She has
been out of a job for a few months when she saw a listing. Of course, she was
out of money by then, not because she had to be, but because she decided to
change unemployment for a mid-twenties crisis. Her previous job paid very well.
She was also extremely well educated, to the point of being pretentiously
academic, but also up to date with all the technological news. She worked for a
huge automatization firm, contacting clients and making ethics reports of their
own projects with the data she had been given. She was fired not because of
restructuration, losing her position to AI or someone better suited, she also
didn’t leave of her own accord. She got too nosy, too human. One ethics report
didn’t sit right with her, not even this one, but in general: the reports
seemed to be all saying the same stuff, so she lost her creative abilities,
being stuck with using same exact words, because even a small deviation (in
words, not meaning) wasn’t fully appreciated by her boss. She was bored, but
also got increasingly worried. Decided to snoop – why wouldn’t she, after all,
even though she prepared ethics information for clients and media she has never
been very ethical herself. Rules didn’t mean much to her, if they didn’t make
sense. Also, it is not like she thought that she was particularly breaking any
rules. She was just…curious. She knew damn well getting away from her desk and
reading through documents, based on which the AI model summed up all the good
words about products for her was frowned upon to say the least. She was not
supposed to leave her desk, unless she was going to the toilet. Unauthorized
trips through the firm were specified to be unwelcome in the Employee Conduct
Book, but she never heard about anyone actually getting fired for stretching
their legs. It was only just HR sending you a hologram saying you should sit at
your desk until the end of your shift and telling you that the bonus to your
pay has certainly been cut this month for this behaviour. That was, however,
okay with her. She made crazy amounts of money anyway and she rarely spend
them, because she worked so much she didn’t really have any time for hobbies or
activities. But then, she snooped to close to the sun, realised the company was
lying all along, none of their products have been deemed ethical at all and the
AI model has received a prompt specifically telling it to ignore the findings
of individual testers and labs and just use the same praising phrases as
always. Hence the same wording, again and again. This AI model knew how to find
synonyms. It was simply told not to. Even though she didn’t report the findings
(she didn’t have time to do so) her boss knew that she knew, of course, and he
fired her just in case she decides to act on her newfound knowledge. Didn’t
offer her any explanation. Didn’t offer her even a leverage in a form of her
using words she liked, even positive, just not the same over and over again, so
that her brain could have any sort of fun, creative stimuli.
She decided
then to just live out her twenties, like people used to do some decades ago,
but also like some people still did, if they had rich parents or no resources
at all. She returned to her apartment, that was either way not hers, but the
company’s that hired her (and now fired her). Took little personal items with
her in a big backpack she bought especially for that, and put the rest for sale
in an automated selling point, which would give her some extra money if her
items sold, to add to her fund for the meantime. Other than that, she had her
savings, which were a lot: she had never even went on vacation during her five
years of work, so she was pretty rich, until all of her money runs dry, of
course. She looked up some fun seasonal weird stuff for young people with
identity crisis and boarded an air cushion vehicle the next day.
She spend
the next six months at the desert. There were concerts every night and she had
never drank so much alcohol in her life. Her parents always said how funny it
was, that amidst all the huge changes alcohol prevailed, and didn’t even
significantly change, other than being recommended and served with pills that
stopped the hangover and other pills, paid extra, that made you sober in a
split second so that you could drink more and not die of alcohol poisoning. She
was offered synthetic drugs – all of them, and she sure tried. Her state of
mind was almost dangerously spontaneous, destructive and chaotic. She felt like
the world disappointed her and like she had nothing to lose, so she just
laughed through the lump in her throat and said “what the hell, sure” to
everything she was offered.
She tried
bungee jumping, she swam in a huge, artificial pond, where she also took up
windsurfing (though the wind had to be generated; weather issues). During the
nights she slept with people, sometimes multiple at once, and in the morning
they offered her coffee and some drugs before even hitting the showers. She ran
barefoot and danced barefoot until there was a post made that the sand is
definitely not safe and can cause third degree burns, so she had to buy cooling
shoes. One girl offered her a tattoo and she let her do it, paid by buying her
a vodka soda and kissing her passionately. Hard to say whether it was an actual
payment, because she enjoyed it and stayed with that woman until she run out of
money, and now a tattoo – chubby, winking cat with an unusually long tail - made
her tear up each time she looked at it. At some point she dyed her hair purple,
some campers had loads of hair dye and offered it to everyone. She liked
herself in purple hair, took some selfies, in which the cat tattoo was also
visible and posted in on her social media, sparking mildly concerned comments from
her family members and old college friends, who didn’t experience mid 20’s
crisis like she did. Also, why did they even act like they care? She only saw
her old classmates maybe once or twice a year, at some random café or a
restaurant, for and hour or two tops. They existed mostly through likes and
comment, didn’t even bother to text her privately, not that she texted them
either. Her family was concerned because they were a good family. Not extremely
wealthy, but upper middle class, so when she, the only child of her parents,
went all rogue and rebellious after being the perfect daughter, that was shown
as an example to her cousins, it caused a tiny panic. It was always funny to
her, how she was always put at the pedestal in front of her cousins, like they didn’t
do equally well and weren’t equally well educated. She was only more obedient
and compliant with her parents’ wish for a perfect child than were her cousins,
who often chose different paths than those intended for them by their families.
Okay, so cousin Monica didn’t want to run her family’s law firm, so what? She
was a leading beautician, and her husband a plastic surgeon, and combined they
made more in a year than uncles’ law firm ever made. She studied marketing and
creative writing, like her parents, teachers and learning tools sellers wanted,
she used her creativity to get the most she could out of capitalism, while her
extra ethics classes made her a perfect employee for that company, until she
wasn’t. And so what?
After six
months her bank account was empty, she barely had enough for the trip back. She
felt very tired leaving. She couldn’t afford an extra no-hangover pill. She
felt weirdly sad and mushy for leaving the tattoo artist behind. But she did.
When she arrived back at the capital and saw the job offer on a big hologram in
the city centre, the faint memory of purple was still lingering in her
sun-bleached hair.
She sent in
her application the next day, using her phone, which was paid until the end of
the month. That night, she slept at her parents’ house – for the first time
since she left for college, surrounded by concerned stares and whispers. She
slept well, her childhood bed was a top tier sleep technology making sure the
user had the best sleep in their
lifetime each time they used it. It was, definitely, worth the money. Sleeping
conditions in the desert weren’t half as good.
She woke up
to a notification that she had been invited for a job interview. She went after
breakfast, her stomach full of vitamin-enhanced food. Her mother left a pack of
hangover pills on the counter. Bless her heart, hangovers didn’t last that
long.
The company
was located in a huge, glass building, but you could not see anything from the
windows. Perhaps you were able to see from the inside out, to boost morale, but
not from the outside in. All of the recruitment process was done by robots. Not
full, walking robots, just voice and language models, AI. She scanned her
fingers and retinas. Answered all of the questions in an inspired manner, even
though an AI interviewer showed no emotions whatsoever, no change in the tone
of its’ voice. She was also completely honest with them not only about good
stuff, but also about why she lost her previous job. The AI didn’t ask about
her reasoning or remorse, because AI didn’t know what that is. It wasn’t
programmed to read emotions. It only asked questions that were preprogrammed.
The pay they offered was good, though a bit less than in her previous job, and
they also offered a company apartment. And the company provided a self-driving
car to ensure she would be at work on time. She agreed to all the terms, not
knowing what else she could do with her life, and soon she found herself
employed again.
See, she
deemed her mid-20’s crisis just that: a crisis. Short. Maybe needed. Good while
it lasted, also very destructive. But at the end of the day, she was a mature,
high-functioning adult and a valuable society member. She had to work,
otherwise she could not really live. Not in the city, with family near anyway.
On the first day her job turned out to be extremely menial and not creative at
all. She doubted anyone needed actual education to work there. The company was
an information-generating company. They came up with information, AI generated
articles, and she only read them, and accepted them or sent them back,
depending on whether the interpunction was correct or not.
Her new
apartment was white and glass and shiny. The automatic vacuum cleaned the
floors once a day. After her first night in a new place she stood in front of
the bathroom mirror and looked at partially washed-out purple ends of her light
hair.
“You need
to fix that hair” an automated voice said, and she jumped up in the air. Oh,
okay. The company used voice assistants. Apparently.
“I like my
hair like they are. Also, the purple is going to fade. It won’t be here in a
couple of weeks”.
“Now. No
coloured hair in the office. Rule 123b. See?” The mirror lit up with the right
passage of Employee Conduct Book. Fuck. It was a rule.
“I don’t
have bleach, and I need to leave in fifteen minutes. What do you want me to
do?”
“Scissors”
said the voice, and one of the bathroom drawers opened, showing hairdresser’s
scissors and a hair dryer.
She cussed
under her breath and cut off the ends. They just lied there, in the sink,
slightly wet, because she just washed her face.
“I
scheduled a hairdresser appointment for you after work. The car will take you
there today. The hairdresser is company approved, they know what to do.”
She wanted
to argue, but stopped herself, since arguing with AI language models assistants
was always pointless. They didn’t have any answers, probably would just throw
the same line, like “I don’t know how to answer” or something nonsensical. It
was a waste of her energy.
At work,
she was bored and tired. The job was just so tedious and felt insignificant to
her. Plus, the information made her stressed. She saw five different articles
written by AI about the same facts, that came with completely different
conclusions. She was aware, that they would be shown to different people, based
on their algorithms, but she felt iffy about it. One was hateful. One was super
positive. The others apparently neutral, but didn’t list any source for the
academic analysis it seemed to provide. She had a memory from school, when the
teacher showed them old newspapers. They used the word “allegedly” a lot. She
didn’t remember last time she heard anyone using that word or it being written
anywhere. Certainly none of the AI articles that she checked for missing or
extra commas seemed to use it.
She was
still hung up on the thought of involuntarily changing her hairstyle, so she
asked a woman in the cubicle next to her where she can find their boss. She
wanted to talk with them – she never met them, after all, and maybe try to
negotiate something about the hair. The woman looked at her with a whim of
unsureness in her eyes.
“I’m sorry,
I don’t know. I have never met our boss either. But don’t worry. Everyone here
has good intentions.” She assured her. She wore a suit with a skirt and her
hair was a beach blond bob.
She got in
her self-driving car and it got her to an appointment. The hairstylist showed
her what the company picked out for her and did exactly that. It was a bob.
Slightly different than her co-worker’s, but oddly similar. Hers was right
under her ears, pin straight, with no layering to it whatsoever. She didn’t
look bad, but she cried during the drive home.
In her
previous company everyone looked however they liked, especially in the more
creative departments. Of course, within reason, but her coworkers wore zip-up
hoodies, jeans, yoga pants or leggings, some liked uggs, some showed up in
flip-flops or trainers. It was business casual, but also no one ever got
dresscoded, because the dresscode only stated, that they cannot show up naked,
and if there are any important meetings they should dress up a bit. So, when
there was a meeting, people would pull up to the office in shirts, ironed
dresses or loafers, but nothing crazy or mandated by the company as a uniform.
The workers looked young, rich and creative, but also trendy. Here, as she
noticed, everyone looked the same.
She ate the
pre-packaged meal. She went to bed unsettled. Slept unwell, even though the bed
had the newest anti-insomnia technology built in. In the morning she opened her
closet to find that all of her clothes disappeared and were replaced with
suits, like her colleague wore. A jacket with buttons, a collared shirt, either
suit paints or a pencil skirt, knee-length, heels or loafers, a lot of nude
tights. Where are all of her striped T-shirts, ripped jeans, patterned
sweaters, where is her synthetic leather jacket, where are her jorts and her
martens?
She sat
down on the bed, feeling her chest tightening, she gasped for air as her head
was spinning. She was shaking. She felt like she was on drugs again, except she
wasn’t, and no drugs she ingested has ever given her this bad of a trip. From
the corner of her eye she saw that even her underwear and bras were replaced
with nude or white coloured, plain garments. She thought she was having a heart
attack the way her heart was beating and her chest was tight, but the alarm
sounded and the voice said:
“It’s time
to leave for work. It’s time to leave for work”.
“I think
I’m having a heart attack”, she whispered, gobsmacked.
“We will
check your vitals in the car and divert if needed. Now it’s time to leave for
work”.
She
stumbled on the way to the car. It was Friday, and she had weekends off.
Guessing there is no need for new information over the weekend, or, more
probably, someone else was working weekends. The car took her vitals via the
sleeve for pressure and pulse measurement, and a little clip on her index
finger.
“You have a
panic attack. No abnormalities in the heart rhythm. You are unstable. Take
these pills”, said the voice and a small tray with pills and a plastic cup with
water zoomed out of a car door. She was to tired to argue and decided, that if
she will die, then let it be, at least she won’t have to work in that scary
place anymore. Upon taking the pills she did actually start to feel better and
arrived to work completely calm, however tired.
She clicked
all day, mindlessly, almost without caring about stupid commas and semicolons.
She doubted it is at all important they are placed correctly, since almost
everyone was using a post-reading app anyway, so they didn’t have to strain
their eyes. Yes, people could read, they still learned that at school, but they
mostly saved that skill for work, school or college, and not for doomscrolling.
Her eyes became numb to information she viewed every day. Who cares, if the
coma is in the right place? Will the app read it aloud differently if it isn’t
placed correctly?
She didn’t
have any formal training as an editor and she wasn’t an interpunction
specialist by any means. She never had any problems with it either, it came
pretty naturally for her and no teacher has ever told her that she needed to
work on that skill particularly. She wished, however, that her job would be in
any way connected to her education, and her previous one was. This one though?
Anyone could open an interactive guide on punctuation and become efficient in
this job very quickly. It paid almost as much as her previous job, that
actually required thinking and creativity. And didn’t require a corporate
makeover to look like any other employee here.
In the age
of AI-dominated job market she always hoped that there will be at least a
semi-creative job for her and there was. She was overjoyed about it, and then
she lost it, because she had to be curious and dig in documents that weren’t
authorised for her eyes. And now look at her, 25, in a beige coat and skirt,
clicking in a computer in an otherwise completely soundless office. Really, not
even her co-workers made any sound from their cubicles. Sometimes someone got
up to go to the bathroom, sometimes someone got food delivered and the cutlery
was clunking against a bowl or a plate, occasionally she could hear a semi-loud
sigh of boredom or tiredness. And nothing else.
When the
car drove her home that Friday she cried again.
Her mother
called her and she complained to her about her menial job that steals her will
of life one generated news article at a time. Her mom sounded worried, maybe
still unsure, whether her daughter is stable after her rebellious six months,
or maybe concerned that her perfect girl, an example for every cousin out there
is not the same anymore, which makes her look like a non-ideal mother. She told
her to go out during the weekend. Not to drink, but to enjoy herself. Maybe
visit a zoo or a shopping centre. Go for ice cream or drink a coffee. Visit an
art gallery, something like that.
“Honey, I
promise, you will get used to that job. It’s a good job. It’s boring, sure, I
get that, but adult life just is boring, you know. Enjoy your free time and
little things in life and you will be fine, trust me!”
On Saturday
she got out of bed, not with strength, but with determination. She was tired
and very sad and felt a weird emptiness inside her, but she decided to give her
mother’s advice a try. Her parents gave her some money for the meantime and
until she will get her first pay check. She walked around the city, pain in her
legs, as she went further and further. Surprisingly a lot of people were out
and about. Cliques of teen girls, boys on bikes and scooters, families with
small children in baby carriages. People also had dogs and cats, some threw
their pets balls, other pulled on their tug toys, some just walked around with
leashes.
She stood
for a moment in front of a drug store. A girl in the ad plastered on the window
had intensely purple hair, almost a plum colour. She went out, picked out a
purple box dye and bought it. It was impulsive, but she didn’t care. What will
they do? Make her shave her hair? She already has a bob and has to wear stupid
suits in neutral colours. She missed having purple hair. She stashed the box
dye in her purse and went further, until she stopped again, at the sight of
another window. It was a pet shop and if you looked in you could see small
puppies playing inside. Maybe that was what she needed all along? A dog?
She entered
and upon talking with the shopping assistant they both agreed she would
probably be better off with a cat rather than a dog. She worked nine-hour days,
only had weekends off, even the calmest puppy needed more activity and time.
She lived alone. Puppies at the store were not potty-trained. Thankfully, the
shop had cats and she picked out the ugliest one she could find. It only had
one ear, almost white eyes, was fat and some of it’s fur was missing. The tail
was long, and the remaining clumps of hair were pale, reddish-blond. She paid,
picked the carrier with the cat up and went back home, stopping only at a vet
clinic near her company-issued home. The vet said the cat had scabies and
needed to be dewormed, also, he was likely blind, because of the genetic
mutation that caused his un-catlike eye colour.
When she
entered her new home and opened a carrier her phone vibrated somewhere in her
purse. It was tattoo-girl. Saved in her phone as Myrna, though until this point
she did not remember her name.
“hi” – the
text said – “flying to the city tomorrow for some supplies, then back to the
desert the same day. wanna meet up?”
She didn’t
answer. The cat didn’t leave the carrier yet, but she decided to give him time.
Went
straight to the bathroom to dye her hair purple again, just like Myrna
remembered them, and like she wanted them. She squeezed some dye on her bare
hand and started applying it to her short hair. The alarm went off immediately.
“Not
allowed; hair colour change! Not allowed; hair colour change! Not allowed; hair
colour change!”
“Shut up!”,
She screamed. It felt weird to scream at a machine, but she didn’t care.
However, this wasn’t Siri, you could not tell it to shut up.
Lights
started flickering and the message was being told again and again like a broken
record or a bugged computer notification. She could barely see what she was
doing, there were tears in her eyes and her lips were pressed together in a
tight line. The lights went off completely, the alarm started blaring louder.
Allegedly there have been a time, when the only alarms people knew were when
something was on fire, or there was a toxic gas, or a bomb was about to drop
nearby, or they were being woken up to go to work or school. This was an alarm,
because she upset the AI model, that could no longer discipline her, and
therefore do the job the company programmed it to do.
“NO ANIMALS
ALLOWED! NO ANIMALS ALLOWED!”, the voice screamed, although it wasn’t really a
scream, more so a louder voice, because there was still no emotion, other than
maybe urgency, like with every alarm. Weird sound thudded from her living room.
Shivers went down her spine and she felt like choking on something inexistent.
AI was not moral. AI was not humane. AI was known to be violent and merciless,
depending on the programming. Ordinarily, she would have just turned the
assistant of if it became difficult, but she could not do that. She didn’t have
access. She couldn’t tell the stupid voice what to do. Suddenly petrified she
no longer felt safe. She hadn’t felt safe for a while now, but in that moment,
she identified this feeling and it had become crystal clear to her. She gasped
for air, her eyes suddenly teary.
She ran out
of the bathroom and found the cat, who left the carrier, hence why the voice
noticed it was there. His eyes glistened in the dark, so she spotted him
easily. The thudding wasn’t imagined or cat-made. The voice deployed something
– who knows, what it was – and it was now chasing the poor, near-blind feline.
It looked like a tiny walking robot, though it was hard to identify in the
dark. Cats see better in the dark, right? Maybe her cat’s almost white eyes
were of some use in pitch darkness. There was a little lamp atop a robot,
shining red. The robot was deceitfully small, some would even say, cute, kind
of crab-like. But the stupid thing shot at the cat. “No!”, she shouted “stop
that!”. The cat hissed, but it didn’t seem like it got hit, even though the
distance was uncomfortably close. “NEUTRALIZE PET! NOT ALLOWED! NEUTRALIZE
PET!” the voice sounded so loud she was sure it caused hearing damage and she hissed
herself, following her ugly-ass, sick cat, who she managed to start loving very
dearly in spite of their awfully short relationship. The robot was continuing
in the direction of her precious pet, the one thing, other than her freshly
dyed her, that remained the part of her life specific to her, and not
company-generated. Thankfully the stupid machine, although fast, was a very
slow shot, and rather lousy at that. The cat didn’t really run, he just jumped
from place to place until the robot got to him. Then he would get up, violently
beat it with his paw, hiss again and jump to a next spot. She stood there,
watching it, unsure of who to catch in order to stop that. It was pretty clear
to her, that the robot wasn’t at all harmless. It was a bit useless as of now,
but these models learn quickly nowadays. And on the spot. Where in the house
was it? Why was the voice authorised to deploy it? Her head was spinning with
thoughts, until the cat screamed loudly and jumped up the air. Oh, for fuck
sake. The stupid crab looking thing got him.
She started
to run to the pet, not with a plan, but with an intention to protect him. The
house started shaking, the floor got out from beneath her feet, the cat
screeched again and she roared in anger. The lights started blinking, the floor
was literally getting away from her feet, she was falling, getting up,
stumbling over furniture, something fell down and definitely broke, the voice,
steering the smart-company-provided-house took matter into his hands with full
force. She cried as she hit her hip, she didn’t even know what on, she didn’t
know the layout of the house fully well yet. The voice was clearly dedicated to
whoever it’s boss was. Was it also her boss? Did they have the same boss? Stars
had spawned under her eyelids due to pain and she realised she doesn’t even know
the company’s name. She got on her feet again, one hand clinging to a furniture
she was earlier tripped over. The cat’s eyes occasionally shone in the dark,
but when the light flickered they were invisible again. Cat-cat’s
eyes-cat-cat’s eyes-cat. She gritted her teeth and sprung in the direction she
saw her cat last. As fast as she could. No stopping. She tripped over
something, yelled in pain and kept running, her tear ducts activated,
apparently she hit a nerve. Under the spell of another impulse, because as it
seemed, she became very impulsive recently, she grabbed the cat under his
belly, put him back in a carrier, shut the door, picked him up and run out,
purse still hanging over her shoulder somehow. For a moment, she stood outside
the lot on which her company-issued house was. She breathed heavy, shook from
exhaustion, and realised that she had at least a few bruises, but it was
getting dark, so she couldn’t be sure about the extent of the injuries. The
house moved behind her and she heard the voice’s muffled commands, so she
decided it was better to move. So she run.
She run and
run and run, until she fell down, wheezing, but feeling weirdly light. She was
at a train station. It was an okay place to spend the night. It was light. She
could stay there without attracting suspicion. People often waited for a train
a long time. Or had been homeless. Or had to wait for someone to pick them up.
People travelled with pets. Her cat in a carrier shouldn’t be an issue. She
just sat against the wall, with the cat carrier on her lap. Man next to her was
charging his phone, some person nearby ate a sandwich and crinkled with
cellophane. It was fairly cold and peaceful. Sure, people in a hurry passed
them by often, but they were somehow
outside, didn’t look at a group of tired humans waiting for who knows what or
who and who knows if anything at all. They just sat there, calmly and quietly,
taking care of their own business. She took the cat out of the carrier,
carefully holding him, so that he wouldn’t escape. He meowed in pain. Next to
his already bad scabies and pulled out fur he had burn marks. She made a fist
and hit it against the train station floor. It was ridiculous and unfair.
Animal cruelty? This poor cat didn’t do anything to upset anyone. She did. Why
wouldn’t the stupid tiny robot punish her? Why did he have to scorch her cat?
“I’m sorry, baby, I’m sorry”, she mumbled while hugging the cat close to her
chest and stuffing a small clump of his fur inside her mouth. She somehow felt
like her cries would disturb the peace of all the other aimless wanderers. The
cat started purring, weirdly, cause she didn’t think he liked her. “OMG, my
sweetie”, she said, “I’m going to name you Blessing, okay? You are my blessing
and my only friend, and I am sorry. We will never go back there, alright? I
will never let anyone hurt you again, I promise, my little baby, okay? I love
you.” The cat continued to purr and he felt warm on her chest. The man charging
the phone looked at her with an unreadable emotion on his face, but quickly
turned away. Apparently, everyone kept to themselves here. She looked down and
saw at least five big bruises forming on her legs, and seven little ones on her
arms, visible against Blessing. She felt pain in her ribcage, on her right
side, and definitely in her left hip. That hip felt like it was broken, not
that she has ever broken anything before, but that was how she imagined it. She
also deduced it would be indecent if she just started pulling her skirt down to
see the state of her hip. Was it swollen? Red? Blue? Maybe weirdly depressed in
one place, indicating the fracture?
The train
station, or at least the weird spots where people gathered to pretend like they
actually wait for something, and not live there, had a liminal feeling to them.
She almost felt like she was pushed on the outskirts of the world, or perhaps,
the outskirts of reality. People in front of them hurried in all possible
directions, tugging at their luggage, tucking their unruly hair behind their
ears, tripping over shoelaces, spilling coffee they carried with them. They had
children, varying in state from sleepy, through cranky, up to screaming and
unhappy with where they are. They had pets, dogs on the leashes, cats in the
carriers, some woman had a cage with a parrot. The people travelling always
seemed hot and/or disorganised, wrapping their sweaters around their waists,
putting their coats on or taking them off, zipping up their kids’ hoodies.
Something fell out of the poorly zipped bag, something was dragging on the
floor. The information was displayed everywhere, on bright holograms, and the
voice stated which train is on which platform and when it is supposed to live.
But the area of tramps, vagabonds, homeless people waiting on nothing in
particular? It was quiet. It was like they were far from that, like the noise
didn’t reach them fully. They sat, half-lied or lied on the cold, metal-looking
floor. They moved slowly like they were in quick sands that didn’t make them
upset or tired. It seemed like they had all the time in the world and also,
like their hope for change was weak. They did seem content, though. They smiled
lightly, listening to trains moving from the platforms, the voice saying
directions seemed to soothe them. They had what little they owned with them,
within the reach of their hands, and they didn’t seem like they needed more.
The person eating the sandwich finished it. Got up, went a few steps to the
nearest trash can, came back, perfectly in between the two huge groups running
in opposite directions. Then they pulled a pillow from their super stretched
backpack, put it under their head and closed their eyes, sighing. The sigh
didn’t seem sad, it seemed almost happy. She put Blessing in the carrier but
didn’t lock the door just yet. The man charged his phone and now put earbuds
in. It was very light, she didn’t think the light went out at a train station
ever. She somehow didn’t mind it. Her hip still hurt badly, but she felt almost
at peace. Sad, but anonymous. The anonymity and the fact, that no one seemed to
care who she was and what was she doing slowed her heartrate a bit and for a
moment, she wasn’t scared.
She texted
Myrna back: “yes, please lets meet! might wanna go back to the desert with u if
that’s ok”.
They set up
a meeting in a café near the station, that she knew didn’t mind animals inside.
At 9 am, they would have coffee, maybe a breakfast bagel. She could run errands
with Myrna or just wait for her, she wouldn’t want to be too clingy. She pet
the cat, and then locked his carrier, scared that if he was to run away he
would get run over by a train. Or just abandon her. She texted Myrna with a
specific intent: she knew she had to run. On top of that, her heart still
fluttered in her chest when thinking about Myrna, which seemed like an added
value of leaving. The company definitely knew where she was. Everyone knew.
This people beside her, they might seem anonymous. But they weren’t. Someone
knew exactly where they were at all times. It wasn’t just the phones, it was
the chips, they all had put in right after being born. It was safety, right? If
you got raped or mugged you could send a precise signal to the police, and they
knew where you were or if you started moving. You couldn’t go missing or
disappear. If you tried, you would be found. You could ask your loved ones to
let you be, but they could request access and see where exactly you chose to be
without them. She heard some stories – urban legends, likely - about people getting their chips removed in
the dark alleys, by butchers, who would leave them huge scars for the rest of
their sad existence. She never met anyone like that. Always presumed it was a
lie, a scary story that kids told. Every generation had their stories. She
didn’t think she ever saw a person with a big scar. And where was he chip
located, even? She was unsure. The government, the company that employed you,
the school you attended already had all of the chips data, you just scanned
your fingertips and retinas. She thought about all that, her hip still tickling
her with pain, as the more and less distant train sounds accompanied her.
People nearby were already sleeping tight, like the light wasn’t an issue at
all. Baffled, she found herself pretty sleepy too.
Her eyes
were slowly closing, eyelids getting heavy. She felt pain in her muscles, too
much walking and running, but also, it was good pain. As unpleasant as it was,
she enjoyed it. She didn’t even mind hip pain or all the bruises. She fell
asleep.
She was
woken up by panic and screaming. People around her scrambled their belongings
in a hurry and were actively trying to get away. There was a drone, hovering
above her head. Oh, shit. She was fucked, wasn’t she?
“Breach of
contract. Disobedience.”
“Okay…” she
murmured, still a bit sleepy.
“You read
the contract. Reminder of the contract” said the drone and the contract she
did, in fact, sign, was displayed in front of her in a form of a hologram.
The
contract wasn’t that important to her, other than salary and a place to live,
she didn’t read other parts of it, although they were made clear to her by the
voice in her company-issued home, who made sure she followed all of the rules,
even if she wasn’t aware of them. Only the last part caught her eye, and she
was surprised it didn’t catch it earlier. She was desperate and depressed, she
guessed. The part that caught her eye said: “Because of the high security and
confidentiality of the job an employee must follow all of the terms and
conditions listed above. Otherwise, the Gov. Co has a right to deem an employee
a security threat and proceed as needed, not excluding elimination of said
employee”. Not letting go. Elimination. She didn’t think it was a sports
reference.
The
company’s name was Gov. Co? So, if she remembered correctly, that meant it was
a government company? Also, what did they mean, security threat? How dangerous
could she possibly be? She was putting in commas and semicolons for nine hours
a day! Her eyes were dry and red, her will to live completely gone by the time
the first day of her employment had even fully finished. It seemed like all she
did was being upset over losing her clothing and preferred hairstyle. Oh my
God, so she dyed her hair purple! So what? And her cat? If it wasn’t allowed to
have a pet at the company-issued home, she would have gladly moved. To her
parents’ apartment, even, until she could rent a place that allowed pets. But
even then, it was all a huge overreaction. Why won’t the boss just talk to her?
She brought home a nearly blind, sick cat, and not a pack of wild hyenas. Why
isn’t compromise, talking, you know, human communication possible? She doesn’t
know, who her boss is. The voice is controlling her off-time, she probably
should be relieved it even let her out of the house that Saturday. What was
that company providing that was so high security, exactly?
And then it
hit her. Information. They were generating news articles. Articles about the
same events, in a lot of versions (felt like millions when she had to read them
all), concluded differently, with often radically different opinions drawn at
the end. Why didn’t it hit her sooner?
Another
thought has entered her brain. Why would government owned (and likely
government-run) company generate AI articles with information? Why would they
set up different conclusions to them, to cater to different algorithms? With
how her work looked she was near sure that it was some random media giant
(there have been so many nowadays, and all of them giants, apparently), trying
to find their target audience. Whoever would click the most, this versions of
articles would be staying, the rest would stop being generated all together,
and eventually her workload would be smaller. Right? That seemed logical. Then
why is it government-led?
Something
in the drone hummed and a little red dot appeared, pointing at her. It had
slowly risen from her abdomen, through her chest, up to the middle of her
forehead.
“If you
sign a declaration admitting you broke the contract and you are sorry we will
take you to The Boss” said the voice “if not…”
“I won’t”
she said, realizing, that she, in fact, won’t to that. She will not sign her
life away. And to what? To what seemed like a propaganda machine with an aim to
radicalise and divide the citizens of this country? Something clicked in the
drone, like it had adjusted. She swallowed hard, gritting her teeth and
knitting her brows. Her hip still hurt, everything down from it seemed very
cold. She crossed her arms on her chest. She would rather…
That
thought was never finished, the bullet blasted precisely through her head and
she died; right there at the train station. People sprinted next to her to get
to a train that arrived a bit early and they didn’t want to miss. The drone
flew away. The cat meowed, likely hungry or upset, because he was still in a carrier.
Later that
day a young woman, a redhead with a wolf cut and a bunch of tattoos all over,
gasped when she saw her just lying there. A single tear formed in her left eye,
and she was blind in her right eye, not that it was wildly known. She picked up
the carrier and left. She only cried flying back to the desert.
