I’ll find out soon enough, I guess.
I step out of the shower and into a gown and the first sign that something is wrong comes when I feel the draft against the bare skin of my legs.
A draft that is coming in through the open door.
The open door that I just closed, when the last of the police had left.
I look around myself nervously.
‘Terry?’ I say.
That’s a stupid thing to say, of course. But it’s the first thing that springs to mind.
Then:
‘Rhonda?’
That’s probably even stupider.
I cross to the door and look outside.
No one.
Nothing.
I close the door gently.
Head back into the kitchen.
And hear the soft footsteps of someone behind me.
Then I turn and see James.
And the knife in his hands.
***
‘Followed you home,’ he says. ‘Had to wait for the police to leave.’
The entertaining guy, the guy that made us all laugh back at the interview, seems nowhere in sight. Instead, his voice is dulled, robotic, and his eyes are dark yet blank.
‘James,’ I say. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Making sure,’ he says, ‘that it’s me they pick.’
‘You’re crazy, man,’ I tell him. ‘It’s just a job.’
‘Not when you’re tagged,’ he replies. ‘Then it’s your life.’
I could run.
But I don’t want to turn my back on him.
Or that knife.
So I begin to circle the kitchen counter.
Walking backwards.
He follows.
‘So, what?’ I say. ‘You’re going to take mine?’
He cocks his head, looks at me strangely. ‘No,’ he replies. ‘I’m just going to take care of the competition.’
He comes closer.
I move backwards again.
‘There were eight others, James.’ We’re still circling the table, and the door is within reach, but I can’t chance it yet, I still have to keep moving. ‘You going to kill them all, too?’
‘It’ll be you or me,’ he says. ‘We have the most to lose.’
A sudden grin splits across his face.
‘And when they can’t get hold of you . . . when you’re lying in a pool of blood and it’s whoops sorry you can’t get to the phone . . .’
He looks at me.
‘It’ll just be me.’
That’s when he lunges.
And my first instinct is to turn and run, but I realise that this move is suicidal, is just as much about giving up as Terry’s attack on the Job Place was. So I face James head on, and one hand seizes the wrist that bears the knife and the other forms into a fist and drives itself into his gut, and there are years of anger and frustration in that punch and it feels good.
His eyes still look dead, but some small spark of life must be driving him on, because he’s still striking down with that knife, trying to lay me open.
‘James,’ I try again. ‘Stop this. It’s just a job, man!’
But the words seem to mean even less than they did before.
To both of us.
And I know there’s only one way this can end.
I drive a knee into his groin.
Watch him sink to his knees.
Then take the knife from his hand.
I’m breathing fast.
But not just from exertion.
He looks up at me from the floor.
‘It’s . . . just a job?’ he offers questioningly. Hopefully.
I smile at him.
Then I reach down and take care of the competition.
***
There’s a knock at my door the next morning.
I haven’t taken care of James yet, but you can’t see him from the doorway so it’s fine.
I open up.
And see standing there . . .
Brian.
Both eyes blackened now, and one arm in a cast.
Though he still looks better than James does at the moment.
‘I miss an appointment?’ I ask. ‘You come to stop my money?’
He doesn’t say anything.
That’s when I know.
They’ve got me.
Somehow the tag let the Job Place know that James is dead, and someone saw him coming here and . . .
But then Brian amazes me by doing something.
He laughs.
And I think, Brian can laugh?
Wonders will never cease.
‘No, no,’ he says. ‘Just come to see how the interview went.’
‘Pretty good,’ I say. Then, improvising, add, ‘but it dragged on until the wee hours.’ There’s an understatement and a half. ‘Can I tell you about it next time I’m in?’
Brian looks up at the rays of a new day dawning and says, ‘Jack, I truly believe I won’t be seeing you again. I think this job interview’s the last one you’ll ever have to go to.’
I glance back at the dead body in my kitchen.
And reflect that my advisor might be right.
THE ULTIMATE SALE
BY DEEDEE DAVIES
I’m an Offliner, and I’m damn proud of it.
Okay, so I don’t get the perks; the life of ease and effortless fulfilment, the great prize of ‘self-actualisation’ bestowed on those who chose to live the dream. I have to get by with the burdens of miserable weather, hard graft, and whatever food I choose to incinerate on my 2-ring Calor-gas stove. But the key word is ‘choice’. I made mine a good thirty years ago, and rheumatism and cataracts notwithstanding, I wouldn’t change it for the world.
I never watched much TV - I never saw the need to delve into the endless repeats, the cheap low-brow laughs they churned out in a stream of gaudy absurdity that pandered to people’s vanity and self-obsession. The ‘Net, though, that was a different matter. In times of boredom, I’d spend most of my spare time idly surfing sites that interested me - and plenty that didn’t. I even had a whole circle of friends that I communicated with solely through that electronic interface. If I were more of an existentialist (or paranoid), I’d wonder if any of them really existed, or whether they were purposely-generated pieces of software, tailored to the words I typed into search engines.
One night, about thirty years back, I surrendered to the lure of mindless entertainment: those few cheap laughs were looking like my idea of heaven after the day I’d had. I managed to sit through two hours of programming, most of which was so shredded by the adverts that I began to wonder whether I was following the story of a dysfunctional bunch of animated ‘toons, or the ongoing saga of Ludo Pizza. I turned off the TV and tried to remember why I’d subscribed in the first place.
Advertising.
In some small, indirect way, it was controlling my choices. I panicked, picked up the phone (an all-too-rare occasion, even then) and cancelled my subscription. At least, I tried: the sales rep on the other end of the ‘phone was so persuasive that I kept the damn thing. From then on, I kept the set unplugged as much as possible, but when my resolve failed, and I fell to watching a few minutes of broken storyline from behind my trusty cushion, my paranoia grew. Where was the control, the censorship of these adverts? Why was no-one stopping these insidious little invasions into the private life of every individual with access to cable TV or the Internet? By and by, a horrible realisation dawned. I saw the true reason for it, and now that my mind was attuned, I saw the evidence for it too.
We were being reduced to a nation of sedentary slugs.
Everything in the media was aimed at ensuring we had to leave the house as little as possible. Provided you lived in the right areas, you
could get food delivered to your doorstep, videos hand-delivered or downloaded online, and catalogue shopping for clothes and home goods was already a long-standing tradition. You didn’t even need to go to the bank to get money out to pay!
In the interest of ‘Equal Opportunity’, businesspeople were allowed to work from home, their meetings now conducted via an entirely virtual network. Of course, from there, things just got progressively worse. The reality game show mingled with the new ‘stay-at-home’ lifestyle with disastrous results: why would you want to go abroad when you could watch the beautiful people do it on TV?
People were snared, fished in, hook, line and sinker. There was no escape: the advertising companies had created a false dependency on the Internet, then inundated people with advertisements in a flickering kaleidoscope of ‘must-haves’ and ‘can’t-do-withouts’. Slowly but surely, the insidious lethargy wormed its way into the lifestyles of the shiftless and the indolent, bringing a relaxed and euphoric calm that had not been seen since the psychedelic sixties. Some people no longer needed to go outside. The Ad magnates preyed on the impressionable, the bone idle, the greedy; people who would buy anything if it was on sale - even agoraphobia.
Of course, not everyone was susceptible. There were those of us too stubborn, too scared to be seduced by them. We are now by default the workers, and we spend our lives grafting to enhance and maintain the luxury of the Onliners.
There were a lot of stories when it was all new, a multitude of theories - each more improbable than the last - as to who or what had brought about this split in society. I can say now with definite certainty that it was the Adbots: virtual entities who existed in cyberspace, created inadvertently by a dotcom who needed roving, evolution-capable robots to boost their sales. They took their programming to heart, extrapolated it to the nth degree and reached self-awareness - in no small part due to a joke motto about a captive audience that had ended up in their core code: “The less they move, the more they buy.”
Whoever coined the phrase had no idea what he or she had unleashed. By 2025, all those who could afford it (any many who could not) had their own BOI (Bionic Online Interface), which was wired to the ‘Net. By 2040, everyone had bought Virtual Reality stimulator kits that enabled them to experience an infinite variety of physical sensations without actually leaving their plumbed-in chair-beds. By 2050 the market for physical objects - like clothing, musical instruments and cars - had folded. Heavy manufacturing was replaced by the production of newer and more efficient ‘Net interface equipment, protein supplements in a million unlikely flavours, and heavy duty blinds. The sun burned their skin through the windows, you see.
And work? Oh, work still exists. It’s part of the human psyche, much as we’d like to deny it. We need work to give us purpose, and so, with the advent of the Cerebral Interface came the Thought Exchange. Before long, people were once again working together, using their acquired talents to create new music and films in virtu-space alone, using a collaboration of minds that was unprecedented. Meanwhile, virtual businesses flourished, selling products that never existed to people who would never physically hold them. Holidays were taken in cyberspace on Saturn’s beaches, or at Hogwart’s, or Hobbiton, where tourists could spend their time soaking up the atmosphere, or challenging nightmare enemies through terrifying - if safe - landscapes.
But if there is one adage that holds true, whether in cyberspace or the real world, it is that things change. Finally, after a good run of thirty golden years for the advertising industry, they ran out of new things to sell. I saw the physical advert for it, on one of the few billboards they still maintain in the vain hopes that some more of us Offliners will one day be drawn in by their promises.
Not likely!
What they’re selling now is the ultimate experience, something that has been lost or ignored by the Onliners for many years. It is a rather unusual product, as apparently it comes with such high risk that only those in their prime, with suitable liability insurance, will be able to obtain it. To my old eyes, it’s the ultimate irony, the proof that the world really does turn full circle.
“Sign up now for the ultimate experience - Offline roving adventure!
Try out our NEW free-form Exterior Holidaying Packages.
Savour the scent of Fresh Air; walk in the City streets; buy a solid, softcover magazine from an authentic newsstand.
Unique Opportunity - £20,000.00 per 24-hour adventure.
Please note: This is a challenging product, and is not recommended for anyone who has been online for more than 10 consecutive years.
Health Warning - requires disconnection from the ‘Net.”
THE BIRD BELOW GROUND
BY S.C. LANGGLE
Subland, Year 220 P.E. (Post Explosionum)
Liam knew he should have given the photograph to his mother the moment he found it. Photos were rare in Subland, and his mother could sell it to the Preservation Room for a good price, or the black market for a better one. They needed the money—Liam couldn’t deny that when he heard his baby sister Tessa wailing, even though she’d been given the largest portion of the tipiog porridge, or when he felt the twinge of empty space in his own belly. And his mother had barely taken a single bite for herself all day. How long had it been since they’d had one of Subland’s delicacies, the rare narancia fruits or karoton roots, which danced on your tongue and filled your stomach with warmth the way tipiog never could? The money from this photo could buy an entire bushel of karotons, and some new clothes and blankets besides. They didn’t need the extra food—a few bites of tipiog, along with one of the huge vitamin pills distributed for free by the Leaders, would fulfill all their nutritional requirements for the day. But it was hard to trick a stomach that longed for grains and proteins to digest, a tongue that craved new flavors and textures. Sometimes, Liam had decided, you could have everything you needed—and still want more.
Like the photograph. Liam didn’t need it—not the way Tessa would need an entire new wardrobe in a few months, if she kept growing the way she was—but in the few days he’d kept it hidden in his pocket, it had seemed to become a part of him, and now he couldn’t imagine going on without it. Whenever he was alone, he would slip it out and look at it: the picture of a yellow canary, wings outstretched, flying against a blindingly blue sky. The colors alone, so different from the dull grays and browns of Subland, were enough to entrance him for days. And the wings… Liam had seen pictures of birds before in school, had learned how they once flew through that blue, blue sky in Aboveland, somewhere far past the dark rocky ceiling of Subland. But despite the photographs, despite the written records of long-dead Abovelanders, the existence of birds had always seemed more myth than reality, too miraculous and impossible to believe—as impossible as the sky itself.
Now, though, since he’d spied that sparkle of yellow and blue hiding between two rocks in the corner of the schoolyard—since he’d picked up the paper, so thin and fragile it threatened to dissolve into dust, and unfolded it to discover the strange creature within—it seemed more real. Not just a dream, but a possibility. Almost like he could reach into the paper, into that blue blue sky, and stroke the outstretched feathers. Would they feel smooth and cold, he wondered, like the rocks that littered so much of Subland’s surface? Would they be warm and fleshy, like Tessa’s tiny fingers when they clutched his hand? Or would the wings be made of an entirely new material, something Liam couldn’t even imagine? The possibilities kept him occupied for hours.
For once, too, Liam was actually glad he didn’t fit in with the other middle school students, the crowd of boys and girls who spoke so loudly and quickly their words sounded to Liam like a foreign language. If Liam had spent his school break playing kickball with the boys, or watching the girls jump rope, he never would have found the photo. If anyone had come to talk to him in his deserted corner, had even dared to approach him, he might have been forced to share his discovery. So wh
at if the girls said Liam had a weird look on his face, like he was staring at something that wasn’t there? So what if the boys said he asked too many questions in class, and odd ones besides? Liam had a secret, a miraculous secret, and none of them could touch it.
There was writing below the photograph, too, and while some of it was illegible, marred by a water stain, Liam could make out enough to guess the page had come from a textbook or an informational guide of some kind. “Canary, or Serinus canaria,” it read, “a small passerine bird of the genus Serinus in the finch family.” Imagine that—there had once been whole families, even genuses (whatever that was) of birds in the world Aboveland. Were they all so colorful, so bold and so bright? Liam could barely believe it, yet he couldn’t stop trying to picture it—a place and time where color existed in excess, in motion, spinning and whirling in an endless expanse of space above his head.
At the bottom of the page, a larger piece of writing had escaped the stain, but Liam wanted to wait till he had a good chunk of time to himself to read it. Between school, homework, and helping his mother cook the tipiog, feed Tessa and clean her and play with her and sing her to sleep, his chance didn’t come for nearly a week. Even when his opportunity came, he had to fight the sleep bearing down on his eyelids—the night before, Tessa had fussed till the early hours of morning again, and their house was too small to escape her cries—as he huddled under his covers with his flashlight. Tessa and his mother had fallen asleep together in the rocking chair a half hour ago, and Liam had covered them with the thickest blanket and turned out the weak overhead light. Now he aimed the even weaker beam of the flashlight on the photograph, illuminating the canary. That thin, anemic electric light was the only thing you could possibly call “yellow” in Subland, but it certainly didn’t compare to the canary. People told stories about the sun that had hung in the blue sky in Aboveland, a brilliant ball of orange and yellow fire that must have outshone even the canary’s feathers, that had illuminated and warmed the entire world. Fire—that was another thing that might be yellow. But like birds, Liam had seen fire only in ancient photographs. He didn’t know how it was created or what it was made of; he knew only that it was very dangerous, and thus it was forbidden in Subland. Better to be a bit cold than to risk more destruction.
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