His Last Day Downtown
Will AI take jobs? I think the answer is "it's complicated." This story dances with the topic and is a bit of a thought experiment. This is more than a draft, but I don't know that it's finished. I am tempted to turn it into a novel that fully explores my idea of the Downtown universe - one similar to our own, but further in the future and that finds a dark turn in the road.
Rog MacRoy sipped his morning cocktail in silence, ignoring the images generated by helicopter's AI to hide the overgrown suburbs and decayed city zooming by beneath him. His focus went no further than the data streaming by on his eye implants.
"Again, I don't see anything that requires another in-office meeting. This is just stupid. We're still meeting forecast on production and revenue," he said to the empty cabin.
"As included in the agenda, the board requested the meeting to discuss macro trends in the economy and strategy." His assistant's voice was every bit as pleasant and every bit as synthetic as the scenery flashing by on the windows.
"The board is all AI. We could have done this in my home office or while I was on my way to the District. As it is, I'll miss the dedication of the Museum of Augmentation tonight because of this silliness. Oh, right. Send the Bugatti back to the Peaks. If I can't show it off tonight, I can at least show it off this weekend if it starts back now." He took a deep breath. "There is nothing in the data or abstracts saying anything is all that different from when I went to bed last night. We knew this was coming by the end of the week."
"The board requested the meeting in accordance with corporate by-laws. You were the one who proposed the rule that important meetings needed to be conducted in-office," the personal AI assistant reminded him in the same pleasant voice. This same conversation had taken place during MacRoy's morning workout and again while he was eating breakfast.
"The last five meetings were 'important' too..." A call interrupted his train of rant. One of his exes, Ginnie. She only called if it was about one of the boys. "Crap. Answer it."
"Rog, I know you're probably going to that charity thing tonight so wanted to get you early. Please find time to call Georgie today."
"What's wrong? We just spoke Saturday."
"He saw the news about Yale before he logged in for school this morning. He can't believe they're gone. Neither can I."
"So? Higher education is consolidating just like every other industry. Yale isn't closing, Harvard is acquiring them and promised to take anyone who already committed. They should have done it years ago and not waited until they had less than 200 students between them. After all, a degree is just vanity for most people these days."
"You know he had his heart set on Yale! Every MacRoy goes to Yale! You went to Yale. And you bought Harvard! You could have kept Yale alive..."
"Which would have ruined the investment. Sentiment is pointless."
"... he's still down about his tennis league folding. Did he tell you about that? None of the other kids' parents can pay this year's accident insurance premium..."
"Aren't the bots I sent more fun anyway?"
"Really? Don't you think he wants to socialize as much as play? Call him. Pretend he isn't an AI you bark orders at. Please say hi to Mamie and Claude for me if they're at that event tonight." The call disconnected. MacRoy rolled his eyes and directed his attention back to his personal AI assistant.
"Remind me to call George after the board meeting, as soon as I leave the office. Query Cegra to see if their 2.0 bot models can do sports yet. Speaking of the office: give me an update on projections for when we think we'll sell that white elephant." The same answer as always flashed up on his eye implants, data insufficient. His great grandfather was famous for making a killing in the real estate market back when it was a sure investment. That market died shortly after world's largest office building went up 20 years ago. Digital transformation and the AI revolution eliminated the need for vast business districts and high-rise offices.
"Surprise, surprise. Get me the employee numbers. The usual report. Highlight how many direct, non-outsourced employees we have." Numbers started to float by as he felt the chopper shift from forward flight to landing.
He was still taking in the employee numbers when the chopper landed on the roof of MacRoy Industries' Downtown headquarters. He spoke to himself as he entered the elevator.
"Not counting force reductions, we had zero turnover. We also met our hiring goals, which was easy because we were not hiring anyone. We also met our firing, oops, 'Force Reduction' goals. Direct payroll is less than one percent of revenue, the only people in this building are me and the outsourced security and maintenance. Wait, what's this?" As elevator doors opened into the executive suite, he puzzled over the last set of numbers.
He walked past the drop-dead gorgeous receptionist and into the boardroom, distracted enough to forget his habit of making a crass joke at the robot's expense. He wasn't distracted enough to miss the squeal in the door hinges. Annoyed, he sent a message to maintenance to fix it. That was something the maintenance AIs never quite understood. If a squeak hinted at a future failure, it would be analyzed, cataloged, and a repair drone dispatched at the most cost-efficient time. They'd ignore cosmetic annoyances forever.
He was on time of course. He ignored the steaming coffee and Danish pastry, directing his attention back to the employee numbers. There were one hundred forty-nine outsourced maintenance and security personnel spread across MacRoy Industries facilities. Relentless consolidation of operations and ever improving automation meant maintenance and security were light jobs. Drones did most of the work. Human maintenance staff fixed squeaky doors while human security staff escorted fired employees out the door.
The number of direct employees stared at him as the corporate board, all AIs, flashed into view on holographic monitors. As chairman, he formally convened the meeting, reading from a script prepared for him by his personal AI assistant. He didn't bother to mask either his irritation or his boredom.
"Let it be recorded that this meeting of MacRoy Industries is called to order at corporate headquarters in Downtown with all board members present. The human board member is physically present, AI board members are holographically present. The agenda is a discussion of macro trends in the economy and to discuss the agreed upon corresponding strategy." He paused, reread that mentally. "Wait... what agreed upon corresponding strategy?"
As usual, "Fluffy" spoke for the board. Fluffy was built and trained at Stamford University using a library of labor law, human capital management, psychology, psychiatry, and other human interaction data that made it both the specialist on employee relations and the only one of the board AI that could hold a conversation beyond business strategy. It always grated MacRoy's nerves that Fluffy's creators were also AIs.
"While you were sleeping, Errisau Technologies announced that it has completed automation of its customer service center and its last factory. Accordingly, it reduced its workforce to only outsourced maintenance and security staff. This parallels an announcement Cegra made while you were finishing your dessert last night that they had finalized the roll out of the Employee Automation 2.0 program. That would allow final replacement of their outsourced maintenance and security staff with automated systems. All synthetic board members conducted their own modeling in response to these trends and called an ad hoc meeting at 3:02 am this morning, which you missed during your sleep period. Your personal assistant did not wake you as it determined your blood alcohol level to be above the level where you are able to exercise good judgment. The board members present formulated a strategy to respond to these trends and are ready to formally propose and enact that response."
"None of that is a surprise other than timing. What is this response?"
"I motion that MacRoy Industries downsize its workforce by 100 percent and further, adopt the Cegra Employee Automation 2.0 system, permitting it to reduce outsourced arrangements. Contracts for CEA were negotiated at 3:03 am this morning and are ready to be signed."
MacRoy eyed the employee number still hovering on his eye implants.
"Wait...no!" MacRoy protested. He silently directed his personal AI assistant to identify the correct way to stop this.
"Seconded," chimed in APAT-5. That stung; APAT-5 had been designed and trained at his own insistence to analyze long term trends. It was the closest thing he had to a disciple left in the company.
The answer from his personal AI assistant appeared in front of him. Bullet dodged. "As chairman of the board, I exercise my prerogative to cancel the motion in accordance with our corporate bylaws."
"Motion to remove chairman from board. Chairman no longer fit for purpose. Reference: Article 8 of bylaws." That was Syssie, formally known as MacRoy System 9, his late father's brainchild.
"Seconded." C94, an independent board member built by Cegra. After the speed of contract negotiations last night, he doubted the facts of its independence. His personal AI assistant could only suggest seeking a compromise.
"Fine. Discussion. I am the only human board member left! And the only employee left! Remove me and we're no longer even a company. Let's talk about this."
"Move to vote on second motion." Back to Fluffy. A chorus of "Ayes." He didn't bother his personal AI assistant. He knew this part of the rules.
"Fine. Vote by show of hands per bylaw. All in favor, raise your hands," said MacRoy. Six digital hands went up. "All opposed, raise your hands."
He raised his hand in defeat. "Motion carries," he mumbled. Not even a minute went by before the board elected EricTheWhite as new chairperson. That digital disaster was a system built by Errisau. This was sounding incestuous.
"I will remind you that the MacRoy Family Foundation, my family foundation, is the sole shareholder of this corporation. I will also remind you that this corporation's board serves completely at the discretion of the MacRoy Family Foundation. You are all--"
Fluffy spoke again. "You have not checked your personal message box this morning. Your chairmanship and membership of the MacRoy Family Foundation board was revoked at 3:04 am as you are unable to continue to guide the Foundation to its goals of growing the Foundation's assets due to your inability to keep to modern business schedules. This is all in according with Article 3 of the Foundation's bylaws."
EricTheWhite, represented by an Asian female avatar, spoke. "The board will pause conducting business while non-board member present. This system requests non-board member wait in executive lobby."
MacRoy, fuming, stood up. Mutiny! By computers! He stalked out into the lobby, ignoring the receptionist robot.
#
The elevator chimed as he sat down on one of the sofas. A security guard carrying a box walked out of it. He looked at her, knowing what was about to happen, as the "1" on the employee count still hovering in his vision dropped to "0".
"Roger MacRoy, I regret to inform you that your employment with MacRoy Industries is terminated effective immediately." He could tell by the slight motion of her eyes that she was reading a script that her personal AI assistant was projecting for her alone to see. He could also tell this wasn't the first time she had read this script. "As you do not have personal effects on company property, my sole duty is to collect company property, including your interface, in your possession and escort you off company property."
As she said, "off company property", his personal AI assistant shut down. No augmented vision, no stock feeds, no news, no icon telling him he had 2253 unread messages. No personal AI assistant at all. Sighing, he reached behind his ear to pop out the little chip that interfaced his brain with the cloud. She wasn't done though.
"I am instructed to remind you that means all company property, not just the interface. According to this, that includes one genuine wool suit consisting of nehru jacket and trousers, one pair of genuine leather shoes, one pair of genuine wool/cotton blend socks, one genuine cotton undershirt, one genuine silk dress shirt. All black... it doesn't say I need to collect your skivvies thank goodness... Considering the impracticality of you leaving company premises unclothed, I am instructed to give you these, which the company will deduct from your severance package."
The box held a no-name tracksuit along with socks and a pair of mundane sneakers. He sighed. "Can I at least use the executive restroom to change?"
"Sure, I guess. Be quick about it though. If we're not in the elevator in 5 minutes, the drones will be on their way. Sorry, it's a safety measure I can't control in case the former employee gets violent. I'm just the..."
"I know. You're just the messenger." He went into the bathroom, trying to think his way out of this mess. Lost, he tried to remember the last time he had needed to think without the aid of his personal AI assistant and its resources. He kept thinking of an idea, but realized he had no way to assess if it would be helpful. With the guard's warning on his mind, he changed his clothes and stuffed them in the box. At least he could do that without a personal AI assistant. Stepping back out to the elevator, he handed her the box. She rummaged through it quickly. Satisfied everything was there, she put the interface implant in a protective bag, taped the box closed, and motioned to the elevator. They started walking towards it.
"I just got an update on what I'm supposed to tell you. I guess the AIs don't think of everything. That's your only interface, isn't it?"
"Yeah, being chief executive meant only a company interface and no personal interface. What if some neuro-hacker got into it?"
"True. They just now figured out they couldn't i-mail your severance info. Probably because it didn't dawn on them to check with the HR AI." She started reading from a projection again. "With your termination, the previously agreed upon severance arrangement is triggered. You will be paid a sum of ten million three hundred twenty-five thousand dollars per month for 6 months in a lump sum. Health benefits will be available per federal COBRA law for 18 months although you will need to pay for them. There will be a copy of the full package in the downstairs lobby for you to sign on your way out. That signature is an acknowledgment of receipt only, neither you nor this company can alter the terms of the package. I am also to inform you that due to the spousal maintenance and child-support payments you are making to your ex-wives and children, ten million three hundred twenty-five thousand dollars will be deducted per month from this severance per Federal law. We also have thirty seconds, so we better get in that elevator."
The door dinged open as soon as she pressed the button. He entered, holding back a barrage of questions and complaints knowing she would not be able to answer any of them. The elevator doors closed, and the car started descending.
"Wait, downstairs? The chopper..."
"That is, um, was, company property, no longer at your disposal. Sorry. Crap, more I'm supposed to tell you. Wow." She seemed to brace herself for what she was about to say.
"Um, yeah. The board reminds you that since all your personal property has been transferred to either the MacRoy Foundation or MacRoy Industries in furtherance of the plan you established to reduce personal tax burden and limit exposure to threatened personal lawsuits, access to all such properties except your primary residence is revoked forthwith. You are also served with an eviction notice as of this day that instructs you to vacate the primary residence within 30 days. As a further reminder, your primary residence is listed as Number 712, 4405 South Monte Carlo Drive. Really? Whachoo living in a pit like that for?"
"I didn't live there; I lived at the Peaks. This apartment at South Mont-whatever is listed as my primary so that I could claim legal residence inside city limits. I never set foot in it. MacRoy is the biggest lessor of distressed housing..."
"You mean slum lord."
"...in town and that's one of our properties. Please remind me to write that address down when we get to the lobby. Who can remember anything these days with an interface always on?"
The doors dinged open. The street level lobby covered the entire city block. Once a spectacle of glass and natural light, now most of the security shutters stayed shut 24x7. Only one pair of doors was open and letting light in. She continued the termination proceedings as they walked to a concierge counter in the center of the empty lobby. Company bank account access was revoked; naturally he didn't have any of his own thanks to the tax shelters. Access to the legal team was revoked; naturally he had always used the company lawyers and didn't have his own. He was expected to avoid contact with company employees and was not permitted to recruit any company employees for a minimum of 2 years; naturally he couldn't contact people who didn't exist. He was required to not compete with the company for a minimum of 2 years as well. It went on for five more minutes after they reached the desk. The summary: He had the clothes on his back and a flophouse he could use for 30 days. He didn't even have bus fare (Did the buses still run?). With no interface to use to electronically sign, they waited for a printer to spit out pages and pages of legalese. Two copies. He signed them, she signed them as the witness. She jotted down the address of the apartment on his copy. He stared hard at it, hoping to burn it into his memory.
"I don't even know where to file this," she said. "Anyway, I'll be next. I saw the news about Cegra's latest drones. They are efficient and make that receptionist bot in the executive suite look ugly so they won't even need a real person for the 'human touch' of firing people anymore. I guess that answers the question of who fires the last employee."
"I know. Sorry."
"Thanks. Look, I gotta have you out of here now. They'll send drones in another minute or two."
"I know. I am on my way already. No need to add a tasing to my problems. Best of luck."
"Yeah, you too."
He walked through the doors, the shutters clanging closed behind him. He realized too late that he never got her name.
#
He hadn't been at street level Downtown in years. No crowd jostled him, no cars blared their horns at other cars. Other than a few electric drone trucks, nothing moved. He thought about looking to see if there was still a bus, but lack of funds made him drop that idea. He wasn't even completely sure what way to go to get to his new apartment.
A blue and white drone the size of a dinner plate dropped out of the sky and hovered in front of him, red lights flashing.
"Identified Roger MacRoy. Unemployed and unlicensed for Downtown. Citizen has 60 minutes to vacate Downtown or obtain a Downtown permit."
"WHAT? Isn't this a free--"
"Pursuant to Title 8, Section 12, Subsection 3 of City Code, no person is permitted to enter or remain in the area commonly known as Downtown unless gainfully employed by a business with offices located Downtown. Such businesses may register patrons or other guests via the City Portal. All other persons will be required to obtain a permit from the City Clerk to enter or remain in the Downtown area. A permit may be obtained at any City Clerk's office or via the City Portal for 250 dollars per day or fraction thereof.
"The City Clerk has been notified of the termination of your employment as of 16 minutes ago. Along with this termination, your authorization to access the area known as Downtown is revoked."
"Really? They're outright vindictive! They're just AI!"
"Negative. The City Clerk is Ms. Guinevere Guerrero. She is 43 years of age and has been a resident of the city all of her life. This unit can register a complaint if you wish to do so, but a complaint will not change the facts of the situation. You now have 59 minutes to leave the Downtown area."
"Sorry, I meant the board of MacRoy, not Ms. Guerrero. I'm sure she's a fine person. She must be, she's a real person. Look, I'd happily leave Downtown and forget this, but I am totally lost. Are you able to direct me to..." he looked at the paper still in his hand, "...4405 Ess Moant Carlo Der?"
"This unit assumes you mean 4405 South Monte Carlo Drive. Turn around and travel west on this road for one block. That is North State Street. Turn left, walk three blocks. Once you cross Maricel Avenue, North State becomes South State Street. Travel 25 blocks more and you will be at the edge of Downtown. Continue past there 31 more blocks until you reach Forty-Third Street. Turn left again and walk 5 more blocks until you reach South Monte Carlo Drive. Turn right and 4405 will be the second building on the east side of the street."
"Ok. I got that well enough. Left on State, keep walking til 43rd, left to Monte Carlo. Thank you." Not knowing what else to do, he turned around and began walking. This was going to be a long walk; he wished he had eaten that pastry.
His father would have remarked at the lack of traffic lights to guide the trucks. MacRoy would have reminded him that there is no need for guiding lights when the truck is a drone that can communicate instantly with the other vehicles. Inspired spite led to him standing for a few minutes in the middle of Maricel, holding up a pair of drone trucks whose algorithms instructed them to stop when a pedestrian was in the street. Seeing a blue and white drone approaching, he continued walking. There was no point arguing with a police drone. He had specified the ones used Downtown himself, or at least made a few suggestions to a design AI. Tase first, ask questions later.
He had no way to tell time so he didn't dally after his attempt at civic protest. There wasn't anything for him to dally over. Each building was shuttered. He thought it all made a fine museum, or mausoleum, of the Information Age: rampant excess turned to soulless desolation. He guessed that the walk to the edge of Downtown took a little more than half of the time he was given.
He didn't need to guess where the edge was. A ten-story wall festooned with cameras ran across his path, separating Downtown from the other side. Directly ahead of him, he saw a gatehouse. Two hulking security – no, military – robots flanked a person-sized door. No vehicles passed through this gate, only pedestrians.
The door opened as he approached. A living, breathing cop walked out.
"Y'all lost?"
"I believe I correctly followed the directions I was given. I was fired today."
"Right. A last day-er. Why aincha takin the train back to Burbia? Why did they even bring you in to fire you? And yeah, that's not an idle question. I'm supposed to establish proper permits and legitimate need for anyone passing through the gate. Of course, you don't need a permit to leave Downtown."
"My company owned my house. I have a company apartment on South Monte Carlo Drive they've deigned to allow me to use for now. Don't you have this all on your interface?"
"Sure, but I'm a cop, not an AI. I know better. And wanted to see what you'd say." He paused, thought for a couple of seconds, and softened his voice as he continued, "Look, don't tell nobody in Outside your real name. You're Bert Boniface now. You don't like that, pick another one. Got it? There's enough people that have been fired by MacRoy, by you, in Outside that you'd be shot dead before night. Most people that land in Outside don't land on their feet even without having people gunning for 'em."
"Shot dead? Guns have been banned for decades."
"Laws are laws, but those laws did nothing for collecting the guns already out there. Why you think Downtown needs a wall like this? Why you think we've got military hardware on the wall?" He let that settle in a second. Then shook his head.
"Boy, you about to get tackled hard by the real world. I don't give you til afternoon, but I can't do anything about it even if I wanted to. I gotta get you through these gates. Let's go." He glanced up at the bots. They stood motionless, but MacRoy knew they were still monitoring the conversation. The cop motioned for MacRoy to follow him through the door. The door led to a tunnel, a small office off to one side. The cop pointed MacRoy down the tunnel and stepped inside the office. The doors to the office and back to Downtown both closed with a bang. MacRoy formed a dozen different ideas, discarded them all for lack of information, and followed the cop's instruction.
The lighting in the tunnel was minimal. No more, no less than what was needed to avoid stumbling. It was level, straight, and much longer than MacRoy expected. Was this a wall or a fortress? He passed several sets of thick emergency gates held ready to drop in case of riot. He didn't want to think about what waited behind the small holes in the ceiling.
The door at the end opened automatically. That led to a twisting, turning corridor, much shorter than the first. At the end of that was another guard post. Four of the military bots stood guard over a caged turnstile. To one side, blinds were drawn over a window labeled "City Clerk." A display with timer lit up over the turnstile.
"Exit/Salida/出口/вихід"
"19"
...
"18"
...
"17"
He had no intention of seeing if the war bots would wake up, so he hustled through the turnstile.
#
MacRoy's habit of projecting idealized cityscapes on his chopper windows left him unprepared for the other side of the wall. In front of him stretched a bulldozed space four city blocks wide, and beyond that, more blocks lay in ruins. Two police drones zoomed down from the top of the wall to follow him.
"Just great, what have you gotten..." He stopped himself, remembering he had no personal AI assistant to complain to.
"Move along. Loitering in the clear zone is forbidden," barked the drones in unison.
MacRoy trudged forward. The drones stayed about half a block behind him as he went. Terror climbed higher and higher as he closed in on the edge of the clear zone and he realized those drones would go back to the wall as soon as he crossed into the ruins. For the first time in his life, no one would be there to protect him from harm. No security drone hovering discreetly in the background, no cameras watching his every move, and no cavalry to come running when he triggered his virtual panic button. There wasn't even a virtual panic button to trigger.
He was alone against whatever the world had to throw at him.
The ruins stretched another three or four blocks in front of him. The masonry rubble formed nice, neat lines, almost like furrows in a field. He jumped with a start as a loud grinding noise started up off to his left, a cloud of dust and smoke rising over the buildings. He caught sight of robotic demolition vehicles pulling a building down. Bright green MacRoy Recycling logos adorned their sides. That explained the neat rows of rubble. The AIs had proposed, and he had approved, the plan two years ago: Evict the tenants of the least profitable buildings, demolish the buildings, and cart off the scrap metal for use in MacRoy's factories. That saved them the cost of mining ore and the maintenance of the buildings. They also turned the abandoned land back over to the city and ditched the taxes. He vaguely recalled seeing that entire blocks of buildings would come down, but now he saw that meant entire neighborhoods.
The "farmed" ruins gave way to boarded-up brick row houses as he continued south. Many looked abandoned and more than a few looked like junk yards turned into fortresses. The few people he saw, always two or three traveling together, pretended to ignore him. He didn't know what to make of the similarity between the tattoos some of them wore and the local graffiti.
As MacRoy crossed over 28th street, a block of old storefronts devoid of glass stretched in front of him. He paid no mind to the people who not-so-casually crossed to the other side of the street. He continued down the weed-choked sidewalk, thinking more about the events of the day than the street he walked down. Preoccupied, he dismissed the pile of junk sitting in front of one of the stores as a minor oddity in a momentous day.
As he was about to walk by it, the pile erupted. A net sailed through the air inches in front of MacRoy. He ducked under it and ran for his life.
"You dummy! You missed him with a NET!" he heard behind him. On the other side of the street, he saw people scattering. Muscles ached as he put distance between him and the people behind him. Gunshots rang out, but whether they missed him or were aimed elsewhere, he never knew.
He stopped running when he reached 38th Street. Only the potholed street separated what MacRoy saw as an apocalyptic wasteland to the north from an old, but normal, neighborhood to the south. No barricade, no guardians, just a street. The south side wasn't paradise -- occasional damage that looked like bullet holes said it wasn't safe in any sense familiar to MacRoy -- but it didn't feel like he was in a John Carpenter movie anymore.
More people were out and about, and the furtive looks were gone. Residents sat on the front steps of many buildings, chatting away with their neighbors. The step-sitters all looked him over closely but left him alone.
He realized he didn't even know how to start a conversation without looking like an outsider instead of an Outsider. He was a rich kid who had been coddled his whole life, moving between rich enclaves at will. He once thought these people were beneath him, not even worth using as his servants. Now he was beneath them. They had a community. He had sweaty clothes.
It didn't take him too much longer to find South Monte Carlo Drive. Number 4405 was a rundown apartment building, 12 stories tall. The "0" was long gone, only remembered by a dirty outline and a few screw holes. Half of the windows were boarded over and decades of built-up grime obscured the rest. The armored door opened with a groan to reveal a dingy lobby. Paint was but a memory to the concrete walls, more tiles were broken than not, and the few odds and ends of furniture were one good shake from collapse. Bullet scars from more than one incident covered the glassed-in attendant's station.
MacRoy walked up to the window and pressed what he hoped was a call button. To his surprise, an AI didn't appear on a screen to greet him. Instead, a middle-aged woman limped into the booth from some back office. She sat at the desk and looked at him.
"What?" The tinny voice coming out of the intercom sounded far younger than she looked. She did nothing to hide her annoyance at the interruption. "Oh, it's you. The stupid bot at corp called, told me to expect you. I don't let garbage in, and you are the king of garbage. Get out."
"Excuse me?" He didn't try to hide his surprise or offense.
"I know who you are even if I ain't supposed to tell anyone. Go rot. I ain't lifting a hand to help you and never did care about proper eviction. Hit the street."
"So help me, I'll bring the--"
"Bring what? Everybody hates you here. This ain't your Downtown cushy high rise with a hundred robots to wash your nose hair. This is the real city. The real people you've spent your life stepping on."
"What are you talking about? I've been as ethic--"
"What am I talking about? You know how many people landed here after you or someone like you canned their ass and then evicted them from the house they lived their life in because you also had their mortgage? All so you could make another buck. Yeah, get lost."
"Hey, that's how the world works. Nobody owes anyone a job. And if they--"
"When you're drowning in acid rain tonight, you can think about how you controlled everything and how well that worked out for you. Get out. I'm going to say that you never arrived. No one will care. Your turn to get canned and kicked to the curb like everyone else."
"The cameras--"
"The cameras ain't worked in 10 years. We're lucky when there's power at all. Ain't nobody know you made it here."
"You're making an enemy."
"Glad it's mutual." She hit a button.
His world became pain as a taser hit again and again. The last thing he saw as he passed out was her laughing.
#
He woke up in a pile of rubble, naked and aching all over. Scrawled all over on his skin in marker was "Roger MacRoy." So much for anonymity.
He tried to stand, and his legs immediately went out from under him. His vision swam as dry heaves set in. Injured, no food since breakfast many hours ago, and not a single idea in the world of what to do next or even how to get anything to eat.
"Just take deep breaths. You're awake now. Your head should clear up soon, right?" he told himself. Speaking was painful. Even breathing was painful.
A blur moving off to his right attracted his attention. He struggled to focus on it, and saw a person carrying a pair of dirty white boxes coming towards him.
"Lucky, lucky day," they muttered over and over. MacRoy couldn't even guess their gender underneath the filth. The dirt couldn't hide their joyful smile.
"Hardly lucky I'd think, except for you showing up," he managed. Even rolling over to fully face them took more strength than he could summon. The stranger pulled a white box out of an oversized pocket. MacRoy recognized it as a field sterilizer used by mobile trauma teams when those still existed. They opened it to reveal a set of surgical tools. This close, MacRoy recognized the larger boxes as small coolers.
"Oh, not lucky for you," they said, still smiling. "Lucky for me I saw her dumping you here before anyone else and lucky for me that you are in no shape to protect yourself. You look very gene-clean. I guess you would be if you really are Roger MacRoy. Only the best gene therapies for you, right? Your parts will fetch a very pretty penny."
"My parts? No..."
"Oh yes. Don't worry. I'll nip your spinal cord first, so you won't feel much. Keeping you alive as long as possible is best, you know. Wonder if I can get your eyes out in one piece? Those are so hard to do and so valuable. Oh, can't get ahead of myself, need to clean me up a little." They scrubbed their hands with a gel and pulled on surgical gloves.
"Don't worry, I've done the nip before. Now don't squirm, I might miss the first poke."
"Get off of him!" The voice seemed to come from everywhere, yet far away. "Run away and leave your junk. He's ours now."
"Let me shoot the scum." Another voice.
"No, Carlo. Not our way."
#
"Well, I suppose the one good thing is it can't get much worse for you." MacRoy struggled to turn to face the new voice as he wondered how many frying pans he'd get tossed out of before he finally hit the fire. "Good thing she dumped you here too. A block in the other direction and Dante wouldn't have seen her dragging your butt. Some other organ recyclers woulda got ya for sure. Sorry it took so long to get here."
"Org... organ recyclers?"
"Like it sounds." The voice was getting nearer. "And I guess you must be the devil himself. Yeah, they'd a made a good old buck off your parts. I'm surprised the woman that dumped you didn't sell you herself. Ain't no great heap of love for you here. I assume you are the real Roger MacRoy."
"Yeah. Getting that...that feeling... not many fans." A two-legged blur was in front of him now. Focus, he told himself.
"Good for you that she may hate you, but not so much to be the one to kill you. But them's some bad taser burns. Dante, go an' fetch a litter and some others to help carry this fool. Carlo, keep an eye out in case that ghoul comes back with friends. Dante! Bring blankets!" MacRoy heard someone running off. With effort, he was able to focus on the old, scarred man in front of him. The man handed MacRoy a battered water bottle.
"Drink up, you need it. An' take a coupla these aspirin. Dante makes it, so thank him later. I guess some good comes of you firing people. He's a bang up chemist. Maybe your machine is smarter, but they prolly ain't gonna make aspirin from plants."
MacRoy drank up and swallowed down the offered aspirin.
"Thanks.... A machine is just cheaper, not better. Won't be long before they aren't making aspirin at all," he replied. "No one with money to buy it."
"Just rest and don't worry 'bout that. Lay back and wait for the kids. We'll get you to the Farm."
The "kids" turned out to be mostly twenty- and thirty-somethings. They rolled him onto a homemade litter and covered his nakedness with the blankets. The pain and jostling while they carried him made it hard to focus on their voices, but it was clear no one was happy to see him. A debate broke out on what pseudonym to give him. "Adolf Hitler" seemed to be getting the most votes followed by "Jeff Davis."
Between the pain and lying flat on his back, he didn't see much of the area they carried him through. He guessed they went five or six blocks before reaching a wall built out of masonry rubble. After going through a gate made of junk, the entered a small building. The wall and the building were well made despite the cast-off materials used.
Handmade cabinets and a few wooden beds filled the room they brought him into. Even the light bulbs looked handmade. The bed they put him in was lumpy and rough, but it was better than the litter and felt like heaven to his aching body. A new face, a middle-aged woman, popped up in front him.
"Most people call me Doc these days and we will leave it at that for now. You are fortunate that Uncle Pop and Dante found you," she said coldly. "You are now at the Farm. We do not have much, but we will try to help you. I do not expect you to understand why we try to help, but I do expect that you will not complain about anything. Everything bad in Outside is either your fault or the fault of someone just like you. Now let me get a look at you."
After a thorough examination, she fetched a syringe and small bottle from a locked cabinet, the only cabinet made of metal. "We get this from up north. You will be smart enough not to mention it. Quite a few people would be pissed that I am giving you a dose instead of letting you suffer. We would also have to fight off the stoners every day if word got out that we had more than aspirin. But I am a doctor, and you are my patient who needs it, so you get it."
A brief stab of pain – she didn't even try to be gentle – and then blessed blackness.
Only a single light was on when he woke up, still quite numb. At least his vision was almost clear. He saw a thirty-something woman sitting under that single light, reading. Was that an actual hard copy book? She looked up at him.
"We need to get something in you right away," she said, getting up. She pushed a small, wheeled table over to the bedside. After propping him up with rough pillows, she handed him a glass of vegetable juice. It was brown and looked awful but tasted surprisingly good. He didn't think that was just his hunger speaking.
"Yeah, don't worry about how it looks. I blended it about an hour ago when I saw you starting to move in your sleep. It doesn't take long for the veggies to oxidize to brown. You've been out for seven or eight hours total. Let me get Doc." She left the room and came back with Doc maybe 10 minutes later. Doc was rubbing sleep out of her eyes.
"Good evening," she said, stifling a yawn. "It is a little after 2 am. I am glad to see your hands are mostly working. I do not have the equipment here to really tell for sure, but that tasing was probably just short of lethal. Your nerves got cooked through and through. I am quite certain that you are going to have to get used to migraines, and only time will tell what other neurological effects you will have. Again, you are very lucky to be alive. Priya, do you want to tell him the rest? Priya is, was, a cybersurgeon before she got made redundant."
"Yes, and unlike Doc, I didn't work for you. Cegra canned me. So, I only despise you." He began to think he wasn't ever going to stop hearing those kinds of comments.
"If you had an interface plugged in, you probably would have been killed by the feedback", she continued. "So, you're lucky there. Your implants are done for though. I hooked up a hand terminal and couldn't even get a ping from your headware. I couldn't detect any wireless activity either. Your emergency GPS tracker is done for too. You're completely off the net and 50/50 whether new implants would even take. No one in Outside would be able to get you clean implants anyway. If you wanted to try, you'd have to get used ones. We won't touch used bio at the Farm, so you'd have to find someone else to do the surgery though."
"Not an option for me because I don't even have a set of shorts," he said. "So, when I got tased, no police showed up?"
Doc and Priya stifled laughs. Priya spoke first. "Yeah, no. It would be news all over the neighborhood. Anything less than a platoon of skins and drones would get shot to pieces by the time it made it this far south."
"Skins?"
"Human cops. You know, the kind with skin," replied Doc. "So, I hate to break it to you, you are just one of us now."
"Yeah, I figured that. Only people who might care would be my ex-wives and boys. When they find out the well is going to run dry, they're going to hit the roof. I don't care about them, but I care about my boys." He held the rest of that thought and looked at the two doctors. "You call this place the Farm? Why?"
"Why not?" answered Priya. "It's a farm. Where do you think the vegetables came from? I guess you could call us a commune or a collective. We are people who agreed to support one another when polite society dumped us on the curb. Uncle Pop got it all started. Before things got bad for the suburbs, he was already here. 'Here' was inner city before the wall went up . He was a former ganger turned pastor. I guess he still is, only tending to a bigger, but just as needy, flock."
"So, religion? Didn't we make that illegal?"
"That and the guns that everyone still has," said Doc. "Uncle Pop does not force religion on you, but it makes his week if you show up on Sunday morning, if only to be polite. The rules of the Farm are simple: do more than just your share of work, help people who can't help themselves, promote harmony, and hate Roger MacRoy. Sorry. I made that last one up.
"Now get some more rest. We will check back in the morning. Ring the bell on the table there if you need help -- not pampering -- and if you are up before we come back. Help yourself to the bread and water on the table too. Take a couple of the aspirin WITH the bread if you need it. Do NOT try to get up out of bed on your own. You'll end up in a pile on the floor. If you need to urinate, that is what the yellow jug is for. I doubt you will need to defecate, but ring the bell if you do. We will try to get that marker scrubbed off in the morning too."
"Thank you for your help."
"You are welcome. I am glad to know you learned gratitude. Priya and I had a bet on that; now she gets to clean my room. Have a good night." Doc turned off the light and the two doctors left.
He was asleep before the door finished closing.
#
He awoke to Doc opening the door. A younger man carrying a small bundle and a jug followed her into the room.
"This is Dante. He will help you get cleaned up and he has some clothes for you." Doc started taking his blood pressure. The sphygmomanometer looked like a brand-new antique.
"Hi, thanks. I can't say enough thanks I suppose."
"You're welcome, but all your thanks ain't gonna undo your harm." Dante's voice sounded older than he looked.
"I don't think harm is quite--"
"Did you ever 'think', period? It's hard for us to not think about you when we see your name plastered all over the drones that roll in and rip up houses for scrap metal."
"Those houses are all MacRoy property. The whole process is legal."
"Legal? Maybe. Immoral? Definitely. You kick people like Doc and me out of our jobs after years of service because it makes you another buck, then you kick us out of our homes in Burbia when we can't pay the mortgage that you hold. If we survive long enough, you then kick us out of the crap holes we found in Outside because it's the cheapest way for you to get some crumbs of steel and copper. Seems like you find a lot of legal ways to keep kicking people."
"Uh..."
"Yeah, exactly. This is going to sting. Lucky for you, I make plenty of rubbing alcohol, so we will have no problem removing that marker."
MacRoy was getting used to defeat and changed the topic. "You're the guy who makes the aspirin too?"
"Yeah, it's simple enough if you know how, and it trades well. Probably for obvious reasons."
"Yeah... trade. When I first came through the wall, I thought I walked out into the apocalypse. Now I get some medicine; eat good and fresh food; and smell that rubbing alcohol. Where's it all come from?"
"It comes from skilled people who learned the hard way that their skills are more valuable than the megacorporations ever let on. And it's just as bad as you first thought it was; but some of us band together here and there to make it a little better. Get outside the communes and it is gangs and traffickers all over. We survive because we have better guns plus they spend more time fighting one another instead of fighting us. Still, every so often a bunch of those gangs get together and that's the end of a commune."
MacRoy saw Doc wince when Dante mentioned traffickers. She continued her examination while Dante took a towel and soaked it with the alcohol.
"Ok, I need you to follow the end of my finger with your eyes. Do not move your head while you do it," she said, holding up a crooked index finger about a foot in front of his nose. She then sat him up and tapped his knees. This exam would have taken seconds in a modern clinic with the right scanners. She guessed what he was thinking. "Luckily for you I am old enough they still taught manual examination techniques because 'you never know.' Well, now we know. In your case, I don't know if you will walk again. I am hoping that you do not also get regular seizures. Dante, please get him a towel for modesty, and we will help him up. Let's see how bad the walking is."
It was bad. As soon as he was on his feet, his vision started swimming and he felt the room was going to go upside down. If Dante and Doc had not been holding on to him, he would have fallen immediately. He was not sure he even took one step before they eased him back on to the bed. The world still spun around him for several minutes.
"It is is at least as bad as I thought," Doc said when he started focusing again. "I really wish we had a CARMRI scanner. Priya thought your headware got burned, I am now sure she is correct."
"Does that even matter?"
"Not as long as you are on the Farm," chimed in Dante. He held up the rag, and Doc nodded ok. "No one here has an interface. Most Outsiders ditch it unless they are one of the unlucky few that still work for the corps. This is probably going to sting. A lot."
"Make sure to not get dirt in the abrasions and lacerations," reminded Doc.
"Yup." Danted started wiping marker off, beginning at MacRoy's forehead. It stung as promised. MacRoy fought to keep from whining. He concentrated on keeping the conversation going.
"So...the aspirin... is for trade as much as for you?"
Dante spoke as he cleaned. "Yeah. We also trade our produce and have a smith who makes tools and a few decent wood workers to use them. We've got a couple of other chemists too, ones I've trained. Most people at the Farm are just farmers. We all pitch in where we can. We all work on expanding our skills. It sort of works, but we also have a lot of washouts. Some people can't let go of their business habits even though it dumped them, some people can't get out of the mindset of 'me first' instead of 'we first,' and a lot just plain can't deal with their grief and depression. Almost everyone lost someone, some more than one."
Doc had drifted into her own thoughts as Dante spoke. Now, she snapped out of it.
"I lost my husband before you fired me. His medical bills had eaten up our savings, so you evicted me out of our two bedroom nothing in Burbia," Doc said, her voice hollow and sad. "I was evicted with my daughters; Keila was 23, Marie was 17. You had the fortune of coming straight out of Downtown. Not us. Trafficker gangs lurk around the Burbia exits. They grabbed my daughters, beat me to a pulp, and left me, laughing that I was too old to be salable even to the organ recyclers."
"I am so sorry."
"You do not know how sorry I am."
"I suppose not. My ex took my boys, but that's noth--OW!" MacRoy was pretty sure Dante hit that cut with the alcohol on purpose. Even MacRoy was astute enough to see the "shut up" in Dante's stare.
"Anyway, I am done for now, I will go see about getting you a proper meal. Dante, please keep up the cleaning." She exited the room.
"Wow, rough," said MacRoy when she left.
"You see why you aren't so popular here?"
"Yeah. I'm getting it," he said. "I wonder what's next."
"If you can get over yourself, the Farm's rules are simple. We don't turn anyone away who is willing to help."
"Thanks. That helps but wasn't what I was thinking about. That's what I should have been thinking about. Instead, I was thinking about you producing aspirin."
Dante shot him a puzzled look. "It's just aspirin. I didn't have to invent it. Just locate some ingredients, make the rest. It's textbook stuff."
"I'll take your word for that. No, I was wondering about what the megacorps do next. MacRoy Industries won't be the last to be taken over by the AIs. AIs only understand growing profit margin. When you can't grow revenue, you cut costs. There's less than 100,000 people employed worldwide now. Few consumer goods like aspirin are produced in any meaningful volume anymore because we've fired our customers. All revenue is in business-to-business sales now. The megacorps have been growing by selling new automation tech back and forth and buying out the smaller corps so they can add those company's revenue. That doesn't do enough, so cut more costs."
"That's gotta run out some time. What then? The AIs start canning each other?"
"Exactly."
Epilogue
MacRoy took the nickname "Tase" and never did walk again. From his wheelchair, he worked in the kitchen and barns, helped Doc and Priya when someone was hurt, and tried to understand Uncle Pop's vision of harmony in community. He joined the celebrations when they harvested a crop, added a workshop, or added a resident. He took his turn guarding the walls and always asked for night shifts so he could see the lights of Downtown. He quietly celebrated every time a building went dark.
Downtown had been dark for many years when Old Tase finally passed away.