by Terry Tyler
I just watch, trying to look as convinced as I can, because I'm damn sure I'm on camera.
"I'll send this presentation to your com, then you can show it to Blake in your next session."
"I will, thank you."
"How he's feeling is, while not the norm, certainly not unusual; sadly, the psychological problems experienced by the transitional generations are greater than anyone predicted." She stands up. "Do you mind, Rae―I'm desperate for a cup of coffee. Would you like one?"
"No thanks. Bit late in the day for me; it'll keep me awake."
"How about some herbal tea, then?"
I'm just about to say no thank you, because I'm not thirsty, when I see that she's subtly inclining her eyes towards the little kitchen off the side of her office.
"Sure; thanks."
"I can't remember what sort I've got; would you like to come and have a look?"
Once we're in the kitchen, she pushes the door to.
"There's no camera or audio in here; I've had it checked."
I laugh. "This is like 1984!" We loved that book at college. Didn't see that we were living it. But who is Big Brother―the government or Nutricorp? Colt reckons they're one and the same, especially as Nutricorp now owns almost all physical business in the country, and anyone who tries to start up a new online business finds that they become invisible pretty quickly; the only way is through the dark net.
"Showing that presentation to Blake should give you an employment credit; two if it's seen to have a positive effect. Lay it on thick." Ginevra opens the cupboard. "I know you don't want a cup of tea, but you're having one."
"Lemon and ginger, then."
As the kettle boils, she says, "I couldn't ask you this out there, because I think my socialising with you might be frowned upon right now, but I've had an idea, and it'll give you a social credit, too."
"Yeah?"
"Yes. How would you like to come with me to visit my mother on Sunday?"
Chapter 5
Mother
"Get you, giving it large with the social credits!" Nash gives me a clap. "Hey, and don't you get an extra half point for doing it on a Sunday?"
Typical. Despite my insisting that I'm actually looking forward to meeting Ginevra's mother―she's ninety-five; I've never met anyone that old before―he doesn't believe I'm going for any reason other than to maintain my social score.
Almost everyone over the age of seventy lives in the Senior Village. Few families have the room to take in an ageing parent or grandparent, and I guess the government sees a single, non-productive person as a waste of a living space―as soon as you retire from work (or when both you and your spouse have), you're required to vacate, to free up your apartment. Thus, if you're my age and have no family, you just don't get to meet older people.
Nash slides into one of his VR worlds even before I've left the flat. I don't bother to interrupt him with a kiss goodbye.
I can't get my head around the fact that Samantha Carlton was born in 1966. She's got pictures to show me―real physical photographs, in books, all faded, some of them in black and white. They date back to the 1980s, when she was a pretty young girl with crazy, backcombed, black hair and make-up like something from a Hallowe'en fancy dress party, except that she wore it all the time. She laughs when I say that, and tells me she was a Goth. I've heard of Goths, but it's not a fashion that anyone goes in for these days.
In a few pictures she's standing in snow, which fascinates me. The nearest I've ever been to snow is when I choose the Winter Wonderland surround on the running machines in Mojo Body Studio. We haven't had the white stuff in this country since before I was born.
Further on, she looks as I imagine wastelanders; she's standing outside a caravan with a man with messy hair as long as hers, and a baby in her arms.
"In the nineties I became what was commonly known as a 'New Age traveller'!"
The baby is Ginevra, of course.
I ask, "What did you do, back then? With your time, when you were my age? I mean, say you were sitting at home. How would you have occupied a whole evening?" Because I can't imagine not having my friends and anything I want to do, watch or read only the touch of a screen away; no VR worlds, either.
"We were more sociable; staying in was something you did only when there was nothing else to do, or if you had no money. We'd go to the pub, to see bands, to festivals; I used to have a whale of a time!" She laughs, and her gnarled, age-spotted hand pats me on the arm. Her face is so wrinkled, but I can just make out the girl in the photos.
She tells me how none of her friends took much notice when the internet first arrived. "Only the nerds and geeks wanted to sit indoors looking at computer screens. People like me weren't interested, and for a long time it was just something we used to obtain information. Then social media and iPhones arrived, and it all changed." She sighs; she looks sad.
"Do you think life was better then?" I ask. "Before the megacities, I mean?"
She takes hold of my hand; the veins stand out and her joints are huge and misshapen, the skin slack. She leans in, to whisper to me.
"If I was your age now, I wouldn't live in this place if you paid me! I'd be out in the wasteland, free as a bird!" She grips my hand so hard, and looks at Ginevra. "Or in one of those grow-your-own places, like your Hugo. Why aren't you out there, with him?"
Ginevra takes her other hand in hers. "Mum, that was years ago, and you know why." She turns to me. "We don't have any other family. Mum's the last of her brothers and sisters, and my cousins are all down in MC1."
She looks back at her mother, and they just smile at each other, without speaking. What I see in their eyes gives me a jolt of loneliness.
It's a family bond, about which I know nothing. The shared history. Being with someone who has known you from birth.
It's unconditional acceptance. A sense of belonging.
I have this with no one, and never have had. There is not one person in the world who feels this way about me.
My instinct is to touch iSync on my com so I can look at it again, later, but there's no way I want them to spot my eyes taking on that glassy look, and, anyway, it would seem wrong. Intrusive. I'll keep it in my head, instead.
A carer comes round and we order tea and cakes; I pick up her photo albums and look through them, all over again.
I love every minute of this visit. I want to stay longer, so she can fill my mind with pictures of the world my parents grew up in. I want to absorb that sense of belonging that she shares with her daughter.
On the zip going back to Sector 19, Ginevra talks to me about the visit, asking me if it was good to hear about history from one who has lived it. I express my gratitude more than is probably necessary, maybe because I don't want to say that what I'm going to be thinking about for days is not Samantha's memories or those amazing photos, but the look in their eyes that told me everything I've missed out on.
I don't tell her, because if I do I will cry.
Chapter 6
Over The Fence
I can't stop thinking about Samantha and Ginevra, and feel empty with the loss of something I've never had.
I've hesitated for too long; I have to find my family.
Locate's records are the obvious first step, but I've got to be careful. Approaching Colt via com would get both Ginevra and me in serious deep shit, particularly with the surveillance on me at the moment. Instead, I wait until mid-week then suggest going round to see him and Lori.
Nash staggers back in mock surprise. "Hang on a minute―are you a cyborg who's assumed the appearance of my girlfriend? Go back and tell whoever's programmed you that they've got it wrong!"
"Ha ha." Okay, so I'm lazy about socialising; I rely too much on holochat and interface. When I was at college, my friends and I used to sit in bed in our individual rooms, pyjamas on, and group-holochat the night away. We'd get drunk together, but not together. I told Samantha Carlton about that; she thought it was hysterical, and rather sad.
> Colt jumps up to get drinks when we arrive, which is great, because it's my chance to talk to him alone. I follow him into the kitchen and hover for a while, until he says, "Are you just out here to admire my legs, or do you want to talk to me about something?"
Which makes me blush, because I realise I was actually doing the former. "The latter. But it's a bit awkward."
He turns to me, vodka bottle in hand. "I usually find it's best just to spit it out."
"Okay." I take a mental deep breath and plunge in. "I'm looking for three people―a woman, a girl and a boy, who might have entered a linked off-grid at some point during the past twenty-two years. Or might not."
He laughs. "That's what I like, a nice straightforward one."
"Sorry."
"Names? Dates of birth?"
"I can give you them, but their names will probably have been changed."
Now he looks interested. "Yeah?"
"Yes. Their entire details were wiped from the MC database when they left here."
He raises his eyebrows but I can tell he's making an effort not to appear too inquisitive. He hands me a lime and some fresh fennel to chop―lime and fennel vodka, new on the trending lists this week―and reaches up to the cupboard for glasses.
"What about Hopes?"
"Highly unlikely. They escaped into the wasteland to avoid going to one. The woman was wanted for assaulting a guard―broken glass, neck―but I'm thinking that later, when she thought it was safe, she might have risked taking the kids to an off-grid."
"What happened to the guard?"
"He recovered, totally fine."
Colt nods. "They'd have closed the case after a few months, then; it wouldn't have been worth the effort to look for her. For linked off-grids we hold as many details as we do for people who live in Hopes and megacities, but the independents hide people all the time."
"So you can look?"
He shrugs. "If you give me the dates of birth I can see if anywhere took in a woman with two kids of around those ages at any time in the past fifteen years, or thereabouts, after which the kids would be classed as adults anyway."
"I can do that."
"This is off-record?"
"Yeah." He's been asked before, then.
He rips some card from a cereal box and grins. "I don’t suppose you’ve got anything one could write with?"
I hesitate.
"Come on, Rae. I'm not going to use it against you. I do searches all the time."
One of Lori’s eye pencils is lying on the worktop, so I use that to write down my family’s names and dates of birth.
Of course, as soon as he reads it, he understands. "Hey―this is your family?"
I swallow, hard. "Yes. They're my mother, sister, and brother." Even as I say that, a delicious rush of pride floods through me. I don't just want to talk about them; I want to stand on the roof of Stack 217 and announce it to the world with a megaphone. I'm not alone. I have a family. I belong. "I lived with them until I was nearly two. My dad was killed, and Mum was told she had to go to a Hope, but she left me in NPU because she thought I'd have a better life―especially as it looks like she had no intention of going to Hope. My dad deleted their entire records from the Locate database before he died."
He leans against the worktop. "Bloody hell. How did you find out?"
"I can't say."
Colt gets it. He doesn't push, call them 'rats', or act sniffy about the fact that my mother assaulted a guard.
"It's imperative no one finds out―"
"We're cool. I get how much this means to you." He puts the paper in his back pocket. "I'll see you at the gym, three evenings from now, after work."
I don't know what a tenterhook is, but I'm on a whole bunch of them for the next seventy-two hours.
As I walk towards Mojo Body Studio, I'm sick with nerves. Despite what Ginevra says, I can't help fearing that I'm being actively monitored.
Last night I lay awake, wracked with paranoia that got worse as the dark hours crept by―you know how it does. Do they suspect me of being a member of the underground network? There's said to be one, a resistance movement working against the megacities and total surveillance, though I've never met anyone who knows anything concrete about it; some say it's an urban legend. Nash says it's dreamed up by idiots who see the wastelanders as daring adventurers standing up for freedom, rather than the rats they are.
Even Ginevra has said it's just wishful thinking, and that the wastelanders are too busy staying alive and healthy to worry about forming resistance movements.
I can't let paranoia get a hold of me. Even if I am being monitored, I'm not doing anything out of the ordinary; I visit the gym at least two nights a week, after work, to keep the dreaded health maintenance demerits at bay. As do most people. This is normal.
When I peep into the main hall on the way to the changing rooms, though, I can't see Colt, and I start panicking all over again. Has he been caught? Taken off for questioning about why he's looking for an unnamed mother and her children?
I shrug off my workwear, pull on vest and shorts, and head out to the running machines; already nearly all are occupied, but I find two free, right in the middle of the room where it's noisiest. I select my favourite surround: Country Lane. Jogging through winding roads with overgrown verges rids my body of its nervous energy, and I'm loving the soft, dreamy music. The smells are a bit over the top, though; I could do with more elderflower, less manure.
A touch on my arm takes me out of the English countryside of bygone days; I turn to see Colt, touch the cease control, and I'm back in Mojo, Megacity 12, year 2061.
"Hey!" I smile brightly. "How you doing?" Got to be careful here, just in case my audio surveillance is not limited to Balance. I give my ear a little tap, and mouth 'careful'. Colt's not stupid; he gives me just a hint of a nod. Nash would have said, 'What's the matter with your ear and careful about what?'
My heart is thudding, and not just because of the exertion.
In a voice so low I can hardly hear it, he says, "Do another fifteen, then meet me in the changing room. Cubicle ten."
There aren't any cameras inside the changing cubicles. Not that we know of, anyway.
To my surprise, he reaches over and touches my left buttock, then gives me a sexy wink. Ah. Clever. At least cheating on your partner isn't a crime, and doesn't earn you a social demerit. Guess we can fuck who we like, as long as we remain loyal to MC12.
We run; after a while, Colt leaves.
A few minutes later, I open the door of cubicle ten to find him waiting for me, naked from the waist up; he really is extraordinarily well-made, though this registers only subconsciously.
He leans in, and I recoil, just slightly. Not him, me; I must reek of sweat. He places his hand on the wall of the cubicle, above my shoulder, and smiles. Is he flirting with me? Seriously?
I say, "What did you find?" and he removes his hand and leans back, against the opposite wall.
"I'm sorry, mate. There's no trace. I found a few possibles, but I only had to look at them to see that they weren't your people."
My mood takes a nosedive. Okay, I admit it―I've been allowing myself to imagine them settled in a nice off-grid, happy and healthy. Waiting to meet me at the gate, autumn leaves falling around us. Last night, before I went to sleep, I was even planning to ask Ginevra if there was any way I could visit this place, once I knew where it was. Then Nash did one of his wildebeest-with-blocked-sinuses snores, and jolted me out of my daft fantasies.
Colt folds his arms across his chest. "It doesn't mean anything bad. If their records have been expunged, they could be anywhere. They might have left the country; it happens. But most likely they're still in the wasteland, somewhere, or in an indie off-grid. There are only six. Here; I've made a list of them."
I study the piece of paper he gives me. There is one in Cornwall, one in Dorset. Two in North Yorkshire, one in Norfolk and one in Cumbria.
I stare at it, helplessly. "How do I find out?
"
For the first time I fully understand how enclosed our lives are. The ziprail runs only within and between megacities, or out to the designated leisure environments. The fake views from the windows ensure that we never see a Hope Village, the farmlands, an off-grid or the wasteland. You need special permission to travel outside the megacity on anything other than the ziprail.
I've heard about the ghost towns, though, and seen them on documentaries, bleak, and empty. The population is smaller now and stacks take up less space than houses, so not all the old towns and villages had to be demolished; some were just abandoned. They exist so near to the megacities, but we can't visit them.
Yet no one questions this.
There is so much to do here; we're always busy, never bored. We work and play hard, we spend weekends at the retail showrooms, at the gym, in cafés, bars, down at Larks Pond, Wildacre or visiting the adventure trails at Great Outdoors in MC13―Nash loves to go ziplining. We watch films, play games; we can holochat to someone in California at the touch of a fingertip, or take the ziprail to sleepy, old-fashioned Wells-next-the-Sea or amazing historic Bath. We can fly to the 'permitted' countries, if we can afford it, which most of us can't; we can slip into thousands of virtual realities, but we can't walk twenty miles outside our own megacity without a pass.
They've given us so much to do that we don't notice how restricted we are.
We think our world is full and fascinating, with every need catered for, but we're treated like children―here, don't ask awkward questions, play with this! And so our attention is captured by the next bright, shiny toy, and we stop asking if we can play in that other field over the fence.