Barely discernible at first, the conveyor started to ascend, and he involuntarily ducked his head, so it didn’t hit the roof of the tunnel. Mahmoud needn’t have worried because it was far above him. Then the roof slid back, and they found themselves gliding up towards the surface where they were greeted with a sight almost beyond comprehension. The scene in front of them was like something out of an American suburban sitcom. He'd thought Europe would be strange and unfamiliar, but he hadn't imagined anything like this. It was a world away from what they were used to.
The contrast with their own small village - compounds of mostly mudbrick structures built around a central square - couldn’t have been greater. Big, double-storied, western-styled houses on luxurious grassy plots stretched away in the distance in both directions on both sides of a road.
And all the houses looked the same! If he ever left this area how would he find his way home? They each had a doorway and a garage facing the conveyor, which was now a slow-moving pathway running down the centre of the road. Each house had a square section of grass in front border by low, neat hedges, and a few bright flowers in a garden set along the front of the house.
He could see that the conveyor had subsections which branched off to the front door of each house. While he was still processing this, their own section came to a stop and the tablet he had been given, started to squawk at him in very bad Arabic.
'You may alight from the conveyor at this time and enter your accommodation quarters. You can call up the conveyor at any time using the travel app on your Book. Read your Book for further instructions once you are ready. This property has been allocated to you and is your initial residence. You have sole right of occupation until you formally relinquish it. If you decide to move to another location, you will be directed to another unoccupied property or one will be constructed for you. There are currently over three hundred million empty properties available on Skid.'
Mahmoud couldn’t believe his ears. While he would have called it a tablet, the Book must be the device he was holding in his hands.
He stepped off the conveyor onto the pathway in front of the house, and stood staring at it for some seconds, replaying his experiences of the past few hours, none of which had prepared him for this moment. He walked up to the front door, pulled the door handle down, and gave it an experimental shove. He found it hard to believe this mansion could be his new home.
The door swung open. He never imagined that he would live in something this luxurious when they set out from his small village. It was like something out of a movie. His family followed him, stunned as they stood in the hallway, looking around. The children recovered their poise quickly and after a few moments, left their parents staring in wonderment in the main lounge and began to explore the house.
How he could ever afford to live in this mansion, let alone clothe and feed his family in this new land? He had no job, and he had few skills to offer a modern society. He had no fixed idea of what he could do, except try and build a better life for his children. In his previous life he had eked out a living with his café and by crewing a fishing boat part-time. Often, he and the boat’s owner had complemented their meagre income by smuggling people and contraband between lawless Libya and a more peaceful Tunisia. He would have to look for a new enterprise here to make his living.
“How are we going to survive here?” he asked out loud, with a hint of desperation. Now he had experienced this brief taste of his new life, there was no way he wanted to give it up.
“Come, love. Come,” his wife called desperately from the kitchen. There was a modern-looking sink, benches and cupboards, a table, and chairs, but nowhere obvious to cook.
“How am I supposed to feed our family?” she demanded, standing in the middle of the kitchen. “Where have you brought us to?” she cried, tears running down her cheeks. She hadn’t wanted to leave their village and her extended family behind, and now her worst fears were being realised. “I want to go home,” she demanded.
Mahmoud didn’t think it was going to be easy to return to the village. “It’ll be alright, you’ll see,” he said without conviction. He was far more concerned with how he was going to fend for his family than how she was going to cook for them.
The children ran down the stairs and into the kitchen. They experimented with the taps and discovered they dispensed water, other drinks, and the food paste they had become accustomed to over the last few days. They would have preferred the foods they were familiar with, but at least they wouldn’t starve, and Mahmoud’s wife took some comfort in this.
Together they explored the rest of the house. They marvelled at the plumbing and the modern features and fittings they had only ever seen on television until being exposed to them in the transit camp.
Everywhere they went, they were deluged with instructions and insights from the Books they held, some they could barely comprehend at times. Mahmoud had hardly looked at his device and he had forbidden his wife to touch hers until he gave her permission, because the only information she needed would come from him. He now saw he might have to rescind the order because the devices were critical to surviving and thriving in this environment.
Eventually they all came back to the kitchen and waited for Mahmoud to tell them what to do.
“I need to pray,” he announced. He would have preferred to join other men at the local mosque and consult with the local Imam to determine a way forward. However, the Book had not been forthcoming about opportunities for religious observance.
This is a secular society, was all the device had to say on the subject when he formed the question in his mind. Mahmoud wasn’t sure what this entailed. He guessed this meant religion played no part in the regulation or governance of this society, but he also believed, somewhat arrogantly, there would still be places of worship made available to him and his people. Everyone had the right to practise their religion. However, since there wasn’t a place of worship close by, he would have to compromise.
Mahmoud left his family in the living area and went to one of the empty ground floor rooms and prepared to pray. He had no idea where Mecca lay. He had gone outside to see if he could see the sun to get a general idea of direction, but found it obscured by clouds. The strange maps on his Book were no use.
In the end he decided Allah would be more interested in the fact he was going to pray and seek guidance, than be concerned whether his head was aimed in the right direction.
He called his son, and while his wife and daughter made themselves scarce at the back of the house, they both said their prayers and appealed to God for help and guidance. As they completed their prayers, there was a hesitant knock at the front door.
“Is anyone there?” a male voice asked tentatively, in an accent he didn’t recognise. With a start, Mahmoud hoped that their visitor was a representative of the local management team come to process them.
“Yes,” Mahmoud replied and went to the door where a man stood with his own small family behind him, looking as worried and scared as Mahmoud thought he must look.
“Hello, do you know where we are?” The stranger asked nervously without any normal pleasantries.
“No. I don’t,” Mahmoud replied, then remembered his manners and invited the family into the house. “I’ve no idea where we are,” Mahmoud continued, once the men were seated in the lounge, while the women and children experimented with the drinks. After a little while they managed to produce coffee.
“I do not know if this food is halal,” Mahmoud’s wife whispered to her guest. “My husband is very devout and even in an emergency requires halal food, otherwise he hardly eats. It’s like Ramadan, only worse.” They had agreed a dispensation relating to their food in the detention camp, but she wasn’t sure it applied to them now.
“I suspect he might be going hungry then,” the other woman remarked. “We have learnt over the last few months it doesn’t pay to be fussy or you might not eat. Where do you come from?” she asked.
“We come from a
small village in Libya, close to the Tunisian border. We left a week ago I think, on a small boat and we were intercepted by the Italian Coastguard, and then were interned in a large camp with no access to the outside world. What about you?”
“We are from Syria,” Mahmoud’s visitor explained. “We left there over a year ago and finally ended up in a camp in Greece, waiting to be re-settled in Europe. We thought if we were really lucky, the civil war might end, and we could go home.” He paused and let out a huge sob. Mahmoud waited patiently until the man composed himself and continued. “Two days ago, without notice we were herded aboard a bus. We were only allowed to take one small bag of possessions each. We didn’t have much, mind you. The next thing we knew, we were in the new camp. I think I remember seeing you there,” the man added.
“Do you know where it was?”
“I have no idea. All the windows on the bus were blacked out. We couldn’t see anything. It was a driverless bus and we couldn’t even see out of the front window. The camp must be close to Greece. Maybe we’re still in Greece, because the trip was over very quickly.” The man paused and looked at Mahmoud. “I am scared,” he admitted. “It wouldn’t be so bad if I knew where we were or what was expected of me but there has been nothing, no communication at all. Even going back to Syria would be better than this. The not knowing and the anxiety it causes is extremely stressful.”
“Have you seen anybody in authority?” Mahmoud asked. He would feel much better if he could find someone who could tell him what the rules were. Even if he didn’t agree with them, it would bring some order back to his life.
“No, not since we left Greece. All I have is this device.” The man held out his Book. “It provides instructions and guidance when I need it. And sometimes when I don’t,” he added.
“Should we ask it what we need to do and who we need to report to?” Mahmoud didn’t wait for an answer and self-consciously picked his device up from the floor beside his chair.
“What is expected of us? Who should we report to?” Mahmoud was used to being accountable to someone. In recent years, he had become accustomed to carrying identity papers, which were checked regularly as he moved about the village, and paying protection money to the local warlord, so he could operate his café in peace. “How are we going to survive here?” he added, as an after-thought.
'Nothing is expected of you. Initiate the Skidian User Guide by tapping the icon on the main screen of your Book for further information.'
“Well, that’s helpful.”
'All the essential information for life on Skid is laid out in the Guide. The detailed version is available from the Guide app on your Book. For a quick response, simply ask a question. Skid’s entire infrastructure is designed to support you.'
The two men looked at each other, more bemused than ever.
“Where or what is Skid?” Mahmoud asked. He had a funny feeling he might not like the answer.
Stig examined the Book, turning it over and over. He prodded at it to wake it up. It looked like a standard Android tablet: there was no USB port, but it had an audio jack, the menu button, and an on/off switch. No logo, no device model information. All very familiar, except he didn’t understand how it charged up: the charge icon had hardly changed while he had been experimenting with it.
Four screws secured the backplate to the device: using his toolkit, he would be able to get the back off easily enough and have a poke around. The only thing he knew for sure was it was an Android compatible device and had connected to his Google account. Apps from his phone had loaded on the main menu screen, though he still couldn’t communicate with the outside world.
Bill thought they were in a structure in or on Automedon and some kind of firewall prevented any outbound messaging. Stig thought it unlikely, but it could be true.
There was one sure way to find out. If the device had an architecture complying with industry standards he should be able to hack into the operating system, create an admin user profile and get into the GPS functionality. He could then use it to pinpoint their position.
The other MFYers eventually stopped milling about at the entrance and begin to fan out into the dormitory, coming down the aisles towards where he and Bill stood, and found their own tablets on the bunk beds. This gave Stig an idea. He stuffed his Book away in his courier bag and picked up another Book that he could experiment on.
“Come on,” he said, tugging at Bill’s arm, “Let’s find a quiet space somewhere. I’m going to see if I can get a fix on a couple of satellites and see if you are right or not.”
“How are you going to do that?” Bill asked.
“I’ve a few tricks up my sleeve,” Stig replied. “I've spent a bit of time in military intelligence. We looked at all the new devices coming on to the market to see what made them tick, and most of them have some interesting functionality which tracks what users are doing and when.”
This information was guaranteed to feed Bill’s conspiracy-fuelled paranoia.
Three
“You’re a fucken' old moron!” Bruce bellowed at Cop. The problem with a sentient, know all, fucken' talking dog, was that the dog often decided it knew best and instead of doing what it was told, did exactly the opposite of what was required of it.
Bruce wanted to muster a mob of ewes down the main track of the farm and into a paddock close to the woolshed to get them ready for drenching after breakfast. Cop in his wisdom had decided the mob of sheep was being moved onto the next paddock in their grazing rotation. So, while Bruce fiddled with his phone after casting the huntaways in one direction, Cop decided Bruce was having one of his delusional moments, and took control of the situation, driving the sheep in the opposite direction towards a closed gate.
The problem was the gate was positioned in a dip in the middle of a cutting, and now there was a danger that the sheep would be smothered against the gate.
“Get the fuck out of it! You, dumb, arrogant, fucken' halfwit. Shit!” Bruce bellowed. The idea of using a drone to move the sheep around was beginning to look awfully attractive to him. “What the fuck do you think you are doing?”
Well your instructions weren’t very clear. You can’t blame me if I head off in the wrong direction.
Bruce knew the dog was half right but wasn’t going to let the dog off the hook that easily. “I’m sitting above an open gate, I thought it was pretty obvious you should use what little brain you have to muster the sheep in his direction!”
You didn’t make yourself clear, Cop insisted.
“Well if you want to be treated like a rational, sentient being, how about asking questions when you aren’t sure what’s going on, why don’t you?” Bruce paused for breath and tried to calm down. “Now, ease your way up the fence line and bring those sheep towards me, we’re headed that way!” Bruce pointed in the general direction of the woolshed. “You fucken' stupid animal!”
The trio of dogs scampered around the edge of the now thoroughly confused, bleating mob of sheep, and ran up the fence line to drive them away from the closed gate. Once the animals on the outer edge of the mob understood what was required, they turned and started to trot off down the track towards Bruce.
He’d parked the ute off the track, but when the mob came abreast of him, the sheep at the front stared at the shadow the vehicle threw across the track with suspicion and balked. After some nervous bleating, and petulant stamping of hooves, they responded to the pressure of bodies behind them and leapt through the space which had spooked them. Once the first of them had passed by, the entire mob the swarmed through the gate and into the paddock beyond, pausing here and there to tear at the fresh grass as they trotted down the hill towards the woolshed.
Punch scrambled up the bank and sat alongside Bruce, nudging him in the ribs to get his attention, and trying to lick his face.
“Fuck, your breath stinks.” Bruce batted the dog away gently and gave him an affectionate clip around the ears for good measure. This appeared to satisfy the dog who got up and r
olled around onto his back and squirmed his way head first downhill with a big sloppy grin on his face.
Bruce sighed. He’d miss this, even if things didn’t always go according to plan. If there was one thing he enjoyed on the farm, rain, or shine, it was stock work.
“OK,” he said to the Transcendents after a while, “I have a few loose ends to tie up so what do you want me to do?”
Things are not really going according to plan and I would be grateful for your assistance.
You had a plan? Bruce asked, with a hint of sarcasm. He’d helped with the processes around uploading people to Skid because he didn’t want to create a mass panic on earth if they were simply sucked up without a pretence of subterfuge. However, he hadn’t put too much effort into what happened next, though he was sure a plan had been mentioned numerous times. Apparently neither had anyone else, and the SKUG roll-out had gone off half-arsed.
The initial upload had been implemented according to plan. Baffled local authorities on Earth were still trying to understand where tens of thousands of refugees and MFYers had disappeared to, but at least they weren’t blaming this on aliens. For now, at least, Bruce and the Transcendents had avoided the global panic which would have ensued if it had become public knowledge earth had been visited by aliens.
The refugees were presumed to have escaped from the camps and were now living happily as undocumented aliens scattered throughout Europe or had returned home to their homes as the security situation improved. The unexplained disappearance of people from boats at sea had also deterred new migrants or refugees from taking this route, and reduced the inflow of refugees to a trickle, providing the European nations with breathing space to deal with the crisis. The people smugglers were now effectively out of business.
New international and domestic policies of the Chump administration were having a significant impact on reducing the flood of refugees, something Bruce was immensely proud of initiating. America was pumping billions of dollars into the economies of the poorest nations on earth with no strings attached, to finance upgrades of water and electricity systems, education, and medical infrastructure. The only requirement was for local militias to hand in their high-powered weapons and to gain agreements from all groups to agree to the imposition of law and order enforced by the UN as a prelude to the establishment of new governance structures. Where Chump went, the rest of modern western society followed, with the Chinese and Russians close behind.
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