Watching You

by Lance Erlick

  WATCHING YOU

  LANCE ERLICK

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed herein are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any similarities to actual persons, organizations, or events is entirely coincidental. Also, though locations used in this work exist, for dramatic effect details have been altered. Accordingly, they should be considered fictitious.

  Copyright © 2013 Lance Erlick

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this ebook, or portions thereof, in any form.

  Finlee Augare Books, Chicago, IL

  ISBN: 978-0-9889968-6-1

  To those who imagine a different world

  Harold Winters is fearful when he gets up in the morning and when he goes to bed at night, on his way to work and coming home, and certainly at work. He fears threats he sees on his home vid and those the Standards Board pays him to watch at work. Like other citizens, he puts his trust in Phase V of the Patriot Act, inaugurated after yet another failed terrorist attack.

  Sitting in his Patriot Blue cube, third row, fourth down, at the Federal Civil Standards Board, Chicago Office, Harold keeps his eyes on his 42-inch screen lest he miss another imminent threat. Onscreen are nine live views displayed by Art-Intel, the controller supplied by Livermore International Network Corporation (LINC). Omnipresent INC, Harold says only to himself. He strains to remember a time before LINC replaced the Internet/web so it could record and sift trillions of vid and voice feeds from all across America.

  As a Patriot Blue, Harold is a bona fide second-class citizen with no choice of jobs. He settles for what is offered: playing second fiddle to an artificial intelligence. The last time he saw his parents, they begged him not to resist as they had. Instead, he should adapt to a society that requires all citizens to have RFID implants. When his parents fled, the Standards Board reclassified them to Underclass Red and then Outcast Gray.

  Harold couldn’t attend their funerals because Outcast Grays and Patriot Blues can’t mingle. Of course, Blues know they can’t aspire to Privileged Green or, LINC forbid, Honorable Purple, except for Cora Thompson. She is the sweet honey-haired woman on his screen acting in a Board-approved morality sitcom. Though she was born Patriot Blue, the Board upgraded her to Privileged Green so she could act.

  Harold’s chair vibrates. “Back to work!” The artificial voice carries the unmistakable bass of his boss, Mel Gardner. Someone chuckles nearby. Harold cannot see who it is over the partitions.

  Convinced that Art-Intel could do his job, he glances up to look for cams, but of course, they are microscopic. He scans the row of blue plastic plants he suspects serve to hide cams he hasn’t yet found.

  Returning his attention to the screen, Harold zooms in on one of his nine views. Have to remain vigilant for terrorist threats. He is amazed at how Art-Intel culls through so much data, linking searches, purchases, and personal connections to tag someone as a threat. He likes to trace backward to figure out how the clues fit, and what Art-Intel saw that he didn’t. Mel ridicules him for being inferior to a biochip.

  Onscreen, a dark-haired Patriot Blue woman hardly seems a threat. She sends a cute redheaded girl into the scan-chamber entry for Kerr-Mart, a universal store accessible to Patriot Blues. The girl enters the store. Thick Plexiglas doors lock, trapping the woman inside the chamber.

  “Access denied!”

  Splitting screens, Harold pulls up her file. There it is—she had an abortion. How could she be so wicked to deny her sweet child life? Harold shakes his head. That must be a mistake. The child is there, frightened, staring at her mom.

  “Your status is downgraded to Underclass Red,” an artificial voice tells the woman.

  A brown-shirt escorts her daughter away. Harold pulls the child’s file. A Privileged Green couple wants to adopt this redhead, but the mother refuses to give up her only child. This will open doors for the child like when they upgraded Cora. Good for you.

  The dark-haired woman pounds on the Plexiglas barrier keeping her from her retreating child. Harold wishes he could tell her the good news. When the redhead tries to run to her mom, the brown-clothed guard picks her up and carries her down a long corridor to a waiting van. The woman’s anguish tugs at Harold. Not only is she losing her daughter, she will lose her apartment and her credit. Only menial jobs will be open to her.

  When the scan-chamber opens from outside, brown-shirts sedate the woman and haul her away. Aware that cams are watching him, Harold copies the feed for the evening news so everyone can see. Sanctity of life forbids abortion. Penalties are steep. At least the daughter won’t suffer for her mother’s crime. Harold isn’t convinced.

  The next feed shows an Outcast Gray, his scruffy blond beard and tattered gray trench coat hallmarks of non-citizens, who are denied society’s benefits. The Board prohibits prostitutes, druggies, murderers, rapists, and other dregs from the Metropolitan domain. Yet here he is in the Loop. Harold shivers. A troop of brown-shirts surrounds the outcast. An Underclass Red woman tries to help him down an alley. She risks a downgrade to Outcast Gray. Is this love? Harold wonders.

  Brown-shirts shoot the man in the head. The woman goes to her friend, but he is dead. His implant registers no heart or brain activity. As required by law, the patrol has neutralized the terror threat. Each color can downgrade except Outcast Gray. For them, the next step is an overcrowded prison or death. Brown-shirts did him a favor. The Board downgrades the woman to Outcast Gray. Harold tags another story for evening news feeds, further justification for the new security rules.

  All day Harold scans for news, keeping one view on honey-haired Cora and another on the woman who watched her boyfriend die. She should have known that mixed relationships are illegal. He pulls up her file. Several months ago, with Harold’s help, the Board downgraded her to Red for associating with an underclass. She welcomed that change until the Board reclassified the man she was with to Outcast Gray. It is easy to move down, almost impossible to move up, unless you are beautiful like honey-haired Cora.

  Justice is swift. Brown-shirts take the newly Outcast Gray woman by jet-chopper beyond Metro. From a height of ten feet, they push her out. She lands in swampy wetlands. She struggles to her feet, curses and makes odd hand gestures. Harold’s screen doesn’t translate, but he remembers his parents using them before they vanished.

  Curious, Harold finds a picture of the woman’s earlier boyfriend and compares it to the dead man. He finds the similarities as shocking as the differences. It is eerie how downgrading can change a man. The broken nose and sad eyes match, despite the haggard weathered look of what seems like a much older man. Harold adds her earlier transgression to the news as further validation for her adjustment. Harold congratulates himself on his knack for story. Yet he can’t help wondering what possessed this woman twice to risk everything. Is this romantic love? He shudders at what sacrifices she made.

  The next feed is trickier. A Patriot Blue man comes into money, too much says Art-Intel. Lists of transactions pour over Harold’s screen, no large sums, but they look suspicious. He doesn’t find anything unusual until he thinks of his own spending. Where is the food bill? There are no food charges for months. Neat trick.

  Scanning back Harold finds where the man previously shopped and looks for unusual activity. He is proud of his ability to track credits forward and back like solving math puzzles. When he hits a dead-end, Harold finds the man on cam and lifts the ID embedded in his silk shirt, something Blues can’t afford. Sure enough, a Green woman purchased it with credit from Senator Maverick Lacey. Got you, Harold thinks, though it is risky going after an Honorable Purple.

  “Harold, my man.” A heavy hand presses his shoulder.

  A burly Afric
an-American, Mel Gardner is Privileged Green, Harold’s boss, and director of the Chicago facility. Once a month Mel invites Harold to dinner; picks him up in his vintage Majestic, a Green-approved model. Over steak, Harold endures Mel’s complaints about trying to scrape by on a Privileged Green income. Harold can only dream.

  Mel practically lifts Harold from his seat, removes Harold’s earpiece, and clasps his hand. “You’ve been selected employee of the month. What do you say?”

  Harold is speechless. This is his first. Will it mean a bonus? He has heard of such, though never for a Patriot Blue.

  Releasing the handshake, Mel marches off without inviting Harold back to his office. The interruption is brief, leaving Harold feeling special and confused.

  When he sits down, the Lacey file is gone. His eyes moisten; he is employee of the month. Has he outperformed coworkers? He wants to compare notes, to talk to someone other than Mel, but his boss forbids him from discussing his work even with coworkers. You can’t tell who might be a traitor, Mel once said as Harold signed a thick confidentiality agreement in legalese he couldn’t begin to understand. He has no one to share his good fortune with.

  I am all alone.

  Harold pulls up feeds from his apartment and fills all nine views. His home is a Patriot Blue cube like that of his coworkers. He watches their places now and then and is certain they watch his. Rooms are identical down to pale blue décor. If he mistakenly walked into the wrong apartment, he would feel right at home.

  His Patriot Blue appliances include micro-cooker, wash/dry unit, and fridge. He has a wall vid with LINC, but only Blue-approved channels: three cooking, two gardening, and eight spiritual that all sound alike. He can watch sitcoms ending with infraction adjustments, news vids, and self-improvement feeds intended to mold him into a model citizen. He has no interest, but they are friends to keep him company at night.

  The Privileged Green condos he has seen have a second bedroom, although he can’t imagine how he would use it. Appliances are bigger, newer, and more diverse. Green vid LINC accesses more shows. Sometimes he monitors them from work to see what he is missing. Greens can watch wealth-building programs, but nothing that show Harold how he could move up from Patriot Blue.

  At least he is not Red. They get efficiency lofts, barely big enough for a bed, cooker, and stacked laundry. Yet even that is better than living on the streets, or being an Outcast Gray. Maybe that woman’s dismal prospects are what drove her to help her boyfriend.

  Harold pulls up Cora’s sitcom and grins. She looks pretty in her lively green floral dress. Before his boss catches him, he changes feeds to the streets and rail station. The monorail loads the last of an early shift of Blues so they can return to their empty apartments. Like him, they micro-cook prepackaged meals, and consume their daily quota of drinks. Then, they sit before the vid for conditioning before another day of work. Harold’s shift ends. He doesn’t want to be late.

  * * *

  Grabbing his coat, Harold rushes down three flights of stairs to avoid having to wait for the crowded elevators. In the lobby, he falls in line behind coworkers dressed in a dozen shades of blue to mark their class as they emerge from work. You don’t want anyone mistaking you for Privileged Green, like that could happen. He doesn’t need his coat since he can travel indoors from the office to the monorail and on to his apartment, but someone attacked the monorail last year. To get home, he had to walk five blocks in the cold.

  He hurries down the corridor toward the monorail ramps, keeping a watchful eye on brown-shirt guards. Never draw attention if you don’t have to. When he reaches the turnstile, he sees ahead of him that bun of honey-hair and the sleek shape of Cora’s green floral dress. A moment sooner and he might have gathered a whiff of her sweet perfume and risked a hello. She turns with a dreamy smile and boards the Green compartment where he won’t be welcome.

  Do you recognize me?

  He can’t share this feeling of belonging with her because he has no hope of that ever happening. He wants no trouble, only to glimpse her and see her safely home. That is enough, he tells himself. Remember, thoughts only remain private when kept to myself. Yet, memory fades. If I don’t record or share my thoughts, how can I trust they won’t disappear? You can’t speak or write without the Standards Board recording everything, so how can you have private thoughts?

  His father warned him about the end of privacy, but it didn’t seem important at the time. Now that Harold’s private thoughts are about Cora, he desperately wants to yell them from the roof terrace, or at least write them on a notepad he hid when the government banned paper. They want to discourage secret messages. Of course, writing anything off the LINC brings adjustments. Mostly, Harold wants to share his thoughts with Cora because of the connection he feels, even though they have only exchanged polite glances.

  For two months, since she started acting on her sitcom, Harold has watched the azure-eyed honey-blonde at work and at the monorail. He feels like Romeo wooing Juliet, for she is Privileged Green and he is lowly Blue. He not only doesn’t have a chance, any interaction is strictly “verboten.” Yet, she has been more pleasant to him than any of his fellow Blues. Like him, they keep their heads down and struggle to get by. He can’t stop thinking about her. That is his one private thought, something the state doesn’t yet own.

  * * *

  Harold reaches his desk early the next morning to research Cora. The Standards Board has slated her to become wife to an Honorable Purple, one of several wives, no doubt, since she is Green and the Board permits Purples to have multiple wives like the Biblical patriarchs. She deserves better.

  Keeping one of his views on Cora, Harold feels connected, as he hasn’t since losing his parents. Back before the Standards Board, he could have approached her and imagined a better life. He longs for those golden days, and imagines his parents would approve of Cora as a daughter-in-law. After all, she is a model, not the naked outcast type, but a model citizen, an exemplar.

  Cora’s file shows her Patriot Blue parents left her with a Privileged Green family so she could move up. Yet, she is lonely, like Harold. He pulls up history feeds of Cora in her apartment. She cries at her bathroom mirror with water gushing. She must think that drowns out her words: “Mom, Dad, I miss you so much. Why can’t I see you?” Why? Because Blues and Greens can’t mingle, except under Board-approved conditions like work or at the monorail.

  It is at the mirror with water running that Cora shares private thoughts, fears and expectations. She suspects an arranged marriage, which she doesn’t want. She longs for someone and as Privileged Green, she is permitted to choose from among other Greens. Yet she keeps to herself. Harold sheds a tear like when his parents left. He hungers for family, but as Patriot Blue, Harold has to wait until the Board chooses for him.

  For LINC’s sake, they have it wrong. Cora is meant for me. Are you waiting for me to act? If I don’t, will I lose you forever?

  Daring not to enlarge her image, Harold contents himself with a six-inch screen of her in her dressing room, tablet-writing sitcom notes and rehearsing for her performance. Through the vid-feed, her life unfolds like a movie. She seems so close he could touch her. This is dangerous, but he can’t help himself.

  Envying the men she performs with, Harold denies her access to leave her dressing room for a moment so he can imprint her image. She looks annoyed, but not angry. Though LINC delays are common, he apologizes in his private thoughts. It is like having to wait longer for the elevator or monorail, one of life’s little nuisances. Yet he is touching her, even if only in a manipulative way. He digs his fingernail into his palm. This is wrong. I have to stop.

  He scans through live city views, sees nothing of interest, and flips back to review her file. Cora struggles more than most Greens. As an entertainer, she hungers for clothes and adornments she can’t afford. Harold knows the desire for what you can’t have, the burning passion that can be used against you if, LINC forbid, they find you out.

  When he re
turns to Cora’s active feed, she isn’t in her dressing room or on the set. He locates her leaving by the back door. She looks distraught. He pulls a second feed from across the street and zooms in on her face. Her eyes fill with tears. A history feed shows that moments earlier she received a message that her mother died. She can’t attend the funeral since she can’t mingle with Blues. A fourth view shows her father at the funeral alone. Bastards.

  Back on the street, Harold watches three Underclass Reds with scruffy beards. They approach Cora. It isn’t safe; she is distracted, not paying attention. Harold sets off an alarm at a nearby jewelry store. That startles the Reds and alerts her. He opens a door for her to a Purple clothier. The Standards Board forbids Greens from this store, but seeing the men, she enters the scan-chamber. She is shaking, terrified. One of the men tries the door. Harold seals it. Brown-shirts pull up in a truck. One Red stumbles and falls against the wall. Blood splatters the back of his shirt. His companions flee. Brown-shirts carry the injured man to the truck.

  Harold has no doubt where they will dump him.

  Cora looks up toward the camera, forces a smile, and mouths: thank-you. She is talking to him. He saved her and she understands. When he releases the door to the street, she leaves, holding her head up as if nothing happened.

  “Loitering again?” Mel hangs overhead like a dark cloud.

  Harold scrambles the feeds, and lets Art-Intel select his nine views.

  Mel blocks the screen. “Dreaming is for fools.”

  “I wasn’t.”

  Harold scoots back to see his boss’ face, but Mel retreats to his office. Harold follows. He tries to figure out how he can challenge what LINC records. He is spending too much time on Cora. He expects another lecture about terror threats and the need for him to focus.

  Mel closes the door to his greenly accented office. “You’ve done your nation a great service.” He sits Harold down and stands over him. “But you grow too attached. Wanting what you can’t have brings misery. Accept your lot. Let it bring you happiness.”