by H. R. Moore
Lulu flushed scarlet. ‘I guess I just assumed...’
‘...it’s fine,’ said Guy, not wanting to make her uncomfortable, ‘I know why. I’m just messing around. But I prefer it when things are more relaxed.’
The waitress finally brought them their tea, taking an age to arrange the tea pot, cups, saucers, teaspoons, extra hot water and milk on the table.
‘Thank you,’ they both said when she’d finished. She nodded, then turned to clear another table. The restaurant was busy, given it was ten o’clock at night. Guy and Lulu had walked on the beach before dinner, enjoying the late-evening summer sunshine.
‘I heard your factory in Exeter was raided,’ said Lulu, her expression curious.
Guy didn’t even flinch, casually looking her in the eye when he replied. ‘Yes, it was. How did you hear?’
‘It’s the factory I used to work in,’ said Lulu. ‘I still know people there.’
‘Really?’ said Guy, surprised. ‘I didn’t realise you were from Exeter.’
‘Tiverton,’ said Lulu, ‘but my Granddad’s shop was in Exeter, near the factory, so I spent most of my time there. Is everything alright? Why did they go after that one?’
‘It’s unclear,’ replied Guy, evenly. ‘We’re still trying to work it out. It’s possibly because they were trying to gain access to a top-secret facility in Plymouth, and when they were denied access there, they hit the next nearest one. Or maybe they had some kind of ulterior motive. I don’t know. But we’ve got nothing to hide, so either way, it’s nothing to worry about,’ he said, shutting down the conversation. ‘Tell me about your latest work,’ he asked, leaning forward with interest.
‘What do you want to know?’
‘Everything. Your inspiration, progress to date, your process; all there is to know. I’ve been dying to ask you about your work since we first met.’
Lulu laughed. ‘I’m not sure it’s that interesting, but okay. Um,’ she said, working out where to start. ‘I’ve got this friend, he’s kind of a muse, I suppose. He’s called T.J. He’s from the same neighbourhood as my cousin and is doing really well for himself. He used to be a radical political activist – right wing – no working hours restrictions, no pay cap, survival of the fittest, all that jazz. But now he’s got a decent job, he doesn’t seem to care as much about the things he used to.’
‘Was he one of the ones who helped you early in your career?’ asked Guy, sipping his tea.
‘Yes. He was one of the ringleaders. But, as I said, he’s fallen out of love with his old political ideals, although he still has strong opinions on pretty much everything! Anyway, I find him artistically inspiring, both because of where he’s come from versus where he is now, and the change in him, but also because his mental health is extremely turbulent.’
‘Isn’t that the same for us all?!’ joked Guy.
‘Well, yes, increasingly I suppose it is. He was anorexic when he was younger. He got very into one of the thin-spiration communities on social media and has had body and personal image issues ever since. And now it’s like he plays a different persona depending upon who he’s with, trying to live up to whatever he thinks the other person wants him to be.’
‘Sounds quite sad.’
Lulu nodded her agreement. ‘And he’s isolated,’ she continued. ‘His career is all consuming; I don’t think he has many real-life friends left, aside from me. He plays a lot of computer games, but he invents different personas for different platforms. There’s nothing malicious in it, but I’m not sure he even knows who he is any longer, or what he stands for.’
‘That’s hard to do now,’ said Guy.
‘What is?’ asked Lulu, confused.
‘Maintaining different personas online. Generally they get linked together by the technology in the background and the moderators merge them into one, unless it’s a community where people are openly pretending to be someone else. It makes people more accountable for their online behaviour and stops a lot of the really horrible trolling and grooming stuff from happening.’
‘I suppose that makes sense,’ said Lulu, ‘after all the incidents in the early days of virtual reality rooms.’
‘Yeah, it was bad. We had to stop the robots, especially the butlers, from learning from everyone indiscriminately too. So many people treated the robots badly, or beat them up, that the robots were showing signs of using that as a basis for normal human behaviour. And we programmed them to learn from and emulate normal human behaviour.’
‘That’s terrifying,’ said Lulu, shaking her head.
‘Isn’t it? There are safeguards to make sure no robot ever harms a human, but still, no one wants a rude or offensive robot in their home. But it sounds like your friend’s experiencing a problem plaguing more and more people; isolation, paranoia, image issues, not knowing how they fit in.’
‘Yep,’ said Lulu, ‘and our lives are so easy, and people are so lazy. Or at least there’s an increasing gulf between the motivated and those who sit at home, plugged into their virtual worlds, or those who spend all their time on holiday.’
‘It’s weird though, a lot of those people who sit at home immersed in a virtual world are like kings inside their games. They work so hard at being the best battleship commander, or knight in shining armour, or assassin, that they gain a lot of status and respect within their virtual communities.’
‘If only they did the same in the real world,’ said Lulu.
‘Although, if the opportunities aren’t there in the real world, is it so bad that they’re finding another way to work at something, and achieve something?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Lulu. ‘But it’s kind of depressing that they have to, don’t you think?’
Guy shrugged. ‘Did you ever date him? Your muse?’
The corners of Lulu’s mouth turned up in amusement, helping shake off the cloak of heavy conversation. ‘T.J?’ She giggled. ‘No! It’s never been like that between us.’
Guy breathed an inward sign of relief. ‘So, you were telling me about your current work,’ he prompted.
Lulu sat up straight, and her features brightened. ‘True, I was,’ she said, enthusiasm flashing in her eyes. ‘I’ve got a couple of works on the go. One is an abstract, where the world is blurry, just out of view, so you’re not sure if you’re looking at the contemporary world or a time in the past or the future. There are clues around the place about where it is and the meaning, but the viewer has to work quite hard to find them. The other one is the mural for the guy I was telling you about. It’s got two sides; one showing utopia, and the other dystopia, with a mixed middle ground of confusion. Of course, neither side really exists, and we occupy the confused and imperfect world in the middle.’
‘How would you improve it?’ asked Guy.
‘Our imperfect world or the mural?’ she asked, joking.
‘Our imperfect world,’ Guy confirmed, with mock reproach.
‘Well, I’d find a way to increase occupation. That doesn’t necessarily mean work, but the working hours cap is the death of social mobility. I know the argument is that it’s better and fairer for everyone to have the opportunity to work, at least a little, but, in reality, all it does is mean that good people are held down and incompetent people are guaranteed a job, regardless of how terrible they are at it. So nobody can work their way out of their situation, unless they have specific skills. But not everyone has an inclination towards engineering, or being a creative, or running their own business.’
‘But there aren’t enough jobs for everyone, and the alternative is much higher unemployment.’
‘And better free-market economics,’ Lulu shot back. ‘People should be allowed to be successful if they’re tenacious and persistent and have a good work ethic. Survival of the fittest is the only way to progress.’
‘Who’d have thought it,’ laughed Guy. ‘Our system has turned our artists into right-wing activists! How things have changed.’
Lulu laughed. ‘I know. Artists fighting
for the free rein of capitalism. The world must be upside down when that happens! But tech has led to so much change without enough consideration around the impact on real people.’
‘True,’ said Guy, shrugging a little.
‘I’m not arguing that a lot of things aren’t better now, especially people having financial security regardless of their background. I’m not blind. And I couldn’t care less about peoples’ inheritance being used to pay for it all, but limiting people by not letting them work to change their lives can’t be right. But then again, not having an hours cap would have consequences too – we occupy an imperfect and chaotic middle ground; we always have. There’s no right answer,’ she said, pausing. ‘What do you think we should do?’ she asked, leaning forward to add emphasis to the turn of conversation.
Guy raised an eyebrow, contemplating what to say. ‘It’s hard to know,’ he started, slowly. ‘Living standards have, in theory, never been higher. But, robots like mine have removed the necessity for many to have an occupation, which is the one thing we all really need. Occupation gives us meaning, helps us feel good about ourselves, gives us a sense of achievement...I mean, there are people who are happy playing computer games, or going on never-ending holidays, or doing craft projects, and to me that’s as valid as any other kind of occupation, but I agree, limiting how much people are able to work isn’t right.’
‘People with butlerbots don’t even have to get out of bed in the morning,’ said Lulu, cynically, ‘and actively finding a pastime you enjoy, to meaningfully fill your time, can be really hard.’ She watched him, hawk–like, for his reaction.
Guy gave a half smile at the accusatory look; a lot of the robots came from his company, after all. ‘Sometimes I feel like Universal Basic Income was a quick fix for AI entrepreneurs. They knew they were about to cause an economic problem, but they wanted to make their tech, for it to dominate the market, to see how far they could push it, so they all started talking about UBI like it was the only solution. It was a box ticked for them and a way to abstain from taking any real responsibility. They’d told their governments what they should do; they’d theoretically solved the problem, so their role was done.’
‘Wasn’t it?’ challenged Lulu.
‘I don’t know,’ he countered. ‘But I’m not convinced anyone thought that hard about the consequences, or really looked fully into other options. UBI was set up as the answer, academics and entrepreneurs got behind it, and once it gathered momentum, it became an inevitable destination rather than one of a number of options. And now we’ve become more isolationist as a country than ever before. People hate immigration more than ever, and there are hate crimes against the people we have to employ from other countries to fill highly skilled jobs.’
‘Really?’ said Lulu, shocked.
‘Yeah,’ said Guy, darkly. ‘We try to keep it out of the press to be honest, as they tend to polarise the argument and stir up more bad feeling, while publicising the fact that we have to employ immigrants due to skills shortages.’
‘The press hasn’t changed much, has it? With all the progress, you’d have thought they might start to be less simplistic and a bit more positive!’
‘The chance would be a fine thing,’ Guy agreed. ‘Anyway,’ he said, waving his arm, ‘enough politics. Let’s get out of here.’ Guy pulled out a couple of notes and left them on the table.
‘Crikey, that really is old school,’ laughed Lulu.
‘I know,’ he said, enjoying her reaction to the place.
Usually, anything to do with purchases was dealt with electronically and sent straight to his banking app, where it was all linked up together under the transaction entry. Most restaurants would even send the detailed order breakdown, just in case he ever wanted to go back and see what he’d eaten, and you could make money by selling those kinds of details to data repositories as well. It was handy to have details of all transactions in one place, rather than spit across a multitude of apps, and it included pretty much everything, from airline luggage allowances, to parcel delivery tracking, to concert tickets. Cash was rare indeed.
Guy escorted Lulu out of the shack and down the uneven path to the pier. ‘I want to hear more about you. Especially about how I get on your good side,’ he flirted, as they walked along the uneven surface towards the sea.
Lulu laughed. ‘I was beginning to think you were only interested in my art,’ she said, in mock chastisement.
‘Which I’ve been buying for years, by the way.’
‘How many years?’ she asked, guardedly.
‘Since just before you became a big thing. It was a nice surprise when that happened,’ he joked.
‘You’re my mystery benefactor?’
‘I suppose I am,’ he replied. ‘I’ve got a whole room full of your work. Is that weird?’ he asked, cocking his head to one side and putting his arm around her.
‘It’s kind of stalkerish that you didn’t disclose that information prior to bringing me to a remote Scottish fishing village.’
‘But I’m very charming, so I can get away with it?’
‘Are you?’ she teased. ‘I can’t say that I’d noticed.’
They reached the end of the pier, the sun setting across the sea, and a tense silence settled over them. Guy turned towards her, put his arms around her waist and looked down into her eyes. She smiled invitingly up at him and he couldn’t help but smile back. He bowed his head and kissed her waiting lips.
* * * * *
Mila and Iva sat in the boardroom that Guy had made available to them, sipping herbal teas, and watching a projection of one of the news channels on the wall. They were using Mila’s smart glasses to project, which always made Mila nervous, in case she got a call from someone Iva wouldn’t approve of halfway through.
The news anchor was explaining that there had been another hate attack on a group of three highly skilled Italian immigrants as they’d left work. Two men had thrown projectiles at the unsuspecting workers, who had fled back into their office building, with several native workers caught in the crossfire.
The police had caught the attackers, of course, as it was impossible to escape the cameras, AI, and advanced DNA detection the police used. And as biometric identification was required for pretty much everything: transportation, paying for things, entry into buildings, it meant you left a trace behind you wherever you went.
The biometric data was linked back to your online passport, so, in effect, there was an identity card system in place, where residents could be tracked wherever they went. It had been rolled out so gradually that by the time anyone realised what was happening, it was too late to protest.
It was almost impossible to get away with committing a physical crime, which was part of the reason why crime rates had plummeted, but that meant when someone did decide to break the law, it made even more of a statement.
‘Will it ever end?’ sighed Mila, shaking her head as they watched footage of the attackers being bundled into a police vehicle.
‘Can you really blame them?’ replied Iva, harshly. ‘People can’t get decent jobs. The rich,’ she said, emphasising the word to make Mila feel uncomfortable, ‘can pick and choose to whom they give cap-free jobs. So they choose their friends, and pay them whatever they want, including side perks which go undetected, taking hours away from those without jobs. And then, to add insult to injury, a load of foreigners come over and steal more of our uncapped work. I’m surprised it doesn’t happen more often.’
Mila baulked inwardly, trying to maintain a calm exterior. But she wasn’t going to let Iva bully her. ‘The reason immigrants occupy good jobs is because we’ve already run everyone else out of the country. We barely even know what diversity is any longer.’
Iva turned to stare Mila down, aggression in her eyes. ‘We have the most diverse workforce of all time,’ she hissed. ‘Women, LGBT, people of colour, people from other religions and cultures, they all have near equal opportunities.’
Or so the government spin tel
ls us, thought Mila, the reality being that opportunity wasn’t an easy thing to assess, so it was easy to manipulate the numbers. ‘But give it a generation or two and foreign accents will be a thing of the past, or at least will be considered exotic.’
‘Don’t be obnoxious,’ snapped Iva, ‘we have plenty of tourists, and under UBI, people can afford to travel abroad if they want to, so they can go and get their fill of foreign accents elsewhere.’
‘Do you really believe that?’ asked Mila, shocked that her boss could be so closed-minded, so protectionist. ‘Either way, I don’t think it’s fair that people are being attacked, especially when they’ve come to fill skills gaps, just because they weren’t born here.’
‘Neither the attackers nor those being attacked deserve to find themselves in their current situations. And the attackers are idiots anyway; they never get away with it and lynching people is not the way to bring about positive change. Anyway,’ said Iva, changing the subject, ‘has Guy submitted the information we asked for about the clocking-in system at the factory in Exeter?’ She watched Mila closely as she answered.
‘Not yet,’ replied Mila, evenly. ‘But he’s got another two days to comply, and I wouldn’t expect to receive anything until the deadline.’
‘And what about the other raids? Did they come up with anything? Any others breaking the working hours limit?’
‘The raids all went ahead as planned. Ten, simultaneously, although we still can’t get into the top-secret facility in Plymouth. They came up with absolutely nothing. All the factories complied absolutely with all legislation.’
‘We need a rat,’ said Iva. ‘Guy’s not sloppy, I’ll give him that much. The only way we’re really going to get him is if someone tells us where to look.’
‘I thought we already had one?’ asked Mila, surprised. ‘Didn’t they tell you which facilities to raid? And to start with Exeter? And specifically to look at the number of hours everyone was working?’
‘Yes, we did have some help. But we haven’t heard anything since that first tip-off.’