"So, Amber, do you like the Lord of the Rings series?" Lucas replayed the earlier scene in the station mart on the screen of his smartglasses as he the Ampere turned in the parking lot of Barry's apartment complex, imagining things going his way. The question he had posed wasn't a shot in the dark; he had gone thought Amber's online profile and had created a smooth-flowing act in his head, where simple conversation led to much bigger things. He barely noticed the car had parked before it notified him, so engrossed he was browsing Amber's online photos and videos which were so numerous they could have been used to wallpaper a large apartment even if they were postcard-sized. He got out of the car and headed for the entrance carrying the foodstuffs he had bought earlier.
Barry had first moved here as he started University and stayed here ever since. He lived in a tall apartment building which was part of a bigger complex of identical grey concrete slabs that made the area look like a graveyard with giant tombstones in aerial photographs. The edifices were arranged as sides of a square in the middle of which stood a run-down basketball field which didn't see much use. The rusty chains of the basketball hoops creaked as he cut across the field to the correct building.
"I guess muscleheads are dying breed around these parts," he thought, finding some satisfaction in the thought. Division between those that did sports and those that didn't had become wider than ever before. Automation had rendered masses of people permanently unemployable, but due to universal income, they could still cover their basic needs and more. Before widespread automation some academics had envisioned how the expendable income and formerly unseen amounts of free time would lead to people improving themselves, taking a more active part in political decision-making and connecting with friends, like the people of ancient Greece had done as all the heavy lifting was handled by slaves. Most of these intellectuals had quietly receded to the background as their noble dreams met reality; a large portion of populace continued their existence with no real purpose or goal whatsoever, spending their time in virtual worlds created for their entertainment, and found their only feelings of personal achievement in buying something new and trendy, mostly to show it off online. The modern ideology was that everything was to be brought to you, and as such people were inundated with constant info and entertainment catered to their interest by advanced analytical tools. Even food and other day-to-day essentials were delivered to your home door by a self-driving delivery truck or a drone. As such, people being found dead in their apartments after months of putrefaction was reaching epidemic proportions. Sometimes the rotting of massively obese bodies caused such damage to the houses that entire rooms had to be renovated.
At the same those doing sports exercised more intensively than ever before; often it was the sole content in their calendars filled with nothing else. Even as manual labor jobs had disappeared, becoming a professional athlete became even more sought after than previously since they were one of the groups least likely to be replaced by machines. Most competitions enjoyed a larger viewership than ever before, and sponsorship deals had become astronomical.
The walls were covered in graffiti on both sides of the building entrance. Most of it was simple, black-and-white tags in exaggerated, snaking letters. Surrounded by them was one larger piece of work which depicted in dark colors a person sitting in a corner, knees drawn to her chest and face resting on the knees, covered by crossed arms. Striking lines of red were drawn across the wrists of the portrayal.
"How about instead of a spray can, you get some help," he thought. Medication for depression and anxiety was easy to get, just fill a questionnaire or two and send it to an online doctor and your description would drop into your letterbox the same day. Apparently, the same applied to euthanasia shots. When you could get anything with the touch of a button, how could anyone be so miserable as to order something like that? He had found there was always something you could use to distract yourself.
आप पढ़ रहे हैं
Death Drive
कल्पित विज्ञानIn the near future, most work has been relegated to machines and people are content to spend their time immersed in virtual reality, something they cannot get enough of. Thomas Walker, an ex-racecar driver who blames the hidden algorithms that run s...
