Sycamore (Near-Future Dystopia) (22 page)

He didn’t know what kind of app Reader was or since when it had been available, but at $120 for a single use it had to be good. He clicked yes and an information box immediately appeared next to Stacy’s head, on the opposite side from where Forest data was usually displayed. The box listed a series of emotions and the extent to which she was experiencing them.

Embarrassment: 98.

Impatience: 96.

Anger: 91.

The list went on. All sorts of coloured arrows and annotations covered Stacy’s face. Everything changed too quickly for Kurt to make much sense of it. The annotations moved with her gaze and the emotional intensity figures changed with every twitch of her nose and lips. Reader seemed to be detecting ordinarily imperceptible facial movements and running them through whatever bizarre formula someone at Sycamore had come up with.

Kurt had seen enough. He tapped his hand to kill Reader and spoke to Stacy in a low voice. “Screw this. Fancy going back to mine and ordering something in?”

She nodded with an uncharacteristic lack of verve and walked towards the door. Kurt grabbed the young waiter’s arm as he passed and looked in his eyes to compose a Glance: “You’re fired.”

~

The police officer from earlier was still outside the restaurant and had done an admirable job of dispersing the crowd. Kurt mumbled his thanks as he hurried to catch up with Stacy.

“I’m sorry,” he told her. “I shouldn’t have taken you somewhere like that with those kind of people.”

“Don’t worry about it. Why don’t we go to the cinema or something before we go back to Longhampton? It
is
your birthday, after all.”

A night at the cinema with Stacy sounded perfect and the megaplex was only a few minutes from the restaurant. Kurt indicated his desire by smiling and holding out his hand. Stacy took it and together they walked.

It was still early but the world was quiet enough for Kurt to hear two heartbeats as they approached the cinema. On arrival his mood soured. “Great.”

Stacy looked up and saw the sign: CLOSED FOR REFURB. SYCAPLEX OPENS TUESDAY.

“Longhampton it is then?” she said.

“Longhampton it is.”

They turned around and walked back towards the restaurant and ultimately the car. Kurt caught sight of a small group of teenagers in the distance and zoomed in to see what they were wearing. His augmented vision relayed the same few outfits he had seen a thousand times that day. The girls were made-up like dolls and their would-be suitors looked equally post-produced.

“RealU is genius,” he suddenly said.

“What?”

“Don’t get me wrong, I hate it... but it’s a brilliant business model. Sycamore makes money from girls wanting to look good for boys and from boys wanting to know what to wear and say to impress the girls. I think the only thing that amazes me more than the tech is that girls are prepared to spend so much money on makeup and keep reapplying it everyday. But then I know they already did that before RealU, so I guess I just don’t get the whole idea.”

“The pressure on girls to look good is ridiculous,” said Stacy. She pointed to an old-fashioned static billboard across the street from the cinema. “See?” It was an ad for women’s perfume featuring a top-heavy stickfigure of a model, airbrushed almost beyond human recognition.

“I don’t know whether they’re saying that if I buy that perfume I’ll be as attractive as her,” she continued, “or that I’ll never be as attractive as her but if I buy the perfume then at least I can smell like her. Can you imagine looking at stuff like that everyday, everywhere you go, and, instead of lusting over the women like men are supposed to, feeling like you have to compare yourself to them?”

Kurt shook his head. He
couldn’t
imagine, and with that understanding came the deeper realisation that advertising — capitalism’s purest expression and only native art form — had done more to attack human dignity than 120 million microchips could ever dream of.

“Do you think real people will get fatter now that they can pay to be thin?” Stacy asked, redirecting the topic.

“Probably. Everyone who can afford to is already making themselves look perfect. Real fitness is worthless in a world as shallow as this one.”

“Yeah, it’s messed up. People spend fortunes buying new clothes and haircuts for the characters they see themselves as but stumble around reality looking like lonely cavemen.”

Kurt stopped walking to consider her statement. “It really is exactly like that,” he realised. “This whole thing is like someone went back in time and gave a caveman some piece of technology he wasn’t ready for. Like a gun when he was getting along fine with a spear.”

“This is more like an atomic bomb,” Stacy thought aloud. They were walking along the street very slowly; hardly moving and often stopping.

“Right! And I’m the idiot who set it in motion by telling them they could do it. Amos talks about Bell and Baird but I feel more like Einstein.”

“At least you’ll always have your modesty.”

“No, but really,” said Kurt. “I mean when he signed that letter encouraging Roosevelt to build the bomb. Politics is always using science for its own ends. That bomb was supposed to end the war on fascism but they used it to declare war on communism.”

“And this is like that?”

Kurt nodded with intensity. “Amos is a corporate lion and a political snake. His kind always call the shots and they always call them wrong. In the decades after the war, politics asked science to develop the technology required to explore the solar system. Science developed that technology and politics used it to plant a flag on the moon. We think we’re doing something good but then the people who hold real power come in and ruin it.”

A painfully high-pitched ringing filled Kurt’s ears as Stacy replied, drowning out her words. He winced. The announcement told him that the first ever SycaLotto draw would take place in 60 seconds. The draw results would be displayed in the sky for 30 seconds thereafter, during which time any winners had to click through the claims process to remain entitled to their prize. These rules had been made clear in advance and the tiny claims window ensured that no subscribers could miss the draw.

“Forget all that,” said Kurt. “Things are about to get pretty weird.”

No sooner had he said the words than people began spilling out into the street from homes, restaurants and vehicles. Traffic came to a total and immediate halt.

“What’s going on?”

“There’s a lottery in the sky,” Kurt explained, only appreciating the insanity of the idea when he heard himself say it out loud. “And the winner can only claim their prize in the 30 seconds after the draw. Amos said the draws can come at any time during the day, so no one can afford to take their Lenses out.”

The SycaLotto was the acceptable face of Sycamore-induced gambling addiction, which chiefly affected the same young male consumers who were most relentlessly targeted by adult placements. Rigged blackjack and roulette games took more money from teenage boys than most of them would ever earn thanks to liberal credit-extension policies, and it surprised and disappointed Kurt to see the variety of desperate players the lottery had attracted. Something he had once seen on TV held the mass irrationality of lottery players up as a symptom of an economic system on the brink of implosion. If that show had been right then the world was surely about to go boom, he thought, for this street in one of the city’s most affluent areas was teeming with rabid gamblers.

The countdown in the sky reached zero and an irritating voice blabbered away in Kurt’s ears. “And now it’s time for the first ever Mega Money SycaLotto! S… Y… C… A… MORE MORE MORE!!! S… Y… C… A… MORE MORE MORE!!!! S… Y… C…

Kurt muted his in-earphones partly to avoid hearing another word about the stupid lottery but more so he could hear what Stacy was about to say. He had to lean in close to make out her words over the people in the street who had joined in with the SycaLotto chant.

“It’s like they’re looking up to their god,” she said.

“We’re talking about money,” he replied. “They are.”

“You think money is these people’s god?”

“In every meaningful sense.” Kurt led Stacy away from the rabble and towards his car. “I hate the damn lottery. Even if I didn’t have this infinite credit, I wouldn’t play. What’s the point? Money is a game that’s not worth winning. I mean really, is that all life is about? Praying for a lottery win? And for what, digits on a screen? To hell with that. I’d rather have nothing than be a slave to money.”

“It’s easy for you to say that when you get everything you want, no questions asked. All you have to do is click your fingers and the world falls on a plate in your lap. What do you know about having nothing?”

“Easy for me to say now, maybe, but I’ve been saying the same thing forever. And don’t talk to me like I’ve just appeared on this planet. I had nothing when I was a kid — no fancy toys, no friends, no money. It’s almost funny when you think about it... suddenly 40 million nobodies want to be my friend and there are infinite zeroes at the end of my balance. Guess what, though?”

Stacy shrugged, wishing her words away.

“I was happier when there were none.” Kurt stepped onto the road to cross to his car.

“Kurt, wait. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

He faced her and held out his hands. “Since when does it matter what we mean? Do you think I meant for any of this to happen? Do you think I meant to condemn everyone to being endlessly tracked and monetised? Do you think I meant to give a corporation more power than the government? It doesn’t matter what I meant. What we do is more important than what we mean.”

“I’m sorry I said anything,” she tried.

“So am I.”

“So we’re even?”

A stubborn smile crept its way up Kurt’s face. He couldn’t stay angry at someone so quick, and the unguarded look Stacy shot back had him forgetting why he was angry in the first place.

She hugged him and when they separated she moved straight back in for a kiss.

It wasn’t quite how Kurt had imagined their first real kiss — as an argument-ender — but he didn’t care. It was a stunning kiss; despite having depressingly little from which to draw comparison, Kurt knew amazing when he felt it. And whatever it was ending, he thought, that moment was surely the start of something bigger.

Kurt clicked the Gallardo’s doors open from across the road and Stacy smiled up at him. He opened Reader again, too excited to feel guilty, and scrolled hurriedly down to her Arousal stat.

83
.

He liked those odds.

“What do you want to do now?” she whispered as he opened her door.

Kurt replied without hesitation. “I think I want to go home and take my Lenses out.”

~

The events that occurred in Kurt’s master bedroom following he and Stacy’s return from the city went unrecorded as his UltraLenses lay on the bedside table. As soon as she was dressed, he put them back in.

“So... was that the best gift of the day, or did Amos buy you a country?” Stacy joked as he held his eyelids apart and popped his Lenses in place.

Kurt didn’t reply for a few seconds. He had forgotten how free his eyeballs felt with nothing pressing against them — quite understandably given that nine months had passed since he last experienced the feeling. He realised that in the moment. “You know, I could have had a kid in the time since I last saw the world blind. I’ve never really thought about how amazing it is that the Lenses never have to be replaced.”

Stacy looked at him blankly.

“But no,” he said. “I mean yes. I think it’s safe to say that was the best gift of any day ever.”

“What
did
Amos give you, though? He seems like the grand gesture type.”

“He is, and it was obviously his way of giving me some kind of message. I’m still trying to work it out.”

“What was the gift?”

“A pot of gold. Literally: a pot
made
of gold. I don’t know what gold costs but that pot must be worth nearly as much as the car. He filled it with dirt and put a sycamore in it, though, just to remind me what’s what. Anyway, forget him. You never struck me as the kind of girl who would give sex as a birthday present.”

“What gave you that impression?” she said, adopting a mockingly sultry tone.

“Well... when I met you, you were slapping a policeman in the face.”

She laughed freely, in a manner only accessible to the truly happy. And then something changed in her face; Kurt forgot about Reader but needed no help to see that Stacy was pondering something important.

“What is it?” he asked.

“You saved me that day.”

“It was nothing.”

“No it wasn’t. It was everything. You put my wellbeing before authority, Sycamore and everything else, and you didn’t even know me. All you knew was that abusing power like that is wrong. You still know that, and you know that it’s getting worse. CrimePrev? The movement tax? You know how wrong all of this is and so do a lot of other people, but you’re the only one with the power to do something about it.”

Kurt gulped audibly and sat down on the bed. Stacy sat up as he did, bringing their eyes level. He said nothing and waited for the punchline.

“Would you consider working against Sycamore?”

He somehow found himself more speechless than before. He knew Stacy was going to say it but had hoped beyond hope that she wouldn’t. His eyes looked through hers.

“Come on, Kurt, even if you could just get me into the building for a few...”

Kurt held his left hand out to silence her. She stopped talking and he massaged his forehead. He presented the hand again when he saw her mouth start to move. Seconds later he finally spoke. “Is that what this has all been about? Trying to groom me for infor—” and then he paused, interrupting himself with a new thought. “Wait. Is there an organised resistance? Are there other people? Dissidents?”

“I can’t really speak for anyone else,” Stacy dodged. “All I meant was that you’re in a unique position to leak some proper info. Details, pictures, chat logs, that kind of thing. If we could get that, I could put it out there and everyone would know.”