Читать книгу A Splendid Future - Lippi Daniele, Daniele Lippi - Страница 6

CHAPTER 1

Fred, in this late-autumn dark late afternoon, was walking on the crowded Main Street of Neo Apuania.

It was almost winter, but it wasn’t cold. To tell the truth, it hadn’t been cold anywhere for a long time. The last real winter was lost in the childhood memories of his generation’s grandparents.

Sometimes his father used to complain about it, but Fred didn’t like the cold. Maybe that’s why he couldn’t be so sad and angry for the disappearance of that season as other people.

He was a normal person, not a privileged schoolboy. He had no time for such things, he had to figure out how to earn his daily bread. No losing time talking about climate and other things that, in his vision, were just that way; sterile words and pointless heated debates wouldn’t surely make the difference, also because, as far as he could remember from the few history lessons he paid attention to when he was at school, it was more than four centuries that people talked about it.

Fred had always considered himself a practical guy, with his feet on the ground, so his answer was always the same: If you really care so much about winter, stop talking and do something.

Meanwhile, as his thoughts kept on lingering about the real winter he’d never known, constantly pushed by and pushing people crowding the street around him, he reached his destination.

He looked up at the three-dimensional sign above his head: GI Labs.

He stood for a moment staring it, while the other passers-by bumped into him as stupid zombies against an obstacle. Zombies. After seeing a movie on the living dead when he was a child, Fred used to see that way the mass of people crowding the streets at any time of day and night. Zombies.

He kept staring at the sign and, for the first time in many months, he was struck by doubt. Do I really want to do it? He asked himself. Your life will be better, he told himself, repeating as a mantra those few words full of hope. A hope he was already losing, and he didn’t want to give up.

I won’t become a zombie too, he told himself, as he kept being pushed about by that multitude of anonymous people passing by him. Those creatures seemed to him an endless river of resignation to survival for its own sake. No, I won’t give up, he told himself, I don’t want to give up, he repeated, and closing his eyes once more he swore to himself his life would be better than that.

Behind him, the deafening hum of the engine of a passenger shuttle soaring towards the directional canal a few metres above his head brought his thoughts back to the present. He looked one last time at the fluctuating hologram of the sign and then he took a step forward, the door opened and he entered.

The door closed behind him, chasing away the noises of the street. He found himself in a clean space dominated by white. Armchairs, chairs, tables, floor, walls, ceilings, everything was shiny white plastic. A space more sterile than an operating room and more blinding than a dentist lamp.

A robot on a wheel silently appeared beside him. From its torso up it had the features of a woman, but with deliberately angular features. “Welcome to the Genetic Investigation Laboratories.” it said with a calm and relaxing voice “First level personal identification!” it added, while a thin translucent screen appeared from a slot at the height of its stomach.

Fred put his right hand on it.

“Alfred Baghezzi!” the robot exclaimed “Welcome!”

“Just Fred, thanks!

“Alfred” the robot repeated.

“I prefer to be called Fred. Thanks,” he repeated.

“Alfred.” the robot repeated.

Fred sighed, robots could be so stupid, he complained “Let’s move on”.

“Second level personal identification, please,” the robot uttered, leaning forward “Look straight into my eyes, Alfred”.

He did so, staying still for the instant needed by the machine to scan his irises and compare them with the continental data bank. “Alfred Baghezzi” the robot confirmed, returning to its original rigid posture.

Fred was going to head towards the counter when the robot quickly stepped before him “Chronicle Acquisition!”

Fred stopped, surprised “Hey! Don’t you think that's a bit too much?" he said, looking around. He was sure that, as mostly anywhere, the room was full of micro-cameras and microphones through which someone in some place who-knows-where was listening and recording.

The robot started talking again, with its calm and relaxing voice “According to the multi - bilateral, intra - intergovernmental agreements with the Continental States of Oceania, Asia, Eurafrica, Americas, Moon and Orbital, according to article six comma three, five, nine, thirteen and seventeen, the Genetical Investigation Laboratories, a wholly-owned subsidiary of FartherWorld Company, which in turn is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the investment fund NeoLife investment fund of the pancontinental corporation Aqualife, is fully authorized to access the personal history chronicle of any client, whether potential or current, who is physically present on any property of any one of the abovementioned companies.”

Fred stared at the robot, incredulously. As far as he knew, only the military, the police and a few authorized bounty hunters had the right to access people’s chronicle. Reluctantly, he rolled up his left sleeve, looking at the almost invisible scar he had on his wrist under which, at his birth, they had implanted the biomechanical chip where his existence had been recorded since that first moment. “What if I refuse?”

“I shall ask you to leave, Alfred, before I call the security, that will then call the police if necessary. May you please confirm that you object and refuse to give me your chronicle?”

Damned little biochip. If only he hadn’t seen with his own eyes the horrible death encountered by those who had tried to take it away, he would have tried digging it out a long ago as well. He sighed and then, clenching his fists and squinting his eyes, he whispered “My life will be better!”

“Repeat, please, your answer was confused and non-exhaustive, with respect to the question asked” declared the robot.

Fred nodded and gave his arm “Go ahead”.

“Thanks Alfred!”

“Fred, just Fred”.

“Alfred” confirmed the robot, displaying a mechanical smile.

Fred was so nervous he’d gladly hit it and rip away its circuits. “Let’s make it quick, ok?”

The robot firmly seized his wrist, squeezing it until it hurt “Do not move, please.” It pointed the forefinger of its other hand at the scar, moved it right and left to find the right spot; from the tip of his forefinger a thin golden needle went out and pierced his flesh until it connected to the biochip that had grown with him, getting tangled to its veins like a parasite impossible to eradicate.

A few seconds and it was all over.

All his life downloaded in an instant.

All he had been and he had ever done.

All in a few endless, superfluous, anonymous seconds.

“This way, Alfred.” the robot invited him, walking into a narrow corridor “The assigned consultant and counselor is waiting for you in Room Five.” he added, opening a door. “Make yourself comfortable, the chance of a new splendid life is going to come true, I hope you’ll be among the few lucky ones who’ll be able to be a part of it.”

The FartherWorld slogan echoed in the aseptic silence of the room as an ineluctable life sentence.