The Programmed People

Name: The Programmed People
Author: Jack Sharkey

"The Programmed People" is set in a sealed, self-sufficient city called the Hive, a hundred-level indoor society whose ten million inhabitants live under rigid laws enforced by robotic police called Goons and governed by a vast computer known only as the Brain. Citizens must vote on every Proposition put before them at Temple Services or be sent for "Readjustment"—ostensibly hospitalization, actually incineration, though almost no one knows this. Lloyd Bodger, Junior, son of Secondary Speakster Lloyd Bodger, Senior, is a dutiful Kinsman anxious to cast his vote before time runs out. During a Temple Service disrupted by an announcement that a fugitive is hiding among the crowd, Lloyd impulsively helps a frightened young woman keep her place in line, then discovers she is the fugitive herself: Andra Corby, an actress who escaped hospitalization after a minor injury and now insists there are no real hospitals—only death—and that the Hive's officially reported wars, disease, and population statistics are fabrications. Moved by pity and curiosity, Lloyd smuggles her past a Goon checkpoint using his fiancée Grace Horton's spare Voteplate, then hides Andra overnight in his own room. The next day, entangled in lies, Lloyd brings Andra to Grace's apartment to explain himself. Grace, though hurt, agrees to help. Meanwhile, President and "Primal Speakster" Fredric Stanton learns of Lloyd's growing recklessness—an accidental anti-government vote, an unauthorized trip with Grace, and now consorting with the fugitive—and confronts the elder Bodger, revealing a hidden Readjustment order against Lloyd that he has suppressed. Unknown to both men, Andra's fellow conspirators, including her actual fiancé Robert Lennick and the director Frank Shawn, are also maneuvering; Lennick, it emerges, has secretly been reporting to Stanton, while Frank remains loyal to the underground movement. When the elder Bodger visits Grace's apartment and unexpectedly learns from his son that Andra is there, his shock reveals that he too knows the horrifying truth about the Hive's hospitals. Before he can explain, Stanton arrives with a weapon and takes the group prisoner, planning to interrogate them all at his office. He triggers a citywide emergency blackout to move them secretly. Bodger provokes Stanton into firing his weapon at him—and survives unharmed, then knocks Stanton unconscious. In the chaos, Lloyd, using Stanton's own Voteplate, commandeers a Goon squad to redirect events: he sends the unconscious Stanton and Grace to his father's quarters, has Stanton's secretary arrested (unknowingly sentencing her to death), and takes Andra down to consult the Brain itself in the Hive's deep control chamber. There, hooked into the machine, Lloyd learns the Hive's true origin: it was built in the late twentieth century as an indestructible flying city, one of ten sections meant to preserve humanity through a global nuclear war and eventually reseed the devastated Earth. His father, gravely injured decades earlier by experimental radiation treatment, became biologically ageless but internally radioactive—explaining his fits of sickness. Stanton, obsessed with staying in power beyond his legal term, has kept the population deliberately capped through secret executions disguised as hospitalization, and has ruled the Brain and Goons through his exclusive voice-activated authority as Primal Speakster. Lloyd learns that the fabricated Plan for freeing the ten cities and resuming life on the now-survivable outside world is hidden by his father, and that only a Primal Speakster's countermand can override Stanton's death-decrees—meaning Stanton must be replaced, by force if necessary, to unlock the Hive's true purpose. Elsewhere, Grace nurses the ailing elder Bodger back to consciousness with his hidden radiation-suppressing medicine, and he reveals the Plan's location—hidden years earlier in the safe of the abandoned outer hospital—before insisting on confronting Stanton himself. Frank, disguised inside a hollow theatrical Goon prop to move safely through the blackout, rescues Bodger and Grace from a reawakened, vengeful Stanton, knocking him out again; Lennick, revealed as Stanton's informant, is abandoned in the dark and, seeking help, is mistaken for injured and dragged off by real Goons to his death in the incinerator—an ironic fate for the man who betrayed the underground. Bodger takes custody of the groggy Stanton and forces him down to the Brain's control chamber to countermand his tyrannical orders. But Stanton, defiant to the last, instead commands the Brain to destroy Bodger and the others outright. The attempt fails when the Brain refuses to fire its defensive beam within its own chamber, and instead—sensing an existential threat—seals the level shut. As Bodger's suppressed rage finally overwhelms his irradiated body beyond the reach of his last dose of medicine, his organs begin to glow with mounting radioactive fire while the Brain frantically warns of "danger." Bodger, in his final moments, reveals to Stanton that the Brain itself once tried and failed to answer Stanton's suppressed question about a third term, its true "concept" being the Brain's own eventual death—now precipitated by Bodger's uncontrolled radioactive decay reaching critical mass, closing the story on the threshold of the Hive's transformation and Stanton's downfall.

By Jack Sharkey · First published 1963 · Genre: Science Fiction, Dystopian Fiction, Political Thriller · 15 chapters · 42,098 words

First lines

_From Light-of-Day to Ultrablack, the people of the Hive went about their rigid lives in ignorance of their real ruler, of their true history. How could one slender blonde girl crack this powerful monolithic structure? _

What this Textopian page supports

The Programmed People is listed on Textopian as a novella by Jack Sharkey, dated 1963 CE.

This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.

Work type: Novella
Author: Jack Sharkey
Date: 1963 CE
Language: English
Genres: Science Fiction, Dystopian Fiction, Political Thriller, Thriller, Philosophical Fiction
Length: 42,098 words
Structure: 15 chapters, 743 paragraphs
Reading fit: Easy (6th Grade)

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Genres

Science Fiction — The narrative is fundamentally built on futuristic technology including artificial intelligence, androids/robots, advanced robotics, space habitats designed to house millions, radiation-based medical treatments, and space engineering as core plot elements.
Dystopian Fiction — The Hive represents a controlled, oppressive society where individual freedom is systematically restricted, population is coercively managed, surveillance is total, and state violence conceals systemic atrocities behind propaganda.
Political Thriller — The plot centers on political intrigue, power struggles, electoral manipulation, government conspiracy, and characters navigating dangerous political landscapes where exposure of truth threatens lives and regime stability.
Thriller — The narrative maintains high stakes throughout with characters fleeing persecution, time-sensitive revelations, escalating conflicts, danger from state apparatus, and constant threat of discovery and execution.