The pale soft glow of the phone screen illuminates the dark passageway, dank moulding carpets under foot silence my foot falls. Garbage is piled up in the corners and the walls seem to weep with a soaking damp, there is a underlying stench of decay in the air, enough to make you gag if you’re not used to it. Moving quietly down the passage I come to the stairs to be greeted by a skinny black and white cat that meows plaintively for food or attention or both. I stop to scratch it behind the ears with my gloved hand. “I’ll catch you later Felix.” I say with a smile as I flip up my hood against the cold seeping in from the street outside.
Shoving the door open I’m greeted by a gusting wind which swirls rubbish in the pool of the dim street light, its still dark, I check the time on my phone 04:45. Good, I can make it to the old shopping mall and be one of the first there. Showing you are keen sometimes helps to get work for a day to earn some hard currency. Hard currency in this case is canned food, tobacco or “scripts” that can be exchanged for other black market goods. I could use a smoke for sure I still haven’t kicked my nicotine addiction. Tugging my hood up over my head I start out, heading east, I can see the sky starting to bruise a dark purple and red, its summer but you wouldn’t know it, its cold, wet and grey everyday.
Moving quickly along the once tree lined boulevard of a formerly affluent inner city suburb, now all derelict houses and tree stumps. The trees were first to go as people cut them down for fire wood, then they started to burn furniture and anything else to keep warm and cook. Its been years since electricity and gas were supplied to homes. The simple fact is we used it all, its all gone, no more cheap energy to run what was once a thriving city. When “the fall” came it started slowly, no one wanted to pay attention to the writing on the wall, but its was there for all to see. That was 25 years ago - I think - its hard to remember when every day blurs one into another.
Walking briskly along the street avoiding the dim pools of the solar powered street lights. I’m lost in my own thoughts when I catch movement out of the corner of my eye. “What the fuck!” I exclaim under my breath as I reach inside my parka for my billy club. The shadow is barely visible in the alley to my right. “Can I help you?” I ask as I pull the weapon from my belt. A soft whimpering comes back to me from the alley as a mangy dog shows itself from behind a pile of garbage. Its ribs visible through the mottled brown fur, tail curled under its belly and sad eyes looking imploringly at me. “Shit! You gave me a fright buddy:” I say. The dog moves closer sniffing the air wondering if I’m friend or foe, he doesn’t have much meat on him but that wont stop some desperate people, good protein is hard to come by these days. I reach into the pocket of my coat and pull out the fake cheese and stale bread sandwich I had planned on having for lunch. Crouching down I offer it to him, he sniffs and greedily takes it chewing gratefully. Standing up my old knees protesting in the cold, I wave my hand at him “Go on, get out of here…you don’t want to be out here in daylight… Go get!” The dog startled at my change of tone, turns and slopes back into the alley with a last backwards glance and disappears into the gloom.
Picking up the pace I’m getting warmer as I approach the derelict shopping mall. The car park strewn with rusting hulks of old cars and piles of broken junk. Winding my way through the parking lot I see someone ahead in the pale light of pre dawn. Their hood is pulled down over their face. I’m sure I see the glow of a cigarette as they take a drag.
“Yo Mike.” I say.“
“Yo J.” He replies.
We shake hands and fold into a brotherly hug.
“It’s looking like another wet cold day.” I say cracking a smile.
“Like everyday.” Mike says in return offering me a hand rolled cigarette.
I take it gratefully, lighting up from the box of matches in my pocket. Drawing the sharp tobacco smoke into my lungs I breath out wistfully.
“Damn thats good, been a few days since I had one of these.”
“We better get moving.” Mike says as we start to trudge our way through puddles of dark water towards the pools of headlights from the vehicle in the distance.
“You know whats up today?” I ask.
“Nah, but last week we had to climb into the pipes to clear the traps. I hope its not more of the same today, its bloody dangerous in those pipes.”
The “work” available is usually manual labor that no one else wants to do, like clearing sewer traps. We opt for doing this dodgy work because the UBI that’s deposited into your phone wallet is only good to exchange on the regular market. If you want black market goods you have to exchange time, talent or scripts for them. The scripts evolved as a kind of black market currency thats based on a IOU. Its clunky and largely open to interpretation, but works well enough. The UBI payment on the other hand is in return for being a “good” citizen, both online and in the real world. Because ratting on your neighbours can get profitable spies are everywhere and its sometimes hard to know who you can trust these days.
A soft rain starts to fall as we near the vehicle, there are a few other hopefuls loitering around.
“Ok who’s up for clearing traps today?” The foreman yells.
The crowd shuffles its feet, this isn’t the best work, clearing the sewer traps is dirty and dangerous. A handful of men reluctantly stick their hands up and move towards the open tail gate of the truck.
“Thats it for today. We don’t need anymore, you lot will have to come back tomorrow.” The foreman’s parting shot is punctuated by the low whine of the electric motors on the truck spinning up.
“No work today.”
“Yeah,” replies Mike. “I wasn’t keen on being in the tunnels again today. Last week I saw a guy lose a a hand in one of those traps.”
“Alright, so what are we going to do then?”
At that moment my phone buzzes in my pocket, a text message notification shows on the screen.
“Congratulations, your credits have been deposited into your wallet! Happy spending!”
I glance over at Mike, he is checking his phone too.
“You get it?” I ask.
“Yep, I must’ve been a good little boy the last week,” he says with a wink.
With the UBI in our phone wallets we now have options. The digital “money” can be exchanged for real world goods at various automated vending machine “malls”.
“Let’s go grab a coffee at the strip.” Mike uses the slang term for the vending machine mall. “Then we can work out what to do, I could use something warm to drink.”
After an uneventful largely silent walk of just over 2 blocks we come to the strip. More and more people seem to emerge from the surrounding streets like drifting ghosts, some in groups some alone. All moving with a purpose towards the vending machines. As we round the corner into the strip we see knots of people crowding a few of the machines. These are the ones dispensing hot food, some kind of noodle soup with crickets, beetles or something.
“Hi-protein noodle soup! Good for the environment and good for you!” The sign above the cubicle exclaims.
I am pretty hungry, so I join the short queue and wait my turn. Mike’s joined a coffee queue and is lighting up another cigarette while he waits. My nicotine demon scratches at my mind as I remember I’m out of tobacco.
“I really should quit,” I say to myself.
My turn comes at the machine, the touch screen is dirty and greasy from all the fingers prodding it. I make my selection - hot spicy noodle with crickets - and the QR appears on the screen for payment. I scan the QR with my phone and amuse myself watching the little symbol of the tadpoles chasing each other on the screen as the payment processes.
“Your payment cannot be processed at this time. Please contact your local liaison office at your earliest convenience. Have a great day.”
“What the hell,” I mutter and try again, same message.
“Get a move on mate.” Someone says from the rapidly growing line behind me. Not wanting to cause a scene, I step out of the line and let him go.
“Dole bludger,” he mutters as he passes by.
My phone buzzes just as I’m about to retort.
“Your wallet has been frozen due to reports of anomalous behaviour. If you wish to appeal please contact your local liaison office.”
“No good?” Mike says as he wanders over sipping a hot cup of coffee.
I show him the message.
“No way dude, what did you do?”
“I honestly have no idea,” I reply.
Just then the sky brightens to the west as a low rumble rolls across the strip. Looking in that direction we see the bright white flare and arcing contrail of a rocket launch. The rocket streams upwards fighting gravity with flame and fury. Its a regular sight these days but no less impressive for it. These are all private flights run by the megatech corps. Usually hauling payloads to a low orbit platform where crews are constructing the ships for the next Mars mission. A decade ago we sent the first manned mission to Mars and now the elites are preparing for the next step; colonisation.
“Fuck man, we need to get on one of those ships Mikey. Is Naomi still working inside the wire?” Mikes’ sometimes girlfriend works as a cleaner at one of the Megatech’s headquarters inside the elite compound.
“Yeah, though I don’t know for how much longer. There’s been some dramas over there, they’re not keen on bringing in labor from outside anymore. I heard someone got killed by an outsider…nasty business.”
“So whats up with your credits my man? You been causing trouble again?”
“No seriously, I have no idea whats wrong, I’ve been avoiding going online and staying away from trouble.”
“Well someone has it in for you then. You better call the liaison and sort it, I’m not loaning you anymore scripts, you still haven’t paid me back from last time.”
“Fuck off.” I chide him as we both watch the rocket disappear into the cloud cover.
Checking my phone again, no new messages. I hit the button to call the liaison office, after a couple of rings it picks up and I hear.
“Jon Richards, thank you for contacting liaison. Please remain at you current location a care flight is on its way to you.”
Mike looks at me with surprise, “What the hell did you do man? If they’re coming for you, you are in deep trouble.”
Just then two matt black drones drop out of the sky, buzzing like angry hornets. They begin to circle me hovering at just above head height.
“Jon Richards, please stand still and remain calm.” The same voice echoes from the drones as from my phone.
“I didn’t do anything” I say uselessly at the dead electronic eye of the drone.
There is the crack of quad copter blades breaking the sound barrier as the “care flight” approaches, banking out of there cloud cover. The copter circles around the strip throwing up dust and debris in the rotor wash. People standing around to watch the action are buffeted and driven further back by howling downdraft. As it touches down a ramp drops from the back of the craft, yawning open like the jaw of some threatening beast. The drones buzz over head, attempting to herd me towards the open ramp.
“Jon Richards, please board the aircraft and await further instructions.” The disembodied voice says from the phone in my hand. The drones buzz again lining me up with their weapon pods. These police drones are used for crowd control and pursuit, they are fast and well armed, there is no way I can out run them.
I hesitate a moment longer and the voice adds, “Deploying ground units, please remain calm.”
Out of the dark interior of the aircraft two forms emerge; four legged, slim, matt black and slinky, these are ground patrol hounds. Not real hounds, robots, you would recognise the basic concept of the robot dog “Spot” by Boston Dynamics. Like that only meaner and they move with a weird mechanical grace. The hounds circle around me, cutting off any vague thought of escape.
“Ok, I’m coming.” I say as I raise my hands and start to walk to the aircraft. I walk up the ramp flanked by the hounds, the drones buzz the crowd and head back to loiter in the low cloud cover.
“Please take a seat.” The voice says from my phone.
There are two rows of passenger seats in the back. I choose one closest to the rear and to one corner so I have the bulkhead to my right.
“Fasten your seat belt for your own safety.” The voice announces from the internal speakers.
Clipping the belt around my waist, I feel the craft lurch and we are airborne the ramp hissing closed behind me as we dust off.
“Where the hell are we going.” I ask no one in particular. Silence, just the vibration through the floor of the motors and the blinking of status lights from the darkened panels on the bulkhead.
“I’m in deep shit,” I think to myself as I close my eyes.
an apt glimpse into what our future may hold, writing conjures great imagery, cant wait for the next installment, wtf has j done now?