by Sam J Fires
What followed thereafter was a general hardening of the public attitude toward the FF and their philosophy. FF members found standing outside of malls and cafes were harassed and accosted. There was even one report of an FF member being beaten to death by a group of teenagers outside of a sportsground.
The FF had been thrust into the spotlight, its philosophy, its literature in general became the subject of both media and public debate. The debate surrounding the tension between state security and freedom of speech reached its all-time high. Their meetings became the subject of escalating scrutiny and surveillance worldwide and ultimately their communes were searched at more regular intervals. There was even a period where judges across the world became lenient in granting officers search warrants and the police would use any excuse to conduct raids on commune premises.
This social harassment did not continue for too long before the FF began to retaliate. They formed small terrorist cells operating outside the sphere of technology which made it hard for police officers to track them down. They communicated either in person or by notes which were later destroyed. Policing had become so dependent upon the technologies ushered in by the fourth industrial revolution that they were virtually blind as regards the FF terrorists.
With every terror attack that took place, the more FF denounced the terrorists as independent extremists, but more and more perpetrators arose from the ranks of ordinary FF recruits. The terror attacks became so constant and brutal that they eclipsed that of radical Islamists and even exceeding those of the “Tamil Tigers” in quantity.
By this point, the world was in a frenzy and the United Nations Security Council convened to remedy the madness. The UNSC met for four days in Japan before establishing a UN resolution calling for a variety of measures, protocols and conventions globally to combat the terror attacks of the FF. One thing 4IR technologies failed to do away with were the politicians. A task force was formed by the UN based on the model used decades prior to form the Financial Actions Task Force. This task force’s objective was to support and evaluate special intelligence wings of all member nations to ensure countries were suitably capable of dealing with what was called “modern terrorist threats of a retrogressive nature”. Or in other words, the FF.
Reporting duties became mandatory for all the citizens of signatory nations, sanctions and other mechanisms were utilized with non-compliant countries and individuals. In the quantum era, the FF were a new religious movement that challenged the norms of the era and their radical members became the new terrorists always a step ahead even though they remained a lifetime behind.
It was at that time that Jacob met Ally, lost his cynicism and embraced her ideals.
CHAPTER 3
OLLY AND HIS LITTLE BROTHER
I srael wrapped the makeshift bandage around the gaping wound on my hand as quickly as he could, tying the end of it tightly. I yelped in pain again, but not as loudly as when the tissue of my hand was sliced. The yelp was still sufficiently loud enough to be alarming all the same. At that moment we both heard the rapid, rhythmic drumming of footsteps running toward us. I looked deeply into my younger brother’s eyes, his faced was twisted in terror, the panic a new tenant on his brow.
We both knew exactly what the rhythmic drumming meant - Heap Sharks. A lot of them, coming in fast. If the Heap Sharks were on the move, we had to move too.
This was every poacher’s nightmare. In a heap mine, no matter how great of a poacher one might be, the Heap Sharks always knew the terrain better. The sharks understood every piece of rubble and steel as though they had placed it there themselves and understood every echo, every reverberation and whistle of the wind in the heap mine as though it were speaking directly to them in a native tongue.
By way of this echo location, the second I’d yelped, there was no doubt that they’d know exactly where we were and were now fast converging on us.
A poacher could penetrate a heap mine and the security of the sharks by exploiting the strengths and limitations of a shark. Most poachers entered heap mines during stormy conditions when winds were rough, or rain poured mercilessly battering the open steel, rubble and other ruins of the lost civilization found in the heap mine.
Despite all the dehumanizing treatment the sharks had undergone, they were still ultimately human, and fallible. A sufficiently violent storm or intensely windy evening often served as cover for poachers. Stormy weather brought too many sounds to all be investigated and as such, most Heap Sharks would only investigate considerably alarming sounds while ignoring the rest to continue with their regular evening rounds.
A painful yelp was certainly something every shark within the section would investigate. We had penetrated this mine on several occasions. Having figured out the underlying pattern of the rounds of the sharks, and keeping our noise to an absolute minimum, we just waited for the right evenings. Then under the cover of darkness we’d scale the barrier walls of the inner heap mine and salvage whatever useful items we could and get out again. Sometimes we would pre-select what we wanted and other times we would go in blindly, lift whatever we could and get out.
No matter what we took, there was always someone who would be willing to buy it. Part of the reason the Heap Lords were as wealthy as they were was that with the final collapse of civilization, certain artefacts, remnants of that civilization, became exceedingly useful. With the Heap Lords owning so much and hording it, they controlled the supply of heap commodities and therefore could trade them for whatever they pleased.
Once we heard from an old drunk on the road that amongst the Heap Lords across the land there was a guild through which they not only supported one another but also limited and controlled the trade of heap goods to ensure the heap economy remained viable and lucrative for all Heap Lords.
This night was not unlike any other. It was not raining but it was sufficiently windy. We’d approached the heap mine which was flanked by what had become known as a border city. Often along the outskirts of the heap mines, people would begin to camp and offer various services to Heap Lords and travelers passing by.
Border cities were filthy and had a distinctly musty smell. Regardless of which border city one went to, they all smelt the same and always seemed to house the same hopeless people. In the border cities one could find all sorts of vices and for cheap too.
There were narcotics, prostitutes, gambling, slaves and a host of other pastimes for those who could afford to indulge in them. Most poachers lived far outside of the border cities and were nomadic, preferring to trade the spoils of their salvaging far from where they had been extracted. This was a preference but also a necessary precaution for most poachers.
A good poacher approached a heap boundary well in advance but not too long before making his move. He mixed with the people of the border city and bought a thing or two, took a few drinks here and there, gathered as much information as he could while scouting the heap mine and learning the rounds of the sharks, plotting potential exits in case of emergencies.
Once a poacher had done enough reconnaissance, he would wait for the right evening, when the conditions within the heap mine and outside became most favorable.
A poacher would then make his way to the boundary wall casually before covering his face. Covering the face was one of the most important parts of penetrating a heap mine for a poacher. Should a poacher’s face be spotted by a shark, that poacher was as good as dead. All sharks were trained from very young to reproduce a drawing of any face they might see, even in obscure weather conditions or poor lighting. Once a Heap Lord had a picture of a poacher’s face, they either put a bounty on the poacher’s head or hired an assassin to pursue the poacher, often both.
It was of utmost importance for Heap Lords to pursue poachers with the full might of their wrath and punish them with as heavy a hand as possible in order to make examples of anyone who dared break the rules. Not only did the they own the monopoly on heap goods, but also violence.
CHAPTER 4
&nbs
p; ALLY’S DILEMMA
A lly was a star on the rise and in the years following the watershed behind which the fourth industrial revolution broke, her career had taken astronomical leaps.
She was a high school biology teacher with a difference. She was opinionated, fierce and ethical with a passion that ignited fires in others, and the people who mattered most noticed this. In her teaching she never shied away from a topic no matter how conflagratory and in her personal life this was even more the case.
With the introduction of virtual reality into the education system, Ally’s star rose even higher. Virtual education required teachers who not only taught but could act as tour guides. This was second nature to Ally. Whether she taught photosynthesis or glomerular filtration, her thousands of students traversed the virtual world with her without losing interest. This made her one of the more popular teachers within the virtual space.
The traditional method of teaching had all but faded away save for exceptional cases and a few countries where virtual education had proved unsuccessful. Consequently, the number of teachers had shrunk dramatically, and many had moved to less developed countries in order to find gainful employment but those most of those who remained were either unemployed or had to change fields completely.
This situation had become the norm across many occupations with many people either finding themselves unemployed or needing to retrain completely. Plumbers, electricians and nurses were some of the few professionals not particularly affected by the fourth industrial revolution. The same was the case for people working in certain creative fields which required a strong sense of empathy in order to execute successfully.
The labor force was suddenly filled with an imperceptible number of plumbers, electricians and other tradesmen. The nature by which one hired a plumber or electrician changed. A customer merely had to raise a query with one of the devices in their house which would then be broadcast. Plumbers would rush to the customer’s home and whoever arrived first got the job.
This new system resulted in many plumbers, electricians and others forming gangs who would fight one another in order to get to the job first. These plumber gangs would often cause a commotion on the streets and became quarrelsome with time and indistinctive from motorbike gangs. The number of plumbers and electricians eventually became so large that many would take jobs wherever they could find them. This led to many doing odd jobs for the FF communes in exchange for whatever goods the FF had available to barter.
The FF had a lot to barter and would also accept gifts in exchange for whichever services they offered.
As for Jacob, his career had grown relatively stagnant. Classic computers still existed in this world and were more suitable for certain classes of problems but were not the core of the current era. It was in this niche that Jacob operated and so far, was still able to make money to support his family, but by and large Ally was the bread winner in their household.
That fateful morning, Ally had begun to teach a lesson on photosynthesis, one of her favorite topics. Her lesson was watched by thousands of students.
“Good morning class and welcome to today’s lesson,” she announced loudly, with her characteristic enthusiasm, buoyant personality and beaming smile. “Let’s begin.”
She continued to complete the lesson, describing various plants and crops and how these were able to survive and in which environments they had thrived historically. The virtual reality glasses used for educational purposes had built-in ‘vital’ monitors and throughout the class, the large majority of her students’ vitals suggested that they were focused and a few even suggested arousal.
It was by way of these monitors and a voting system that teachers were graded, and Ally consistently found herself in the top ten.
She moved on to discussing fertilizer.
“This is made by simply mixing hydrogen and nitrogen. In the past it required a very expensive process called the ‘Haber Bosch Process’ in order to be effective but since the introduction of quantum computers, agritech companies have found various ways of doing this more efficiently.”
Her question light flickered. One of her students had put forth a question which others had also raised independently as their vitals had reacted in a positive way. The virtual glasses were able to monitor a host of bio-responses including the dilation of pupils, heart rate, respiratory rate and even temperature and blood pressure.
“If it’s so much easier now, why is food not any more readily available?” The questioner’s voice was raspy, with a thick accent and deep tone. It was not the voice of a child.
Ally had heard about this. Auditors who would sit in on lessons and would try to engage teachers on controversial topics. It had never happened to her, but it was no big deal as far as she was concerned. The question was obviously political in nature and she wanted to give a fair, balanced answer, representative of her views and ethics.
“You’re right,” she responded. “It has become easier and cheaper to make fertilizer and food security should be at its all-time highest. Unfortunately, our ethical growth has not kept up with our technological development and we still have a lot to work on.”
The response was a major hit with her viewers according to their vital stats and Ally thought the questioning was over, but the thick accented voice broke in on her lesson again.
“Do you blame world governments for this?”
Ally answered once more, being as careful as she could without compromising her ethics. She knew teachers being terminated on the spot for answering these interrogations in the wrong fashion.
“The world changed in an instant. We had been heading in one direction for a couple of decades and then all at once we arrived at our destination unexpectedly, far sooner than we had anticipated. So yes, globally, governance has been playing catchup.”
Again, she thought that she had done quite well, and the stats suggested this too, but the man responded immediately.
“So, do you agree with the FF regarding the government?”
This question was the most brazen so far and Ally was startled by its directness. She had no doubt that the auditor would notice a spike in her vitals. She remained quiet, trying to gain her composure.
“Are you an FF sympathizer?”
And Ally knew that a simple “no” would have sufficed but she could not bring herself to be inauthentic.
“I do not sympathize with the FF. There are some intersections between their philosophy and mine though.” The students’ vitals began to suggest a drop-in interest, but the man continued with his interrogation.
“What do you mean by that?”
She breathed in deeply, once again not wanting to be a fraud but also worrying about being received in the wrong light.
“I agree that the technology which ushered in the current era was just as harmful as it was beneficial, but that’s more because we’re not mature enough as a species. I do think that it would have been better to have held back some of these technologies until we better understood the consequences of using them. These technologies legitimately have the potential to create a better life for all but look around. All they have done is further entrench inequality and create societies of gangster plumbers, cars that drive themselves, fridges that order their own content…. What space is there for humanity? For free…”
Before she could finish her final sentence, her session expired. She was taken aback as she was still booked for another. She instructed her computer to log her back in, but she received a notification indicating that ‘her account had been suspended pending further investigation’.
She had overstepped the mark and there was no going back.
She looked over at her 14-month-old son Oliver who was still sleeping like a log, oblivious to the nightmare he had been born into.
She walked toward the door after hearing quite a ruckus outside and suddenly the door opened and a group officers flooded in.
One or two officers would have been enough to take one woman into cu
stody, but the task force always made a show of their power. A dozen agents flooded into the apartment and began searching. The right to search the property of a terror suspect was a known power of the task force.
A man, very slight in build, went to where Olly laid sleeping and pulled up the mattress in the crib without first bothering to remove the baby. Olly slid from the mattress onto the wooden base of the crib, letting out a screeching wail in the process. This was a tactic commonly used by the task force. Incite an emotional response from suspects in order to detain them for non-compliance.
The tactic was successful. At seeing her distressed baby, the fierce Ally took off in Olly’s direction to comfort him, only to be impeded by an agent. She let out a roar and pushed the agent, but he stood firm.
She drummed on his chest with her hands and kneed him in the testicles, causing him to drop to his knees, but before she was able to run toward her precious Olly, a second and third agent restrained her, tying her hands behind her back and covering her face with a black sack as they had secretly been planning to do all along.
CHAPTER 5
ALLY FINDS HER PURPOSE
I n the five years that had passed since Ally’s detention and interrogation, their lives had changed completely. Her name had formally been cleared but her stock as an educator had decreased dramatically. Her ideas were considered of an unhealthy and dangerous character and she was barred from teaching altogether.
She retrained as a nurse and attempted to find employment in the field but despite countless interviews and a great deal of energy, her efforts were in vain. Though there was neither a censure, ban nor any formal sanctions imposed on her, it was as if her name had been circulated on some secret blacklist.