which contained their chip information. The information on that amulet changed through a child’s growing years. Classifications for children included primary school, middle school, and advanced school classes and grades. The amulet chip also contained the name of parents, their place of residence, and of course, the child’s date and time of birth. The amulet had to be worn everywhere, but since the first amulet was presented to a child as a toddler, it was accepted as a reality of life to the people of Aurilia.

The secret which the government never revealed to the people was that the “Youth Amulet,” as it was called, not only stored basic information, it also recorded important thoughts and strong emotions as the child grew into adulthood. This trove of information formed part of the process which created a person’s life chip.

Margie, Sunalie, and Buklie grew up together. Aurilian schools sorted children into age groups divided by when they would attend the ELSA event. Buklie was the oldest of the three. According to her parents, she missed the previous class by only seconds, having been born just after midnight on the first day of the two hundred second fair. She would be the oldest of this years’s ELSA class, turning twenty-one on the day after the fair.

Margie, on the other hand, was the youngest in the local class and perhaps even in that class worldwide. She was born just before the midnight which would mark the beginning of the two hundred and third fair. She would turn eighteen on the day before the start of this year’s fair.

Sunalie, her closest friend, was just one day older, and like Margie, was very small for her age. Perhaps that is what drew them together. Buklie was the chief bully in their class. It was almost as if she wanted everyone around her to be miserable, but most of her harassment and bullying seemed to be reserved for these two. Luckily, both Sunalie and Margie became very interested in computers at an extraordinarily early age and spent much of their study time in the computer labs away from Buklie’s constant taunting and physical torment. When Sunalie and Margie used the planetwide connect system to talk to people, their size and age didn’t seem to matter.

The group undergoing evaluation, sorting, and life assignment together was always referred to as a graduating class…