Tomorrow’s World Read online

  Whatever, the timesphere always brings me back to earth with a bang.

  The darkness slowly faded, allowing my eyes to adjust to the light levels of the haven at large, so that when the chamber opened I left it without blinking.

  There was someone waiting to use the timesphere. We studied each other, and I knew he was asking himself the same thing I was. It’s the first question people in communities everywhere ask themselves when they encounter a stranger: us or them? Name or Number? Somehow we can answer the question almost as soon as it’s asked, and the thinly veiled contempt I see in their eyes tells me they can, too.

  The man in front of me had crew-cut white-blond hair, cold and knowing pale blue eyes, and the slightest hint of a sardonic smile about his thin-lipped mouth. He was a shade under 190cm, neither light enough to lack strength nor heavy enough to be muscle-bound. Although he wasn’t that much taller than me, he managed to give the impression of looking down on me from a great height.

  I was tempted to bang into him as I passed, and ashamed of myself for wanting to. As a LogiPol Blue, I should be preventing that sort of behavior, not indulging in it.

  Having said all that, I couldn’t walk by without doing something to upset him. So I said, “Have a nice trip,” enjoying the confusion my unnecessary words caused. Pleasantries and spontaneous conversational gambits always bewilder them.

  I smiled at his confusion, and knew he was glad when the Voice of Reason said, “Welcome, Citizen 320978,” and engaged him in the sort of formal exchange he could understand.

  His kind feel more of an affinity with machines and computers than they do with people like me, I thought as I walked away.

  “Please state the time and place of your desired destination,” the disembodied Voice of Reason said to the man standing on the threshold of the timesphere.

  Putting words into his mouth, I said to myself, “You choose.”

  I smiled moments later when the Number said those very words.

  Numbers always say ‘You choose’ when they’re about to enter a timesphere, because they lack the imagination to pick a time and place for themselves.

  I automatically headed for the stairs from the basement to level three, then remembered why I was going there and made my way to the elevator instead. Usually it pays to take the stairs. The credit card which gives you pleasure points for every act that enhances The Common Good also debits you for each action detrimental to society—like using power by taking the elevator rather than the stairs. But, given the nature of my business, the Ecosystem wouldn’t debit me for this elevator ride. It knew where I was going, and why.

  It knows everything.

  “Come on, come on,” I said as I waited for the elevator doors to open. I have to admit my haste to get to apartment 331 wasn’t a reflection of any great dedication to duty, but rather a childish desire to get there before my partner, Perfect Paula. That’s not her real name. Well, not the Perfect bit. Perfect describes her much better than Paula, though. Like the man who’d taken my place in the timesphere, Perfect Paula brings out the worst in me, and I want to beat her in some way, in every way I can. Except for physically—though there are times when only the fact she’s a woman stops me wanting to do that. The fact I rarely manage to put one over on her makes me try all the harder. I hate myself for being so childish, and I hate Perfect Paula and those like her even more for making me hate myself. My one consolation is that I’m not alone in being this way. Ask any Name how they feel about a Number and, whatever words they use, they’ll say pretty much the same thing. Unless they’re the most pathetic kind of Name—the sort who want to be Numbers, who dress and talk and act like them but don’t fool anybody except themselves.

  Waiting for the lift, I weighed up the odds of getting to apartment 331 ahead of Paula. She’d have been deep in a dreamless sleep, but would stir at the first crackle of the hear-ring and be wide awake by the time the Voice of Reason finished speaking. She wouldn’t waste a moment or a movement, but she’d still have to get dressed and make her way down from her apartment on level six.

  The odds seemed slightly in my favor, but then Paula is, well, Paula.

  It’s pathetic, I know, but we can’t help trying to score points against each other. Or, at least, I can’t help trying to score points against her. She doesn’t have to try, but I know she keeps count. I can tell from the hint of a sneer that’s never far from her perfectly proportioned mouth and from those coldly beautiful silver-blue eyes that are slightly upswept at the corners. The sneer constantly challenges me—and mocks my efforts when I attempt to meet the challenge and match the impossibly high standards she sets. If I had to characterize our relationship, I’d say the word ‘competitors’ is closer to the mark than ‘partners.’ Except it’s not really much of a competition, because Paula always wins.

  “Come on,” I said again, willing the lift to reach me.

  At last there was a soft Bing! and the doors opened. I stepped inside and said, “Level three, please.” I could imagine Paula’s expression if she’d been at my side—a mildly bemused and contemptuous look that asked the unspoken question: Why are you saying ‘please’ to a machine?

  The doors closed and there was a tug in my guts as my stomach caught up with the rising elevator. Impatiently I watched the red neon counter above the doors change. It started at F3. The F stands for foundation. There are three foundation levels, housing the non-residential components of the haven: from clinic and classroom to canteen, gym and timesphere. The idea is that each haven in the community is as self-sufficient as possible. Spending too much time Outside literally takes years off your life.

  The F faded out when the lift reached 1, the first of the ten residential levels. There’s no point building much higher than that, or the superstorms are likely to knock down whatever it is you’ve constructed.

  With a sense of shame I realized I’d hardly given a thought to the flatlined occupant of 331. In a belated attempt to make up for that, I tried to fit a face to the apartment. It’s not easy, because two thousand people live in Haven Nine. Two thousand people live in each of the twenty identical havens that make up the community. I’m sure Paula could put a name and face to every apartment in Haven Nine. I can, too, but because my mind isn’t like a supercomputer I’d have to call on the Ecosystem in order to do it. Raising my wrist, palm up, I spoke into the tiny microphone woven into the fabric of the i-band: “I need a basic background report on 331.” I didn’t have to identify myself or who I was addressing. The Ecosystem can tell who’s speaking and assumes you’re addressing it, and not another citizen, unless you say differently.

  The Ecosystem that controls all aspects of life in my community is also at the heart of every other community on Earth. That’s 10,000 communities, and close to half a billion people. Its processing power is so great, however, that if you have sufficient clearance it can tell you almost anything about anyone within a second of being asked. As the lift rose from level one to two, the basic facts about the occupant of apartment 331 were relayed through my hear-ring: “Douglas MacDougall. Caucasian male. Age 44. Height 189cm. Weight 75kg. Long brown hair—” I thought I heard a trace of disapproval, but knew it was only in my imagination—”Green eyes. Widowed. One daughter—” now I was sure I heard a hint of censure. “No history of corrective counseling. Positive credit rating. Ran plant store in Community Central.”

  The last bit of information let me put a face to the name, because I knew the shop. It was a little oasis of green—and occasionally, if you were lucky, blossoms of incredibly beautiful colors—in a desert of gray. Like most Names, I keep a plant and love it dearly. It’s only a common-or-garden prickly cactus of the kind you find all over most of northern Europe. But to me it’s something special, at once an object of affection and a source of wonder. It’s a symbol of inherited guilt because it reminds me of what previous generations reduced the planet to; and it’s a beacon of hope because, despite all the dreadful things done to the Earth, Doug MacDou
gall was still able to find that plant surviving Outside.

  I’ve spent many a contented hour in Doug’s shop, looking at the exotics—the geraniums and dandelions and daisies—and wishing I could afford one. He usually had half a dozen different exotics, flowers that were once found in every garden in this part of the world but are now so rare only licensed bio-prospectors can source them. There’s only one license per community, and the holder has a quota carefully calculated by the Ecosystem. The quota ensures the species has a chance to survive in the wild—and that some examples will live on in the communities in case the toxic haze, acid rain and sterile soil of the Outside prove too much.

  Numbers walk past Doug’s shop without a second glance; Names browse around it and lose all track of time, or stand gazing in the window, lost in wonder. I’m sure many Names go out of their way to pass the shop, like I do, to check on how a plant they can’t afford is progressing; whether a bud has appeared, a blossom opened. You can tell when one of the plants has come into flower because there’s a queue to get into the shop, and a crowd outside the window. Most people can’t afford anything but the kind of prickly cactus I’ve got, but Doug MacDougall didn’t mind them coming into his shop and looking around. He wasn’t into earning credits; he just loved to share his knowledge, his joy and wonder. His reward was seeing someone’s face light up at the sight of a new leaf, or watching their eyes close in ecstasy and their breath catch as they stooped to smell the fragrance of a blossom. He was happy talking to you whether you had credit to spend or not, and I’m certain he got more satisfaction from answering a question than making a sale. The Plant Place was more like a natural history museum or a living shrine than a shop, and to me the man who ran it was everything that’s good about people, all in one person. If there had been more men and women like him a few generations back, the world would be a very different place—and I’m sure all the differences would be for the better. He was good-natured in the same way as Je—

  Everything came back to Jen.

  I let out a long sigh. I usually do after thinking about Jen.

  The lift came to a halt. The slight judder brought me back from my thoughts of Jen, just as the jolt in the timesphere had brought me back from Rio de Janeiro. Number 3 lit up and the doors opened.

  As I walked down the soulless gray corridor of identical doors I wondered what had happened to Doug MacDougall. He’d looked lean and fit, but then he spent more time Outside than was good for him. Any time spent Outside isn’t good for you. His shop was closed each Wednesday afternoon and all day Sunday, and I’ve no doubt he spent most of that time plant prospecting. You can’t spend that much time Outside without paying a heavy price somewhere down the line.

  Now that I thought about it, I suppose Doug MacDougall had looked closer to gaunt than lean of late. I love old movies and have a habit of likening people to the actors who starred in them. I think of myself as a pocket Bruce Willis and Paula as Sharon Stone, circa Basic Instinct. As for Doug MacDougall, he was a ringer for an old country and western singer and movie star whose name escapes me. Anyway, maybe Doug had been sick and hadn’t told anyone—he was that sort of guy. In the Old Days I suppose a heart attack would be the first thing that sprang to mind in a case like this, but myocardial infarctions are practically unheard of now. I-bands monitor everything from heart-rate to perspiration, and the combination of early intervention and advanced medical techniques usually nips any problem in the bud.

  Doug was bound to have some extra special plants in his apartment, so it could have been a robbery gone wrong. The trouble was, I couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to hurt him, even to get their hands on something as precious as a rose or a crocus, a tulip or a daffodil.

  I checked the door number on my left, figuring I must be getting close. It was apartment 323.

  Walking past the next door my thoughts turned to Paula. I decided if she wasn’t in 331 already I’d call and ask what was holding her up, mimic her impatience and—

  “Travis?” I heard that impatience through my hear-ring, and stopped in my tracks outside the door marked 331: Doug MacDougall. “I’m in 331,” Paula said. “Where are you?”

  I might not be able to get one up on her, but at least I could wind her up. I did it by ignoring her call.

  “Travis?”

  I smiled with satisfaction at the aggravation my silence would be causing her. Paula doesn’t have a fiery temper. Her kind rarely do. But they don’t suffer fools gladly, and patience isn’t among their many supposed virtues. Trying her limited patience is one of the few ways I can get back at her in our constant low-key guerrilla war, because the odds are so heavily stacked in her favor.

  Finally she cracked and said, “Damnit, Travis!”

  My smile broadened at having forced her to show emotion, utter an unnecessary word—and an expletive at that. That’s what you get for never calling me by my first name, I thought. Travis is my second name. My first name is Ben. Paula never uses my first name, and always says my second one with thinly-veiled contempt. It’s a habit they have when talking to us. We can’t reciprocate because they don’t have second names; they don’t have parents. At least not ones who actually conceived them in a moment of bewildering passion, gave birth to them, and nurtured them with selfless, devoted love.

  Instead of a second name they have a serial number that identifies the pool of ‘optimal’ genes their X and Y chromosomes were selected from, and the date of their production. The only reason they have first names at all is that it’s more logical. ‘Paula’ is easier to say than a six-digit number. The names certainly don’t reflect any desire to be more human. That’s the last thing they want to be. You can tell that by a thousand little things, like their habit of calling us by our surnames. I have a theory about that habit. I have a theory about pretty much everything. This particular one says calling us by our surname serves as a reminder that we’re different, makes them feel once removed from what they see as our contemptible weaknesses, our frailties and failings.

  If that was their only motivation I could dismiss it as a genetic predisposition they can’t help. But I think there’s something else behind the surname thing: they know it annoys us, and it amuses them to make us mad and know we can’t get even. When we try to press similar buttons with them it doesn’t work because they don’t share the same emotions, or at least not to the same degree.

  The one exception is that they get impatient.

  I considered making Paula say my name once more before I answered, or doing as I’d seen the great boxer Muhammad Ali do in archive footage from a hundred years ago, after he’d changed his name from Cassius Clay and an opponent mocked him by calling him by his old ‘slave name’ in the run-up to the fight. Once inside the ring, Ali gave him a lesson in more than boxing, pausing between punches to taunt him with the question: “What’s my name?”

  But I have to work with Paula, and she is one rank above me. We joined LogiPol at the same time, but Numbers generally do slightly better than Names in every measurable performance indicator and psychometric test. So I raised my hand to my mouth and spoke in the general direction of the i-band: “Yeah. Ben here.”

  “Is your hear-ring not working properly?” Paula said, her voice even more curt than usual.

  I saw an opening to really get to her, and went for it: “I was daydreaming, that’s all.”

  There was silence, as I expected. I gloried in it. Usually I’m the one who comes off worst in our war of words, but this time I’d scored a little victory. Numbers are faster, stronger, smarter and consequently more confident than Names. The differences aren’t big enough to be embarrassing—sometimes the margin is so narrow it’s barely noticeable, and sometimes it might not be there at all except in their mind and in ours. But, generally speaking, they have a slight edge in any given situation. It’s a case of anything we can do, they can do better. They know it, and we know it, and we have to live with seeing the knowledge in their eyes.

  There few things th
ey aren’t so good at, however.

  For some reason they struggle to dream and imagine and to wonder. A whole raft of scientific studies was done about it a while back, but the raft sank without a trace. Scientific studies have been done about everything you can think of, but not many were as unsuccessful as that one. Anyway, whatever the reason, their inability to dream and imagine and wonder is a fact of life.

  That brings me to another of my theories: I think there’s more than a little envy mixed in with the contempt Numbers have for Names.

  To reduce it to a more personal level, I think one of the reasons Paula doesn’t like me is that she has no idea what I’m seeing when there’s a faraway look in my eyes. She has no idea where my thoughts take me when there’s no task at hand to think about, but I’m sure she’s desperate to go there, too. Numbers live in a world that’s black and white; Names live in a world that’s gray, but we dream in color. I get the feeling that deep down, even if they won’t admit it to themselves let alone to others, Numbers desperately want to see those colors. They pity us because to them it’s blindingly obvious we’ll never get to the bottom of the rainbow; but, at the same time, I’m sure they envy us because at least we can see the colors making it up; we can dream of far horizons and feel their pull.