I'm a member of what used to be called the 1%.
Why "used to be"?
You've seen "Surviving The Game", right? Remember Mason's line, "Never underestimate a man who has nothing to lose"?
As conditions got worse and worse for the 99%, they became more and more uncaring of their own lives, feeling that dying while fighting to change things was better than "living" by barely surviving.
Organizers secretly prepped them for war. It was launched simultaneously everywhere there were members of the 1%. They achieved complete strategic surprise.
We fought back, of course. We had huge advantages in technology, but they tried to overwhelm us with sheer numbers.
They almost did. The climax was the Battle of Santa Barbara, just six weeks after war had erupted. The last of us - and the last few million of them - fought to the death.
We won. Barely. When the very last member of the 99% lay dead on the battlefield, there were 180 of us left alive.
And a few hours later, we realized it had been a Pyrrhic victory. The stark reality set in. 180 people wasn't enough to even form a commune and survive - let alone live the way we had been living, in the lap of luxury. Most of us didn't even have any useful skills.
There was one hope. One country had been left completely untouched by the war. Iceland.
They had taken actions to eliminate the 1% from their country well before the war began. So there was no battle there.
Leaving the 7.8 billion corpses to lie on the lands that had formerly housed thriving civilizations, we piled into a plane. Luckily, one of us had been a pilot before moving up in the financial world. After checking to see that the plane was fully fueled and all the required parts were operational, the pilot flew us to Reykjavik airport and landed.
Because what used to be the United States had a navy base very close to Reykjavik - Keflavik Naval Air Station - for an extended stretch of time, virtually every Icelander in the area was fluent in English. All of us also spoke it, so communication was easy.
I was selected as negotiator. A city official approached the plane.
"Good morning, sir. We are the last survivors. The war is over."
"The last survivors?"
"Yes, sir. There was a final battle, and everyone else on the planet, except us and you Icelanders, is dead."
"EVERYONE else?"
"Yes, sir. We humbly beg for asylum and integration into Iceland."
I could see him taking it all in.
"So the world now has... 360,000 living people."
"And maybe a few thousand Inuit to add to that. Yes, sir."
"I knew things were bad, but not THIS bad. Have your people come to our city jail until we can locate suitable families to place you all with. It shouldn't take more than the rest of today."
He was right. Six hours later, we had all been assigned a family - a farming one - to join. No individual family took in more than one of us. I was still young - 28 years old - and figured I could learn to be a farmer.
I was assigned to a family with middle-aged parents - Magnus and Freyja - and a 24-year-old daughter, Katrin Magnusdottir.
Since my first name is Frank and my father's name was Jonathan - "Jon" is the equivalent Icelandic first name - I became Frank Jonsson. The family were nice people and informal: Katrin called her parents by their first names and they insisted I do so as well.
Katrin was of typical Icelandic stock. Tall, blonde, with blue eyes, she was toned and fit because of a lifetime of farm work. Her clothes were made for practicality, not for fashion. Even so, she had a pretty good-size bust and a perfectly shaped rear. She was instructed by her parents to teach me how to farm, and with circumstances forcing me to learn, I picked up what I needed to know quickly. My own body got leaner and more muscular by the day, and I noticed Katrin sneaking glances at it. I'd been told in the past I had a ruggedly handsome face, and my short brown hair (I kept it neat with a scissors I carried on my person, and I had preserved a supply of razor blades and a straight razor so I could shave daily) had always made me an object of feminine interest.
One evening, Magnus opened the conversation at the dinner table with a statement directed at Katrin and I.
"Given the circumstances, you two have to produce two children. You'd better get started."
I looked at Katrin. She looked back at me. We turned to face Magnus.
"Yes, sir," we replied in unison.