The Island

(a short story)

“Excuse me, Ma’am?”

Behind the large desk at the other end of the room, leafing through an intimidatingly large pile of reports and other assorted sheets on a holodeck, was a stiff-looking woman in her early forties. She wore a rather extravagant Armani pant-suit, with her long brownish-gold hair tied tightly in a ponytail that came down to the small of her back. Her eyes and hands tirelessly worked together to drink in information, as she contemplated something far above the pay-grade of the exceptionally green intern, whom was standing in the doorway of her office, both awkward and silent.

“Well?” She briskly regarded him, without so much as batting one of her long, well-kept eyelashes in his direction, as she continued working.

The intern hesitated in confusion, but quickly pulled his thoughts together. “It’s just… I’d like to go home. But you told me I can’t go home until you go home, because I’m supposed to do whatever you say, even if I don’t agree with it…”

The woman tried not to smile but couldn’t help but feel satisfaction wash over. “And?” She stated, as if nothing were out of sorts, and continued deliberating upon which department she was going to lower funding for.

If she chose the IT department, she would lose employees with precious technological know how. If she chose sales or accounting, the branch’s productivity could potentially lower, and that was out of the question. Lowering the maintenance department’s budget any more could agitate the company engineers’ union and result in a strike. Hiring contractors to do work would be costly while they sort out issues with maintenance.

As her internal struggle dragged on, the intern nervously shifted his weight from the left to the right. “And… I guess I’ll get started on tomorrow’s reports on branch efficacy…” Sighing, he walked back to his desk, dragging his leather shoes along the cheap carpet of the office.

He planted himself down and motioned for his holoscreen to turn on. A quiet whirring from under his desk signified the projector booting up. But hearing this sound so many times, one begins to associate it with the monotony of waiting a few seconds for the outdated technology to do its thing. As the screen hummed to life, displaying a lobby in which he accessed most of his work files and programs, the intern looked for his email to find the information he had sent to himself about the several departments, which he collected earlier this week.

He cracked his fingers and began typing on the lightboard that materialized under his hands once he lowered them to his desktop. After roughly an hour of putting together the reports and mentally questioning why this wasn’t yet an automated process, a hand lightly brushed against his shoulder. Looking up from his work, he saw his previously occupied boss with her tablet in the other hand, walking toward the exit of the office.

“You did a good job today. I’ll make sure you get paid overtime. But first, finish those reports.”

She walked off, grinning icily, as she delighted in whipping the attractive young intern, who seemed nothing short of desperate to get involved and climb the ladder in the company. He would run overtime until the sun came up, and he was dynamite in bed. How often do you find an employee that hard working? She thought to herself. But as she did, she couldn’t help but think she was also working excessive levels of overtime. Though it’s not as if such a thing were unnecessary. Without her dedication, the branch would have collapsed years ago. When she’d been appointed as branch manager, the sector was on the verge of being shut down during the diet plan. It was a suicide mission. But now this little slice of company was hers. Her methods improved morale, increased efficiency, and even though the volume of sales from this branch used to be the lowest in the whole of international, they were now the third most lucrative.

Corporate wouldn’t dare touch her. Not after her employees had become so well-groomed. It was only a matter of time before an executive position in headquarters would open. But as it was now, things were stable. The market showed no signs of slowing its expansion. Even if it did, she belonged to a smart company. They would invest elsewhere. Unless someone were to become an embarrassment or liability. It was true, there was nothing she wouldn’t do if it meant survival. In this world, survival was success. Success was money. Money was power. Power was satisfaction. Satisfaction, her raison d’être. The feelings she derived from being respected and feared were like no other. Sex, drugs, virtual reality; nothing compared to the invigoration of real power in life.

She remembered something then, a time when she was young. She always seemed so far behind them. No matter what she did, she was always last. It seemed like she would never be able to catch up. They all looked down on her, she knew they did. All their “love” was made of pity and sympathy. It was infuriating. She could remember what it felt like: her anger, her sadness, her envy, her fear. She wanted to be treated like an equal, she wanted to be on even terms with someone, anyone. It wasn’t after too long that she could feel animosity growing within her. She didn’t want to catch up to anyone. She wanted to outrun them all. She wanted to show them she was better than they would ever be, and that she wasn’t going to be in last place forever. My obsession.

In the middle of her reminiscing, she shook her head, batting away the annoying memories of her childhood. Just look at me now. Better off than every single one of them. Finishing the short walk from her office to the parking pad, she held her tablet up to her Porsche Aldera. “Hello Porsche,” she said into the tablet.

The outer door swung upward in an arc, followed by the inner chamber door. “Good evening,” the car answered in a smooth, male’s voice from the Caribbean, “Where are we going this evening? The temperature outside is a mild 67 degrees. Would you-“

Before the car could finish reporting to her she cut in, “Home, Porsche.”

“Yes Ma’am. Would you like the windows up or down?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

She stepped inside the vehicle and set her tablet in the docking station. A small audible click could be heard as the tablet was locked into position. The carpet was crafted from silk cashmere, the seats were synthetically enhanced leather from the genetically modified floater bulls, and the interior was gyroscopic. Few cars these days possessed gyroscopics, most models only had simple harnesses. Which is fine if you’re an adrenaline junkie, or you don’t care whatsoever about maintaining one’s appearance.

“A bit humid, so up it is. Would you like to listen to anything?”

The Aldera retracted its landing gear, its hydrogen engine quietly purring as the vehicle lifted off the ground. The parking pad beneath disappeared, as the Aldera flew around the side of the skyscraper, heading closer to the ground. The lower it got, the denser the traffic grew. Most cars didn’t need to go very high, the few that did were sightseeing or businessmen. There was little reason to travel so high if you didn’t live in a high-rise or work in a sky-scraping office building. At that point, one invites the possibility of falling to your death in a metal box. The death rate for car accidents was a lot higher now, but the incidence rate, far lower. Although quite a few still crawled along the ground at snails’ pace, at least in this country, non-autonomous cars were outlawed years ago.

“Play some Gregorio Werner. I can’t get his songs out of my head.”

“Listening to something other than Gregorio will help get his songs out of your head.”

“Did I ask for your opinion, Porsche?”

“No Ma’am. Gregorio it is.”

The pop-jazz fusion of Gregorio washed over her artfully pierced ears and drowned out the sound of the bustling city. Holograms were projected along the sides of buildings, dancing bodies and flashing colors. Everything was sexy, eye-catching. The sea of lights filling the scape of her vision was a spectacle in its own right; a metropolitan galaxy painted onto the Earth, that the stars might be put to shame. Beautiful faces were juxtaposed to the darkness. Each a promise. This will make you stronger, this will make you more fulfilled, this will let you fit in, this will let you be an individual.

It was all the same. Something beautiful, something wholesome. Something abstract that will make you, you. Advertising goals never change, but the presentation got smarter. Even without saying anything, a commercial can make you feel lacking. Like you need something more. Validation, beauty, strength, longevity, identity; people are so inherently lacking they can’t help but feel the need for improvement or entertainment. Everyone wants to forget hardship, but without hardship you are naïve or inexperienced. This world seems so different than when I was young.

She could see her apartment building now, a towering high-rise with an assortment of lights making an incomprehensible pattern along the sides. The Aldera slowly lowered to the parking pad on her floor. It’s carefully designed hum died down to nothing. “We’ve arrived home,” the comforting voice of the car informed her, “I detect no outer cabin movement on the parking pad. It is safe to disembark.”

“Thank you, Porsche.”

“My pleasure Ma’am.”

You don’t even know what pleasure feels like. You’re just a machine. The outer door opened, quickly followed by the inner cabin door, a safety trademark of gyroscopic vehicles that one would assume should be regulation—given that it can eject from the chassis and deploy a parachute. With a light click, her tablet raised up out of the dock. Wordlessly she grabbed it and began the short walk to her apartment, as the doors of the Aldera closed behind her. The act of holding her tablet up to the outside console of the building was quickly answered by a confirmation screen. Through the transparent slate, it looked as if it had been physically thrown from the console onto the screen of the tablet.

“Identification please,” the familiar, robotic voice demanded through a thin layer of static.

Holding the tablet close to her face, she opened her eyes wide. It scanned for a second, and then blipped cheerfully as a green checkmark flashed over the screen. “Identity confirmed. Proceed to apartment number 1337.”

The reinforced metal door, decorated with textured, intertwining olive branches and vines, had been thoughtfully crafted of gold to please those whose sense of value as a human was likely tied to their salary. With a small hydraulic hiss, the door split to reveal a plain, yet tastefully decorated hallway leading around the building in a ring, which connected to several lavish, multi-story apartments. Only four of them fit per three stories of the building.

Proceeding to the door known most to her, she once again raised her tablet to a small console running a nigh congruent identification prompt. After clearing it, she stepped inside, the door shutting behind her. Then, silence. Pristine, artificially bestowed silence. The soundproof walls and glass were said to be able to annihilate any incoming sound wave by producing an adaptive, cancelling frequency. It was this artful quiet that she longed for after a long week at the office. Her work of course, was far from done, but she would be able to do what remained from the comfort of her own apartment.

“Welcome back Madame,” A calming, intelligent voice in a Northern London-based accent regarded her as she shed her outer coat, “Allow me.”

Small mechanical arms reached out towards her and paused within elbows-reach, waiting patiently for their purpose. She relinquished her coat to them, and they busily set about to folding it, before disappearing into a small slot in the wall. There, it would by dry-cleaned, and returned to the back of her closet, where it would await being chosen likely weeks or months from now. But such things hardly crossed her mind as she removed her heels and handed them to another set of tiny mechanical arms. Also disappearing into the wall, although to dust and polish, the same fate awaited her footwear; the length of sentence however, far graver.

She crossed her openly decorated apartment to the kitchen and set her tablet down on the counter. In here she would not need it. LEWIS would respond to her each and every command, not to mention his adaptive serving program forced him to learn what her preferences were to better provide in her own home.

“What would you like to eat for dinner? I can provide a list of choices if you are feeling adventurous, but seeing as it is Friday, I presume you are in the mood for crustacean.”

“That sounds fine. What would you suggest?”

A small distortion wavered over the island in the kitchen as a display of assorted crab, shrimp, and lobster-based dishes appeared. Oils and cheeses glistened on the surface of pastas and meats, while steam seductively drifted off of the plates to betray the hauntingly beautiful warmth of the meal. It was nothing more than an advertisement, and she knew this. LEWIS’ programmed affinity for cooking and food preparation was so complex, anything short of a five-star chef would be put to shame. But this sinful level of culinary presentation, this holographic façade, was only possible with an in depth understanding of how human neurobiology creates that instinctive desire for smooth, orderly, glistening artifacts of flavor. The intricacies of humanity are bound tightly with creativity and imagination, a field that had yet to truly reach the processing ability of technological artifice.

But this kind of advertisement was not an old system. Artful food photography evolved into multi-frame adaptations, truly bringing to life what one would see as the product they were about to consume. This image would stick in the mind of the consumer, forever instilling the ideal form of the food that they would grow to desire. At least with LEWIS, the meals came close. “I’ll go with an Australian lobster scampi. I’ll leave the finer details to you. Make sure the seasoning accents the smoothness of the meat.”

The dissolving display was answered by a cordial riposte from LEWIS, “I’ll order the ingredients at once Madame. In the meantime, I’ll pour you some chardonnay. Dry white wines go well with the meal.”

Trusting in the well-informed opinion of her home assistant, she crossed the kitchen into the living room, where next to the luscious velvet lounge, on a crystalline table, a silver rimmed glass was deftly being filled by lithe robotic limbs carrying a small bottle of finely aged chardonnay. She lowered herself onto the lounge, the smooth fabrics caressing her skin as she sunk ever so lightly into the thick, pure cashmere throw. After situating a few pillows around herself, she reached over the end table, tiny metallic clamps relinquished the filled glass to her. Interrupting her brief journey thus far into relaxation, LEWIS cut in, “Madame, I hate to disturb you but there is something that requires your attention.”

Irritated, she set the glass down and briskly pushed herself up off of the chair. “What is it LEWIS?”

“My apologies, but you appear to have a call from your brother. Would you like to answer it, or would you rather me tell him this isn’t a good time?” Always attentive to her moods, the Domestic A.I. offered to abate his master of the task.

My brother is calling? It’s been over a year since anyone from the family has said anything to me… I’ll bet it’s about money again… But I haven’t spoken to anyone in a while… Maybe it’s something important… “I’ll answer it LEWIS.”

“At once Madame.”

The apartment’s speaker system was active in all rooms but would selectively play sound based on where the owner was. The living room crackled slightly before patching through to the voice of her brother. A small screen over the coffee table in front of the lounge bounced up with an image of her brother waiting patiently. His expression held surprise as he gained a visual of the room. “Wow Lil, I actually managed to get through to you this time. What with you being so busy and all.”

“What do you want? If it’s money for your research, I’ve already donated to the department at your school this year. If it’s about money for personal use, you can forget it.”

““Ah… That’s not quite the issue right now. Although you could always be more generous. I mean you aren’t raising a family or anything right, now are you?”

“What would you know of that?” Acting like he can tell me what I should do with my money. Who does he think he is? He should have gone on to do something more lucrative.

“For one thing, you aren’t dressed very comfortably and you’re still in the same apartment. If you had a husband, you would already be cutting loose a little.”

“That’s none of your business.” Do I really look uncomfortable? What would he know about fashion…

“You’re family. Of course, it’s my business.”

That word again. Family. It doesn’t mean anything. “That obviously isn’t what you came here to talk about.”

Her brother rolled his eyes and sighed, as the topic of discussion with his sister was classically not permitted to stray from the point. “Well… are you watching the news right now? On f.0156? I know you like watching f.061524 but you just can’t always listen to that biased shit. It’s not even news.”

“I don’t need you criticizing my tastes in news reporting.”

“You can’t even call tha-!” He sighed deeply as he returned to the topic, “Never mind. Just turn it on.”

“LEWIS, tune to the frequency.”

“Yes Madame.” The D.A.I. briskly answered.

The crystal sheet hanging in front of the far wall beyond the coffee table awoke with color and sound. Fire lovingly caressed the sides of buildings as smoke coiled the air, choking the life from it. Concrete boulders and snowfalls of glass rolled into the streets from the crumbling walls of wounded buildings. Amidst the chaos, tiny sparks of light blinked in and out of existence, at a frequency too rapid to be anything but gunfire. From block to block, firearms exchanged scathing remarks at one another, their humans deaf to the complexity of the argument. It was an exchange of life: bullet for man, limb, pain, and purpose. It was a masterful cacophony of screams and fire. All across the country, the sheet painted a canvas of revolution. From the new capitol in Denver to Detroit, Austin, New York, Seattle, San Francisco, Atlanta, Miami, Jacksonville; the list seemed like it would never end. Horror and disbelief, like lightning, struck away the relaxed feeling that was enveloping the owner of the expensive apartment in Boston.

“Can you believe this, Lil?”

“What is happening? Who is doing this?”

“I’ll give you one guess as to why I called. But it’s safe to say not just one group or person.”

“Haven’t things changed…?”

The man on the semi-transparent screen above the crystalline coffee table shook his head smiling and waggled his finger at the naiveté of his younger sister. “You need to get out of the bigger cities as soon as possible. This isn’t about the classism or racism. It’s not a civil war.”

Slowly lifting herself off of the lounge, she nervously crossed the living room to the windows next to the wall behind her sheet, gingerly laying her hands on the glass. “LEWIS, play the sound outside.”

“At once Madame.”