My childhood is a far away memory, abstract and serene. Green trees and mountain hikes are what I remember best. Such a jarring divorce from today. Now, everything that matters in life happens on our smartphone screen, but don’t confuse this with the smartphones of old. The smartphones on which we happily shared pics and vids of our happy lives on Instagram or Tic Tok and made compliments in the comments sections. Today’s smartphone is now your life, literally. No smartphone, no money. No, smartphone, no freedom, that’s if freedom is what it is anymore.
Covid 19 came and went, then it was the climate crisis overlaid with a bunch of foreign forever wars, then Covid 25 and the first real lockdowns and forced injections, then Covid 27, 28,… and then we stopped counting. Just a merry-go-round of lockdowns, medications and ever more censorship. The Great Reset we were told it was all about. It’s all about the climate, they keep saying. It’s for the children. For the future. The dichotomy was both obvious and silent.
When the fight went out of us, we were slowly herded into the Smart Cities better known as FMCs or Fifteen minute cities. Named such because it would only take you fifteen minutes there before you wanted out. Smart they were, but not the kind of smart you wanted. They were brightly coloured oppressive slums controlled by cold and insensitive robots and drones.
Drones constantly scan our smartphones from above, drones check us for violations in vaccine status, and of course enforcing our precious social scores. To add to the insult, the CBDC wallets on our phones capriciously choose what you can or cannot have, or how much. There was no rhyme or reason to the rules, and they rarely applied to us all at once. Today you get no milk - tomorrow I get no milk. Our phones corralled us, controlled where we could go, and what we were allowed to do.
At the megastore, a single litre of synthetic milk (cows are banned or extinct, we are not sure anymore which) is all a family of four is permitted each day. Bread is worse. It’s more like a thick tasteless cracker. But then there are ‘matties’. A patty of fake meat. Cost: virtually free. About the only thing that we can eat without limitation. We had long been encouraged to stop speculating what they were made from, so the popular debate about them was, ‘how close to real meat it in fact tasted?’
***
Your social score is everything today. Your entire worth as a human is captured in that number. Those that fall below 8, vanish. Theories as to where they go are whispered in hushed and paranoid tones. Discussing it is taboo on Meta.X, the only social media platform that exists. Strategies on how to improve your score abound and are easily the most discussed topic online, though from my bitter experience, raising your points was akin to blitzing a snap test in a subject you never studied. But losing points, now that’s as easy as breathing.
I had 9.2 and John, my brother, had 9.3. Clive, from next door showed me with mock rebellious bravado that he had only 8.1. That was a few weeks ago. I have not seen him since. I wonder how brave he feels now, or indeed where he is. This was the other eternal topic, where did the sub 8’s go. Nobody I know had ever witnessed any abductions, or arrests, but nobody dared to discuss this on Meta.X.
***
Clive had a sister that I liked, but I was sure she didn’t even know I existed, until today.
I was coming back to our apartment with whatever I was allowed to buy at the megamarket for us to eat, when she suddenly grabbed my arm in the crowd. What I remember was the look in her mesmerising blue eyes: manic fright, as a bizarre counterpoint was that pink tight cardigan she wore, with the top button undone, hugging her inviting breasts. I could not help but smile to myself for the sudden attention. She grabbed my hand and sharply led me to one side out of the crowd, behind a large dumpster. She pulled my head close to hers and in a raspy whisper said: “Clive, they took him!”
Before I could ask where, my smartphone chimed. I looked at it and saw the screen: bright red and in the middle -1 flashing in large bold yellow characters. My knees went weak! A -0.1 was chilling enough, and the rare -0.2, was always accompanied by a colourful story, but -1!
I tore out of her grip and boldly reentered the crowded lane. Looking up for a drone, I loudly proclaimed “What have I done wrong, why a minus 1”. The crowd gave me immediate space, the passersby consciously ignoring me. “What did I do?” I hollered into the air.
I looked back at the dumpster and Clive’s sister had melted away. I was alone in the crowd. My smartphone chimed again. -0.1! “What’s going on?” I yelped into the air in desperation. A drone silently approached. Then a second. I was looking up at them questioningly when I felt a yank on the plastic bag in my hand. A grubby child, face hidden in a hoodie, was tearing at it. The strength was unexpected. I lost interest in the overhead drones and began convincingly losing the tug-o-war over the bag deeper down the darker lane behind the dumpster. Only a handful of metres away from the thongs of people, the urchin turned and stabbed my hand with a needle, then everything went dark.
***
I woke up lying on warm concrete surrounded by crowds of people, all ignoring me. Knots of them stood at concrete tables toiling at some strange tasks under anaemic lights. Others just stood, or milled around whispering to each other. Everyone was naked except for black boxer briefs. All ages except the very young were there, but no women at all. Everyone’s faces: grave and serious, and the smell! An intense mix of faeces, urine, sweat and vomit scorched my nose.
An older gaunt man slowly approached me and gave me a hand as I tried to stand up.
“Your headache will pass” he said in a quiet voice.
“Whats going on? Where am I?”
“Block 9”
“What is block 9?”
“Everyone has the same questions when they get here. Sorry but it’s too dangerous to answer some questions. All I can tell you is where you are,… or else”, the man said, ending with ominous foreboding.
Before I could get another question out, a loud siren wailed. Everyone stopped whatever they were doing and began to head in one direction. The old man clapped me lightly on the shoulder and said, “Chow time”.
It took me about half an hour pushing and shoving in the crowd to get to the ‘feed trough’ filled with matties. I managed to grab 2 of them in the melee of hands. They were cold and definitely tasted inferior to those I was used to. There were bits that did not feel like food which I spat out. As I was retreating through the crowd, the man from before came up next to me and led me away to a quieter spot.
“I am A3F49r-9, but you can call me Alex” I gave him a stunned look. “Your ankle tag…”, he added.
I looked down and noticed the red ankle bracelet fixed to my right leg with a large bold white number V8h8R2-9 written on it.
“We are the sub 8’s” Alex added while wolfing down his food. A lingering question about Clive was now finally answered.
“How long do we need to be in here?” I asked.
Alex shrugged, then added, “I only know of people going down.”
“Down?”
“Yes, down. None of us really know for sure, but we know there are levels below us”
The stunned look on my face triggered Alex to stand and grab my arm and lead me off through the crowds. The entire place was a single open space with concrete floor and ceiling interspersed with fat round columns stained with urine. I was reminded of an underground carpark from my distance youth.
As we walked on, the smell in the air freshened somewhat and a new quality to the light grew. We finally reached the edge marked by a low concrete barrier, above which was the outside. The vista was stunning in contrast to the squalor. An enormously broad brown/yellow desert vista, topped with an intensely bright clear blue sky. A warm dry breeze gently blew, tussled my hair and teasing me with the smell of freedom. The vista was barren except for the blocks.
Large concrete cubic structures dotted the landscape. Each emblazoned with a single huge number on each side. 8, 7, and 6, being barely legible in the distance. Many more blocks spread out till the horizon. Block 8 seemed only at most a kilometre away, but distance was hard to judge.
The bleached concrete block was ringed with black bands of shadow, in which I could just make out small figures moving around. There were dozens of these horizontal bands ringing each block and they became more tightly spaced the closer to the ground they were. The only interruption to the minimal form was a circumnavigating wall at 45° protruding upwards from each cube’s footprint. I guessed it was to catch rainwater, but the idea sounded immediately ridiculous in my mind.
Apart from the tiny figures in the shadows, the only other movement was from large drones flying back and forth between the blocks and beyond.
“Well maybe down is out?” I suggested, but Alex’s jaded look did not agree with my optimism.
“The only rule any of us have figured out is that if you work at the tables, you get a few minutes advance notice of feeding time. That gives you a chance to get to the trough before everyone else. Just remember one thing: If your collar vibrates, head to the troughs.” Alex elaborated.
Just before Alex was about to wander away, he turned around and said, “If your bracelet keeps vibrating, you have to go to the very corner of the level where there are lifts that will take you down” Alex said in a flat voice.
I ventured with naive hope: “And out perhaps?”
Alex just shrugged and cocked his head with mock optimism.
***
Over the next few days, I caught on to the simple routine. I also caught sight of Alex a few times, but otherwise I kept to myself like most of us did. I tried to get to the work tables but they were popular. But the highlight was running into Clive.
“Hey neighbour” I said, siding up in the crowd.
At first Clive looked at me with shock, then recognition, and finally manic glee. I hugged him despite us not really being much of friends at all. But then a second later, his mirth vanished to be replaced by concerned sorrow. A tear accompanied the sharp change of expression.
“Hey man, it will be OK, we will get out of here sooner or later” I said immediately to offer some comfort.
His face did not brighten. “I was so stupid man. I thought I was cool. I am a stupid fool full of bravado, showing off how low my score was. Well now I am here and I don’t see how I will ever get out. I don’t even know where here is. None of us do.”
His distress was infecting me with doubts which I needed to fight back. “Come on Clive, do…”
Clive clamped down on my mouth with force before I could say anymore. He whispered close to me, “I am not Clive. Never use my name. Never tell anyone your name, I mean your outside name. NEVER!”
“Ah, OK” I said, with some surprise, fitting this new fact into my understanding of Block 9.
“How did they get you,… aah…” I looked down at his ankle. ‘D2Jf76-9’, “…David?”.
He shook his head in short jerky movements, telling me I was again asking a dangerous question. To fill in he said: “Have you seen Claire?”
Understanding his signal, I casually answered “Yeah, she’s fine” and I tried to add as much context with my eyes as I dared.
“Ahh, she’s a great kid, everything I am not. Beautiful, smart,…” Clive really wanted to continue, but his paranoia held his tongue still at that.
A strained relief spread over his face. “I feel better knowing she is OK”.
He leaned in to me and said in a whisper, “I only have this one thing to remind me of her”. At that he stuck out his tongue. On it, in the dim light I could see a pearly pink button glistening like a rare gemstone. Seeing it triggered the memory to flood back. This is from her cardigan. Her tight pink cardigan. It was the missing top button.
It was one of the last memories I had from the outside. One that had kept me going over the past few days. Now it was my turn to shed a tear, at which Clive, no David, gave me a glance with as much concern as he could. I simply nodded and gave a thumbs up to dispel his anxiety.
***
Day and night were only really visible to those that jealousy held onto their positions around the perimeter of Block 9. But the work tables were in the centre, and the feed troughs not far from them, so the population on our floor was in constant migration. Holding onto any territory was almost pointless, but despite this, bullies still persisted in vain territorialism. I managed to get a few sessions at the tables, but the hard toil earned me no advantages, so I stopped bothering.
I managed to take up a position near the perimeter one day when my bracelet buzzed and would not stop. A few guys nearby gave me looks of trepidation mixed with hope. Perhaps I was not alone in thinking that this is the way out of here. In the very corner was a group of round disks. One of them was lit with my number showing, I stood on it and a metal tube came down around me, followed by the gentle sensation of descent. The tube retracted, and I found myself on a new level. It was much the same as the old one, except the ceiling was noticeably lower, and the light dimmer.
***
And so the next few weeks progressed and I sporadically moved down the levels. I ran into Alex one more time, but he didn’t reciprocate my interest. It dawned on me, perhaps slower than most, that forming any bonds with my fellow inmates was not something that was done. As I thought on this more, the signs of it multiplied. Absolutely no signs of gangs or bullies existed on these lower levels. Everyone was on their own. This abstract loneliness in such a densely crowded space was hard to handle.
The days were very long and tiring, shuffling around the huge featureless space. I lay around sleeping a lot despite developing some painful sores on my hip from the filthy hard floor. One day I found a spot close to the elevator. The constant activity of people vanishing and appearing from the tubes was a treat to the otherwise dull monotony.
A disc lit up with a number. A tall man, his head virtually scraping on the ceiling approached with trepidation and stopped just one step before it. He looked at the disc but something held him back from the final step. His hesitation was beginning to attract attention. Then the disc began to flash. I could see that the man was experiencing increasing discomfort from the bracelet. Now his bracelet began flashing. The tension of the moment was rising fast. Just as I was imagining him about to take that last step, the ankle bracelet exploded with a dull thud. The man fell heavily to the ground, his right leg now shortened to the shin, ending in a tattered bloody mess. A large splattered blood stain with pieces of meat and bone were strewn about.
If that were not bad enough, it’s the scream that I was not expecting. It was not a scream of shock and pain, but it was the whimpering cry of pathetic defeat. It was a sound I thought would haunt me forever. Nobody came to his aid, instead most just turned and left the scene. Three round sections of floor which I had not noticed before raised into the air, disgorging three drones. Two of them came to either side of the prone man and lifted him bodily into the air. He made a feeble attempt at resistance as they carried him to the low wall and threw him over. The third busied itself cleaning up the mess. It played a kind of elevator music as it worked. An AI’s demented idea of a ‘human touch’. It was completely surreal and horrifying. The whole episode took under 20 seconds.
***
The inventor of this abomination must have had a macabre sense of humour, or was an especially bitter midget indeed. The lowering ceiling over the next 2 levels brought almost everyone to a permanent slouch or hunch, with the tall reduced to sitting or crawling. Defeated and broken would sum up the collective mood perfectly.
Few bothered with the work tables any more. The hymn of the droids as they carried out their grim work was heard more down here. The only highlight I can share is spotting Clive. I tried to engage him, but he looked all together disengaged. Sallow and gaunt, he was blindly shuffling about with his chin buried in his chest.
I had to admit that I was not far behind him, but I am a stoic optimist by nature and was probably proving harder for this prison to break. I found stupid trivialities funny, and broke out in manic laughter at the slightest prompt. Others would look at me like I had succumbed to insanity. Perhaps I have in my own way. One thing was clear: everyone had to dig deep into their souls to find a way to cope.
Staying near the edge was popular now. The natural light hardly filtered to the centre of the level any more. I was scared to even venture there fearing what I may find. Around the edge, the air was somewhat more bearable, but the price was steep: being a witness to the stream of human tragedies. I watched as inmates would take their own lives over the edge. The regular monotony of it destroyed our souls. Some prayed beforehand, some just lept, while others hollered their epitaphs. Nobody tried to talk any of them out of it. We just watched like drugged spectators anaesthetised from the gruesome spectacle.
A space at the wall became free which I took so I could look out at the tranquil panorama for a while, but I deeply regret it now as I glanced down. A new gruesome discovery: that angled wall I noticed back on the first day on Block 8, is for catching bodies not rain. The concrete was thickly stained with blood and gore. Mechanical arms would pull in body parts to some lower processing level. I became nauseous at the revelation and stepped away vowing to never look down again.
***
I just got sent down this morning, but where I landed can only be described as an abomination. As the tube retracted, it stopped at my waist. Not sure if there was a malfunction, I squatted down on rickety knees and froze at the scene before me. A dim light filtered past black silhouettes crawling about on hands and knees. The ceiling is so low here that even standing on your knees was impossible. Moaning and despair filled the air, along with the heavy smell of defeat and death. Inmates now uncaring about their fate, ranted and raved. Their echoes tormented those still clinging to sanity.
I crawled away from the lift, but did not get far. I doubt anyone gets very far down here. I lay down the first chance I got and shut my eyes in a vain attempt to block out the despair, till the siren howled for meal time. It took an enormous effort to crawl to the trough and fight through the miserable humanity to get a hand on something to eat. I managed to get hold of a cold mattie and shuffled away the best I could to eat it in some peace. As I chewed on a mouthful, I bit down on a pebble or rock. I spat the piece out into my palm. This was no rock, it was a broken piece of plastic, and not just any plastic either, this was a piece of Claire’s pearly pink button.
That was the moment I died, inside.