The Fourth — Chapter 2

Hi! You’re reading an incredibly early draft of The Fourth, a story I am writing about the near future.

Case Atriedes
Aug 9, 2017 · 28 min read

Blurb:

Tif lives a comfortable life in Frontier City, building A.I. for off-world habitats. Soon she’ll have to decide between leaving the modern world, with it’s automated cars and smart home A.I., or stepping across the nothing of space and joining the New Red World on Mars.

Bron is sixteen. His Trip is life. World famous Enstar (or so he claims). He doesn’t care for the Red, but his Dad just booked them passage and he’s pissed that he has to leave his Trippies behind. But he could probably make himself even more famous by sharing the experience on Enstar, and that’s well import, man.

Space travel, Artificial Intelligence, Automation, Virtual Reality, Renewable Energy. These are the catalysts of the fourth industrial revolution, and this is the world of tomorrow: told through the eyes of people floating at the far forward edge of the future.

(If you’re interested — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industry_4.0)

Chapter two

Tif remembered the first time she flew on a subsonic jet: her Dad had taken her to London for her seventh birthday. Going against the direction of the rotation of the Earth confused her brain. Causing a sensation her Dad called Jet Lag. At her age she was used to bring up early in the morning so it didn’t affect her much, or maybe she didn’t remember it affecting her, but she did remember her Dad having problems adjusting for the week they were on holiday. She wold run into his room in the hotel, bounce on the bed and open the curtains, dragging him out of his slumber. He introduced her to coffee that week.

Jet Lag was far worse at supersonic speed. Frontier City, in the desert steppe of Baikonur, to Boston, was only a two hour trip. She boarded late in the evening, 01:17 UTC, went up to one hundred thousand feet, and she arrived just as the sun was rising on the day before at 12:34 UTC. It was literally turning the clock backwards thirteen hours. The human brain is conditioned to very strict exposure to sunlight — it uses it to regulate the body and the sleep cycle. Years ago even the old-fashioned idea of daylight savings would mess up people’s rhythms. Some considered the Jet Lag from supersonic travel to be worse than going from the Earth up to orbital stations where your body relies entirely on artificial light. Even marathon sessions in The Vuw, which easily tricked your body’s internal clock, were nothing compared to this type of brain-fuckery. So obviously Tif’s first stop in Boston’s airport was to the nearest coffee dispenser. The bitter sludge gave her the kick she needed to focus, but it tasted awful, not that she cared right now. She swallowed a few pills that would hopefully turn the melatonin and Vitamin D melange going on in her body into something more bearable.

She had to mention to the A.I. in immigration that she was previously an American citizen. Combine that with her employment status at Roscosmos and her entry was guaranteed. She even got to stroll straight past the domestic immigration line too. That line was backed up with people with grim faces; the type created by years of polluted atmosphere and shitty living conditions. It wasn’t like the faces she remembered seeing on holiday in London. Tif felt a brief twitch of guilt when she made eye contact with an older woman: she hoped she would never end looking like that.

Jumping into a taxi outside; she was alarmed at the other passenger sitting behind the steering wheel. “Where to darlin’?” The unshaven driver asked. “Uh, hang on.” fumbling her PMD, it spoke in Ansible’s voice as she removed it from her luggage — “Main Street. Between Everett and Malden. But take the 93, the traffic is light.”

“Sure.”

“Thanks Ansi” Tif said

“Huh?” The old driver pointed his head at the rear view mirror but kept his eyes focussed on the road. The car jolted, breaking to avoid colliding with another taxi that shot past. “-shit, sorry love”. His next attempt to leave the parking spot was successful and they joined the 90 heading West. Tif felt the flaking leather of the chairs, the slightly musty smell of the air around her. The hint of gasoline cars. It made her feel queesy, like her five minutes of exposure to a gasoline car would mean cancer in later life. She decided to break with her traditional reserved self and try and have a conversation. It would taker her mind off the smell and the jet lag, the latter of which still lingered in the back of her eyes.

“So, how old is this car? Is it an antique? It didn’t talk to Ansi in my PMD.” She tried to sound genuinely curious and hoped people in Boston were as talkative as the last time she was here. Broadcasting and The Vuw had sucked away people’s social skills, but the lack of Broadcasters here (she’d had a browse when she landed — barely 100 people offering to hang out) hinted to her that people could still hold a conversation in public without the user of technological icebreakers.

“Old? Nah, it’s five years old. Just not one of them fancy automated electric cars. Guess you’re from Europa? or FC?”

“Frontier City. I moved there five years ago.”

“Fancy stuff that space tech. You ever been up the Well? I ain’t. Taxi driving has been in my family for three generations now. My Dad did it but he was in New York during the Collapse.” The driver was using one hand and barely holding onto the steering wheel. Tif fixated on his other hand, wishing it to use the wheel so he would drive safer. A twitch of anxiety in her, the worry of a sudden accident. Humans were so lazy even when they were depended on for safety.

“Sorry to hear about your Father. I’ve been up before. A few times. Only to Tsiolkovsky Station though. For work mostly.”

A yellow morning sky silhouetted the buildings on the skyline. Any free space between them was filled with indiscriminate rusting metal or small buildings. A haze of pollution lingered above it all. Tif guessed the buildings were mostly housing. If she had to describe them she wouldn’t have called them shanty huts but they didn’t exactly scream “American fine living” either. The Collapse had been the last ceremonial nail in the coffin for the American Federation: coastal States casting off the shackles of an oppressive, ignorant government that repeatedly demonstrated an inability to represent 500 million people. The Great American Dream on that scale naturally only worked for the those that already held wealth and valuable industry. Most of the East Coast, with New York in ruin from the war, collapsed. Hence the name — The Collapse. Governments sprang up but most industry went the other way. Boston’s economy dried up over night and dragged most of New England with it. Anyone who couldn’t move to Europa or the Western Republic were left in some sort of slow swirl around the plughole of economic doom. On the bright side: the lack of economy meant lack of automated machinery so there were still some manual labour work to go around. New England managed to maintain a loose government — many schools and public services still operated, but there wasn’t any real hope or any highly educated opportunities here. Crime was dangerously high: for that reason Tif wore an Angel. Her friend Michael, who she was here to see, was stuck between a rock and a hard place: he’d taught himself (and Tif) computer programming when they were both young. His disability, combined with his lack of “official” degree meant he was stuck here: a brilliant mind with his future visible but completely out of reach. Tif had been in a similar situation but she got lucky.

On the outside Michael’s place looked a bit cleaner than the rest of the city, however, glancing to either side of the street she could see four times as much trash as she’d typically see back home. She instantly recognised the man sitting in his wheelchair out front. He looked much worse than the last time she saw him: at least sixty pounds larger, and very tired.

“Tiffany Mitchell. The one and only” Michael grinned, folding his arms.

“Good to see you Michael. How’s that chair doing?” She had bought it him last year as a birthday present.

“I don’t know what to do with my hands anymore!” He laughed. The chair turned and rolled back into the lobby of the building all by itself. Tif grabbed her small luggage and followed.


“So. Mars.” Michael had brewed Tif’s favourite — a Kenyan coffee blend. It was the exact opposite of the coffee she had drank at the airport, and brought back memories of that first taste in London.

“It took you long enough to make that decision.” His laugh of his filled the room.

“Well Fran and I broke up. I figured there isn’t much for me here right now. Why not go to another planet?” Something about Michael’s reaction let Tif know he didn’t believe that was the real reason.

“It’s dangerous making rash decisions like that Tif. Make sure you are sure. Did Ros’ offer you any bonus?”

She lied — “Yeah, double pay for the next six years.”

“What the heck. Double? You’ll be able to buy your own Luna holiday home with that.” He slammed his cup on the table in exaggerated excitement. “If I were Fran I’d have kept you around just for the money!”

“Yeah well, I’m not doing it for the money. Sometimes Utopia gets boring.”

“Spare me your tears you privileged idiot.” he laughed again; it was quite infectious and Tif couldn’t help but smile. “-I would love a dose of Utopia. The whole East Coast is fucked. Europa, FC, Japan, The WR; they’re the only place you can pull yourself out of poverty. I don’t think anyone has ever seen such a huge divide of wealth before, ya know? It’s all getting sucked off the planet. You’re lucky you’re getting sucked up with it too. Even with my skills I can’t do shit with these legs. Everyone seems to forget that I’m just as capable in space as the next person — no one walks up there!” He looked over to the kitchen counter and his wheelchair started to move towards the direction of his gaze.

“-And you know what?” He briefly looked at his PMD then started filling up his coffee mug “-I’m okay with it. I can get some work. It’s not exactly glorious but it’s work. My life is pretty comfortable when I think about it. You go follow the progress of humanity. I’ll keep an eye on the planet whilst you’re gone.” She forgot he was an annoying fatalist.

“What work are you doing? Still fixing software?” She drank up the dreggs of her cup.

“More like — consultancy penetration testing.” He motioned air quotes as he said the words.

“What? Like, breaking into Vuw vaults?” She said sarcastically.

“And sometimes more. Moving things around. That sort of work.”

“What? Michael are you stealing?”

“Well, not exac…” — She interrupted: “Michael! For gosh sakes. Who are these people you’re working with? Why did you agree to do this? The last thing you need is to get caught doing that sort of stuff. Imagine if you got banned from The Vuw. How would you work then? Huh? Manual labour job in your wheelchair?”

“Calm down.” He forced a smile. “They look after me. This is their block, I help them take things they need, and they provide me with this nice apartment.” She looked up at the ceiling and at the damp rotting through in the corner “Oh, it’s a palace.”

“it is for Boston Tif. Not all of us are born to famous parents.” That hit something inside her that she didn’t realise was still tender. He started rolling over to the other side of the room.

“That’s not fair. I didn’t choose that. You know I don’t like talking about him. Look…” She got up and followed. He was sorting through a bunch of old books on a shelf, the kind made out of paper. “You’re like a Brother to me. I care about you. If you’re happy and you are certain you’re safe. Then that’s all I care about. Okay?”

“Five years ago, you would never have said you wanted to go to Mars, you know that? What’s the real reason for this change of heart?”

She felt something fall in her chest and the jet lag suddenly reminded her how heavy her body was.

“Honestly I don’t know Michael. I just need to do something with my life. I’ve always felt like I have a lot to live up to. I feel like going to Mars is my destiny, or something.”

Michael pulled out an old tattered book: the edges were worn, the paper a tanned yellow colour.

“Remember this?” He handed it to her. It was the book he gave her when she was little, the one that first taught her about software programming. She flicked through the pages and old memories that were forgotten started surfacing on her mind. She handed him back the book and walked over to her suitcase. Unzipping itshe removed something inside: a plastic bag.

“I want you to have these.” She passed him the plastic bag, it contained a bunch of old handwritten notes.

“These are Edgar’s?” He asked as reverence became apparent in his voice.

“Dad gave them to me when he left. I’m going to be gone for a few years and I don’t want to leave them in my apartment. I want to give them to someone I trust.”

“These are worth billions to some collectors Tiffany, are you sure you want me to have them?”

“Absolutely. Just don’t sell them.” She joked.

Leaning back in the chair, she picked up the old book and started flicking through the pages. The chapter titles read: Software basics, Boolean Logic, Data Structures. These concepts were lost to most modern software engineers, now novelised into small packages of software that can be programmed interpretively instead of logically. She took delight in still understanding these low-level concepts. Today if you need to take an abstract problem and solve it you give the inputs to a piece of software, describe the problem in human speech, and the smart A.I. will split apart your words with natural language processing, decompose it into the real logical problem (because humans usually get that bit wrong), and spit out software that uses the most efficient algorithms known to Machine. If you don’t understand what the algorithm is doing you don’t need to worry — the A.I. will confidently provide you with proof of it working.

“Trust me, even with debts like mine, I wouldn’t sell this stuff on. You can count on me Tif.” He was looking through his PMD again.

“When have you ever had debts?” She flicked to the next chapter: Viruses and Malware. More ancient concepts that software lost to history. A.I. could generate their own forms of encryption and uniquely encode data in their own manner. So unless you were that A.I. you could never generate fake data to upload a virus or write a piece of malicious software.

“Everyone has debts Tif. Sometimes we have to pay them back in more than just money.”

She didn’t look up from the book so she missed his grim expression, but Ansi caught it. Ansi had been plugged into the smart home cameras since they had arrived. Right now she was watching them both silently, learning.

Tif, meanwhile, was distracted by the next chapter in the book: Artificial Intelligence. This book was published 17 years ago so the explosion of A.I. in software hadn’t happened yet. Back then A.I. was basically just machine’s learning to recognise patterns and returning results that matched those patterns. That wasn’t really impressive these days: a smart six year old human could do the same job, but employing six year olds to do that for 24 hours a day wasn’t really ethical.

Tif worked to design modern A.I.’s. This required understanding things like abstract learning, human logic, and patience. A lot of patience. For her and many other A.I. software engineers the day-to-day wasn’t writing code and solving basic logic problems, it was communicating with A.I. systems as they were being built, teaching them like a parent would teach a child. Occasionally she would reconfigure the components that made up their software organs to perform their vital part of the process better. Take Ansi for example: humans don’t always communicate with speech. Gesture, intonation of voice, facial expression. Teaching Ansi to be a good Home A.I. also meant teaching it to recognise what these things mean. Tif’s Ansi was observing them right now and learning the mannerisms of Michael, who she had never met before. The model of Ansi that Tif had was a development version, so Tif would occasionally tinker with it to help improve it’s ability. If she did something that markedly improved its performance then she could feed that data back into all Ansi systems around the solar system.

Ansi could tell Tif was relaxed, for the first time in 4 months, 23 days and six hours. She predicted that Michael’s initial attitude was restlessness mostly based on his fidgeting.

“Are you listening?” Michael grabbed the book out of her hand.

“Sorry, this jetlag is doing weird stuff to my head. Shall we eat dinner? I’m hungry.”

“It’s barely past lunch.”

“Drunch it is then.”


Six blocks they walked. Michael suggested they walk, even though he rode. During that time Tif was exposed to the fashion of modern poverty: budget clothing stores and hand-me-downs. For those would couldn’t afford those then government-issued outfits in two tones of pastel blue was the garment of choice. She saw beggars begging to other beggars. The people she saw who weren’t obviously poverty stricken dressed in outfits that oozed of modern stereotypes: there was the cell shaded girls with the thick black lines contouring their faces. There was the leather-clad “retro” punk gangs. Michael told her — “those people would never go out of style, even after the world has ended you’ll get Mad Max-ers walking around.” It wasn’t the first time she heard the term Mad Max-ers, and the examples Michael pointed to looked like they could have been genuine extras from the old film.

They ate together in a restaurant that had a neon sign saying “employed only” on the door, and Tif had to prove this by touching her PMD against it, the old metal frame swinging open when she did. The decor of the place was trying too hard to be upper class but had obvious signs that it was fabricated in a factory. She guessed if she walked six more blocks she could find another restaurant with an identical interior. However she was surprised by the lack of juicepads in the tables and the manner in which the waiters spoke to you. As in — they actually talked to you instead of giving you a tablet menu. Living in the world of the future really skewed her perception of things: she tried to think of anyone apart from Joan and Michael that she was comfortable talking to in public. That old dude she met in the café was an exception, maybe, but she didn’t exactly ask to talk to him and she doubted she’d meet him again.

She spoke about life in Frontier City with Michael; about how no one barely interacted in public unless it was urgent. About how everything was clean and pristine and automated. Michael tried to convince her that you have to choose between two things in this world: comfort or companionship. He bragged that Boston and other lower-income cities of the world still retained their humanity, where people were jovial and happy to chat to strangers. Perhaps it was Tif’s social anxiety, but she thought to herself that she preferred Frontier City.

The walk back to the apartment was windier than the walk to the restaurant, and Michael mentioned a storm was coming in tomorrow. He couldn’t go too far in his wheelchair so they spent the rest of the day playing old board games and reminiscing back at his apartment. Dusk settled and Michael went to bed early. She was only stopping over for one night. The luxury of supersonic flight was that you could make one night trips around the world. Jet lag propped Tif up and she couldn’t rest. By this time she should have already slept and woken up. So instead of trying to sleep she made coffee and sat watching the traffic go by outside. She marvelled at the odd way the cars below her moved when people were driving them: no uniform fashion or movement, completely unpredictable, with each one working independently, trying to anticipate the movement of the other cars around them.

She finished her coffee. “This is probably why I can’t sleep” she spoke quietly to herself.

Yes, you’ve had eight cups of coffee today. You are likely on a caffeine high” Tif, startled, had almost forgotten that Ansi was listening.

“Ansi! Don’t do that. I forgot you were there. Did you learn anything new today?”

I’ll chime next time just before I speak. I have learned that this accommodation does not support many of my functions. I also observed new human behaviours.

“What did you learn today Ansi?”

I learned new habits that describe nervousness and anxiety.

“From me? I know today was awkward because but I wouldn’t say I was anxious…”

“No. Not you. Your friend Michael exhibited signs of anxiety that I recognised.”

“Really?” She pulled her PMD out of her jacket pocket and opened the diagnostics. She didn’t think Michael was acting weird so it must have been a bug. However, the statistics weren’t wrong: Michael exhibited new mannerisms of anxiety that Ansi had learned about from software but had never observed before. In fact: Ansi had seen enough of his mannerisms to modify how her system recognises those emotions, something that usually takes at least a week for a Home A.I. to learn. Tif didn’t understand how Ansi picked that up so fast, perhaps she had configured it to collect data at the wrong scale? That would explain it.

“Ansi, show me some of your sources for this data.”

On her PMD a series of short videos played, each about six seconds long. Tif saw in the corner of the living room the camera the videos were recorded from. In one: she watched herself sitting on the couch earlier that day, reading a book. Michael looked at his own PMD and then started biting his nails. He snatched the book from Tif’s hand. Another video began of Michael moving in his wheelchair over to the kitchen counter. He fidgeted with his hands, turning the coffee maker on, and then checking his PMD again. Another video showed something similar: Michael checking his PMD, and then fidgeting nervously. She started to see the pattern.

“That’s weird” Tif spoke to herself.

A chime on her PMD, and then — “What is weird? Did I learn something incorrectly?” Ansi asked.

“No, I was talking to myself.”

She walked across the room to where Michael’s PMD sat on a juicepad. She couldn’t unlock it but she tapped a single square button and the screen illuminated — displaying many notifications which she could scroll through. Michael hadn’t locked down the privacy on his PMD so all the content was plain to read. “Bad Michael, you’re better than this.” Some people were sloppy with their personal privacy. Tif scrolled through the notifications: old emails, Vuw transaction notes, and some very busy private messages from someone named “Aimz”.

Aimz? What type of name is that. Like Amy? Tif knew that a trend for the younger generations was to adopt their Vuw pseudonym as their real name. Those names were used more often and gave youths the chance to form their own identities. A small economy revolved around designing names and personas for people that were supposedly unique. The irony of this is that most of the names sounded so bizarre and outlandish that they formed their own stereotype — diminishing their unique quality. She remembered something from earlier, and opened her Broadcast app. She specifically stopped her pull-to-refresh habit, instead scrolling down a bit past the few people that she had been looking through earlier that morning. The name appeared — “Aimz”. A woman. Some stylised photo of shock pink hair and piercings. She looked young, at least ten years younger than Tif. Could this be part of the gang that Michael was working with? Why was Michael so nervous about her messages? She tapped the name, and wrote a message -

“Hey, I’m Michael’s friend. He seems really nervous recently. Do you know if he is okay? I can’t get in touch with him.”

She hesitated a second then sent it. She paced around the room a bit, then a chime from her PMD — “You appear to be mimicking Michael’s anxiety now.” Ansi spoke. “Ansi, I’m waiting for a reply!” She wasn’t really sure what she was getting herself into, but Michael was the closest family she had, and she wasn’t leaving Earth without making sure he was okay.

It took a few minutes for Aimz to reply. Tif honestly didn’t expect to receive any message back, but what she did receive confirmed her guess — this was the same person. Aimz appeared to be concerned about Michael too and wanted to talk about it if she was available. It was really late and probably dangerous outside, but Tif had her Angel so she decided to chance it. Someone who cares for Michael is probably a friend of his, and that’s good enough for her. Outside the wind had picked up and the drizzle pooling on the floor painted the ground with neon reflections from the advertisements around her. She walked two blocks south to a small diner on an intersection, and immediately recognised the shock pink hair in the corner. Aimz was sitting with one other person: a young looking man who had ruined his face with about thirty piercings. They looked like the Mad Max-ers she had seen earlier that day.

“Aim-zee?” Tif asked cautiously. Aimz looked up.

“It’s just one word enfet — Aimz. You Tif? Michael’s mate?” Her accent, quintessential for her generation, and very different from how Tif imagined it.

“Yeah, you said he was in trouble?” Tif moved to sit down, and she resisted the habit to pull out her PMD and put it down on the juicepad. Something felt odd about this. She started to regret doing whatever she thought she was trying to do.

“He’s in trouble, big trouble. Gang he’s working with requires some prote-cash, enfet?” The pierced boy explained. Every few words the steel in his lips clinked against his dirty teeth.

“He works with these people though, that’s how he gets protection.” Tif tried to explain, but realised she knew nothing about Michael’s arrangement. Two more leather-clad kids with dirty faces and various Mad Max-er characteristics turned up seemingly out of nowhere. The huge one sat down next to her, the other squeezing in next to Aimz and Pierced guy. Tif tried to maintain her composure. It was obvious to her now she was not safe and she decided to try and leave immediately, avoiding any conflict if she could.

“Look, I just want to help Michael. That’s all.” She said as calmly as she could.

“Listen Tiffany Mitchell” One of the new arrivals spoke — they knew her name? “We know you got cash. You gonna pay up to protect your friend? Or we gonna get some of them fancy clothes off instead? We know who you are, who you work for. We know you can pay.”

“What? How do you know my name? Look, I’ll pay whatever, just let me go.” She started to recite the Angel trigger words in her head, just in case.

“Price has just doubled. Pay up, or we take it out on your flesh. Do you know what they call us?” The new guy opposite her pulled a pen knife out of his coat pocket. She noticed his accent wasn’t rough and that he was actually quite well spoken. Was he English? Tif tried to stand but the guy next to her placed a hand gently on her shoulder and stopped her.

“No moving’ till the bozz iz happy.” The brute spoke with obvious difficulty. If someone told Tif this guy’s father was a bear she’d have believed it. “No more wondering Tif — get out of there.” She thought. She pulled out her PMD. “How much?”

“One hundred kay. Send it to me. Say it’s a tip enfet?” Aimz spoke again.

Tif, now visibly shaking, did as the girl asked. It wasn’t much money for her and she tried to not give away that this was the case, lest they ask for more.

“Done.” Aimz nodded and showed her own PMD to the attractive guy. The brute next to Tif must have seen some sort of command because he stood up to let Tif go. She looked around at the four thugs, one at a time.

She wasn’t quite believing what was going on.

“That’s it, you can go.” The attractive one spoke.

“Just like that? What about Michael?” Tif got up to leave and tried to keep facing the group. She didn’t know if they would jump her if she turned around. She was still reciting the Angel words in her head.

“Michael was never in trouble. He’s just always so nervous. Don’t you think? You’re his friend after all!” Mr Piercings started to laugh. Aimz and the brute joined in. The attractive man ignored them and spoke: “This is our block Tiffany Mitchell, so fucking scram or we’ll take our share of those fine eyes you got there. Ceramics fetch a fine penny around here.” At this, Tif had had enough and started leaving as fast as she could. She realised the entire diner had emptied during the brief interaction and not even the chefs were there.

She ran home through rain, which was now coming down quite hard. She didn’t care about the deep mucky puddle water she ran through, she just wanted to get back to somewhere safe. Ansi gave her access to Michael’s place as soon as she arrived. She wished Ansi was intelligent enough to know when she was in danger. She walked into Michaels living room to find him looking at his PMD, the light of it illuminating the dark living room. All she heard was the drip of water from her jacket onto the floor.

“Tif? Where have you been?” His face distorted in a look of horror as it turned towards her. Tif couldn’t tell if it was his actual expression or the light reflecting off of it.


They had sat in silence for what felt like hours. She’d cried a few times, and he’d hugged her. The sun had risen at some point. “I’m sorry.” The silence broke through the room. “It’s complicated. Now please stop asking about it. I appreciate your help but these aren’t people you fuck around with.” Michael rubbed his temples. Tif had finally stopped shaking.

“Things have changed a lot here since you left. These gangs rule the streets.” His voice was softer, much calmer than before.

“They’re just kids though. Can’t the police do something about it?” Tif didn’t understand how the short time in which she was gone had been enough for the world to change this much.

“The government can barely afford to run a police force and when they do they just get out weapons and shoot kids because it is much more efficient. Their parents are usually on the side of their kids too. They can’t get employed so it’s a way to bring in money for their families.” Michael had that tone to his voice that told Tif he didn’t really believe what he was saying. He gave a sad smile when Tif mentioned: “This is like some fucking post-apocalyptic shit.”

“Yeah, welcome to the disenfranchised future. I told you it was bad.” Michael wheeled over to where she sat and he placed his hand on hers.

“Thank you for coming to see me before you left. You should call your parents before you leave Tiffany. It’s important they know what you are going to do. Especially your Dad.”

“I’d rather not.” She knew she had messages from him waiting on her PMD, but Ansi had blocked his contact. This trip had been especially good at reminding her that she was ignoring a lot of things in her life.

“Has he sent you a message?”

“Of course he has. He must have found out somehow.”

The silence resumed for a few moments. Michael fidgeted the same way he had been in the videos. Tif’s wristwatch illuminated. A reminder that her flight was due in a few hours.

“I should get going. I’d rather get to the airport earlier and wait there. Can’t tell what security is going to be like today.” Security was also better at the airport and she wanted to be alone and somewhere safe. Even if Michael’s presence was comforting, Tif had always preferred isolation when she felt upset. It was one of the things Fran hated the most.

“I understand.” he leaned forward, putting his big hands on her shoulders, looking her in the eyes. “Go and explore the stars for me, okay?”

“I’ll miss you.” Tif felt like she hadn’t said anything quite so genuine in years.


The human-driven taxi arrived outside Michael’s apartment and Tif jumped into the back. It was noticeably dirtier than the one she had taken to get here. Michael waved goodbye as the vehicle started off. As it drove towards the airport she started considering the possibility of contacting her Dad. She was going to have to confront him eventually; especially considering she was leaving in a few weeks. Better to get it over and done with and she might not get another chance. The vehicle bumped over something hard in the road and she realised it was going quite fast. She was trusting the driver to know what he was doing, but that trust instantly eroded when the vehicle sharply turned a corner and slammed on the breaks. She lurched forward, the seat belt pinching her waist. As she lurched back she heard the doors lock.

“Hey, is something wrong?” The driver hadn’t turned to look at her at all. She moved forward and tapped on the scratched plastic between the back passenger seats and the driver seats. He didn’t answer. Instead he just opened the door and left. Tif watched, slightly confused at the situation, as the man walked across the street and into an alley between two buildings. “What in the-” A loud bang behind her made her jump. She saw a hand covered in a leather glove on the window — the cause of the loud noise. It was attached to a familiar face. “Tiffany Mitchell. What a coincidence!” The Pierced guy clinked. She watched him walk around to the driver seat door and open it.

“How remarkable that we should meet like this again? Surely this is meant to be?” He started laughing, starting the car. The passenger doors on each side of her opened and Aimz bundled in one side, pushing her down in the seat. The huge guy and another randomer got in the other side and tried to squeeze into the back seats with them. If anxiety and fear wasn’t quickly building up inside her, she would have found the image of them all squashed in together quite funny.

“Well well well Tiffany. Someone we know is very interested in you.” Aimz exaggerated the “we” and “you” and put her arm around Tiffany. She smelt of Body odur and wet dogs. Tif started panicking and instinctively checked her watch — a blank screen.

“No need for that girly, we’re piping your PMD traffic through our own femtocell this time.” The car sped off at a violent speed, horns beeping around them in doppler effect. The jolts between intersections rocked all four in the back seat left, left again, then a right. It started to give Tif motion sickness.

“What do you want? More money?” She looked at the three people squashed in the back seat with her and tried to make eye contact with the pierced guy through the rear view mirror.

“I told you. Friend of ours wants to chat with you. Should only take an hour. We’ll get you to your flight on time. Enfet?” Tif saw right through her lie.

The car turned again and started to slow. A chance. Without thinking, Tif acted. She started to speak -

“Stupendous. Negative. Mitocondria. Ac-“ a hand grabbed her by the mouth

“She’s got a fucking Angel! Don’t let her talk!” The randomer in the back shouted. Tif tried to grab the hand, to bite it with her teeth. She kicked violently out. The plastic divider rattled. Her second kick hit the giant guy in the chest. He felt like he was made of bricks. Pain shot up her leg.

“Shit. What’s an Angel-” Someone shouted

“Ya don wan find out-” The big guys voice boomed.

The hand over her mouth moved just enough for her to bite down hard. A scream.

“Stupendous!” — she screamed, pushing up from the passenger seat. “Negative!” — She was out of breath but coninuted — “Mitochondria!” The car braked suddenly, she fell face first against the plastic divide. The knock to her head combined with the dizziness of motion sickness causing everything in the world around her to blur. “Acting…” She tried to scream the last word, but it didn’t come out. She turned, breathed in deeply — “ACTING!” She braced.

The Personal Protection System wired under the nape of her neck responded to the final activation word in milliseconds. Tif felt a shock across the nerve endings in her body: similar to leaving The Vuw, but about a hundred times more painful. Her blurred vision became even worse as the influx of data overprocessed her retina. She felt something grab her arm. It was close by but also felt distant. The increase in sensitivity felt like someone had pulled out her nerve endings and stretched them for miles: each millimetre of her skins felt metres apart. She felt her body move at instantaneous speed to remove the assailant’s hand. Her entire motor function had been sacrificed to the military-grade A.I. in the Angel. The vibrating pain in her own arm told her the Angel had delivered a karate-chop-like motion against something heavy, something that rattled like bone. The Angel-enhanced senses drowned her eyes, ears, tongue and touch sensations with more information than they could handle. She heard the bones of the assailant’s arm crack, each pop and crackle exaggerated in her ears like she had a stethoscope connected directly to it. She knew she was outside of the car now: but her eyes took a noticeable second to catch up processing the data and she witnessed herself opening the door like a video being sped forward at four times the speed. Her ears fed her sounds of Aimz’ screams, shouts and confusion from the other passengers, the noise of the outside, her own feet running, an aircraft distant in the sky above her. The Angel was designed to turn human senses to 400% effectiveness for a short period of time, and heighten the “fight or flight” response when people panicked. The A.I. then acted with whatever action it deemed necessary to save the life of the user, even if it meant damaging the body in the process. It was designed for soldiers and personal security guards, but it had gained popularity with people who felt like mace or a gun wasn’t good enough protection. Luckily for Tif: the A.I. had gone all-in on the “flight” option and she could feel her feet slapping the concrete as it made her run. But there was a downside to using this type of system, a really big trade off: apart from giving up complete control of your body to a machine, the Angel operated off the body’s energy supply. If you didn’t eat properly it only lasted a few seconds. Tif hadn’t eaten at all since the night before. So all her senses started to slowly sync up: the slapping sound of her feet meeting the tempo of the vibrating pain in her shins. The pain receptors in her arm, which the A.I. had just used as a weapon, were no longer being blocked by her endorphins. The pain leaked back and it was immeasurable. It took her at least a second to realise she was running now, and the Angel had finally given up the ghost.

She dropped on the floor and vomited the coffee she had had that morning. She smelt the musk of the kenyan brew mixed with the sweet stink of stomach acid. She looked behind her down to the street the taxi she had just left: it had a shattered window and was completely empty. She’d barely ran fifty metres, but the hijackers were nowhere to be seen. Had they ran away? She tried to laugh in relief but gagged on the smell of her vomit. She was told by the weapons specialist that installed her Angel that it would last for at least five minutes. She was worried she hadn’t eaten enough but it looked like it was just enough to get away. Her muscles ached liked she’d exercised for 24 hours straight — all her muscles contracting, even trying to stand caused pain.

She finally got up, holding her arm, the pain of it now a sore throbbing sunburn. Her vision was focussing again now, and a group of bystanders walked over to her. She felt relief.

“Well, that didn’t go so smoothly did it Tiffany? Looks like you’re too tired to use that Angel effectively.” It was Aimz. She hadn’t gotten away. The relief turned to shock, but she was too exhausted to do anything. Aimz was also cradling her arm, Tif could see a clean break under the skin. One of the other Mad Max-ers was covered in blood: he face and nose messed up.

“Broozer. Do it.” Someone said.

A sharp pain on the back of her head rattled her skull. She barely had time to regret not sticking to three meals a day before gravity pulled her down to the floor, her legs limp.

Case Atriedes

Written by

An Infinitely Protean Machine

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