Troim-Kryzl

Tag: SciFi

  • Breathalyzer

    Bump. Soft left turn. Slowdown. Bigger bump. Sharp left turn. Gilbright reluctantly opens his eyes, thereby deactivating his mobile storyteller. No need for an arrival alert to tell him he’s home, his body is familiar with this sequence. The autonomous commuter pod delivers the customary message anyway: 

     “Dear passenger, 82 Lower GT Drive reached at 15:22. Exit with current attire safe, no additional precautions required. Your next trip is booked for tomorrow, March 6, 2120, 10:12, boarding here same. Please say ‘adjust’ to reschedule or ‘confirm’ for confirmation.” 

     Gilbright goes “Confirm”, unenthusiastically, and waits for the pod to go through whatever routine always keeps it from unlocking the door at once. 

    This delay can’t be about cash. He himself had taken a profit motive for granted until very recently and most people still assume as much, but that’s not the rationale.. 

    To celebrate the bonus he got two months ago, Gilbright splashed out on the upgrade to the premium package his mobility provider just happened to offer, by one of those lucky coincidences. He can now ride as many pods as he fancies, whenever and wherever he wants, for a total one hundred and fifty hours or five thousand kilometres per month, whichever limit is reached first, without extra charge. 

    His commute takes a good thirty minutes in the morning and rarely exceeds twenty in the afternoon. His non-job errands add up to less than an hour per day. He didn’t yet find the time to schedule any of the excursions he had in mind when he awarded himself the premium package. A couple of minutes of idling in the docking port won’t bring him anywhere near the limit. This delay can’t be his mobility provider milking him. 

     If the recurring lag period isn’t about profit, it might be one more case of government overreach. Always trying to mess with peoples lives, the elected super nannies. Would be like them, to force mobility providers to slow down passengers, under pretext of one more unproven and uncomfortable health benefit. 

    Well, if this is about forcing him to calm down, it doesn’t work. Gilbright feels his blood pressure climbing by the second. He’s not claustrophic, not the fears kind of guy at all, but a man should be allowed to exit his pod whenever he so chooses, period. 

     Click goes the door, very softly, finally granting Gilbright his currently most fervent wish. Two steps to his front door. Zoom goes the camera, and green goe… What the hell?! 

    The intruder alert is meant to startle, but if it gets any more effective at this task it will be a lethal weapon. The light above the door is also flashing red, but this is far less disturbing then the deafening howl of the siren. 

     Gilbright feels his bones turn into icicles. He’s a licensed resident, not some burglar, never mind one of those Caucasian intruders. He’s a regular citizen, no deportation material.  

    Unable to move, Gilbright has to endure an eternity of agony before the siren suddenly dies. The light has also switched to green and the door goes: 

    “Apologies for the false alarm, sir, and congratulations, your new haircut is very stylish indeed. To avoid future inconveniences, please feel free to provide advance authenticated visual notice of any such alterations of your appearance. Or may we suggest to activate breathalyzer authentication? By far the best way to prove your identity. Thanks for your cooperation in making the world a safer place.” 

    Gilbright is relieved, and proud. His home is well defended, exactly as promised by estate management. There’s this notice to all residents, next to the parcel retrieval area, informing about more stringent safety settings, in the context of a fresh wave of European refugees. 

    If his new haircut triggers the intruder alarm, his wife has zero reason to worry about Caucasians in the cellar. Last week, there was a dire incident in an estate just like theirs, but someone must have messed up front door security. That’s what happens, when you go cheap on building maintenance, instead of using proper professionals. 

    Two levels up and one corridor down, Gilbright braces himself for all hell breaking loose again, but no problem. His owner occupier profile has been updated to his new look, the door to his flat opens at once. 

    Having awarded himself an early beer to celebrate this success, he decides to heed the advice of the system. He can’t waste energy and time on forever updating his profile picture to avoid setting off that hell of a siren. Time to switch to the modern way and activate the breathalyzer, provided this doesn’t interfere with the occasional beer. 

    He asks his living room:

    “Assuming I was to switch to breathalyzer identification, what happens in case of alcohol intake?”.

    Always ready to help, the flat management system answers at once, in this wonderfully deep and melodious voice so suggestive of cosy private moments:

    “No problem, sir, absolutely no problem. Neither with trace alcohol in pastries, sweets or apple juice, nor with more solidly ethanolic beverages, like beer and wine and even liquor. Zero problem. This particular aspect only constitutes a tiny fraction of the particles lacing your breath. Ethanol is actually ignored in the context of identification purposes, together with other components that vary strongly depending on food and drink intake. For authentication purposes, we rely on components that remain stable past age two, except in very rare cases of metabolic dysfunctions that don’t apply in your case. Please confirm breathalyzer setup sequence initiation.“

    Gilbright hesitates. His jumpy microbiologist wife is full of scary tales about snoopy analytics. Her jokes about intercourse frequencies calculated on the basis of mere drops of blood, that didn’t sound good. But breath is far less substantial than blood. And one close call with the intruder alarm is more than enough. The next stage would have been the guard dog bot with the taser. The decision to activate the breathalizer is such a no brainer.

    On the next morning, Gilbright is pleased not to experience a delay at the end of his ride to the office. The pod door opens at once. Funny, how some issues resolve all by themselves.

  • Optiboost On

    Glam take a deep breath, open the door and don’t step outside.

    The night is over, but there is little light. Grey curtains of rain are waving by. Yesterday’s mosaic of puddles has merged into a lake. It stretches as far as the eye can see, turning all the shelters into islands. A foaming river running through the lake signals the location of the cobbled path Glam are supposed to walk, if they insist on leaving the building.

    Fascinating, how the river has decided there is some kind of downhill to flow towards.

    The neighborhood is as flat as a slice of powersquashed termite protein, before it starts crumpling in the frying pan. Same for the whole city, and the wider metropolitan area. The former rubbish dump, now a nice forested hill, with a wildlife sanctuary, is as mountainous as terrain gets, in the Favogoro region.

    The impromptu river has gotten its direction wrong. It flows away from the coastline. Someone even farther inland will get very wet feet, and the mess will stay put for as long as the rain lasts.

    Glam consider pitying the poor folks getting flooded. Too busy feeling sorry for themself, they quickly discard this option. One face-to-face office day per month to endure, and they had to get picked for the date with the worst weather, again.

    In December, they had to march through a thunderstorm. In January, the wind was blowing so viciously it got very close to being called a tornado. And now the kind of downpour that sends edgy folks checking their emergency floats.

    Still standing in the precarious shelter of the doorway, Glam wonder. Three ordeals in a row, that’s a lot. There’s a pattern emerging. And where there’s pattern, one has to wonder about intent. An intent that would be malicious in their case, obviously.

    The quantum computing freaks in R&D have been promising big advances for ages. The ultimate weather forecast, reliable months ahead, that would be a mighty breakthrough, a life saver for millions.

    When Glam were in kindergarten, their parentals used to debate whether or not to keep the catastrophic weather event insurance, and which part of their flimsy housing to fortify next. They made heroic efforts to stick to an outdated way of life that was getting more outrageously expensive by the month. The holidays were cancelled first, then the rare weekend trips, and in the final phase even the monthly BBQ.

    Took Glam’s parentals five years and hundreds of rows to get themselves ready to cope with the inevitable and move to a first shelter. And what a rudimentary affair they chose, by current standards. Bit on the thick and slow side, totally unlike Glam.

    With a reliable long term weather forecast, it would be possible to harass people by forcing them to commute on the worst days, a brutal form of cloud mobbing. But such forecasts would still be great to have. Weather is a life-or-death issue, and not just for the outdoorsy professionals in the high paying hazardous jobs, like agriculture.

    Billions and billions have been going into improving forecasts, over decades, without much to show for the expense. There was some incremental progress, of course. The autonomously relocating offshore wind turbines are getting their positioning right more often, power supply has become pleasantly steady. But a reliable long term weather forecast, that’s on a different page. Glam know such advances don’t just pop up, their scientific mind doesn’t do fairy tales. But they would like to ask someone, about the chances of sudden progress in forecasting.

    Unfortunately, they only know one scientist working at the cutting edge of weather research, Sark from Cloud Seeding and Advanced Mitigation. They had to go full blunt on that unbearable character, because hints didn’t do the trick. Only when they shouted, for all the department to hear, that nothing, not even a free two year naturafood subscription, would ever make them consider a shared glider ride+, and that they’d rather forgo their precious Optiboost than spend time together, did the premium nuisance retreat.

    Glam don’t have anyone to ask, about imminent weather forecasting progress. Thinking Sark is a downer. They can’t keep standing in this doorway. They’re getting wet, even though the rain doesn’t hit them directly. Either they dive into the mess, or they retreat inside and call the HR bot, to claim non navigable weather.

    Previewing this call does Glam’s mood no good. They might as well hand in their resignation. This weather sucks, but it isn’t the kind of calamity that allows one to call in commute impeded. The HR bot will take less than a second to assess and discard, before reassigning them to a job with an even longer commute.

    Time for Glam to choose between horrible an atrocious.

    Stepping onto the cobbled path will get them ankle deep into fast flowing water that carries along all kinds of yuck. The thick layer of foam veers between a yellowish white and outright brown, not a good sign at all.

    The still part of the lake looks better. But underneath its alluringly foam free surface lurks the mattress of carbon capture moss, currently a soggy mess that won’t carry Glam’s weight. They’re sure to sink in knee deep. That’s not just disgusting. The telltale green stains would get them fined for environmental vandalism.

    The foaming cobbled path river it is, then.

    Time for a good fat dose of Optiboost.

    Glam press their left earlobe to activate the device. Next, they silently count down from thirty. The hormonal cascade works fast, but the effect is far from instantaneous.

    By the time they’re done counting, the weather has turned alluringly interesting. Who would prefer walking a sunny path to splashing around in a foaming river? Certainly not invigorated Glam.

    They gingerly step into the brownish foam and enjoy the challenge of the slippery cobbles. Thankful for an exciting day, they discard their conspiracy theories. 

    ###

    Watching Glam struggle by means of a surveillance duck prepositioned in the vicinity of their shelter, Sark look forward to revisit this footage whenever they recall the sting of the rejection.

    Being a nice person, they would never publish such material, they record for strictly private consumption.

    Being also a diligent person, Glam decide not to publish yet.

    This local weather management prototype shows promise, definitely. Three successful trial runs prove that it is perfectly feasible to cajole wind and rain into bundling in one designated location, to spare the rest of an area. Precipitation and gusts can’t be avoided, but a certain level of control is surprisingly simple to achieve, if there’s enough power for the catalyst.

    Glam are proud of their invention. They look forward to all that praise, for saving lives and advancing the common good. There’s some urgency, of course. But one shouldn’t rush out new tech. Much better to do more testing, much more consumer friendly.

    And, by a happy coincidence, more testing also gives them the chance to ruin on more commute, for Glam. With a little luck and a slight increase of the test area, to increase the amount of rain and the water level, they’ll trip and dip next time.

  • Bolda Bookbinder

    „Blinking is not going to work, Arthur. With antique visio readers, the bat of an eyelid won’t get what was considered a display when this was called tech to move on to the next section. No embedded RMT connection. That kind of sophistication wasn’t even invented in the glory days of this device. You have to touch and swipe, to move on. Let me show you.”

    Bolda grabs the resuscitated device, as expertly and confidently as befits a third year trainee, to show this coward of a novice how a pro handles an artifact.

    She only wears her gloves and mask to protect an irreplaceable object, not out of fear of legacy germs. All kinds of nasties are known to lurk in the innards of antique information storage devices, but visio readers are as good as harmless compared to paper and carton books. To shy away from this innocuous morsel of history, that’s so sissy.

    Bolda would never tell Arthur, she’s a polite person, but she considers him a terrible wimp.

    How he always hesitates to touch the objects they’re working on. How he’s wearing cutproof ceramic chain mail gloves under the mandatory latex ones. How big beads of sweat form on his forehead as soon as they enter the vault to retrieve the next load of artifacts to be transcribed. Arthur is so sissy. Why did he decide to train for a craft, if he doesn’t have the guts? He’s the office type, should never have crossed the threshold of a workshop.

    Bolda is still swiping away hard at the visio reader, browsing through its electronic library to check for anything worth transcribing.

    The first dozen of book covers scream romance. Beaches, sunsets, flowery gardens. Holding of hands, hugging, kissing. Very traditional lady-loves-lady kitsch, basically.

    Quite a lot of pure text, though. Anything above ten percent signals well practiced reading skills that were already getting rare in those days. As a third of this library comes without any pictures beyond the cover, the owner must have been an intellectual. 

    Except there weren’t any of those around yet. The science of that age was more fairy tale than physics. Bolda tries to recall how the teacher called the phenomenon. Her mind delivers brontointellectuals. And probiointellectuals. Both don’t feel right. She has to activate her memory support implant to bring back the correct term: Protointellectuals.

    The twenty first was awash with protointellectuals who thought they had figured it all out, despite considering most of what makes the universe go round a mystery, a.k.a dark matter and energy.

    Must have been scary, to have so little clue, never mind control. Poor forebears.

    If it wasn’t for the epochal obsession with extremely light skinned lead characters featuring ridiculously flat hair, some of this early twenty first century romance stuff might be worth republishing in a modern format. There’s good entertainment value in dire conditions.

    A lot of people were still living, or rather surviving, precariously, in the frigid zones in the early twenty first. In those inhospitable areas, the outside gets way too chilly, for months. Without fur or feathers, people were forever fighting for mere survival, and the technique to grow these wasn’t invented yet. People resided in enormous ugly shelters with complex temperature control arrangements instead, to avoid freezing to death. And no just-in-time harvests. Most modern plants were yet to be bred, and shockingly lopsided diets did endless harm.

    Bolda is proud not to limit herself to the technical handling of information devices. To do her bookbinder information preservation craft right, she takes an interest, cares for content. The vocational counselor back in her schooldays said so, and how right he was. Why would you strive to resuscitate a visio reader, if you don’t care about what it can reveal, about the past?

    When Bolda picked her first craft and the corresponding second name, she opted into a tradition that combines a broad range of technical skills with intellectual pursuits.

    Bolda Bookbinder sounds good, too, but this was just an afterthought.

    Whereas Arthur Bookbinder, honestly? Bolda  can’t help adding ‘& Company’, in her mind only, because this name is so calling for alphabetical expansion. With some first names, you have to stay clear of certain professions, period. Unless you’re a total jerk.

    Talking of total jerks, where the hell is Arthur?

    Definitely not where he belongs. He should be right at her side, as close as possible, close enough for her to feel his body heat and hear him breathing. Otherwise, how would he get a good view of her skilled performance and learn loads? Arthur turns out to have repositioned himself a few steps back, as far away from the workbench as the wall allows.

    Not at all hiding her irritation, Bolda goes:

    “Heel, Arthur! Can’t have you not seeing anything, that wouldn’t be fair. Now you tell me what is on display here. Come on, Arthur, take it, it’s not going to bite.”

    Most of Arthur’s face is hidden by his mask, he always chooses them extra large, but his eyes widen in terror and he retorts:

    “But I’m first year, Bolda! First year, that’s ‘see yes, lots, touch no, never’. The tutoring instructor said so, Bolda. What if I let it drop and it breaks? I don’t want us to get into trouble, Bolda. Very kind of you, to be prepared to share the opportunity to handle such a valuable artifact…”

    Bolda makes what she likes to think of as her poker face, despite being hopeless at deceit, while pretending to wait for her junior sidekick to step forward and take the gadget. He won’t, obviously. But she’s going to make him pay for being such a wimp, by forcing him to keep pleading.

    Arthur is actually rather good at coming up with excuses. He keeps it up for a couple more minutes before ending on a unexpectedly conciliatory note:

    “… OK, OK, OK, see your point, Bolda. See and touch it is, then, as you wish.”

    Bolda is so surprised she doesn’t even try to withold the visio reader. She lays it into Arthur’s outstretched hand instead, half expecting him to drop it. But no, he doesn’t shrink back. He grabs the device instead, so firmly a tiny drawer pops open, revealing a shiny metal… thingie.

    Now it’s Bolda’s turn to step back. And to set off the biohazard emergency alarm.

    This bloody idiot of a novice is going to get them killed. Never ever does one open an artifact. Resuscitate, yes, no recovery without restoring the energy supply by hushpropping the rudimentary battery. Browse, yes. Open, no. No as in no, no, never. Not without wearing a full body suit and breathing from a safe oxygen tank.  What wrongs did she commit, to get herself paired with the most stupid jerk to ever enter this profession? Bolda is so mad at Arthur.

    Five weeks later, things are starting to brighten up in the quarantine section of the local hospital.

    They’re both recovering well, from the Covid 19 infection Arthur brought upon them. Walking to the table is no longer a challenge, their rejigged lungs will reach full capacity any day now.

    They’ll have to spend another two months in quarantine, though, but that’s fine with Bolda. She needs some more time, to convince Arthur of a couple of details.

    Where to celebrate their marriage. How to customize their two future kids, to make the best of their combined genes. What type of flat to rent. Arthur very much into bamboo, for their future home, Bolda insists on palm. And she’ll get her way. She always does.

  • As Advertised

    Flicking awake in a panic, Paul opens his eyes only to squeeze them back shut at once.

    Insufferable brightness. He must be falling into that bloody sun. Horror. Despair. Terminal. Final. Overwhelming.

    Five thumping heartbeats later, there’s still not much happening.

    Paul’s body also feels much better than an ongoing sun dive would suggest.

    He should be hot. He’s cold instead, and getting colder. He’s far from comfortable, sore all over, but not dying, yet.

    The discrepancy calls for a reappraisal of his overall status.

    A sun dive is improbable, and not just because of the lack of heat.

    He’s definitely neither wearing a spacesuit nor strapped into a pilot seat.

    He’s flat on his back. His arms and hands are exposed by the light Liverpool t-shirt he recalls selecting for this hot day. His skin touches what feels like tiles, cold and hard.

    No one tiles the floor or a spacecraft. This would be bad taste, esthetically speaking. And the weight would impede lift-off.

    Paul has never been the good-at-physics kind of guy, no engineering degree for him. None needed, to know how incompatible tiles are, with spaceships. Paul got himself a bad back when he redid his bathroom, just from trying to carry up two packs of tiles at once. He feels the pain of any rocket confronted with a tiled spacecraft.

    The more Paul thinks about his circumstances, the stronger his urge to repeat the eyes experiment.

    Laying flat on cold tiles, with both the back and the inside of his head throbbing, that’s no way to spend the day. If he keeps not dying, he’ll have to take action. Why not right away, as in now?

    Exerting maximum courage, Paul manages a quick blink. And another one.

    No fatal consequences, yet. Much less brightness than on his first attempt, too. He might survive opening his eyes for good.

    This is no sun!

    What looked like a super nova at his first, tentative glance turns out to be his kitchen lamp.

    A stylish formation of bloody LEDs nearly tricked him into a scare. Never will he tell anyone, about this embarrassment of the decade.

    Still not daring to sit up, gravity feels unstable in a most unpleasant, wobbly way, Paul wonders how he got into his current position.

    It’s not like him at all, to lay down on his kitchen floor.

    There’s a couch in the adjacent living room. Too short to properly lay down, but much more comfy than the tiles.

    There’s also his bed, in the bedroom a few steps down the corridor. It’s an unmade mess and the smell of the sheets serves as his daily reminder to make more money, to be able to afford a housekeeper. But it’s still a pretty viable bed.

    In its presence, no one as sane and clever as himself selects the kitchen floor for a lay down.

    Paul can’t have reached his current position on purpose. There must have been an accident.

    An accident, in his kitchen?! Doesn’t make sense.

    Paul doesn’t perform any hazardous activities in his kitchen.

    A phone, a toaster and a microwave, to reheat whatever non toast food gets delivered, that’s all the kitchen appliances he ever needed. Impossible to get hurt by means of a phone, toaster or microwave.

    There’s also the fridge, of course, with a content that could be considered dangerous.

    Keeling over when drunk, that’s known to happen to people.

    But Paul’s own beer tolerance is quite high, thanks to as much practice as he can afford. And currently, there isn’t even any beer left in this fridge. He blew all his spare money, and some, on that bloody…

    The game. The bloody game!

    Now that he thinks of it, he recalls what he had been doing.

    How the parcel got delivered. How he tore open the wrap at once, in the corridor. How he took the carton and a bulky leaflet to the waste paper bin in the kitchen. How he felt sorry for the forest that had to die because marktroids insist on throwing printed stuff at customers who can perfectly well read all there is to read online.

    Paul recalls how he put on his new neckfence, right here, in the kitchen, next to the waste paper bin. How he adjusted the device tightly, because that’s how Carl said one should. Otherwise, whatever waves the thing generates don’t hit the core of the brain at the right angle and most of the effect is lost.

    There was no need for a mirror to adjust the neckfence. The simple moves were impossible to get wrong and Garrian preferred to not see himself dressed up like some medieval damsel with a high collar.

    The disc with with the battery and whatever tech makes the gadget tick went to the back, to sit on the little bony hump at the base of the neck. Once it touched base, the fence unfolded all by itself and Garrian was dressed up for his first go.

    Next, he activated the app on his phone. He selected ‘max tight / pro level’ and felt the squeeze. Breathing was still possible, but not too deeply, just as Carl had described it.

    Paul recalls all this very clearly now. And how he selected Star Warrior VII. And how he activated the neckfence mode, to resume the game at the level he had reached in conventional mode earlier today.

    Next, he went blank. Why the hell?

    Should a bloody game have achieved what half a crate of beers routinely fails to accomplish? Strong him, felled by an app?! Paul refuses to accept this hypothesis.

    There were rumors online, of course, the standard fake news, about dangers supposedly associated with neckfences. He treated the virtual gossip as usual. Never did any innovation fail to find its technophobe. There’s always someone howling ‘mortal danger’, especially around anything fun. Best to ignore and proceed.

    Harmed by a neckfence sounds like the kind of accident happening to some hopeless wimp. Very much unlike Paul.

    But here he lays, without any other explanation at hand.

    Not for much longer. He has to take action and will.

    With his grip on up, down, left and right partly restored, Paul dares sit up. Feels wrong. Sitting on a kitchen floor shouldn’t trigger sensations more commonly associated with a rollercoaster ride. Not good, not good at all.

    The waste paper bin is just within reach, without him standing up. That latter aspect is important, because anything beyond sitting feels like too much of a challenge at this very early stage of recovery.

    Paul decides to reach for the leaflet, just to confirm it doesn’t contain any relevant information.

    Whoever designed this leaflet should switch professions. Pirate themed design went out of fashion when Paul was in preschool. Right next to the black and white pirate flag it says 

    WARNING – MUST READ BEFORE FIRST USE

    Paul clicks open the neck fence and takes off the device, just in case. 

    This does him far more good than expected. The tiled floor stops vibrating, in a most pleasant way. His eyesight also improves back to normal, allowing him to easily read the finer print:

    Congratulations, your neckfence interface will greatly boost your gaming pleasure! Your body will have to adjust to the new experience, though. Please make sure to lay down for your first session and start at ‘min tight / beginner level’.

    No need for Paul to read on. The corporate bastards behind this perfidious invention tried to kill him!

    This calls for revenge.

    Paul dials up his insurance agent, to have him confirm his legal cost policy covers this obvious case of serious bodily harm. Next, he’ll get himself a lawyer. They’ll meet at the hospital, where he will get his multiple injuries documented.

    The mother of all damage suits is in the making, and Paul’s fortune. He can already see himself posting the add for a housekeeper he will finally be able to afford. But first, he’ll preorder Star  Warrior VIII.

  • Shit Happens

    „Tap water? Never no way. You‘re kidding, right?“

    Liam has to ask, because honestly. And he has to look up at his boss to check if Joshua is once again trying and failing to make a joke. The senile sucker considers himself funny. It’s a total misperception, an insult to anyone with a real sense of humor.

    That’s one of the problems, with anyone past forty. Old guys laugh for no good reason, and don’t where they should. They basically ruin any ambiance by their mere presence.

    Liam doesn‘t hate his job more than the next hard working bloke, but he could so do without Joshua. The company should pay a hardship bonus, to all operators forced to work alongside old guys. The union should fight for a couple more bucks for such cases. Except the union guy is even older than Joshua. Life, always piling up the odds against Liam and his kin…

    Joshua makes his Morgan-Freeman-plays-God face and goes:

    „Hey, keep it up kiddo, didn‘t hear myself calling a break. Why not behave like an adult, for once, and keep working while you talk? This ognitransmuter won‘t install itself.

    And yes, oh yes, tap water. And not talking some cheap grey variant here. Full bloody potable tap water, as in real fit for drinking, no kidding. Tap water was all over the place, in those days, for all kinds of purposes. Right until 2026. The stuff was so cheap, in the early twenties, that people took what was called showers. Now let me tell you about showers…“

    Liam has obediently resumed assembling the ognitransmuter. He’s performing every move extra slowly because Joshua calls slow diligent and considers it a virtue. That’s because he’s such a snail, mentally and physically. It’s his weight, he’s so fat, in combination with his age. Joshua is to power and speed what emptying an ognitransmuter tank is to fun and roses.

    Liam doesn‘t need Joshua to find out about showers. The wasteful rituals of the forebears did feature at school, at more length than any kid should be made to endure. Artificial indoor waterfalls, to not really clean your two square meters of skin, that‘s showers. Even assuming best grey water capture practices, people were bound to loose at least the equivalent of growing one plate of beans, per go. That‘s a life and death difference.

    Liam knows such stuff. He has done more than his share of water conservation awareness calculations. Back in his schools days, when he was still a kid. He doesn’t need some oldie and his half educated waffling. Joshua‘s generation, they learned basically nothing. They go blank, on the most basic basics, like sandstorm survival skills. 

    Last week, Joshua was off sick for two days. Went out without protective goggles, despite his implant beeping imminent sandstorm alert. The blunder nearly cost him his eyes, and getting oneself that kind of transplant grown costs a fortune. He claimed he had misinterpreted the alert. But no one mistakes a sandstorm alert for a heatwave warning. That’s so basic basics, impossible to get wrong. Unless you’re a total dimwit. The last thing anyone needs is being lectured by a total dimwit.

    Not listening to Joshua  is the thing to do. Liam needs to switch his mind to something worth processing, like pre-2026 entertainment.

    The barbarian past managed to come up with some cool viewfare. Most of it is 2D. The plots are weird. The casts are even weirder, with a totally unrealistic abundance of all shades of white people, and in major roles, too. The outfits are madness, often short sleeved, full get-me-my-melanomas-at-thirty risk, and what is called gendered, one of the more creepy legacy practices. In some plots, you get familiar sounding names, but the locations look unlike anyplace in present day Calixico. It‘s all one big mess, the creepy kind of. But classy, in its own weird way. Couple of pre-2026 movies, a round of tongue balm strips, that’s the best way to spend a good night awake among friends.

    Liam fades Joshua‘s voice into the background. Keeping his eyes on the half assembled ognitransmuter, he lets his mind wander. What did it feel like, to live in a world of bikes and roads, where muscle shirts and bikinis were worn ex habitat? How cool must it have been, to have a fight among blokes without getting into trouble? No implants, no civility monitors, no policing drones… Liam is no longer aware of Joshua‘s presence.

    „… and so, on my honor as a plumber, trained, tested, certified and accredited, because me, I learned a proper trade, not just how to execute bloody implant fucking instructions, yes, there was even worse waste than the water toilet. Hard to believe nowadays, but I myself installed a full acre, as in four thousand square meters, of sprinkler plumbing, to water a lawn that wasn’t used for anything but golf putting practice. Did it with these same hands, on my honor. These same hands, just that they were a little less spotty, back in those days…“

    Liam so struggles to keep his mind in his favourite scene from Torque. He’s Ice Cube, and going for it. Why can‘t Joshua shut up and get himself his own daydream? With water toilets or whatever other lurid granny tales he fancies. This is so lame.

    Liam forces his inner self back onto the bike, full speed, full risk. Doing it here isn‘t the same as playing the Torque-themed immersion game. One absolutely needs a gaming scaphander and chair to properly experience the speed and thrust. But he‘s having as much fun as one can have, at work.

    Liam is about to win his race when Joshua dares intrude once again, in his booming boss voice, just like president LL Cool J going tough commander in chief on food racketeers and soil hoarders:

    „What the hell, kiddo?! That’s the wrong way round, the fan, in the vent. You don’t want to pump up the container, you want to drive out the gases! Out, kiddo, out, as in not in. Honestly, kiddo, you got to learn to use your head, in our job, or you’ll end up in a call center trouble shooting bot botches.“

    In response, Liam quickly draws a deep breath and holds it, to reassure his implant. With the new violence prevention settings, the slightest hint of being about to act on an aggressive impulse gets one tasered. You need a martial arts cage, a sports arena or a hacker to get the chance to fight it out. This is supposed to be the latest in civilisation. Currently, his every fiber begs to differ.

    He might have been daydreaming, but he of course followed the implant instructions step by correct step. The fan is installed exactly as it should be. With the new model, air gets pumped in as often and as long as excess current is available. Airing the organic matter in this way drives what causes the smell into the filter, where it gets neutered. This clever trick allows you to install an ognitransmuter pretty much anywhere, no need to fear olfactory inconvenience. Everybody has smelled the ads. Even someone as hopeless as Joshua should know.

    Liam is starting to feel the strain but keeps holding his breath, he‘s so mad. And Joshua to go:

    „Hey, kiddo, no need to turn all sweaty face. Everybody makes the odd mistake, occasionally. No drama. Shit happens. You make amends, fix the mess, and that’s it. Shit happens. Otherwise, how would we fill the ognitransmuter…“

    The worst about Joshua is his being funny illusion. Oh yes, shit does happen. Any young person stuck with an old boss doesn’t need no reminder.

  • Black Friday

    Gorsus taps his left temple to switch off his interface. It’s been a good forty-five minutes, half a day’s worth of linked work, he’s overdue a break.

    “Never more than thirty consecutive minutes” says the sky above his reclined operator armchair, in a psychedelic 3D whirl of colors. As if someone had thrown bags of powder in the air, and they had aligned to form and reform this same sentence, again and again. Beautiful, stunningly beautiful. Still failed to attract Gorsus’ attention.

    It took the strident high overrun alert to pull him out. He’s forty-two, and it shows. His brain struggles with complex tasks. Time to consider using the pension calculator, to check how much longer he needs to go on. No way he ends up in vegetable state, like his late mom. There can be too much of a good thing, including diligence and performance. They won’t get his brain for intermittent storage, in return for keeping the rest of his body alive.

    Gorsus didn’t risk his health on purpose. His current research is so fascinating, he often struggles to pull himself out. “The origins of the Black Friday ceremonies”, that’s the title he’s going to use. The bigger the news, the more important to keep the title bland, not to get accused of lack of seriousness.  Gorsus doesn’t have that much of a reputation to defend, yet, but with this paper, he’ll change the world. 

    Twelve billion adults on the planet. Down from fourteen, but still a lot. And most of them, unless they are severely incapacitated or total morons, are celebrating Black Friday. Year in, year out, they plant at least one ritual sapling for St. Alecho.

    They buy a slot in a high-rise carbon capture rack, the closer to the city, the more expensive. They ride there on bicycles adorned with festive garlands. They use a ceremonial shovel to pretend to dig the symbolic hole, before plugging the roots of the sapling into the holder protruding from the nutrient matrix. They complete the ritual by shaking their heads three times in silent prayer: “May you carbon capture well!”. Never ever is this sentence to be uttered aloud, St. Alecho is known to abhor ostentation.

    Twelve billion adults perform this ritual, year in, year out. It has been established, beyond reasonable doubt, that the Black Friday ceremonies go all the way back to the twenty first century. Thirty generations have been planting trees for St. Alecho on Black Friday.

    Some of the origins of the ritual are well understood. People in the prescientific era used to beg Alexa and Echo, two deities represented by a shared cylindrical effigy, for help with a climate alteration that caused severe droughts and floods before culminating in the Age of Mayhem. Prescientific people prayed, instead of planting trees and adjusting their lifestyles. No wonder lay people consider them responsible for the hardship they suffered.

    As a historian, Gorsus knows better. One can’t blame the superstitious ancients. Clever individuals, like himself, can pull ahead of the field of established wisdom, but there are limits. The time just wasn‘t ripe, in the twenty first century, for an understanding of how things work. Rudiments of climate science were being developed, but this age lacked so badly in both data and computing power that even the most obvious correlations were hard to determine with any rigor. They didn’t even have self programming quantum machines!

    Not that many records, from the Age of Mayhem. Paper was no longer in use, replaced by highly sensitive and shortlived electronic means of storage. Biorecording had been developed in principle, quite a feat, for such a low tech era, but the early DNA readers and writers were primitive devices, and hardly ever used outside of highly specialized labs with little interest in folksy beliefs and traditions.

    Richeve Simdonna, Gorsus’ teacher and idol, had been lucky to dig up one intact twenty first century effigy, in what must have been its original box, wrapped into an additional layer of colorful paper, a waste of resources typical for religious items.

    Her central Rhine valley desert dig, a treasure trove for archeologists. Whole households must have been abandonned, in a hurry, and spent centuries buried under tons of sand, until the Western European super twister of 2914 revealed them, in all their well preserved ancient splendor and mysteriousness.

    Richeve Simdonna managed to decipher part of the writing on the effigy box she found, thereby proving what had until then been a contested hypothesis: Alecho did indeed start as Alexa and Echo, and without the saint. Some taboo, probably, a prohibition against speaking the sacred. No surprise in an age of disruption, people get edgy.

    But no mention of Alexa and Echo’s race. No support for the dominant interpretation.

    Gorsus had always harboured doubts, concerning Black Friday as a celebration of the shift towards dark skinned dominance. The dates just didn’t fit, the chronology was wrong.

    St. Alecho has been around since the twenty first century. Dark skinned dominance only took off in the twenty fourth, in the context of peculiar solar activity. Doesn’t make sense, even if one is prepared to assume repurposing of an existing ritual. Why rename it?

    St. Alecho is also revered by poor and rich, dominant and subjugated, black and white alike. Declaring him the patron saint of dark skinned dominance doesn’t make sense.

    But the term Black Friday is real, transmitted in songs, poems and prayers throughout the ages. It’s simple enough, no reason to assume it might have been distorted. ‘Black’ and ‘Friday’, what’s to get wrong, with these two terms?

    Gorsus got professionally hooked on this question.

    And today, on what started as a perfectly banal Monday, Gorsus did it. He discovered the original meaning of Black Friday.

    It was right there, on a piece of paper Richeve Simdonna decided to ignore, because she couldn’t translate any sense into it. Unlike him, she hadn’t done a research stunt in economics history. She wasn’t able to identify the item as what was called a receipt.

    With this primary classification achieved, it was easy to interpret the writing revealed by trace enhancement technology. Item code and price in decimal symbols, plus a short and telltale text: “Black Friday Deal”. Black, as in black ink, good news for traders. So simple…

    Gorsus barely had time to think “Oh shit” when the cerebral aneurism struck. History lost a bright mind, and the Black Friday secret remained hidden for another decade.

  • Tag Trauma

    “And that’s you, SP all topped up, sir. And to the very top. Big Small Puchases for you, if you don’t mind me commenting. What a jolly number. Don’t get to see that every day…”

    Giving the fin operator his kiss-my-ass look, through sunglasses worthy of a much more fancy occasion, Joha urges to get his device back, and out of this smelly place. This fucking so called age of e-money is one big fat e-drag. And currently not e- at all.

    Joha is forced to waste time in a queue, in person. Just because one bloody idiot e-robbed a central bank to oblivion, forcing the people to sell their country, thereby prompting a second idiot to e-impersonate a commander in chief, to invade the neighbors.

    Yes, losing your country is bad. Yes, having it go to war is worse. But it was just two small armies, with old fashioned weapons. Not even sat strike capability. For a mere two days. A three digit number of victims. A year’s worth of worldwide roadkill. So what?

    Fucking clean cash craze, no one needs this. Certainly not Joha.

    Waiting for some matron to get done arguing about what would not even qualify as a proper tip at last night’s venue, that’s no job for a guy. His friends wait outside, in his car. They can observe him standing here, like some erectily dysfunctional grandpa. Shame.

    Why can’t this bloody bullet proof glass at least be tinted? Age of transparency Joha’s ass!

    What is that waffling slime of a fin operator looking at now? Something is happening, on his screen. He should be handing back Joha’s device, they were as good as done.

    Dull discomfort of drag morphs into piercing snafu pain. ‘No e-fuckup now, not on a weekend!’ is all Joha manages to think before the fin operator goes:

    “Congratulations, sir, you’ve been tagged! You get a say, on education. Oh, and look at this, a one billion dollar budget. You’re so lucky, sir. Don’t get to see that kind of number every day…”

    Stunned, Joha barely dares look out once again. His car is shaking with his so-called friends rocking their swivel seats laughing. They’re filming each other chanting. So easy to read their lips:

    “Joha has been ta-hagged, Joha has been ta-hagged” goes their chorus. In his own car. His bad luck is already doing the rounds online. News of misfortune travel porn fast.

    Joha pretends to listen to the fin operator while weighing his options. There aren’t many.

    Attending one of these online jamborees demotes an influencer to laughing stock in no time.

    Stupid Dafe of last year’s fame got himself tagged, to weigh in on the worldwide alignment of firearms regulation. Misconsidering the gun topic as cool, Dafe went public pride. In return, what used to be his crowd asked:

    “Proud to  spend a full day with mostly old people? Some of them old and female? Not to mention a sprinkling of white snobs? And doing what, in this most disgusting of companies? Oh, you’ll be reading and writing, school-type stuff, and talking about it? You’re so braaave…”

    Joha also recalls his own cool contribution to the online lynch mob.

    He came up with the slogan ‘Rock the rest home?’ under a picture of an artificially aged Dafe, and he’s no Morgan Freeman, kissing an even uglier white nonagenarian. Most of the 2.2K commenters were less polite. Today, barely anyone recalls there used to be a Dafe.

    If he had a choice, Joha would rather come out as gay than attend a bloody citizens-of- everywhere-united-for-the-global-bloody-good-fucking-forum. 

    Joha might actually come out as gay, once he will have made it to London and built himself a cool British star DJ life, but this is not the moment for this intricate kind of considerations.

    Tagged to attend a fucking forum. On education, of all topics. Shame to the power of shame.

    Unfortunately, disgracefully, there is no choice.

    Poor Omo2go tried to opt out.

    According to rumors, he invested a considerable sum, to get his tag declared a technical glitch and voided. ‘Global food security equality’, that mouthful made him reach for his e-wallet. Under the 2045 zero corruption tolerance policy, Omo2go was sentenced to keep rotting in jail until 2068, and to share a cell with his targets. Who’d want to be in his boxers?

    Finally getting his device back, Joha doesn’t return the fin operator’s smile. He’s suppressing a shiver. Not the fault of the air conditioning. Envisaging Omo2go type risk made his ass freeze in shock. Joha has to attend that fucking forum. There’s no escaping the tag.

    Takes Joha seconds to prepare the needful on his device. Next, he walks back to his car, his head high, to get rid of the jeering traitors. He flashes the screen at them, casually. Seeing their profiles ready to be denounced as carjackers sends them running, as expected. Joha might have particular reasons to fear prison, but the basic sentiment is widely shared.

    Next, Joha tells the car to head for the university.

    His mind is all made up. With his street creds ruined, he might as well do the nagging granddad of a high potential grant manager who calls him every other week the favor to resume his physics.

    Bye, bye cool life. Hello career. Degree, PhD, CSD.

    And if he can keep the flame of his current anger burning, he’ll come up with a big fucking e-blast show stopper. They dared terminate his DJ career. Their fault.

  • Jerks and Perks

    “Now this is rich. Is this still 2119, or what? Ever heard of the age of respect? Feels rather like the new waste age to me. Yesterday, it was stuff that got discarded. Now it’s mind output we’re throwing away. Full speed backwards, futility power to max, is that the idea?

    If that is what you’re aiming for, you’re in for a surprise, buddy. Any idea what me getting distracted from making code happen costs, in terms of wellbeing? The future of peoplekind is at stake here. Me having to point my outstanding cognitive abilities at your joke of an occupation, for even one second, guess what that is.

    Oh sorry, no guessing, sure. Let me explain: Waste to the power of waste, you misfunctioning nuisance of a you-call-this-a-service? provider. Still too complex? Oh so sorry, let me rephrase: Big-big waste. You’re doing this so to the wrong guy, buddy…”

    Stakhay is shaking so bad the gravity mitigation function of his seat struggles to keep up with his momentum. His back goes ouch. This workplace is so tediously unlike the upstairs he longs to visit. Double ouch. The combination of back and wallet pain boosts Stakhay’s anger.

    He raises his voice some more to go:

    “And now I pulled a back muscle, because of you imbecile. This job is getting more dangerous by the day. No wonder folks barely manage to clobber together their quarterly one hundred hours of desk time, in this savage environment. It’s wasteful, and a health hazard.

    Is that what I deserve, to keep things rolling for the average blokes and blokettes? Without me, buddy, no food on the table, no game in the box, no water in the tank. We call that one hydrogen, but never you mind. Unless you want to go about explaining the difference? ”

    Stakhay pauses for effect. Just as practiced in that funny interactive skills workshop. The lead coach made him attend, to groom him for even more senior roles that will bring him within striking distance of space flight kind of cash. Stakhay is ready for the apology he’s due.

    He gets a bland stare instead. Combined with a hint of a smile. This face adds up to an insult.

    Stakhay doesn’t tolerate aggression. Pointing his elbow at the exit, he shouts at the offender:

    “Out, at once. Oh yes, buddy, this is an elbow I’m showing you. Oh yes indeed, this is exactly what needs to be done. You asked for it, here it comes. And now you get your lower limbs into motion. Those feet are made for walking, buddy. No idea what the squishy bit in the upper cavity does for a living, but your feet seem to be up to a job.”

    The massage therapist seems on the brink of disobedience. It‘s a long blink, even for his kind. In the end, he does leave. As soon as he crosses the threshold to the corridor, the walls starts chiming his personal menial-worker-alert, to spare complextaskers one more encounteremma.

    Stakhay is proud of this innovation. With all the support staff cruising the building, it was getting ever more stressful for the top cast to move around.

    You want your feeder to deliver your custom grown and cooked artificial protein mix. You want your earplug support to bring and insert what fits todays body mood. You don’t want to meet someone else’s physical needs minder in the corridor.

    They used to just be there, when you walked round a corner. Even strong guys like Stakhay got torn. Walk on and risk small talk? Or retreat to safety in loneliness? More fragile complextaskers went off the rail on such occasions, a terrible loss.

    One was injured so badly he never recovered. That was a peculiar case. It involved a re-enactment of what last centuries barbarians refered to as ‚kissing‘, with the personal dress manager throwing himself at the victim. A massacre.

    Most of the encounters are comparatively benign, but still. Stakhay is proud to have reduced this office‘s hazard score by means of simple implants and an array of loudspeakers.

    That‘s creativity, not to call himself a genius outright. Take what‘s there, reassemble, and whoosh, the world becomes a better place. The corridors are safe, thanks to him.

    Next, he will come up with a prevention strategy for in-office incidents.

    A body kneader addressing a complextasker verbally, instead of just stretching his earlobes for better focus, as ordered, that’s so off. It might have been nothing but a “hi”, but to minds like Stakhay’s, that’s the butterfly triggering the tsunami. He was on the point of…

    There. He doesn’t even recall the breakthrough he was making. Gone.

    Even one spark of his brilliance getting lost is a tragedy. Mindless destruction, just like in the waste age. And look what they did to the planet? Even space is starting to look positively habitable compared to that hot smelly mess. And Stakhay’s beautiful mind is next.

    Stakhay urgently needs his shrink.

    If only this particular staff wasn’t so talkative. There’s no way yet to make these work on mute. 

    Stakhay shivers under the next wave of envy.

    Bloody lucky future folks: Holidays in space and silent shrinks.

  • Veblen* Vacation

    Only ten minutes until pick-up time! Not prone to panicking, Ako takes a deep breath and sits down at the kitchen table. First things first now. He activates the screen mode of his implant by double pressing the first phalanx of his left pinkie with his right thumb and index to check his travel documents.

    It’s all there on his left forearm, displayed in cool turquoise letters. Perfect contrast with his dark skin. The interface upgrade didn’t come cheap, but this is far more comfortable to read than the yellowish scribbles delivered by the basic version. And much more classy to display in public.

    Ako discards the wave of career & earnings pride. At this stage of their vacation, he has to focus on the essentials.

    First of all, his own passport, with a permission to access the wild zones formerly known as EU. As part of an organized group and in the company of a tour guide only, of course. No sane individual from a civilized country would freelance into this mess. 

    A copy of Ebu’s passport, also validated for their adventure trip. 

    Their health status, including a long list of vaccinations that took them half a year to acquire.

    Who would have guessed there was an ailment going by the name of permafrost scabies, and that one had to vaccinate against it?

    The recommended health precautions sounded a bit scary at first. But the tour operator as good as guarantees a safe trip, for participants with their kind of global health care coverage. And the neighbors did it.

    Last not least, enough cash in the bank to buy a minor EU town. They’re easily able to afford purchasing whatever additional items they might need. No need to worry about forgotten face masks, toothpaste or anti-frostbite unction.

    Satisfied with his trip readiness, Ako calls towards the sounds of frenzy emanating from the bedroom: “Honey, just close that bag and come sit with me for a ready-to-go coffee, please? We’ve got two days in Paris, we’ll go shopping.”

    Ebu might be in panic mode, but that’s not going to stop a multitasking champion from arguing back. Shouting to make herself heard above the sounds of her own frantic packing, she goes: 

    “Shopping in Paris? Are you mad? We’d pay ten times the Lagos price! And for some items, there’s no way, they’re just not there.

    Ever seen a picture of what Europeans call a pharmacy? You’re better off heading for a bar if you need anything as basic as painkillers. The pharmacy will probably sell the very same moonshine, but the bar is less likely to have run out.

    Just get up and help me find those bloody protein gel sachets, please, darling, now!”

    She’s the doctor, and his wife, and hot, in every sense.

    Ako joins her in the bedroom and starts rummaging through the second wardrobe before starting to argue back: 

    “Honey, half a billion people live where we go. Suggests survival is possible. And we’re with an experienced tour operator. Our guide will know where to find essentials. They won’t come cheap, OK.

    But being able to afford not cheap, that’s exactly the point of us making good money.

    Besides, it’s only just pick-up time. On past form, we’ve got at least an hour to go until the driver shows up, to give us an earful about Lagos traffic.

    Why not close that bag for now, and join me for a cup of coffee? It will help us remember where we put…”

    Ako doesn’t get to finish his well calibrated plea.

    With a triumphant “In the fridge!” Ebu rushes past him, travel bag and what must be the designated protein gel sachet container in hand. She’s sort of doing what he suggested. Ako counts himself one up on the authority score.

    Three high rush minutes later, a proudly grinning conductor heaves their bags into the trunk of the red three seater before complimenting them onto the passenger seats. Mister Grin will be sitting up front behind the wheel, to take over in case of an emergency. For now, there’s no need for him to do anything.

    It’s Ako giving their trip the go, prompted by a cute flashing traffic light icon on his left forearm.

    While they roll towards MMA II airport, past waterfront holiday resorts and the kind of gated communities he aspires to buy into for the family stage of their marriage, with Ebu checking whatever on her pink-on-black forearm display at this side, Ako is both cursing and priding himself.

    He of all people should have had Autonomous Only Saturday in mind.

    No conventional driving in Greater Lagos on Saturdays, except in life-and-death emergencies.

    And LMA, as in Lagos Mobility Authority does mean it, the fines are huge. No traffic jam on Saturdays. No need to schedule their trip with the usual delays in mind.

    At their current speed, they’ll reach the airport in twenty minutes, and will have to wait for their flight to start boarding for six hours. 

    Amazing, how smoothly the pretty thick traffic flows.

    As foretold by their preliminary study, there is a higher proportion of taxis and carshare vehicles on the road. They get subsidies to go solar, and all electric vehicles are autonomy enabled.

    But there are also a lot of private eVs around. It has become a trend, and it’s picking up speed.

    A moment of quiet engineer pride for Ako. He’s behind this. Not just him alone, but he’s definitely a major contributor to this marvel. Without the base stations he installed, none of this would happen.

    Outside, the pretty estates with their palm groves have been replaced by box-type buildings surrounded by easy-upkeep carbon capture greenery.

    Some manufacturing, mostly high-end components based on petrol intermediate inputs. These well paying companies take advantage of the big refineries and recycling plants further downstream.

    Some logistics, often displaying the company names in both Mandarin and English. Very Asian, logistics. Like electronics.

    A lot of foodstuffs. All kinds of, all stages of processing.

    The African tropical belt feeds most of the continent nowadays, mostly via Lagos. Plus some processed food gets shipped towards the few Europeans lucky enough to be able to afford imported supplements to their very basic diet.

    Amazing, how one climate event can affect billions of people. Back in the 2020s, they were the lost souls living it what was referred to as a hopeless country, in polite company, and promised to suffer most from climate change. People aspired to be allowed into the EU. Until things went topsy turvy, out of a sudden.

    Ako missed the early stages of the switch.

    He was too busy scrambling for his degree while failing to seduce beautiful fellow student Sophia. She went for a hotshot wedding with the UK visa holder  instead, leaving Ako too heartbroken to care about world events.

    Something will have featured in global news, about Greenland ice and the Gulf Stream. But this is not what you notice when struggling with romantic misfortune in a forty degree high heat wave.

    By the time the dimensions of the switch registered with Ako, Europe was racing to the bottom faster than a bob slides. Most of it just froze over, for most of the year.

    Remittances stopped. Their former senders started to beg for job recommendations, to be allowed to return. Sophia called to casually drop the news of her upcoming divorce and refound freedom.

    Ako smiles at the memory of him mentioning his happy marriage with wonderful Ebu. “You’ll love her” he told Sophia, “let’s meet for a drink one of these days”. He would have gone on for a while, to savour this little revenge, but Sophia hang up with a foulmouthed curse. He’s so lucky not to have conquered this bitch.

    Time to blow an air kiss at his wonderful wife at his side.

    Yes, Ako is a lucky man. In the right time, at the right place, with the right qualifications. And here comes the airport.

    With a frisson of anticipation, Ako gets ready to enjoy his first poverty porn trip.

    *Please check the definition of Veblen Goods if the title fails to convey meaning

  • Anecdotal Value Day

    Ring. Ring. Ring. No answer? Ring. Ring. Something must be wrong. Ring. Ring. Sheila never takes that long. Ring. Ring. She usually answers before Aslan even has a chance… Ring … to think about how she manages to be on the line so fast.

    Ring. Ring. Ring. Time to give up and activate the please-get-in-touch.

    Staring at the rolling waves, Aslan feels the adrenaline tide. He can‘t help but assume it’s one of those days. Entertaining to narrate, if and once all ended well. Dreadful to live.

    First thing in the morning, the elevator from habitat shaft three breaks down and half the early shift of algae harvesters fails to show up. No way up, staff not in. Shit happens.

    Next, delayed harvesting clogs the pipes of tank F. The few staff are not to blame. They did their best. But with the current weather, perfect growing conditions, for once, today, of all days, they stood zero chance to keep up. Lots in, little out. Can‘t work.

    Next, Horatio, a most diligent operator, dives into tank F, to rid it of the mess. He succeeds too fast too well. Horatio’s arm gets sucked into the harvester pipe. Wrist most probably broken, according to the on-site medic. A month of sick leave, at least.

    Once things have started going wrong, there‘s no stopping.

    Up to that moment, Aslan had taken the glitches with barely a crumple of his on-duty smile. 

    His job is as good as work gets. His pay is solid. Not disproportionate, considering all the efforts and risks involved. To spend five hours up here, outside, five days a week, that’s tough.

    The floating platforms are safe enough, but the constant rolling sucks. The protective gear will keep the operators fine in ninety-nine point seven percent of weather conditions, and for the rest there‘s health care, but the coverall is so heavy even an athlete like Aslan struggles.

    Lots of effort, and some risk, but the reward is solid. The good, steady kind of solid.

    They’ve got so many energy credits to spare Sheila is envisaging a trip to one of the shaded islands. Just to have gone and stayed someplace else. Like the holidays Aslan‘s late grandad used to recall, from his early years. Back in those dark ages, even kids far too young to appreciate got flown around. Weird. Must have been religious. The dark ages were awash.

    A trip would be nice. If ever Aslan manages to free himself for long enough, they’ll do it. 

    They won’t have to rely on their savings alone. Sheila can keep working throughout their minimum six months stay. That‘s the advantage, of her two-a-penny profession. Content supervisors don’t make much, but they can work from anywhere. Without protective gear.

    The waves keep rolling, at a leisurely six meter amplitude, and Aslan keeps staring. Nothing else for him to do, nowhere useful for his adrenaline to go.

    He resumes recalling what is nice, about this job.

    They eat well. „Just like the elites of old“, as Sheila puts it.

    That’s one more blatant exaggeration. Same as when she calls their 1K cubic meters of private space down shaft two a castle. But they’re certainly neither starving nor lacking food variety. You can’t beat access to quality control samples, for a rich and diverse diet.

    Taking home what is left after testing is no longer stealing. No company caring for its brand will risk being caught at wasting edibles. That‘s a universally despised crime, punishable by banishment to the tankers. Practically a death sentence. 

    Nowadays, staff are encouraged to take home leftovers.

    They have come a long way. Aslan smiles a gloat at the memory of his first manager.

    The old boy was very 21st century, always rambling on about company property. Even licking sugars from a plate before putting it into the dishwasher would get you scolded. Dare taste one of the translucent slices of protein instead of binning it after testing, and off you walked, never to work as a bioengineer again.

    Aslan argued with his nemesis, only to get his due promotion refused in return. He felt dead end, started looking for alternatives. Until it was suddenly the old boy who had to go. Early retirement, they called it. As sack as it gets, in a sophisticated job environment. 

    Ever since, Aslan has been doing well. 

    Sheila‘s chime interrupts his attempt to cheer himself up.

    She‘s her usual hot-tempered talkative, showering him with the kind of news not worth telling. How there was a power spike. Couple of those per day, no big deal, even for Sheila. But this one coincided with her plugging in the charger. Her device, cleverly designed to shut itself down before frying, took a while to reboot. She missed his call, and is sorry. But even more angry. Why can’t they have proper engineers, like her darling Aslan, in charge of power?…

    Aslan listens. It‘s important not to interrupt Sheila. Interfering will only prolong the update.

    His wife is like his fully automated polymer analyzer. Let it run it’s course, and it will reliably deliver one hundred results in less than three minutes. Try to go for a selection of five especially toxic compounds, and three runs, two aborted, one completed, will take half an hour. Aslan spends his days telling his team not to do this. He won’t fail his own rule with his wife.

    Sheila is done accusing the power provider of corruption, incompetence and lack of manners. Aslan’s moment has come, and he takes the plunge:

    “Darling, we’ve got the police here. All over the platform. Something about tax records not matching the actual output. Whole operation shut down, can’t even access my own computer. Won’t be leaving any time soon, all managers are under kind of arrest. No need to worry, not the serious kind of arrest, like for criminals. Just need to stay available, for questions. With a little luck, they’ll soon decide to transfer this whole circus to someplace more steady, where you don’t need to wear coveralls. But this feels like it’ll take a while. Please don’t count on me for lunch.”

    Sheila takes the news without panicking. She wishes him luck and hangs up. She’s used to him doing overtime, has stopped arguing against years ago.

    Aslan wonders if this was the last time he got to hear his wife’s voice.

    And how long he will last, on a tanker, amidst the antisocial elements fighting their ferocious gang wars, over the little food, drinking water and protective gear they are assigned. Average life expectancy of thirty seven, they say. He turned forty two last month.

    Aslan never did no wrong. Not he himself as such. He’s clean.

    But there’s this nagging feeling, that others might see things differently.

    He should have alerted upper management, concerning the speedboat he occasionally gets to see with his eyes, suspiciously close to the platform. It never shows up on his screen. Switching off the transponder is a serious offense, even before committing any other crimes.

    Such sightings had become more frequent, recently. Someone must have been getting greedy. 

    Henry, the other senior manager on the early shift, he lives in habitat shaft three. He’s missing the action. What a coincidence.

    Aslan would love to be able to kick his own ass. What he had been aware of as lazy loyalty until 10:23, the time still displayed on his frozen computer screen, might be about to ruin his life.