[ WP ] You live in a dystopian future where anyone who breaks a law is executed except the most wanted criminal . You just committed a minor crime and now must fight , murder , and steal your way to the top of the most wanted list .

The whole thing was one big happy self-fulfilling prophecy of death and crime. To think, that there once was an era where being a “ tough on crime ” politician meant supporting three strike laws. Oh, how I yearn for such merciful days. Overcrowded prison systems led eventually to cries for wholesale execution for anybody who committed a crime. It started with every felony, then slowly crept through all the various misdemeanors. People eventually started to inquire into the ethics, that naughty little thing that ruins every politician ’ s day, of executing people who accidently stole from a vending machine when it dropped an additional bag of chocolate chip cookies. 
 
 In a show of ‘ mercy ’ they decided to grant clemency to everybody in the top 10 of the FBI ’ s most wanted list. After all, if those care-bear politicians demanded that every no-good criminal be granted such luxuries as “ not being killed for accidently tripping and brushing the shoulder of a politician who was having a bad day, ” why not start with the worst of the whole lot? I think their motives were a bit more sinister than a faux show of mercy. The new system incentivized anybody who committed the most minor of crimes to immediate try and extravagantly escalate their spree to reach the top of the list. Suddenly, all the politicians who had been crying that any criminal was evil enough to deserve execution were now justified. Clearly, all these people attempting to commit mass murders were just truly evil at heart, and definitely not incentivized by a system that would gladly execute all of their victims anyway to try and commit such acts. 
 
 As you can tell, I ’ m not the biggest fan of these laws; though I think if they did anything right, it was to piss off for-profit prisons. I think that they ’ re a kind of perverse American dream: with a little bit of ingenuity and lots of hard work, you too can rise to the top and receive the great pleasures of life such as not being on death row or not living a life of fear and death. And just like the American dream, the criminal justice system has a bit of a glass ceiling. The names on the top 10 list haven ’ t changed in over a decade. All of them are organized crime bosses, the kind of people who probably wouldn ’ t have to worry about law enforcement anyway. These people had built up massive empires that spanned the entire country. Most of the people who get involved in organized crime start out as someone who gets tricked by a higher-up into committing a ridiculously small offense, who then has to accept protection of the organization or risk execution. 
 
 That ’ s what happened to my brother. I ’ ll spare you the gruesome details of my brother ’ s horrific grand larceny of a box of watermelons he found unattended on a roadside, but suffice to say that he had already received competing offers from some of America ’ s finest entrepreneurs by the time he was home. Unfortunately he was too young and naïve to immediately sell his soul to a devil, so within three hours he had been shot by a cop. With all the unrepentant and unpunished police violence that goes on, I wouldn ’ t be surprised if police officers weren ’ t just criminals trying to make it to the top of the list, or at the very least robots piloted by teenagers who thought they were playing a video game. 
 
 Of course, since all criminals are executed as soon as they are found guilty ( every criminal trial usually has an executioner on standby who licks his lips in anticipation of a guilty verdict ), nobody much cared about my brother ’ s death. So much so that it wasn ’ t ever referenced on the background check conducted when I joined the FBI. More important were my connections to underground human rights ( two words you would never say in front of your grandmother ) organizations that went unnoticed. I worked my way up through the ranks of the FBI, never so much as pissing on a sidewalk, until the day I would become in charge of the algorithm that determines who would be on the top 10 list. 
 
 It ’ s only been two weeks and I ’ ve already pocketed some sweet cash from the people on top of the list to make absolutely no changes. Unsurprisingly, some concerned politicians had removed bribery from the criminal code. I wasn ’ t planning on actually upholding my end of the bargain. Of course, even so much as accidently adding an extra letter to a single line of code without congressional approval was enough for execution. My job was mainly to update the records that were being fed into the algorithm and make sure that nobody dead was still on the list. The record was a 6 month period where number 10 had been murdered by number 9 and my predecessor didn ’ t noticed until the automated monthly bribes expired. 
 
 Today however, the list was going to be changed. The president ( who, as it turns out, would have been number 17 if it weren ’ t for a world-record number of pardons ) had signed a bill authorizing me to increase the number of people on the most wanted list from 10 to 20. For a 24 hour period, I have access to all of the code that made up the algorithm that decides the fate of the nation. I think it ’ s about time for an upgrade. I think that crimes such as “ loitering ” and “ being homeless ” are about to allow people to hit the top of list instead of getting shot on sight by a cop. The bill had also authorized an adjustment in weight to violent crimes against politicians. Of course, I ’ m happy to oblige. I ’ m even going to do them a favor and add an unlawful amount of 0 ’ s to that number. That would put me on the list of corpses-to-be, but that doesn ’ t bother me too much. I ’ m headed to the Senate with a rather heavy bag tomorrow. And after the changes come into effect and I ’ m done with my business on the Senate floor, I think I ’ ll be safe from prosecution. 
 
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 EDIT: A couple of words changed to make some more sense.
