In the far off future year of 2024...

Shannon is a typical 16 year old in many ways, but, having dealt with chronic pain her whole life, she is unable to keep up with the rigid schedule of public schooling. Because of this, she is homeschooled.

While her dad does work from home to take care of her, her family isn’t financially well-off enough for either of her parents to completely stop working to teach her, and they can’t afford a full-time tutor. Fortunately, computer access is a non-issue, as ever since the 70s, computers have been pictured as a common good.

After schools experienced such success using terminals that connected to computers owned by universities via timeshare technology as part of the Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium (MECC), computer manufacturers thought that the best way to get people to buy their expensive and large computers was to advertise it as a community good, one that could benefit businesses, schools, and the general public. Because one computer could benefit a whole town that could connect to it via much more inexpensive computer terminals, communities began raising money to purchase them for their own town to benefit from.

Although computers have gone down in price and size since then, with the public infrastructure in place, taxes still pay for upkeep and updated computers in a centralized location in the town, and Shannon is able to participate in educational programs via her home terminal, which cost under 50 dollars. While older models of terminals connected over phone lines, Shannon’s terminal connects to its base computer via satellite connection, much like a cellphone.