| Terminal
90
by Barbara Wadd
Harry awoke, as he always did, at the ping of the Robo-tea signalling
his drink was ready. As he sat up on the sleep shelf, the light changed
from dim to daylight and the view panel on the end wall simulated blue
sky with fluffy white clouds as usual.
He reached for his non-spill drink dispenser and the robo-arm extended
towards him. He sipped it and pulled a face. Luke-warm thanks to the Safety
Police and tasting nothing like the chicory blitz he was sure he dialled
in last night.
He sighed. It was his ninetieth birthday. Hard to believe where the years
had gone. This was the day that he had to leave his mono-unit and move
to the designated multiplex where all his needs would be taken care of,
or so his personal oracle had been telling him for the last few weeks.
It had even counted down the days for him until this momentous event.
As he sipped the rapidly cooling liquid he thought back over his life.
He had been a millennium baby, born as the last strokes of Big Ben had
died away. He smiled, wondering how many people remembered the famous
old clock these days. Very few he thought. Images of the old world, as
it was referred to, were strictly controlled by the Media Police.
It was as though everyone was celebrating his birth, or so his mother
had told him, with the skies erupting in fireworks, heralding the new
age. The twenty-first century which had promised so much. Harry shook
his head. How could humanity get it so wrong?
His early years were okay. There had been concern about global warming
and wars in the planet’s hotspots but in those days there had been
the will to try to make a better world, or was that just him seeing it
through the rosy glow of distant decades?
It was in his late teens that things had become unglued.
First the religious riots had ripped apart countries. Then, fuelled by
uncontrolled immigration, systems had broken down, leading to mass shortages.
Too many people chased too few jobs, fought for accommodation, battled
for eco fuel for the cars that clogged the overloaded transport network.
The Food Frenzies of his twenties, when thousands had starved to death
and feral gangs had roamed the streets, he skimmed over in his mind. He
had lost too many people close to him during that time to want to dwell
on it.
Not that the thirties had been any better. It had seemed that the whole
world was grinding to a halt. Bursting with people, and in particular
pensioners, or so the SatView would have you believe. Of course the cures
for cancer and the cloning of replacement body parts had removed many
of the main causes of death, so people were living much longer. But Harry
had thought it was a little unfair to blame it all on the elderly. In
his opinion an uncontrolled birth rate had led to meltdown.
And that was when Melissa Broome had appeared on the political scene.
May 2040 with her Neoteric Party. Of course the SatNews had immediately
dubbed her New Broom, as if they had come up with something innovative,
although other less enamoured pundits had called her Witch’s Broom.
But her ideas were radical, her proposals harsh and uncompromising and
she swept to global power on a landslide victory.
Her view was that there were no universal rights. Everything had to be
earned, whether it was freedom, food, housing and even life. For the majority
of people, she said, freedom was too difficult a concept to handle. Given
too much freedom they ran amok therefore that was the first thing to go
out the window. Not that many of the population had windows these days
since they lived deep in boxes in the huge accom-units underground.
For the first ten years martial law had been in force. Everyone had to
be chipped which meant they had a micro chip inserted in the palm of their
hand and this controlled their access to … well, everything. Housing,
transport, healthcare, clothing, food, drink and entertainment all had
to paid through it and it had to be loaded with credit by work they did.
It also contained comprehensive information about them and transmitted
their whereabouts at all times. Attempts to remove it resulted in a shot
of cyanide, although this wasn’t told to anyone in the early days.
It only came to light when a few people tried home surgery.
As soon as they were chipped they were assigned jobs and a massive building
programme swept into place. The invention of the wonder material Duralum
revolutionised production of all manner of goods. Easily moulded, the
robotic factories could pump out thousands of pressings a days. And the
lightweight material could be handled by the mass labour force that the
government could command at the drop of a chip.
Vast precincts where people lived, worked and spent their leisure time
were created. Dubbed as warrens by the populace, Harry had spent the last
fifty years in one or another of them. It made little difference as they
were all built to a similar spec.
Breeding was banned. Only those with a special permit were allowed to
reproduce and then only under strictly controlled conditions.
People were allocated accommodation according to their needs. A single
box unit in Harry’s case. This came equipped with SatView so they
could receive government information. Any additional entertainment viewing
had to be paid for by credits earned and loaded onto their chip. The same
applied to the food and drink dispenser with its extensive menu which
unfortunately all came out tainted with the plastic taste of Duralum.
Harry had survived and adapted. There hadn’t been any choice. But
occasionally he wondered what it would have been like to live above ground
and explore the world that had existed in the last century that his mother
had told him about.
He looked at the Duralum cases that contained his few possessions, neatly
stacked in the corner of his unit. They would be sent to his new accommodation
or so the Oracle had told him.
It had been a month ago that he’d received his instructions.
‘On your ninetieth birthday you are required to vacate this unit
and move to your designated complex where your needs will be assessed
and you will be allocated appropriate accommodation.’
The screen had droned on with precise instructions for the vacation of
the unit, the packing of belongings and how Harry was to proceed to his
new place.
According to the blurb all his future needs would be met in his new home.
He wondered how it was funded. Had a percentage of his past credits been
siphoned off in anticipation of his having to pay for it, or did the government
have a surplus of credits that they used for it?
Harry had seen the pictures of where he was to go. It looked wonderful.
Full of smiling Seniors, enjoying a multitude of entertainments and pleasures
that their life’s work had earned them. Round the clock medical
facilities would repair their aging bodies and fully automated staffing
cater to their needs. Since Harry could hope to live for another forty
or so years, he could look forward to a long and satisfying nonployment.
It was however a one way journey and once there Harry would have to remain
within its confines. The Info tube said it was not economically viable
to have people wandering the globe, using up limited resources. Still,
Harry thought, it looked as though everything he needed would be right
outside his slider.
As he dialled in his breakfast and waited for the robochef to produce
it with its usual whirr and gurgle, he requested the view screen to display
his travel instructions.
They would take him to an area he had not been to before, in the Alpha
sector and up to level one hundred. From there it said a bounce tube would
transit him to his point of departure at Terminal 90.
He finished his GrainyFru which was said to contain all the vitamins he
needed to sustain his healthy life and dropped the dish in the recycler.
Time to go, he thought. He took one last look around the unit but it was
bare now his personal items were packed and he felt little regret at leaving
it. The door slid open as he passed his palm over the eye and swished
shut behind him. He stepped on the travellator and from there entered
a single hub car. He strapped himself in and punched in the code he had
been given for Alpha 100. The car accelerated smoothly until the passing
walkways became a blur and the windows opaqued.
Finally the car slowed and stopped, the door slid open and the robovoice
announced that he had reached his destination.
He clambered out and immediately in front of him was a sign: ‘Terminal
90 This Way.’ He stepped on a moving walkway and eventually arrived
at a row of booths. There was a short queue of people who moved forward
as the number of a booth flashed up on the view screen.
Harry looked around at them, wondering if they were being assigned to
his complex. He supposed they were all his age, hence the designation
Terminal 90. It made sense that they would all go through the same place
and be bounced up to wherever they would spend the rest of their days.
As his turn grew closer his heart started drumming in his chest. At last
he faced the screen and number 4 flashed up. He made his way to the booth,
stepping inside and the door closed behind him. He took a seat and fastened
the safety strap, wondering what the bounce tube would feel like.
It was only as the gas started to hiss through the vents and fill the
booth that he realised why it was called Terminal.
|
