Randy Tyler

The future can be classified in several ways: the near future (like tomorrow) and the next future (the future that's not happening right away; it'll happen next). There are lots of next futures, considering that as things happen, more futures pop up. With each present, there's a new near future, and a whole bunch of new next futures. We need a whole archiving system to keep track of everything.

That, in fact, leads me to my analysis of cities in the nearest next future. I believe it will serve as an unintentional archive of all things past. First off, we'll always be reminded of our horrible history, as slaves will be reintroduced, in the form of chimeras. The chimeras will have started as a result of a failed science experiment that plugged human brain cells into mice and pigs. Intended for research purposes (they'd hoped to gain insight into Parkinson's and Alzheimer's), the brain cells will have separated off, and will have created hybrid creatures: pigs and mice with human mental capacity. Their small size, however, will doom them to a life of second class citizenship. As a result, they'll be treated as subhumans--which, I guess, they technically will be--and they'll serve in the permanent "city cleanup crew," cleaning the sewers and the streets. The cities will be cleaner than ever.

Old people and the disabled will all have robots to assist them. The AI in the robots allows them to think and act human. In addition, they'll be able to experience the range of human emotions. The robots and the chimeras will not get along, and they'll form the new gangs: the robots and the mutants. It'll be like "Transformers: Beast Wars."

The tomato children in Boston, the ones Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer warned of during the medical marijuana arguments in 2004, will no longer be cause for alarm. They'll have been eaten by the chimeras.

In addition, as a result of the tremendous power of the radical religious right, morality will take center stage in the cities, in the form of public execution. Intended to force people to live moral lives (at the risk of being beheaded by a laser-beam guillotine), it'll turn into a form of entertainment. The chimeras will serve as executioners, and they'll also be fed the bodies of the executed.

Eventually, the robots and the chimeras will tire of serving as second class citizens. During the dawn of the 22nd century, they will rise up against the humans.