Author: Jamie Hall. Jamie is a Scottish master’s student of publishing at Edinburgh Napier who likes to write on the odd occasion. He specialises in writing near-future dystopian fiction and is an avid reader, primarily science fiction and other genres.

‘Blip’ goes the HomeDash^TM ‘FarmTec Milk’, it flashes, displaying the usual Tec logo but with a field and cows like those of old edited into it. 

‘Not this time, bastards’ I think to myself ‘I’m getting it myself even if it wastes my day off this month.’ 

I sit up and a slither of the late morning sun, partially dimmed by the shadow of a SecuriTec^TM camera pylon, gleams on my face between the mile-high skyscrapers as I rise from my SynthFiber^TM mattress. I smash that “X” button as hard as I can without breaking the damn machine. It’s not mine of course, just like everything, it comes from a HomeTec^TM subscription package and damaging it means another fine. I get up and go to the wardrobe or RobeRenterTec^TM or whatever the fuck it’s called now to rent some clothes for the day. An ad. ‘AutoTech’, I exclaim trying to clear this annoyance. ‘We’re sorry we didn’t quite catch that, to skip this advertisement please repeat the brand you see on screen.” 

‘AutoShite,’ I say, quietly but not quite quiet enough. It always hears what it wants to. 

‘Profanity detected! One fine has been added to your account. To pay-’ 

‘AutoTech! AutoTech!’ I shout, clearing this fucking thing. 

‘Input Accepted! Thanks for shopping with HomeTech, part of The Tec family.’ It bleeps in a voice that has some trace of humanity in it, ‘Please stand in front of the scanner’ I don’t bother. I’ve read the T’s and C’s, and I know all “the scanner” does is shine a red light whilst the processor looks at purchase and search history to create the perfect outfit. A plain white T-shirt, jeans and some FootTec or whatever sports shoes to ease the sore on my foot. Of course, they know about that.

‘Scanning complete! Please insert or tap a valid TransactionTec card’, the machine says without giving the cost. I insert it and put the code in manually. I know it doesn’t like that. I keep getting replacement cards through the post with a new contactless chip and a contestable fine along with it for “poor maintenance of property.” They want the transaction to be as easy as possible and the consumers eat it up. There are only consumers now, not people. I take my outfit for the day and go to the door, scanning my thumb to “unlock it” and out I go. 

‘Benny boy!’ I hear an irritatingly familiar voice screech behind me. 

‘Oh, hello Steve’. Steve is the ideal consumer in the eyes of Tec with his total complacency and his fashionable (rented) outfit.

Steve is a prick.  

‘It’s a wonderful day’ he says, ‘where are you going?’ caught slightly off guard by this mindless moron taking interest in another “consumer”, I answer the question. 

‘Oh, how old-fashioned! I’m going out for a morning fitness walk.’

Fuck. I have made a mistake.

‘I’ll come with you’, he continues.

I try to dissuade him by suggesting we walk down the stairs instead of renting the LifTec^TM elevator and whilst he hesitates, the bastard persists. We arrive at the door; I force the rusted thing open and begin my descent with the prick in tow. 

The prick speaks: ‘Have you seen what those sub-consumer parasites have done now!’ 

Here we go. 

‘Being homeless doesn’t make them parasites, Steve’, I say, but I don’t know why, he won’t listen.

‘Of course, they are parasites!’ he exclaims ‘they leach on us upstanding consumers and drive the prices of rentals up when they steal from the inventory!’  

‘You’re a “colleague” in material management, aren’t you?’ I say calmly for a change.

‘Yes.’ 

‘So, you can see on the system what they take from the warehouses?’ 

He hesitates for a moment ‘Erm-well no. But we know they take something’. 

‘So, if you don’t know what they take then how do you know they take anything’. 

His brain cells cannot compute this one and I know he wants to say something, but we’ve already descended the two floors to the ground and the door is right there. I step out onto the street and make for the roadside pavement instead of the Premium raised MovTec^TM conveyor. The prick stops. 

‘Oh-eh, actually I’m going to go this way’ he says as he pulls out his silver TransactionTec card. 

‘That’s a shame’ I say with an elated sarcasm ‘I was so looking forward to our walk’. 

The prick mutters something and takes his leave. Finally, I can get some peace in this world or as much as anyone can get in this fucking shitehole of a city.  

Years ago, this city was once considered a heritage site or something like that by the U.N. before it collapsed during the Corpo Wars. It had beautiful old buildings and was surrounded by the gorgeous green fields of the Lothians before they were blackened by the solar panels that now occupy them. I wish I had seen it. 

As I walk along, I see a poor homeless man sheltered underneath the escalator up to the MovTec. A long time ago I could have given him a coin or a note for something, but cards only deal in TeCoins and a Non-consumer could never afford the monthly fee to have one. The poor sod.  

I reach the corner and insert the card into the traffic light instead of tapping it and buying 7 seconds of time to cross. There’s barely a car to be seen but if I’m on that road without time then of course there’ll be a fine. Thieving bastards. They may have abolished taxes (for corporations, not people) but we seem to lose a lot more than ever. I hear a shuffling to my left and the homeless man appears next to me. 

“Awright pal,” he says. There’s a trace of a Glasgow accent as he speaks, perhaps one of the last traces of the city after it was destroyed to build a quarry for the new factories. 

‘Hello,’ I say cheerfully. He seems decent – and much better than that prick Steve or any other cunt you would find up above. The light changes. 

‘I’ve been waiting three days for this’ he says as we cross. This is a surprise because I thought the homeless couldn’t be fined so why would he wait? I ask him about it.

‘Fined? Naw, but the cunts ‘ill do a lot worse than that’ he says, and I know he’s probably right. We get across the street successfully and I offer to buy him something from the StoreTec^TM but he refuses. 

“Cheers pal, but I’m off to the Junkyard across the solar fields.” He replies “I’ll get some scran there” 

With that he turns to leave but hesitates, he says, “It’s not a bad life there if you want out” and he shuffles away with a limp he’ll never be able to afford treatment for. Maybe he’s right, maybe he’s not. I contemplate this as I pay to go up the MovTec and enter the staff-less StoreTec. The vending machines are all predictably so colourfully bland. I stroll up to the milk vending machine and the thought of an alternative crosses my mind again as I insert my card.  

‘No reservation detected’ What? ‘Please use your TecTablet^TM to make a reservation to purchase this item’ the stupid piece of shit machine says. 

‘Are you fucking shitting me!?’ 

‘Profanity detected!-’ 

‘Oh, fuck this’