Paranoid

Walking down the street wasn’t something Jai was comfortable with anymore. Actually, just being outside didn’t feel comfortable anymore. He tried to remember the last time he’d ventured out. It wasn’t that long ago…was it?

Yeah, maybe it was. Everything seemed different to what he remembered... the colours, the textures; like all the life had been sucked away. How did it all look so much brighter on the WallPanel when that was just tech, a reflection of the real world? Somehow, the reflection had become the reality. Out here, beneath the dirty grey sky, reality’s hues had bled into pale echoes, grimy edges delineating solid surfaces.

None of it seemed right, somehow. 2038 looked better from the inside of his nice, safe flat, a sterile enclosure where he could control the ambience. Outside the streets were filthy, pavement cracked, refuse everywhere. Did they still collect the trash? He thought the trucks came through a couple of times a week, but he couldn’t be sure. Maybe nobody bothered anymore, not since the World Council had agreed back in 2032 that their attempts at holding back climate change had failed miserably and that the planet was dying.

Sucks to be humanity. Not a lot had been said after that. Maybe whoever the powers that be were these days had just given up.

How come he didn’t know that shit anymore? He’d taken an interest, once. Maybe he’d check the RealFeeds when he got back. Just because he didn’t go out much now didn’t mean he had to be oblivious to what was happening in the world, for crying out loud. But… it was just so easy to forget. In his flat he was sealed in; heat supplied, fresh water and food delivered via the service chutes. He could turn on the WallPanel with the picture of his choice if he didn’t fancy the sight of the city beyond his windows. No human exchanges necessary, which was probably just as well. He’d grown a little rusty since Alice had moved out. But did it really matter? The service providers just debited his account for the credits and life continued on.

He shied, skittish as a wild thing when a couple of kids emerged from a narrow alleyway on the other side of the street but they ignored him. Heads down, brims of their black caps pulled over their faces, they half walked, half marched in the opposite direction, disappearing around a corner before he even had time to really react. After a few moments, his heartbeat slowed and settled. It was okay. He was okay! It was one in the afternoon for chrissake. Nothing was going to happen…

The street was deserted. It was like a scene out of one of the hoary old westerns his dad had horded on DVD for years... the city had become a ghost town. If it wasn’t for the absence of living green and the enclosed horizons he would have half expected a tumbleweed to come rolling down the street and hear the echo of hooves.

But it was okay. He would be okay. Despite everything - poverty, crime, insurrection, chaos - he’d had to go out, forced from the high tech security complex where he lived. The complexes, with their intricate safety systems, had sprung up everywhere after the last of the riots; luxury cages for the neurotic or the insecure. His job had seen him qualified for Class B quarters and he’d been happy to join… or maybe he meant leave, it was hard to say…what was left of humanity.

Some of Jai’s friends had simply tuned out. Marissa, on the floor above him didn’t listen to the RealFeeds anymore. Her neural-plug was tuned directly into the entertainment channels and when Jai tried to talk to her about something he’d seen - an airbus disaster perhaps, or the new wars in the Indons - her face would become blank and she’d start talking, tapping behind her left ear where the implant was.

‘Have I told you what happened on “A Better World” yesterday?’ she’d demand, raising her voice, ‘Oh it was wonderful! Marcus has got back together with Elise at last! They’re going to get married and move away from Harbour City and I really think they’re going to make it this time...’

Crazy Marissa. Her world revolved around the lives of people in the dozen or so complex screen fantasies that were so popular with the cloistered masses. She lived their loves, their fears... took their pain and pleasure as her own. She talked about them like they were real and sometimes Jai wondered if, for Marissa, they were.

He only wished he could find something to block his own reality half as well. Sure he had his hobby, but it didn’t absorb him completely; not like it used to, anyway.

He was always conscious of the decay taking place out on the streets below. So he’d turned to his last means of escape, his harmless hobby that brought him hours of pleasure. Before Alice had left she’d never tired of telling him it was ridiculous, a childish fixation. What was wrong with him, playing around like a ten year old? What she’d never grasped was that it had been keeping him sane, all these years. After she’d gone he’d let it expand, spreading into the other rooms until most of the available floor space had been covered. When it was up and running – and he ran it most days because what else was there? – it helped to disguise the emptiness in the flat. It wasn’t cheap, getting everything he needed, but he could afford it. He made good credits DataBasing for Nuralzone and after Alice had moved in with the woman on the floor below, there had only been work and his hobby, which had somehow turned into something of an obsession.

It was that obsession which had brought him out on the unnaturally quiet streets this afternoon. The last time he had ventured out, there had been more people around. More shops open, more clean up bots circling, altogether more interactions. He couldn’t recall being so paranoid last time but then, everything felt different.

A lot has changed in a couple of months… Oh hell!

Stubbornly, he continued on. Despite all the automated services available, there were some things that required physical intervention. Old fashioned, foolish, redundant… all of that, to be sure, but he was a collector at heart and the heart wanted what it was too stupid to forget, damn it. So here he was, squinting and flinching like some kind of nocturnal creature forced into the daylight, heading out to do what he must.

Jai’s neck was beginning to hurt from trying to look in every direction at once. He felt a shaft of unease when he caught sight of a figure ahead. It stood alone... small and slight, dressed in oversized green sweats with a peaked black cap pulled low. Jai’s footsteps slowed for a moment but the small stature was reassuring. Surely he’d be able to manage anyone that small...

The youth - male or female, he couldn’t tell - didn’t even glance up as he passed but after ten paces Jai knew he was being followed. He glanced over his shoulder, unnerved to find the kid had fallen into place behind him. What should he do? Run? Turn around? Maybe it was nothing; this was a public street, after all.

His pace quickened but the kid stayed with him. He’d nearly reached his destination – hell, it was only fifteen minutes from his building! – but Jai felt winded and sweaty from the unaccustomed exertion. Hard to keep fit when you lived your life in a cage. He turned around abruptly and glared at his shadow. ‘Are you following me?’

The girl - he could identify her now from the slight rise of youthful breasts beneath the oversized top - folded her arms and grinned at him. ‘Maybe I am. You gonna do something about it?’

Jai wet his lips. Funny... this was the longest conversation he’d had with anyone in a week. His voice felt underused, almost tentative. ‘What do you want?’

She gave a half shrug. ‘Anything you’ve got. Nobody’s fussy down here pops.’

Pops? Christ, he was only twenty-nine! How old must she be? Or maybe the question was, how old did he look? ‘You won’t get anything from me. Why don’t you just go away?’ She didn’t move. He hadn’t really thought she would. Jai watched nervously as her hand went to her neck and began to fiddle with something that hung down; a golden locket. A small shock went through him at the sight of it and he squinted harder. It looked familiar.

‘That locket…’

‘Yeah, pops? Real nice, innit.’

‘Where did you get it?’

‘It was a gift.’ The girl grinned, a predatory flash of surprisingly white teeth. ‘I like it when people give me things.’ She took a step closer and Jai, still transfixed by the locket, didn’t remember to move back. It was a distinctive thing, with a glinting sapphire embedded in the softly glowing metal. Pretty gifts like that were something you could get online… He wet his lips.

‘I… I gave that to my girlfriend Alice -’ ex-girlfriend, he reminded himself dazedly. ‘Last year, on her birthday.’

‘Yeah? Well wasn’t it nice that Alice gave it to me.’

He looked at her then. Her face was so young and so hard and so old that it hurt him to look at her.

Sudden fear set his heart pounding. ‘What did you do to Alice?’ it felt like he’d screamed it, although his words were a whisper.

She rolled her neck, shook out her arms, preparing herself. ‘I reckon I did the same thing to Alice that I’m going to do to you, pops. Let’s hope you’ve got a nice place. Me and my friends are going to enjoy cracking open that fortress of yours.’ She held out a hand, making a beckoning gesture. ‘Come on, you relic. Times up.’

Stupid, after all, to have left the sanctuary of his safe, sterile home. For a moment he wondered where Alice had been going when she’d been waylaid, giving up her treasures and then, in all likelihood, her life. Much as he would be doing all too soon because suddenly, there were peaked black caps everywhere, swarming all over him, dragging him off the street into a deserted building. Later, when he lay bleeding out from a punctured lung and the terror had finally leeched away, Jai found the strength to find the irony when he read the sign above him in the building in which he’d been abandoned.

“Littlebourne Locamotives – For The True Enthusiast.”

He’d reached his destination after all but it seemed that the hobby shop were no longer selling station guards – the final piece needed for his train set.