The Naked World

by Eli K. P. William

  Bané did her best to lean over her precious bundle and shield him from the light as he sputtered and sobbed, but the shade her head offered was only partial where he hung above the press, until the sun eventually shifted its angle and Amon felt the cool respite cast by the buildings to his left. They had inched far enough north that he could now see two ramps of concrete up ahead. From the ramp on the left, people laden with sacks of supplies were descending into line on the road. On the other ramp straight ahead, nursing mothers and the empty-handed were ascending. These two ramps slanted gently up to a bridge about one story off the ground, split by a concrete barrier about waist high into two lanes, one for each line. At the top of each ramp, another ramp looped back up to a bridge one story above the first, where yet another ramp looped back. This structure continued up for twenty stories, with twenty loops of ramp spiraling up to connect a twenty-decker bridge running straight ahead to some massive building of mirrored glass that was mostly blocked from view. Something flitted glittering in the air around the bridge, though Amon wasn’t sure what.

  When the crowd bottlenecked approaching the ramp, Amon felt bone-crushing pressure and had to forcefully pump his lungs to fight air into his constricted chest. He was reminded of his first day in the camps when he had been robbed on the Road to Delivery. He knew now that, despite its name, it was in fact a network of roads that split from this central terminus at Delivery into increasingly thinner and more numerous branches as it ran south to a region called the Tumbles. But Hinkongo didn’t always distinguish between plural and singular, and many residents seemed to conceive of its many divergent paths as one.

  “Hang in there!” called Ty. “Just a bit further till it clears up.”

  Mustering all his will, Amon drove ahead as one stitch in their bundle, compressed to the limit, taking baby steps forward, until sure enough they were soon at the foot of the ramp.

  “There’s no space to keep together anymore so let go of your partners once you’re on the ramp. Up and around we go to floor seven. Careful not to let anyone push you over the edges. And remember: we convene at the exits of Delivery.”

  When Amon released Bané and another woman’s shoulders, he felt the grip of Rick and someone else fall off his as he stepped onto the ramp. The speed immediately began to pick up, with the entire weight of the crowd launching him forward. He found himself twizzlering up the spiral ramp, his shirt peeled up by the twisting forces around him, his waist scraped against the rough concrete of the barrier he was using as a banister.

  Reaching floor seven, he elbowed his way off the ramp and was carried across the bridge with the crowd. His lane, between the barrier running down the middle and an identical one to his right, was only wide enough for about four men shoulder to shoulder. It made up the seventh floor of the twenty-decker bridge, of which there were dozens parallel to his left and right at intervals of a few meters. Like every other floor of the bridge, Amon’s lane led to a square portal in a mirrored glass complex shaped like a distended cube with rounded, convex outer walls: Delivery. This mall-like structure loomed a dozen stories above the top of the bridges and extended about half that distance below their bottom level. Over the side to his right, Amon saw a sheer drop to water far below. He almost couldn’t tell it was water because there were so many soggy flakes swimming in it, continuously fluttering down on breezes channeled by the contours of the surrounding slumscape. The Delivery building, it appeared, was surrounded by a moat of sewage, the faint mist from its evaporating petals buoying a scent of nanochemical sweetness along with the earthy stench of shit and piss and rot. Crowds streamed from the roads along each ramp in through the right half of the portals, and others carrying supplies streamed out from the left side. On the adjacent bridges, Amon could see all sorts of people. Some were dressed in OpSci patchwork, others in brand name clothes, most in the generic outfit, and almost everyone in clothes well towards expiring, tiny patches of skin peeking through holes in the cloth.

  In the space between the bridges flew a multitude of translucent creatures. Hummingbirds, dragonflies, bees, wasps, and moths made of what looked like clean, clear glass but filled with a faintly visible grayish fiber like ramified nerve tissue. They hovered, cruising and looping around each other in what appeared at first glance to be random patterns. Though Amon quickly noted a certain harmonious but threatening coordination to the way this swarm moved in tandem—the different species remaining evenly distributed in a given area with each member sticking to a set of fixed flight vectors and velocities—mimicking natural spontaneity while somehow managing to convey the impression of “patrol.” These, Amon had learned, were known as CareBots, though many bankdead called them RiotDrones. Their shape and movement were seamless simulacra of the creatures they imitated, except that they had been programmed to do occasional jerks and twitches that were incongruously mechanical and therefore somehow intimidating, a wave of short-circuit motions passing from drone to drone. As Amon watched their shifting sparkle and listened to their air-whipping flutter in awe, their group reached the portal and he was nudged over the threshold into Delivery …

  10

  “To summarize then, the MegaGloms were confronted with two problems. The first was what to do with the necessarily disenfranchised masses now that there was no demand for brute labor. The second was how to acquire skilled labor and consumers now that Fertilex monopolized production of human life and CrediLaw made extraction unfeasible. The solution to both was worked out by a group of six MegaGloms that would come to be known as the Philanthropy Syndicate. Since neither the official market nor the black market would fulfill their needs, they created a new kind of market that was not a market. In other words, an economy that existed in a legal and regulatory gray area. In cooperation with the Absolute Choice Party at the helm of GATA, they would establish the Charity Gift Economy based on the principles of plutogenics.

  “An outline of the justification for the CG economy is as follows. Firstly, although payment of fees, wages, and salaries to bankdead was illegal, magnanimous charitable donation was not. Similarly, although receiving goods and services from bankdead was illegal, accepting voluntarily offered gifts from them was not. Thus venture charities could provide supplies out of compassion and good will while bankdead parents could gift their babies, hoping to allow them better chances in the Free World. There is no explicit connection between these two actions; therefore, they do not count as transactions. Everything is coordinated by the vending machines, and the genome check is merely a way to guarantee supplies are distributed efficiently without demeaning chips or tags, ensuring also that parents only gift their own offspring.

  “All PR-opaganda aside, in actuality the genome check performs additional, more crucial functions—and this is where plutogenics enters the discussion. In the past there was eugenics, various ideas, practices, and processes aimed at making a stock of living creatures ‘good,’ and dysgenics, ideas, practices, and processes that make them ‘bad.’ Plutogenics, however, falls into neither category, as it assumes no goal, good or bad, for any individual genome or gene pool. For example, a eugenics project might aim to create individuals with quicker reflexes, mathematical aptitude, visual creativity, or some more abstract trait such as intelligence or enlightenment. Those with genes more likely to be expressed as such traits would be encouraged to reproduce and those who lack them would be discouraged. Alternately, desirable embryos can be designed or discarded prenatally. However, the Free World obviously lacks any such stable, universal conception of what is good since each Free Citizen is left to choose their own dream and how to allocate the freedom they have earned. Instead, therefore, it is the objective and impersonal demands of the Market that decide which genes are preferable.

  “As you are aware, individuals raised in BioPens have their Identity Birth Ceremony and are hired for their first job when they are twenty years of age. Hence, what the MegaGloms need to determine when acquiring or, in the case of Fertilex, growing stock for their Bio
Pens is what kind of babies are likely to be in demand in twenty years. If they can successfully predict this, they can auction the profiles of these marketable infants to competitors or keep them for their own workforce.

  “Thus to decide which individuals are worth acquiring, the MegaGloms must attempt to calculate how the totality of actions performed by the citizenry will distribute profits to specific sectors and change the economy over the following twenty years, what job openings these changes will create, and what abilities these jobs will require. In other words, a forecast is generated for the ideal applicants to predicted future positions and the task is then to acquire those resources in the present with the genes and epigenetic structure most likely to become such applicants given a specific rearing and education program. The MegaGloms must be careful to avoid all other genotypes because once a baby is adopted into a BioPen from one of the infant brokerages, they are legally responsible to pay for all their actions over the nearly two decades they are unable to work, in addition to the fee for genome registration with GATA. Largely for this reason, investment in human resources is the single largest operating expenditure for all MegaGloms. With such high risks, securing a skilled workforce while remaining solvent depends on accurate prediction, and highly sophisticated algorithms are deployed at Delivery to achieve this …

  11

  Inside Delivery was a long corridor with walls of black, glossy rectangles. Through their clear shell Amon could see rows of glass boxes stacked one on top of the other, each containing a naked baby. Through the glass walls at the back of the front row, he could see other babies lined up with the first, and others behind those, receding into the depths of the machine. Bright lights in the ceiling cast glare on the glass so that each receding baby was more difficult to see than the former, until they became a blur of flesh about four babies in.

  Upon entering, everyone in line went immediately to one of the machines on either side and put their pinky finger into a hole. Children too small to reach had to be lifted and Amon watched as Bané inserted Arata’s finger into a smaller hole below the first one. A crib with bars two centimeters high came sliding out of a thick slot in the machine and she laid her baby inside without hesitation. A dozen fine robotic limbs attached to the interior of the crib began to prod, stroke, squeeze, and scan him with various medical diagnostic tools, performing a total health check in seconds before the crib retracted inside the machine. Amon froze and watched Bané as she stared at the slot into which her baby had disappeared, saw her hold her hand out longingly towards it, grimacing with heart-rending sadness. But with the crowd steadily pouring in, she couldn’t stop there for long and soon continued down the lane.

  From Book’s orientation the night before, Amon knew he was supposed to insert his finger into one of the machines like everyone else. But remembering the security system this had triggered three times before, he hesitated and stopped in the middle of the lane, watching the line move through. When the men and most of the women inserted their fingers one by one on either side of the corridor, they continued ahead without pause and their chosen machine never responded. But when the dozen or so mothers carrying babies interspersed in the line inserted their fingers, they stopped to look at the machine expectantly. Usually nothing happened, and their expressions showed a strange mix of disappointment and relief before they continued ahead. For two of these mothers the crib came out and they placed their respective babies on it, but once the diagnostic was finished it didn’t retract for either of them. Instead, the machine began to emit a high-pitched bubbling sound that prompted the mothers to retrieve their babies and continue on, looking distraught. Only for Bané did the baby disappear inside.

  The babies on their soft little beds inside the cubes all looked as happy as could be, the sleeping ones breathing slowly with perfect tranquility, the awake ones smiling or staring curiously upwards. This was in contrast to the babies outside the machines, most of whom were crying or cringing after so much time in the hot, packed lineup, and one of the three placed in the crib who had wailed in terror the moment they left their mother’s arms. The universal happiness of the infants inside was so conspicuous that Amon found himself frowning suspiciously at these cells, wondering if he was in fact seeing a glass wall or a 3D display designed to mimic one.

  The bankdead mothers were supposed to be offering their babies for a new chance in the Free World while the venture charities accepted this offer with reluctant but kind understanding. That was certainly how it had looked in the docutainment and compassipromo he’d seen in the InfoFlux. There, doctors in clean white clinics, wearing clean white robes, had delicately and meticulously examined all babies before taking them from their mothers, and nurses had been there to put a warm hand on their shoulders to comfort them for their loss. Never had he heard of machines that absorbed infants with such callous efficiency. Of course automation would reduce labor costs, he now realized, and pragmatically speaking this sort of system might be necessary given the huge population. But it seemed too industrial, too calculating for such a momentous, life-changing juncture. Using the genome readers to make sure no one received double supplies or to study the migratory patterns of bankdead was already a violation of their privacy. But based on the result these readers gave, some parents were given the option of putting their babies in the crib for the health scan while others were not, and some babies were rejected when, as far as Amon was concerned, their being unhealthy was all the more reason to take them in. Where was the humanitarian spirit he had come to know and, in a sudden rush of guilt early in his career, had personally donated his money to support? Although the Books’ orientation suggested that no such spirit had ever existed in the Free World, part of him still expected it to be there, the countless images he’d consumed in his youth still holding strong against his recent, naked experiences …

  12

  “Whenever a bankdead adult inserts their finger into a gift receptacle or vending machine, their cell samples are processed through an algorithm that determines how likely their genome is to produce offspring with the right kind of genotype to become an adult who is optimally hirable for a particular range of predicted jobs. The algorithm raises and lowers the score of particular combinations of genes and epigenetic structures depending on how likely they are to produce long-term health, concentration, motor skills, creativity, frugality-versus-impulsivity balance, diligence, susceptibility to promotising, obedience, pattern recognition, and whatever more precise features are required. Each trait is subsequently weighted in accordance with the predicted contours of the market and the applicants it will demand.

  “Once marketable candidates are identified, the next step is to secure them. Those whose hereditary qualities are judged likely to produce marketable offspring, the gifted, are administered bonuses to ensure that they are slightly more likely to proliferate and produce healthy babies than the rest, the giftless. As you have already observed on your visit to the border, what we signify by ‘bonuses’ is a differential in supply quantity and quality. The gifted are provided more supplies that are longer lasting, with superior design and comfort, as well as better-tasting, more nutritious foods. Moreover, they receive some limited medical services, such as obstetrics clinics for pregnant women, simple inoculations, treatment for STDs, antibiotics for mortal infections, and the Er program for crashnewbs.

  “Additionally, the algorithm checks each individual’s genome and epigenome against a database recording the genetic pool for the population of that bankdeath camp, which is shared between the MegaGloms operating the various machines. This is to ensure there are sub-populations in which there are mates with whom a marketable embryo is likely to result. Members of these sub-populations are donated the same brand of clothes and shelter. This helps them identify marketable mates and encourages the formation of brandclans, which are better organized to defend themselves from outsiders. Ideal pairings within these sub-populations are assigned a number or unique symbol that is printed on their shirts
to facilitate their locating each other. The brands also help the MegaGloms keep track of which babies are marked for which BioPens, since each one funds the venture charities that service a different vending machine brand and expects to reap the rewards thereof. If the algorithm of two or more MegaGloms identifies the same individual as gifted or the same infant as marketable, an instant auction is automatically initiated to determine which one is allowed to provide their brand of supplies, with each MegaGlom deciding its bid on the basis of the probability of marketability assigned by its particular algorithm. In this manner, the MegaGloms of the Philanthropy Syndicate compete with each other. Firstly to develop algorithms that predict profiles in demand most accurately. Secondly to secure the individuals their algorithm recommends.

  “When an infant is designated as marketable, the algorithm immediately identifies the parents from the gene pool—with the exception of relatively rare cases in which the sire is bankliving. The precise moment the infant is accepted into the receptacle, they are both upgraded to gifters and entitled to a bonus for one year as a reward for gifting. Whichever parent gifts the baby, they will both be issued their upgrade the next time either of them collects supplies. The infants are subsequently taken as wards by the MegaGlom, transferred temporarily to infant brokerages, and shipped to a particular BioPen to be raised. Similar algorithms will continue to be applied to calculate the hireability of the gift as it matures, with the expression of their genes at each stage of development being additionally factored in. Moreover, their profiles will be packaged and sold in advance to other MegaGloms as futures or other speculative derivatives with their value based on these calculations.”