They were pioneers...

A bright and cheerful voice filled the climate-controlled room. ‘Good morning Fallon, it is November 14th, 2065. Your time to wake today is 6.30am. Your morning exercise routine starts in five minutes. Your shower will begin at 6.55am and finish at 6.58am. Breakfast today will consist of fruit only. Information regarding your nutritional requirements for the day has been sent to the food preparation terminal”.

A stream of cold air blew on to Fallon’s face and she opened her eyes and sat up. She had slept for exactly nine hours and ten minutes. The tinted windows of her sleeping area automatically changed from jet black to crystal clear, and she gazed out over the familiar sights, of tall buildings, terraced houses and the brilliantly blue skies that belonged to her beloved city of Brisbane. She looked over to where her pet cat Phantom lay sleeping. Any moment now, Phantom would wake and start his daily ritual. She had great affection for her cat, and he was so easy to take care of. Comfort Cats had become the most popular and realistic of the robot cats available on the market. He was four years old now; and had grown from a mischievous kitten into a very smart adult cat. He had been programmed to suit indoor living without losing any of his hereditary characteristics; any modifications to his behavior were made during his yearly checkup, and he had been perfectly matched to Fallon’s personality.

The pod Fallon had been sleeping in began its automated process. The sleep cover rolled back, allowing her to step out onto the floor of her living area. The pod closed its cover and began to rotate, cleaning and airing the bed linen and plumping the pillow. Within sixty seconds the pod was secured back into a section of the wall, and a full-length mirror slid into place. Fallon yawned, stretched and examined her fingernails. Noticing a slight tear in one of her nails, she jumped up quickly and placed both her hands into the manicure station situated in her personal en-suite. Once her nails were in perfect order, she went back into the living area and activated her exercise program through her life and media centre. As she went through her daily routine, a complete diagnostic of her health was being made through the microchip, which had been inserted into her body as a newborn baby. She knew that the deficiency in her system that had caused her nail to tear would soon be corrected through a vitamin and mineral booster later in the day.

Fallon entered her shower cubicle at precisely 6.55am. The stream of water activated automatically, and the shower walls began to rotate. Within thirty seconds the water stream ceased and the cleaning spray commenced. She closed her eyes and waited for the shampoo cap to drop down and wash her hair and scalp. The forty- second head and neck message the cap provided was one of her favorite times of the day. At 6.58am the rinse cycle stopped and the drying began. By seven she had dressed into the clothes that had automatically been selected for her, and was ready to go downstairs and have breakfast. The only thing to cross her mind on that particular morning was breakfast. She so wished she could have some toast as well.

Fallon was one of the first babies in Australia to have the life monitoring microchip technology. She was born in January 2050 at the Royal Women’s Hospital in Brisbane Queensland. She had also been one of the last babies to be born at that hospital. Her younger brother had been born at home, her parents arranging for a robotic midwife to be in attendance. She rather liked being one of the pioneers of Brisbanes future generations, even though she didn’t really understand what a pioneer was supposed to do. She had been told she was special and that was all she needed to know. Every aspect of the children of the fifties and sixties health and development was being monitored through the national health bureau. She couldn’t sneeze without it being noted on her personal records.

It had become national policy for every child born after the first of January 2050 to benefit from the microchip technology that had first been developed in Zurich in 2040. It had taken ten years of political wrangling before Australia had finally embraced the technology. The results coming through from Northern Europe were astonishing. Life threatening diseases could now be detected the day they invaded the child’s body. Even childhood obesity had become a thing of the past, now that each child’s dietary intake was being monitored on a daily basis. The cost to implement the system within Australia had been relatively small, the first major government project to ever come in under budget! Older people had been offered the new technology on a volunteer basis and were gradually taking up the offer. Most people born before 2030 had resisted any technological developments that involved mass medication or mass medical interventions. The multiple and mandatory vaccinations' they had endured during the Covid pandemic decade were still too vivid in their memories.

Fallon’s family had lived in the northwest precinct of Brisbane for the last five years. Fallon had never traveled further than central district four and hadn’t left the safety of their house for several months. This was not a punishment, just the way families in the city lived. She had everything she needed at home, and enjoyed her cyber social life immensely. She enjoyed listening to her grandmother’s tales of early social networks such as Facebook. So primitive compared to what was available to her generation. She had attended Virtual North-West Brisbane High School for five years. Her classroom was on the third level of their terraced house, next to her father’s office on one side, and the family activity room on the other. Every day she would start her class at 7.30am. Being in a virtual classroom did not bother Fallon and her friends at all. They coped with their class work very well and completed the course work ahead of schedule. Most days they were finished by 2.30p and the rest of the day could be spent catching up on other activities. Fallon had a part-time job working in her father’s home legal office on Tuesday and Friday afternoons. She worked from 3pm to 7pm and would then accompany her father down to the ground floor of their terraced house for the family dinner. The food preparation and dining area on the ground floor did not contain a media point. Reality communication several times a day, had been deemed mandatory by the director of emotional well-being twelve months ago.

Fallon lived in the four level-terraced house with her mother and father, Summer and Faraday, her brother Malek and her grandparents Jack and Emily. The last time she had seen then was at dinner the previous evening. The meal had been a simple affair of fish and green vegetables, and she had noticed that her family had been unusually quiet.

Fallon’s parents shopped at the local co-operative. With long distance transportation of fresh organic food increasingly difficult, the local co-operative has become the hub of every neighborhood community and a place for people to meet and buy or exchange produce. Regardless of the amount of substitute food products available at the food warehouses scattered around the districts, the demand for real food continued to increase. People had been growing their own food for decades and those who had chosen to live and work in the cities continued to reject the genetically modified alternates. This had surprised the GM food manufacturers who had presumed consumers who had also been genetically modified would embrace their GM products. All families occupying inner city dwellings were able to grow vegetables in their underground gardens, aided by underground water tanks and sun replicating light panels. The co-operatives only opened for business from 6am until 11am because it had been determined that people living in Brisbane had to be inside their homes or offices by 11.30am. There were real dangers of UV exposure between the hours of 11.30am and 3pm. Global warming was a fact of life and living and working outside during the middle of the day was not permitted. The health risks were too high. It was normal for outdoor workers to start at 3am and be finished by 10.30am. The city became like a ghost town at lunchtime, with only those licensed and suitably protected, allowed to be outside walking the streets. During the late afternoon and evening the city would come alive. This was the time young singles and professionals would socialize and do their shopping. All city dwellers lived within walking, biking or ferry distance of their homes and jobs.

The underground tunnels built in the early part of the century for transportation had been converted into public community living for singles, both young and old. Cars in the city were a thing of the past and fortunately, the anticipated rise in sea levels, which had been predicted at the turn of the century, had not eventuated. The river hadn’t risen significantly; so all the land running alongside had remained intact and relatively flood resistant. Brisbane continued to switch from drought to rain but the impact was minimal now that the Smart Water Services had taken over in 2035.The river had become an important transportation link in the years following 2035 and all along the river bank changes had been made. With the demise of the petrol car and the upsurge of singles and high-income families moving back to the city, the residential space allocated to each family, single person or couple was closely monitored.

Fallon’s class was currently undertaking a project on the history of the western precinct suburb of Indooroopilly and today was their first field trip to the area. It was an unusual move by their teacher. High school field trips were difficult to organize and the education minister had deemed them unnecessary for the cities virtual schools. Fallon’s class had taken several virtual school trips; the last one had been to Central Australia.

Country high schools were quite different. Twenty percent of the population had rejected new technology and reverted to a more rustic way of life. They refused to have their children micro-chipped or be monitored in any way. Long-lost farming communities were being established again, and schools operated as they had a hundred years ago. Although the life was hard people had discovered a new enthusiasm for growing their own food, farming a few animals and living simple lives again. Construction of UV shelters and shades had been necessary but for small communities it seemed to work. After the disasters of social media overload in the tens and twenties they were no longer interested in what was happening in the world, and would only travel to other similar local communities using their solar car, one of the few pieces of new technology the down-shifters had embraced.

Brisbane had been declared the most livable city on the planet in 2035 following the further decline of cities in Europe and America. The European Union had collapsed in 2025 and all the participating countries had retreated to regroup and re-establish their tribal boundaries. Many countries had also returned to more traditional ways of producing food and materials locally, increasingly rejecting globalization. America had struggled to overcome their historic 2008 financial collapse; and had been regarded with suspicion by the rest of the world ever since.

Fallon entered the family room and respectfully greeted her grandparents, followed by her parents and brother. Jack and Emily, her maternal grandparents, had both just turned eighty. Her father’s parents had drowned in a boating accident fifteen years ago, before Fallon was born. They had been on their way to Brisbane from the greater northern Brisbane precinct of Redcliffe, where they lived with his sister, and had been swept out to sea by freak waves never before seen in the northern bay district. It had been classified as a tsunami and had demolished one side of Bribe Island, toppling several high rise buildings, before sweeping across the sea and scooping up all the vessels in the bay, including the bayside ferry his parents had been on and sucking them under the water. Hundreds of people had been lost that day and Faraday had taken it very badly. He blamed himself for persuading his parents to make the trip. They hadn’t wanted to, preferring to stay at home, but he had encouraged them to come to the opening of the new Life Museum at North Bank. They had donated their collection of twentieth century artifacts to the museum and he thought they would enjoy seeing them on display.

Jack and Emily spent their days living in virtual realities. Their generation could live in past virtual lives, using virtual credits to buy virtual real estate. They bought virtual nostalgic cars and went to virtual drive in movie theatres. They went for virtual holidays and could travel anywhere in the world. Gaming had been one of their generation’s addictions; in fact they had started playing the first version of a virtual reality, called Everquest, in their early twenties. Over recent years they had both lost their grip on reality even more, and would talk about their virtual community as if it was real and they were still young. A lot of their passed old friends had been added to their virtual reality program, so it was easy to see why they retreated into their own world twenty-two hours of the day. Summer didn’t really understand her parent’s addiction problems. She had seen vintage news footage of Brisbane in the late twentieth century and couldn’t believe what people did; the biggest mystery of all was a pastime involving smoking cigarettes The discovery of the addiction gene in 2025 had meant that her generation and Fallon’s had been genetically modified and didn’t crave for anything in particular. A fortunate by-product of this particular genetic modification had been a reduction in selfishness and an exceptional improvement in family relationships. Aged parents lived with their families now unless they were in need of specialized care.

Emily didn’t like to leave the house at all anymore. Her addiction to cosmetic surgical procedures when she was in her thirties had left her in a very precarious physical condition and she had suffered from many painful and incurable illnesses over the years. She never looked at herself in the mirror, preferring to remember how she had once looked before her facial muscles collapsed. Summer was her only child and she had been forty-five when she gave birth. By the late twenties the interest in cosmetic procedures had diminished and women were much happier now they were expected to age naturally. Patina Organic Cosmetics Company was now the biggest in the world.

Fallon sat at the table and looked at the bowl of fruit that had been prepared for her breakfast. Her brother had two boiled eggs; her parents and grandparents had their usual daily serve of porridge. Fallon and Malek looked at each other and smiled. They were glad that they only had porridge once or twice a week. They both would have liked some toast, but the loaf of bread her mother cooked each day was kept for lunch or dinner.

Fallon was unusually animated during the breakfast meal. She hadn’t traveled to Indooroopilly or been on a boat before, and realized she was looking forward to the trip. She had spent time with her grandfather over the previous weeks and he had related many stories of his days as a bus driver. It fascinated her to think that petrol driven vehicles had circumnavigated the city freely back then! She told her grandfather she couldn’t imagine so much confusion and disorder, how could anyone live that way? She much preferred her ordered life. Now, only emergency vehicles were allowed into the five-kilometer inner city zone. Transport vehicle depots were stationed in the outer perimeter zones. Strict carbon emission controls limited their usage, and only solar, hydrogen or electric vehicles could be used.

Her mother and father had been worried about her taking this trip and had initially rejected the idea. Fallon had accepted that her parents knew best and had not thought about it again until the surprise news last week that the trip had been approved and twenty students from the fifth form at her high school would be going.

Her parents were going to take her to the meeting point at the Bulimba ferry terminal and they were expected to be there by 8am so their breakfast discussions were cut short, so the necessary preparations could be made. A school trip was a unique event!

Fallon had read through her data transfer unit the previous evening to check what information she had recorded for her project. Social and Environmental History was a major part of the school’s curriculum. “Learn from the Past and Improve the Future” was her school motto and all her subjects revolved around this ethos. She had found information on western districts history on the National Information System all citizens could access through their media centers.

She had finished the first part of her project - Settlement details. The next part of the project would cover this century. It wouldn’t take her long to locate the relevant data. All her lessons were easy, just finding the information, downloading and arranging under headings and then transferring to her teacher’s data unit. Students were no longer required to learn and memorize information, merely to demonstrate their understanding of where to find it. Visiting Indooroopilly for the first time would mean she could add a non-system picture of the area to her project. The idea seemed to be interesting to her. She read the information she had accessed from the Indooroopilly Historical Society and stifled a yawn.

History of Settlement

Brisbane was a penal colony in 1825

Indooroopilly was first settled in the 1860’s

Land was used for sheep and cattle farming between 1825 and 1849

A sheep quarantine reserve opened in 1879

In 1876 the Albert Rail River Bridge was completed

The first European born in the western area of Brisbane is recorded as being Caesar Breddin.

The Indooroopilly, Chapel Hill, Fig Tree Pocket and Long Pocket areas were primarily agricultural and dairying districts up to the turn of the century. Most of Indooroopilly was once owned by the Stamms and comprised the Stamm Estate.

Indooroopilly state school was established in 1889.

A flood destroyed the Albert River Bridge in 1893; it was rebuilt and opened in 1895

Silver, lead and zinc were mined at Finney's Hill from 1919 until 1929

Up until the 1960s there were clean sandy beaches at points along the Brisbane River. Under the Indooroopilly Bridge was a popular site for picnics and swimming.

She began to think of the upcoming trip and seeing the beaches that had been established along the banks of the Brisbane River in time for Brisbane Renewal Celebrations in 2060. Would she enjoy this experience? It had taken ten years to bring the river back to its original condition. The 2050 tsunami had caused a lot of damage. Now, many species of fish could now be seen from the bridges and banks. Ocean fish off the Queensland coast had been under protection orders since 2030 and it was only in the last five years that controlled deep-sea fishing had begun again. It was a rare treat to eat wild ocean fish, it tasted quite different to the farmed fish they usually ate.

Fallon and her parents rode their bikes to the ferry. A group of girls and boys, surrounded by their parents, stood quietly by the river. Fallon could see her two best friends and waved enthusiastically. She knew them so well but hadn’t been in physical contact with them for over five years. Children were still required to attend primary schools in their local area and she had met her friends then. She knew that she wouldn’t be free to leave home until she turned eighteen and was assessed as being competent to either enter the workforce or attend university. It didn’t bother her because she had always known what would happen each and every day. Her time schedules, her schoolwork, her food and her social time; everything in her life was predictable and that suited her and her friends. They had often talked about how their parents and grandparents had struggled in their lives and they were so glad that their lives had been made so easy.

She hugged her parents and boarded the ferry, along with her school friends and teachers. Her mother had held her very close in the last few moments before she had to leave, and she noticed a look on her face she hadn’t seen before. Was there a tear in her eye? She thought about it for a few seconds and then turned to look at her friends. She forgot the look on her mothers face in an instant. Summer and Faraday stood silently on the banks of the river watching the ferry as it moved gracefully through the water. “ Do you think this is the right thing to do?” Summer looked at her husband, hoping for some reassurance. ‘We didn’t really have much of a choice did we”; he took her hand and they walked back to their bikes in silence. Faraday folded Fallon’s bike and strapped it to the back of his; then pedaled back to their terraced house.

Fallon was happy to see her friends, but she did find their close proximity unsettling. As the boat made its way along the river the children all sat in different parts of the boat, silently gazing at the scenery. The movement of the boat and the light, salty breeze had a very calming effect on the group and it wasn’t long before some of them had fallen asleep. The three teachers looked across at each other and slowly nodded their heads in silent agreement. Fallon woke with a start. The ferry had stopped and as she was unfamiliar with the river, she had absolutely no idea where she was.

At lunchtime that day, four members of the Marshall family sat silently around the table. Malek had been playing in the games room, and as a special treat he had been allowed to eat his lunch upstairs.

There were things that needed to be said. Jack was the first to break the silence. “ So how long do you think she is going to be there for? ” Summer sighed and looked across the table at her parents. “They’re not sure. It could be two weeks or two months. I wish I could have told her where she was going but they said it was the start of the process; adding some controlled uncertainty into their lives. She has her proximity indicator, and we can look in on her whenever we want”

They had been notified officially that there was a slight developmental problem with the children of the ‘pioneer’ project. Nothing serious, they had stressed, but the same thing had occurred overseas and they were keen to trial a new behavior model with the ‘pioneer” teenagers in Australia. The children in overseas schools could not be faulted technically at school. Their work was of an average standard and they recorded average marks on their projects. Every child in the school achieved pass marks for their work but not one had achieved anything higher. The same thing was happening in Australia. They just didn’t have any motivation towards future goals or ambitions. The consequences of this were now being realized overseas and there were fears for the future.

Fallon lived in a perfect city, Brisbane, the most livable city in the world. The Government had balanced progress with nature and created an environment that was safe and healthy for their children. Parents had demanded protection for their children and the President had taken decisive action. Children couldn’t be physically bullied at virtual high schools. They were safe in their homes they had no reason, or need, to leave. Their health and diet was monitored day and night. They had been genetically modified to be both happy and addiction free. Their media access was controlled, and the conversations they had with their peers screened. They were pioneers…and now something drastic had to happen.