The day started with a jolt of electricity. She missed her alarm again. She’s been missing it all week, and has been getting the shock as a result. A last-ditch measure to make sure she isn’t late. The sun hadn’t risen yet, (“Thank Whoever’s up there”, she thought), and the dark, smoggy cityscape was somewhat visible from her studio apartment’s window. Countless lights pierced through the hazy air. But she didn’t have time to appreciate the view. She had two less minutes to get her morning routine done. The first worded thought entered her mind at that realisation. “Fuck,” she spoke the thought aloud. She looked to the window. For a brief, flickering moment she imagined jumping out the window, careening from the 83rd floor, and wrecking some rich prick’s car with her body.
1.
She catalogued every time she thought about dying.
She crawled out of bed, feeling more like some deep-sea slug than an actual human. She shambled to her kitchen, pouring her foul coffee into a stained mug she retrieved from the dirty dishes that were piled in her sink. Holding her nose, she drank it in its entirety, never quite getting over the putrid taste. Its necessity in providing her with energy was more important than its miserable, synthetic taste. After this, she, slightly more energetically, made her way to her bathroom. Gazing into the mirror, she witnessed her face. The most prominent feature was her eye rings. They looked like black impact craters on her face. Her skin was also pale. It got paler with each passing month avoiding contact with the sun. Her jet black hair was wild and unkempt, though she could see the creeping strands of white appearing, despite her age. Her eyes showed signs of redness from her sobbing session last night. They wandered to several pill bottles arranged on the back left corner of the sink-top. It was her anti-deviancy medication, and 12 other medications meant to fight off any cancers she would get from going outside. She went to her fridge to grab a can of purified water to wash down the medication. Her eyes glazed over the advert that had to play in its entirety before she could unlock her Fridgemax+(TM). As the ad ended and her eyes refocused, she opened the fridge to be greeted by nothing. It was empty. Her phone rumbled in the pocket of her sweatpants. She reached for it and read the words pasted on the screen.
Dear valued customer,
Your area is experiencing a digital infrastructure outage, and as such we are unable to verify your Water+ Premium subscription. As such, all purified water deliveries will be halted until the outage is sorted. We apologise for the inconvenience.
Her hand trembled as she gripped the phone. She would have to take the pills dry. The water from the faucet was too polluted to drink. Any water not specially purified and/or sold at a subscription-based price was disgusting; worse than her coffee. Again, a flash of a thought appeared in her mind. She pictured slamming her face into the bathroom mirror, filling the sink’s basin with her plastic-filled, polluted blood.
2.
She attempted to build up saliva in her mouth in preparation. Little surfaced. She lined up the multi-coloured pills, and started downing them one by one in quick succession. By the third pill, her will was already being tested. She could feel each one racing down her throat. As the 6th pill went down, she had to force it from resurfacing. By the time the 13 medications had been taken, beads of sweat had appeared on her brow, and an uncomfortable growling sounded from the pit of her stomach. But she had no time to think on that. She undressed and stepped into the shower. It was a dry shower—dirt being eradicated through hot wind rather than washed off through water. Most water was not good even for the body. She was blasted by a quick stream of air before the shower’s electronic screen chimed that she was “As clean as a whistle!” She didn’t feel that way. But at least the bad thoughts had ceased for now.
She left the shower and quickly got dressed in her business attire. The suit seemed perfectly designed to make the wearer perpetually uncomfortable and therefore always aware. The company couldn’t afford comfortable minds. She checked her pockets for everything and made her way outside her apartment, slamming the door behind her. Her shoes kept her from being able to make a full on sprint, so she instead hobbled awkwardly to the elevator, and pressed the call button. And she waited. Though only a few seconds were passing it felt like an eternity was trickling by. It was after 30 seconds that a small voice echoed from the call button.
Dear valued resident
Due to digital infrastructure issues, we are currently unable to provide facial verification for elevator authorisation, and as such our elevator services are unavailable at this time. Thank you for your cooperation.
A primal anger overcame her as she punched the elevator door with all her might. All that resulted from the punch was a red smear appearing on the doors. A searing pain filled her right hand as blood trickled from her knuckles. A bad thought entered the proximity of her mind, but it rapidly exited; not being permitted to fully form due to her medication. She had no time to patch up her hand.
83 floors. That’s how many she would have to go down. She didn’t have time to mourn this state of affairs. She had time for nothing except running. She quickly removed the painful shoes and sprinted barefoot down the concrete stairwell. The sweat formed again, her stomach protested, and her throat was clenching. But she needed to be there. She couldn’t be late. Not again. She kept going. She lost count of how many flights of stairs she was going. She wondered if the afterlife would just be this. Running down an endless stairwell. Always thinking the end is almost near. She reached the lobby, panting. She could feel a burning in her throat that threatened to spew out everything she had this morning and the night previous. She steadied herself, sitting down and putting her shoes back on. Her breathing was heavy, and she felt that if she slowed her breaths her heart would die. Eventually it slowed, and she began to cross the lobby, leaving the building. As she left, she saw the rising sun. It was a blood-red disc. Its radiation seeping past the earth’s protective barriers. It was destroying the earth. Slowly. She hobbled to a driverless taxi and flashed her payment. Getting in, she told it her destination, and it raced off, but not before listing off the proud sponsor of the trip. By now she had trained herself to block out adverts of any kind. Even with the suit on.
As the car raced past the slums, her phone let out an alarm. She quickly grabbed and quieted it. If the car detected too loud of a noise it would automatically boot her out for a sound-code violation.
ALERT
LETHAL SOLAR ACTIVITY IN YOUR AREA. TAKE SHELTER AWAY FROM THE SUN’S RAYS. STAY INSIDE.
ALERT
This alert went out nearly every day now. The world was burning to death.
The car halted with a shudder, a ding indicated her stop, and another advert rang off. She exited as soon as she could. The office building a grey, intimidating, rectangular mass imposed against a bleeding red sky. But she entered. She was five seconds late, but her associates at the entrance gazed at her as if she had committed a grave sin against them. Many of them were foul old men, but other, younger people fixated on her with plastic gazes. She recognised her manager among the crowd. A manager with a fake smile and fake hair.
“There you are, Miss Honeybun!” His voice was just as fake as everything else. Andrew was as much of a person as a mall animatronic. He also had a habit of giving fluffy nicknames to all his underlings. She loathed him. As he approached, his smile showed some cracks. She knew him enough to know that that meant she was in deep shit.
“You’re late,” He said abruptly, before spouting his next, seemingly programmed line, “At our company, early is-”
“-Right on time and right on time is late,” She finished his sentence tiredly.
“Gooood, looks like you still know our mantra! Now, why are you late?” His eyes lowered to her hand. Shit, she forgot about that.
“And your hand. What happened to that?” Her hand was still dripping blood, the droplets splattering on the white marble floor.
“Terrorist attack,” she blurted out.
“I see,” Andrew replied robotically, “Well, though terrorist attacks are unfortunate, you must always take precautions for things that can make you late. Patch up your hand, you don’t want to cause a mess, do you? Next time just...be ‘on time’, okay?” He winked.
“Yes sir,” she answered.
“Now, when you’re done with...that” he motioned to her hand, “Marketing needs you up on the seventh floor. Go give them a hand, hmm? They’ve been waiting for you.” That last remark almost drove her to the edge. There’s only so much medication can do to block out things. Like with the elevator. But she restrained herself.
She began to wander to the nearest restroom, trying to hide herself from the gaze of everyone. But a stirring from her stomach urged her forward. The adrenaline was now wearing off and something was terribly, terribly wrong. She burst open one of the stall doors and fell to her knees, vainly attempting to hold whatever was coming back with her good hand. A fluid spewed from her mouth into the toilet, trickling through her fingers and falling into the water like rainfall. How she missed rainfall. Unconsciousness tempted her as she gazed at the multi-coloured mixture that now filled the toilet. Her pills were in there. They weren’t in her anymore. The thoughts were coming back.
3. 4. 5.
She staggered to her feet, her legs trembling. She stumbled her way to the sink and washed her hands. A wretched mixture flowed into the drain. A tiny receipt was printed for the cost of using purified faucet water. She chuckled.
6.
She eventually found bandages in a cabinet door and covered her knuckles in them, stemming the bleeding and keeping the blood off the floors. She exited the restroom and took off to the elevator, squeezing through the crowded space and trying to keep eyes away from her soaked bandages. But her mind began to shift. The elevator’s canned pop music began to vanish. The elevator began to creak and groan. The dull LED lights began to flicker and fade, and the space began to shrink. Silhouetted forms replaced the suits about her. Their lidless eyes gazed at her. The space shrank further, closing in on her, restricting her movement, and then her breathing. She started to hyperventilate. She was going to die-
7.
The elevator door opened, with an automated announcement sounding. “Floor Seven.”
Her arms were shielding her face, and tears were beginning to stream down her face from fear. She was trembling. She felt so small. Everyone around her exited the elevator, leaving her alone in the grey box. The door began to close. With a cry, she raced forward. She needed out. Out of the box. Out of this hell. She ran headfirst into a taller, immaculately dressed woman. It was Anne, the head of marketing.
“Ahh, I’ve been looking for you! Come, come! You are needed in the meeting room,” Anne stated authoritatively. Her face looked like porcelain, her blonde hair was tied back into a bun.
Both walked through various halls, past businessmen rushing back and forth with reports in hand. Some looked visibly disturbed. Others looked almost manic with their happiness. They both eventually made it to the meeting room. She was motioned to sit at one of the haphazardly placed plastic chairs that existed in a jagged, layered circle around a central empty space in the room. A presentation was about to begin. Nobody was speaking, the room being filled with an air of complete silence. It was as if nobody dared to even breathe.
“Hello team members!” Anne shouted, standing in the centre of the room. “How are you all feeling today?!”
“Fannnntastic.” Everyone replied automatically. Nobody sounded particularly happy besides the “teacher’s pets”, who carried fake grins alongside their false bravado.
“Excellent…” Anne answered, barely hiding her disinterest in their required response.
“Corporate has called you all here today to announce something big!” This was not good. Any change in the corporation was always for the worse. She began to stirr uncomfortably in her chair.
Anne continued. “The contributions of the marketing department cannot be understated. Thanks to you all, we have been able to placate the people, and encourage them to support us through our various efforts!” She held a remote, and clicked it. A four-side display turned on above her, and showed a graph with a gradually increasing line.
“As you can see here, support for the company, even during these...trying times,” she said these two words in such a way that it became clear she did not understand what trying times are, “Is absolutely critical to our mission: Provide the world with accessible products. And our Sunbeam project for the military is absolutely critical to that! So thank you for assisting in the reduction of negative press as well as the creation of alternative facts! You guys are all the best!” She ended this with an awkward chuckle, before her eyes narrowed and she took a heavy breath.
“Now, I’m sure you’ve heard some rumblings from upper management, but we have decided to introduce something brand new to you all!” With that, Anne clicked and a presentation began to play on the displays. She couldn’t gleam much from it; it was mostly a series of abstract shapes in different colours, with words like “Innovative, cutting-edge, powerful, agile” being interspersed in-between these images. Until the final seconds revealed what it really was. “AI-con. The worker of the future.”
Her stomach sank. If she had anything in her stomach she might have retched again.
8.
“That’s right everyone, our experimental AI-con system is now being expanded to marketing! We are proud to say that we have trained it on all of the data you all have provided us these past few years, and now AI-con will expand beyond just R&D and IT. It will now be put to work for Marketing! Unfortunately for many of you, this will make your jobs redundant, and so we will have to let many of you go. However, this boost to the company will provide much needed relief to the economy, and as such will make everyone’s lives better!” Everyone in the room grimaced. Even the teacher’s pets had looks of confusion on them. Everyone in the room knew that Anne was using “Easy language”; language meant to downplay reality. When she said many would have to be let go, that meant everyone. And they all knew that.
“Now, this will be a change that will be happening over the next couple months, and so we are counting on you all to continue putting in your best!” This was one of the few moments Anne actually looked genuine. A crooked smile, and wide, fanatical eyes indicated she genuinely believed that what they were doing was for everyone’s well-being.
“Fuck you.” Anne’s face turned to a look of confusion, eyes darting around the room.
“P-please raise your voice so that your input can be heard by everyone in the room-”
“FUCK. YOU.” She stood. This time shouting; practically spitting out the words. As she stood, the chair screeched back with a piercing noise, causing many to flinch. For the first time in a long period, she felt truly lucid. She began to tremble. Her mind began to race with a million things that had
gone unsaid for so long. She was feeling so many emotions that were hidden by her numbness. She spoke.
“The sun is burning the fucking earth because of you. We’re all going to be cooked alive because of you bastards. And you’ve made me complicit. You’ve taken everything and replaced it with you. The only reason practically any of us,” she motioned to the people still seated, “Even fucking associate with you, is because you are the only reason we can afford to have a roof over our heads.” She was gasping for air between every sentence, each saying of the word “you” practically spat out. “I never wanted this…” Memories flooded to her. Memories of when she was a child. She remembered how beautiful trees were. She remembered birds filling the air with song. She remembered feeling the dirt underneath her bare feet. She remembered the sound of the wind blowing through the branches. She remembered the great rainclouds that would pass over. She remembered the cool raindrops sprinkling her face. How wonderful it was. How its all gone now.
9. 10. 11. 12…
“I-I never wanted this hell. Its not fair. Its your fault, not mine. Why must I be punished? Why must I face the consequences of your actions? Fuck. YOU.” With that final shout, the room once more fell into utter silence. Her memories of the great bird calls faded, being replaced by the dull sound of the building’s air conditioning.
+++++
She sat outside the building. Everything that happened after was a blur. She couldn’t remember if she was removed from the building or if she ran out on her own. It didn’t matter. She was sitting on the steps leading up to the building with a newspaper shielding her head from the sun. Her apartment needed rent to be paid, but the sun became deadlier each day. Maybe everyone will be dead before the month ends and she won’t have to pay up. That thought relieved her somewhat before a wave of sadness took her.
43.
Her taxi pulled up, and she languidly dragged herself to the car. It pulled away, taking her home. She was slumped, motionless, in the passenger seat, gazing where a driver should have been.
“I feel like a corpse,” she spoke, the words tiredly leaving her lips.
“Please speak clearly into the dashboard microphone to change your destination. This ride is sponsored by RadBlock 90k. Your number one protector against solar radiation,” a disembodied voice replied.
“I hate the world we’ve made.”
“Please speak clearly into the dashboard microphone to change your destination. This ride is sponsored by RadBlock 90k. Your number one protector against solar radiation.”
“We’ve built a fake world to replace the real one. And now it will all be burned because of us.”
“Please speak clearly into the dashboard microphone to change your destination. This ride is sponsored by RadBlock 90k. Your number one protector against solar radiatio-”
She kicked the dashboard’s speaker as hard as she could. She kept kicking, smashing it to pieces and causing the car to swerve several lanes and halt suddenly, dumping her on the side of the road by catapulting her seat out.
It was not a far walk to her home. The newspaper was discarded, and the back of her neck had now become a mess of sores. She didn’t care that it was bleeding. When she arrived at her building, the elevator was still not functioning. She laughed grimly, took her shoes off, and began the climb up the stairs.
She stood face-to-face with her door. Large lettering were plastered digitally on the door.
Dear valued resident,
Due to unforseen issues regarding the sun’s impact on digital infrastructure, we are currently unable to verify that you have paid your rent. Your apartment will be locked until verification succeeds.
We apologise for the inconvenience.
Her body trembled. Her bandaged fist flung at the door, loosing all the bandages and caking the door in her blood. Her right hand was a mess of raw meat now. The same hand, now a mangled wreck of raw meat and bone, pressed against the door, trailing blood as it slid down the door. Fat teardrops ran down her face. Don’t do this to me she mouthed silently; no words were able to escape her mouth. She shrank against the door, pressing her entire body against it, as if trying to soak up any of the little comfort it provided through the door, until she fell into a deep, disturbed sleep.
When she woke, her surroundings had darkened. No longer were the halls illuminated by the crimson glow of the sun. Now they were replaced with the harsh, pale, humming lights of the building. She rubbed her heavy eyes, and forced her aching body up from the concrete floor. Her whole body pulsed and ached and groaned as she now focused on one task. She climbed the stairs. Slowly. Painfully. But she kept climbing. Even when she stumbled. Even when she tripped and felt a sharp sting up her left leg. Even when she started limping. When blood now trickled from her wrist and leg. Her legs moved with purpose; robotically, until she reached the metal door at the top. She pushed against it. It opened.
A starless sky, black as ink, greeted her. She was on the rooftop, and could see much of the megacity from this height. It was a grey, square mass of buildings arrayed like jagged teeth across the horizon. She walked to one of the several generators that sat atop the roof. Leaning against it, she sat upright, and waited. The hum of electricity, and her numbness warping her perception of time.
She waits for it.
The first true choice she’s ever made.
The horizon begins to turn red. Her phone begins to blurt an automated message. Sirens begin to blare. It is the end of all things. Like greeting an old friend, she smiles at the brightening sun.