Tag: Dystopian

Eldon Graves drummed his fingers on the conference room table. Junior ad execs were lined up outside, vying for slots to pitch their new product ideas. Eldon dreaded this time of year, young shining faces stuffing the metaphorical hopper with naive and unoriginal pitches.

The promotional sweeps were coming, and he had to be in front of it. Normally they’d let the algos whip up something, but management insisted on getting ideas internally to seed the process. New Darwin, Inc. was one of the top firms specializing in product design and advertising.

New Darwin didn’t handle mid-tier or bottom of the barrel. That was a job for the hacks training up simplistic algos to mimic popular fads, spewing out a digital firehose of brightly colored over-saturated garbage. Eldon had a friend working the lower tiers of the business, and it wasn’t pretty.

Machines will come for us all, I suppose. Just one thing they haven’t cracked yet, the illogical leaps and intuitive gathering that the human mind could do. Yet. Eldon put his elbows on the table, resting his chin on folded hands. The junior exec trailed off, wondering if her presentation had him offended somehow.

“Excuse me, is there something you don’t like?”, she was eager to make an impression, hair back in that no-nonsense style, subdued shoes and leggings.

“This is for soup, correct?”, Eldon spoke softly, gaining momentum.

“Yes, its a premium offering that–“

“Your costs for this product are too high. Outsource the meat and veg to Baako Brothers. For packaging loop in the Satori people.”

“Baako grows their vegetables on garbage dumps, and the Satori-“

“This is a business. To stay in business we need to hit our margins. Your costs are too high, make the changes.”, Eldon closed his notebook, a signal the pitch was over. The exec gathered her materials, eyes beginning to tear. It was a tough lesson, better she learned it now than trying to pitch the higher-ups with that kind of crap.

This wasn’t the old-aughts. Regulations governing safety standards had been scrapped or deemed useless, a product of relentless birth rates propelling the global population past 10 billion. Infrastructure and governments were at their limits.

Consumer lawsuits were extinct, ground to dust under legislation that opened up opportunities for corporations bold enough to seize them. So what if some chemicals seeped into the process. If customers didn’t like it, they were free to spend half of their income on luxury items.

Gone were the warning labels and cautions. Ten pages for how to plug in an appliance was shortened to “find outlet”. Besides, making premium items was expensive. Easier to use a lower grade of vegetable protein, grown on massive trash dumps than paying a private greenhouse for the top-shelf. Satori Design was known for using heavy metals in their inks and questionable chemicals in their liners, but their packaging costs were the best in the business.

Eldon walked out of the meeting room, dismissing the rest of the hopefuls with a wave of his hand. There wasn’t a single good idea among them. Why even waste my time, he thought. Management was only doing this to maintain the illusion they didn’t rely exclusively on algo-derived advice.

They were dinosaurs anyway, the entire board and the CEO. Eldon paused near a reflective panel, straightening his tie. If it were up to him they’d all be on the next hyperloop to the African Collective. Eldon brushed lint from his lapel, removing a security card from his breast pocket.

Eldon had been working on something that stepped beyond the status quo. It was time for an aggressive push and higher payoffs. Swiping the card on a recessed reader, Eldon stepped through the large frosted door into his private research lab. Among gleaming racks of samples, technicians consulted algos for the proper mix of profit and lethality.

Too fast, and your customer would expire, crushing all future profitunities. Too slow, and the unit costs would outweigh the income. This was the real frontier. Right here, in this room. Optimizing product details for absolute minimum requirements. In some cases, accelerating mortality if it meant spin-off profits, usually in the form of extended health services and elderly care.

They had a whole line-up of products ready to go. All it would take would be a change of the old guard at the top, and Eldon would be set for life. He walked to the storage room, browsing shelves of prototypes. He selected a few foil pouches, printed with ugly machine codes.

The packaging hadn’t been finalized yet, but he imagined the words set in rustic type on a simulated cloth background. “PrestaPerk, the finest brew – into you! Enjoy our premium offering of roasted coffee beans seasoned with our signature flavors. Drink deep, refresh your body and soul!”

The beans had been grown on former exclusion sites, engineered to absorb certain compounds to assist in reclamation efforts. It was somewhat ironic that old factories had contaminated the soil, and now Eldon was profiting from their past misdeeds.

Eldon pocketed the pouches, walking out to the central elevators. The board meeting was in fifteen minutes, and he had just enough time to substitute his prototype for the usual refreshments. Based on the potency of this batch, he estimated it would take a few months before the heart attacks and organ failures would begin.

Patience, Eldon. Patience.

Entering the elevator, Eldon stared at the display. Soon, he’d be in the top office calling the shots.

Profits demanded no less.

I was sitting near the driver, looking around when I caught the reflection of the knife. He was sitting towards the back, twirling the blade, trying to decide who’s credit was negative enough for him to collect his kill. I was fine, paid up and racked at AAA – “Responsible and open to new offers of credit” my agency said, which is why I kept looking.

He found her a few minutes later. Younger girl, trying to use her baseball cap as a facial dodge, but that never worked. She must’ve been watching too much drama-series, lol. Only an idiot would think superficial disguise would conceal the truth. Curious, I punched up her rating – Oh man. Solid red, FFF. Ratings agencies classified this as “FFF – Freeloader or scam artist, dispose with verifiable evidence – Bounty not always applicable.”

Damn, this is going to be good.

He edged forward, hands alternating between the vertical support poles and the knife he was holding. He must be good, because usually close-contact weapons were stunners and not thin-milled blades of quality steel. Angling in, he waited right behind her, near the back exit door.

“Ding”

She grabbed the line, signaling the driver. Heh, she thinks she’s home free. Adjusting her cap, she shouldered her gaudy purse and made her way to the back exit. Standing there, oblivious. Right when the bus lurched to a stop, he made his move. Straight in, one arm around her neck and the other guiding the blade.

A single “Urkk” escaped her lips, and he carried her out like a parcel he was about to ship to his grandmother.

Goddamn, what a professional.

I can’t wait until I’m old enough to hunt.

“They should be killing each other right now on the west coast.”, the Agent smiled, eager to get things going.

It was midnight PST, when the first wave of uncontrolled violence would be unleashed. Perfect timing for this operation. Down in the underground bunker, computer operators lounged and joked with each other, taking side bets on the action.

“Hey Bob, you going in on the L.A. pool?”

Bob grinned, but waved him away.

“No thanks, got a few things I have to get done tonight. You boys enjoy the show – and hopefully win some money.”

The tech smiled and turned back to his screen, watching a group of men chase a young woman down the middle of the street. The scene was replicated all over the walls, with shots of beheadings and blunt force trauma, high-definition violence practically bursting through the thin-film displays covering every vertical surface.

With the west coast on [ACTIVE] status, Larsen had clearance to proceed. Turning to his desk, he retrieved the folder and flipped through the hardcopy – nothing was stored digitally for this project, for specific security reasons. Reviewing the pages, he flicked down the operational checklist and read the list of names. Stupid bastards. You’d think the purge would be enough for them.

There were always some elements that had to eat their cake and have it too, he mused. Glancing at his watch, he synced it up with the atomic clock on the wall. The four monitors on his desk were nearly seamless on the sides, allowing a full point-of-view projection of the current operation in progress.

Time to kick this live. Taking the key out of the pouch, he inserted it into its special slot and turned it. The screens lit with the agency logo, virtual lights creating strong reflections on the eagle’s crest.

“We are go for operation BLUE STRIKE, I repeat, we are a GO.”, Bob’s words traveled through a few heavily encrypted nodes before emerging in to the waiting ears of the special ops team stationed outside the first target. It was a typical bang-and-nail job, some idiot hacker in San Jose had been treading awfully close to certain secrets that were best left alone.

“Roger, sitrep after job is complete – ETA Five minutes.”, click-chirp cutting off the team lead.

This was the fun part, watching some hapless fool with delusions of bringing the system down beg for his life. Right up to the point where the rifle was pointed at his head and he was put out of his misery. This one had been closer than most, so they’d have to take the hardware back for analysis too. It was a pain in the ass, but somebody had to do it.

Nobody would notice the four man team on the apartment roof, the subsequent rappel down to the 8th floor balcony, the kicking in of the sliding glass door, or the sharp report of an assault rifle ending a potential security problem. Hell, most of those poor bastards were huddling in their homes, trying to stay out of the chaos outside.

“Sir, its done – we’ve got the payload.”

“Great work, I’ll be sure to put in a good word at your next combat review.”, Bob smiled again, he was ahead of schedule. A few more like that, and he’d bring in a hefty bonus this year.

Switching channels, he keyed the mic again, “Guys, team one is done – double bennies if you pull yours off in under ten minutes.”

Turning slightly, looking at the list, Bob carefully crossed off the first name.

It was going to be a great night.

Trevor shuddered in the misting rain. His thin-film poncho was worn in spots, cold droplets soaking into his dark shirt. A battered “FreeStick” leaned at an angle from the concrete, covered in dents and looping graffiti. He was hungry and cold. The vendor would dispense one ration per day, and not one gram more.

It was nearly midnight, when the ration cycle would reset. The grey lumpy goo wasn’t luxury, but it would keep him alive. He didn’t want to think about what it was made of. Trevor patted a small bottle in his pocket. The alcohol would strip the barely edible gruel from his tongue, so he didn’t have to endure the bitter aftertaste.

It was part of the “Minimal Assistance Program”, not designed for long-term consumption. The texture and taste carefully engineered by psychologists and “experience engineers” to deliver sustenance at the very edge of human tolerance. The local government abided by the letter of the law, not so much the intent.

MAP meant getting upgrades to your modules only once a year. MAP meant sleeping in pods barely larger then your body, then rudely ejected into the morning chill of sunrise. The MAP card was filled with just enough to provide travel to a local agency, where there were no jobs waiting, and back to the pod racks at night.

Trevor spent long hours near the UniCar depot. He’d smile and assist well-dressed passengers for the hope of some credits. Most ignored him, but every once in a while he’d net enough to get by one for a month or two. The men were stern and cold, eyes focused on overlays and virtual assistants. The women smelled nice and would pat his arm after he opened a door, sometimes with a kind word or a few credits.

Trevor practiced his best language skills then, to thank them for their generosity. He didn’t have the best module, his upgrade was hundreds of days ago. But it worked well enough for simple sentences. Since the world was linked together with fast travel and cities that stretched for kilometers, a multitude of languages were flowing throughout its veins.

A triple tone announced the new cycle had begun. Trevor held a small bag under the nozzle, grainy light scanning his face. Approved, a steady stream of goo flowed into the bag until it was halfway full. The nozzle sputtered as the last of the expanding gas pushed the final bits of gruel into his makeshift container.

Trevor twisted the bag shut, placing it carefully in his pocket. The city never stopped moving, even late at night. He quickly strode down the byways and alleys to the UniCar building. If he was lucky he could catch the early rush. The chill mist slackened, droplets giving way to fog.

The dull-orange glow of the UniCar sign cast a halo into the foggy night. Trevor adjusted his poncho, toes at the line of the exit ramp. He had learned earlier that trespassing was not taken lightly. He still had twin scars on his back from the tethered stunner that hit him.

The exit lights pulsed from white to emerald green, door unfolding in complicated geometries. A female passenger disembarked, holding shiny bags. Trevor held open the passenger door, smiling. She was tall and gorgeous, hue-changing dots suspended at the tips of her eyelashes. She looked down at Trevor and smiled.

“Hrughaskk Kjjiisop?”

Trevor didn’t understand. He mimed an accepting shrug, still smiling. The cheerful tone of credits being accepted to his card played in his ears. The passenger walked off to a waiting personal pod. She must have been rich, hardly anyone had personal vehicles anymore.

The exit lights changed back to dim white, exit portal closing shut. Trevor shook his head. His translator should’ve been able to convert any language into something he could understand. He would have to fix this, or else he would be lost in a city full of alien tongues.

He carefully backed away from the property line and walked around the corner. Tapping the side of his head, he invoked the main selection menu for his Cabral Linguistic Module.

“Welcome to Cabral! Please subvocalize your selection. Ah – Configuration, Oh – Diagnostics, Em – Upgrades.”

He spoke the keyword for Diagnostics under his breath.

“Processing… Diagnostic routine initiated. Completed, your module is functioning normally.”

Trevor frowned. Working normally? That couldn’t be right. Recalling the woman’s words, tumbling from painted lips over perfect white teeth. There wasn’t a single word he had understood. He slumped down, sitting against the wall. He vocalized the “Upgrades” keyword.

“Processing… Connecting to local net. Sending refresh request… Upgrade available, 100 credits. Amount exceeds available balance.”

One hundred credits.

Trevor looked up at the sky, fine mist swirling in colored lights. He sighed, taking out the bag of gruel. Grey and colorless. He ate, as wet droplets fell out of the sky.

Trevor wondered what her word for “delicious” was.

It probably sounded like angels singing.