ABSTRACT
The Cities of the Battery Hens were in trouble, and the Guardians, knowing that the trouble was endogenous, had cunningly assembled what they thought to be the cleverest and wisest of the hens in the same place to see if they could come up with their own solutions. The hens had no idea there were Guardians at all (they never saw them) and were under the impression that they were responsible for their own lives. Some rather daring intellects among them had suggested that “the forces of history” or “the species struggle” or something such was responsible—but the pragmatists paid them little heed.
