Sycamore (Near-Future Dystopia)

by Craig A. Falconer

  As Kurt finished speaking, the bus arrived and the girl stepped forward. “Interesting meeting you,” she said.

  He smiled. “Likewise.” He walked to the door of the bus to see her off.

  “What’s this keypad?” she asked the driver.

  “New security measure. Read the numbers on the front window and type them in.”

  She looked at him, confused. “What numbers on the window?”

  “Sorry. Can’t ride without Lenses. Next.”

  “Since when?”

  “This morning. Next!”

  Kurt saw what was happening and pushed his way past the rest of the queue. “Fine,” he told the driver. “I’ll read them for her.”

  “Sorry, kid, but that won’t do unless you wanna ride for her, too.”

  “Who the hell do you think you’re speaking to like that?” said Kurt. “I could have you fired.”

  The girl accepted defeat and pulled Kurt away from the driver. “Come on. We’re holding up the line.”

  Kurt half-noticed a sign on the back of the bus as it disappeared into the distance — something about imminent changes to accepted payment methods.

  “How far away do you live?” he asked. The sky told him that rain was coming in six minutes. He thought back to the pre-Seed days when the Lenses took several seconds to deliver semi-accurate weather forecasts; the days when he had to worry about the weather; the days before Amos and chauffeurs and free Italian sportscars. It was hard to know why, but he almost missed them.

  “It’s like a 35-minute walk,” she said. “I’ve got a little place just beside—”

  “Don’t tell me!” Kurt waved his hands frantically to make sure his message was clear. “The least I can do is drive you. Just say which way I should go and stop me a little bit before your house. It’s best if I don’t get too close.”

  “Why?”

  “It just is.”

  The non-explanation did nothing to quell her curiosity. “Would you get in trouble for coming to my house?”

  “It’s not me I’m worried about. I didn’t get your name, by the way.”

  “It’s Stacy,” she said, offering her hand like some kind of businesswoman. “Stacy Palamino.”

  Kurt shook her hand and his thoughts fell out of his mouth before he could filter them. “Isn’t a palomino a kind of horse?”

  “I think so. But Palamino comes from dove.”

  “Like paloma?”

  “Almost,” Stacy smiled, half-impressed, “but palombo. It’s Italian. For dove.”

  Kurt rubbed the golden badge on her jacket. It was formed in the shape of a peace dove just like Picasso’s. “That explains this then.”

  The distance between Stacy and Kurt seemed to be shrinking as they walked along the long line of parked vehicles.

  “My car’s Italian,” he said to end a short lull in the conversation. “Like your name.” It sounded cleverer in his head.

  “Is it that old black one?”

  “Not quite.” He clicked Unlock Car from the menu in his Lenses and the yellow supercar ahead of them blinked twice. Its vanity plate read KURTMOBILE. That part was Amos’s idea.

  Stacy was taken aback. “That’s your car? At least you’re keeping your feet on the ground.”

  “It was a gift from Amos,” Kurt only slightly lied.

  She didn’t take her eyes off of the car. “Whatever it was, it’s obscene.”

  “You don’t like it?”

  The eyes returned to Kurt. The mouth fought a smile. “I didn’t say that.”

  He walked around to the passenger side and opened her door.

  “And they said chivalry was dead.”

  Kurt declined to admit that he only opened Stacy’s door because he didn’t want her to break it. She climbed in and he closed it behind her.

  “Wow,” she said, exploring the car’s sparkling interior. “I can’t believe you let him buy you this.”

  “Might as well take what I can get,” Kurt shrugged.

  “How much did it cost?”

  “I didn’t ask. It’s better not to know.”

  35 minutes on foot translated to six in the car. It seemed like they had just got in when Stacy interrupted their idle chatter to tell Kurt that he was getting close to her house. She reached for the door handle when the car stopped.

  “I’ll get that,” he said.

  Stacy pulled her hand back but remained insistent on letting herself out. “There’s no sense in both of us getting wet.”

  “I’ve been wet before.” Kurt stepped into the rain with purer motivation than protecting his expensive door. “And you seemed happy that chivalry was still alive.”

  Her eyes held his as she climbed out beside him. “So... will I see you again?”

  Kurt wasn’t expecting her to say that and he didn’t know how to answer. “I don’t think that would be a very good idea.”

  “It’s okay, I get it. Too caught up with the digital girls in your virtual reality world, right?”

  “It’s not virtual; it’s augmented.”

  “You keep telling yourself that.” Stacy had a way of saying sharp things softly. Kurt appreciated it.

  “Fine. When do you want to see my again?”

  “How’s your tomorrow?” she asked, having to shout over the sound of the lashing rainfall. Only rainfall wasn’t really the word for it; something like torrent or deluge, though still insufficient, came closer. It was severe enough that Stacy and Kurt were the only people on the street, where they stood looking into each other’s eyes and talking small as if it was dry. Had a division existed between romance and insanity, this would have tested its boundary.

  “I have to be with Amos when he meets the president.”

  Stacy laughed. “Poor you. Do you think you could give him a slap for me?”

  “Amos?”

  “Him, too. But mainly the other guy.”

  “I don’t think even I would get away with that. I could tell him you sent it, though?”

  “Better than nothing,” she smiled. Kurt couldn’t help but mirror it.

  “That should be done by about five. I could meet you here and we could drive back to my new house if you wanted. I haven’t been in it yet but it’s nice. Huge. Not that you’re into stuff like that, but...”

  “A night in a mansion with Mr Sycamore? How could a girl refuse?”

  “I’m not Mr Sycamore,” he insisted, but it was too late. With a wink and a twirl, Stacy had disappeared around the corner. All that remained on the street was Kurt and an open dumpster. He closed the lid to prevent more rain from getting inside then stepped back into his car and looked at the time, unspeakably frustrated that it wasn’t yet five o’clock tomorrow.

  Though their lengthy conversation yielded little common ground, Kurt was utterly taken by Stacy. It was about more than how good she looked — especially in the rain — and it went beyond her attractive strength of conviction and her irrepressibly fiery Latin temperament. He liked Stacy for all of those reasons, of course, but also for the way she was making him think about himself; challenge his role; question his complicity; wonder what he would have to do to become the kind of man who would have a real chance with that kind of girl.

  Her presence hit him hard, chipping away at his blasé front with a relentless barrage of insights that seemed to arrange themselves on the surface of his soul like a line from Rilke. “You must change your life,” she told him without telling him, and he loved her for it.

  An outmoded digital radio played as Kurt drove home because he didn’t want his hearing to be blocked by the in-earphones in case there were sirens. The car handled the wet tarmac like a $600,000 dream; faster than light and twice as quiet.

  It rounded a corner and Kurt suddenly jumped in his seat, simultaneously panicked and infuriated by a pop-up ad that obscured his view of the road. He slammed his foot on the supercar’s brakes and it ground to a halt inches from the vehicle in front. Kurt looked at the overlaid image: a suggestive pho
to of very-almost-Stacy-Palamino. Before he could act to close the ad, a sleazy voiceover played in his ears.

  “We saw you stare and we felt your heart pounding. You can’t have her, but here’s the next closest thing…”

  8

  Too shaken by his close-call with the pop-up to think about moving house, Kurt drove to the safety of his old apartment and spent one more night there. He woke gently the following morning, still at the apex of Forest’s popularity table which now featured 28 million consumers.

  It was the last Friday of the month — payday for most of the country — and the coming weekend would be the first opportunity for the 9-to-5ers to buy their Seeds. Sales numbers were impossible to predict but Amos publicly stated that he would be surprised if the current figure didn’t double by Monday morning. He went on to boast that if 60 million units were indeed sold within a single week, Sycamore would have broken the old record for a smartphone launch six times over. Only six? Kurt was surprised. Suddenly the numbers didn’t seem quite so crazy.

  He packed some clothes for his new house and drove conservatively towards Sycamore HQ, wary of pop-ups after the previous night’s incident. Amos was going to get an earful about that when Kurt arrived.

  A frustrating delay near the edge of the Quartermile gave Kurt time to notice the old-fashioned billboard by the side of the road. It was a static, as they had come to be known, so displayed the same image to everyone. It was a typical beer ad which featured a majestically airbrushed 18-24-year-old bikini model tilting her head above the crude slogan: “Lexington: I want you to want it!”

  Kurt wasn’t sure exactly when subtlety had died, but it annoyed him to an irrational extent that some idiot in a suit had been paid to think of that slogan.

  The drawback of statics had always been that the advertiser had to pay to advertise to everyone when only a portion of the audience might be interested in their wares. Targeted placements had the obvious discriminatory advantage in that regard but Kurt found himself wondering how necessary they really were given that half of the city’s statics seemed to be selling Lexington and that a good number of his placements had been, too. The last few weeks had made Kurt think about advertising in new ways and he now realised that the cancer had always been pervasive enough to ensure that most people wanted the same things, anyway.

  Apparently Kurt’s Lenses had looked at the static billboard for long enough to convince his Seed that he might be interested in buying some Lexington. And, in case the model didn’t quite do the job, here came a pop-up to make sure. The image was overlaid in his vista seconds after he parked; better than last night but still too close for comfort. Again, Stacy was the woman of choice. But this time it was different. This time Sycamore weren’t selling Kurt the idea of Stacy. This time they were using the idea of Stacy to sell him Lexington.

  The ad looked like it had come from the same template as the static. The most seductive shot of Stacy from Kurt’s vista had been selected — presumably it came from the moment his heart rate was most elevated. She was half-biting her bottom lip and half-smiling in the rain as her hair clung to her neck. Taken out of context, it was an overtly sexual pose. The slogan under her unconsenting face somehow managed to trump the last one for classlessness: “I only do dudes who do Lexington.” Kurt would have rolled his eyes if the pop-up wouldn’t have followed them.

  What was it with Lexington and terrible ads? What was it with Lexington and ads? They were already the most successful drinks company in the world by an immeasurable distance with eight available flavours that catered for the whole market (Beer, Red Wine, White Wine, Cola, Pineapple, Strawberry, Princess and, of course, Kurt’s favourite from his student days: Blue). Lexington was a strong drink — stronger than real wine — but didn’t taste it. It was the quickest and cheapest way to get buzzed, available in both cans and plastic bottles from an outlet near you.

  Lexington Jr was a gateway brand targeted at underage consumers. Its containers looked the same as the grown-up ones to ensure an easy transition and its advertising campaigns made sure that all those future alcoholics dressed up as schoolchildren counted down their days to adulthood with glee. “Be like daddy,” the mascot said. “It’s what big boys drink.”

  Do-gooder types had tried to get Lexington Jr commercials banned from children’s TV shows but nothing ever came of it; the company invested a few thousand dollars in alcohol awareness programs and a few million more in the relevant decision-maker’s campaign fund.

  Amos wasn’t awaiting Kurt in the lobby but he did move to his floor’s elevator as it ascended. He clasped a mug full of blue liquid. The door opened. “Hotshot.”

  Kurt smelled Lexington and saw blue. “Jesus Christ, it’s early for that.”

  “Junior, of course,” said Amos. “I don’t mess with the hard stuff.” He winked but Kurt was in no mood for fun.

  “I got a Lexington pop-up in my car this morning. I had just parked.”

  Amos blew air from his lips as if he cared. “That was fortunate.”

  “Mmm. Last night I got a pop-up for a cam show when I was driving on a wet road. What the hell is going on? I could have died.”

  Amos put a condescending arm around Kurt’s waist and led him to the north wall-window. He looked down to the street in thought. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: this wouldn’t be an issue if cars drove themselves.”

  “Well they don’t,” Kurt snapped. “People drive cars, so stop putting ads in front of their eyes. Someone is going to get killed.”

  “How are we supposed to know when someone is driving, Kurt? Hmm? How? You can’t complain without offering a solution.”

  “The tracking knows how fast people are moving. Anything over 5 miles per hour should preclude pop-up ads. There: solved.”

  Amos shook his head quickly. “What about buses? We can’t disallow ads on buses. Or trains. Planes. You name it! Baby, bathwater, total non-starter.”

  Kurt sensed that he was fighting a losing battle. Only when someone died in an ad-induced collision would Amos act to deal with the pop-ups. “I wasn’t just annoyed at getting an ad while I was driving, though,” he said, moving on to the other side of the issue. “It was another one of those lookalike sex ads.”

  “You’ll stop seeing them when the system realises you’re not interested. Anyway, you shouldn’t be angry at me over what happened yesterday! I heard about the incident on the bus and the incident with the police. Keep your head down, I seem to recall telling you. So... who was the girl?”

  “What girl?”

  “Don’t play games, Kurt, not today. Bystanders have been running their mouths on Forest about how Kurt Jacobs abused a bus driver who wouldn’t allow a blind passenger to board. And this after you pulled rank on four police officers who were trying to restrain her!”

  “She’s not blind, and that wasn’t restraining. I can rewind and show you.”

  Amos smiled like a spider with a fly. “So there is a girl. And ‘blind’ doesn’t mean actually blind. Just without Lenses.”

  “Look, I saw a girl struggling to get on a bus and I tried to help, okay? The driver was disrespectful and I couldn’t let that slide. The police were behaving like soldiers but at least they responded when they saw who I was. It just happened to be the same girl involved in both incidents. I don’t know her.”

  “Good. I would hate to think that your personal life was harming your public persona. I’ll have Communications Colin and his team clean this up. They’re almost as good at spin as Minion’s guys, but a lot less busy.”

  Kurt walked away from the window and sat in his usual pick of Amos’s scattered sofas.

  “The meeting’s cancelled, by the way,” Amos called over.

  “What? I got out of bed for it.”

  “Oh well. Turns out the president didn’t need much convincing — he knows fine well how much good CrimePrev will do. I’ll fill you in on what’s been decided through in the meeting room. Follow me.”

  Kur
t rested his head on the arm of the sofa. “Tell me here.”

  “Seriously, come on.” Amos pulled Kurt to his feet and led him towards the meeting room. “There’s new stuff, too. You take it for granted because you’re around everything all the time, but we have exclusive access to an endless stream of surveillance data and information on everyone in the country. That goldmine has all sorts of unimagined security applications, so he was keen to do business.”

  “Except you don’t have everyone in the country. Even if we get to 30 million today and 60 million by Monday… that’s still only 20%.” Kurt heard himself say ‘only’ and realised how foolish it sounded.

  “In a single week, hotshot. One week. And anyway, it wouldn’t matter if we never Seeded another consumer; the critical mass has been reached. Even if someone tries to stay blind and unseeded, there could still be a camera behind every other eye around them. The bigwigs know that, too. They can’t hide their corruption anymore. Power like this is what they live for.”

  “Power like this comes with special responsibilities,” said Kurt.

  Amos put his hand on the doorknob and shook his head. “Power like this has never existed.”

  ~

  Kurt sat down at the head of the table, in the seat normally reserved for Amos. He didn’t mean anything by it but Amos appreciated it as a fearless gesture. Kurt was turning into the kind of man who could serve Sycamore well for years to come.

  “I spoke with the president last night,” Amos began. “What do you want to know?”

  “Why you didn’t tell me last night that I didn’t have to come in today.”

  Amos laughed. “It’s probably easiest if I just let you hear the key part of our 15-minute voice-call. Bear in mind that he already knew what I was going to propose, so any resistance was purely ceremonial.” Amos accessed the call and moved to the relevant time as Kurt waited to receive the data. Amos looked in his eyes and swiped two fingers towards him.