540 Story Future
Scenario 1.
Nadia rubbed the thumb of her left hand gingerly. It had swollen up again, red and angry looking.
“Why there?” she stared at the spot, knowing she’d had no choice, massaging and gently moving her thumb back and forth to ease the pain.
“Another trip,” she muttered to herself. “You’d think they’d have this right by now.” Her hand reached to the back of her neck, fingers skimming multiple tiny scars, evidence of the surgeries—and the mistakes.
At the moment, though, she had groceries to get, and Jeremy had to be picked up on time today, or they’d start penalizing her.
“Never get a break,” she thought, moving with the crowd across the street towards My Town Foods. It was one of the few places that still took either cards or cash. So it was only people like Nadia, the bums, drunks and addicts, that shopped there. Anybody with any money had long ago turned to body scanning.
Not that Nadia didn’t have money; she was pretty good at spending smart and saving a little of what she made. But that money was always tagged by the government, part of its new system of forcing people to use injectables to carry all their personal and employment data. Seemed like a good idea at the time.
Until the rejects started coming in. People who reacted to the metals in their body, limbs swelling and twisting, bursting with fluid, too late to save them. Watching an arm or leg suddenly pop like a balloon was gross, but when it happened in the brain, well . . . Nadia had only seen that once. The woman kept touching her head, looking around, her eyes scared and pleading. But who could help her? And the final few seconds screaming before her brains blew apart stayed with you at night, in the dark. Some of them didn’t pop for months, but in the end, they all popped.
They were everywhere; it didn’t matter where you’d go you’d see a gimp. Always begging, too, saying it’s the government’s fault or a conspiracy to get some of them.
“Well, let the fucking government pay then,” Nadia looked quickly around, afraid someone might’ve over heard her. She’d been doing that, more and more, talking out loud, to herself. She’d just got so fucking lonely, since the pandemic.
At first, it’d just seemed like a great vacation. At least for everyone else. Nadia’s work kept her online most of the time, anyway, which is how she likely managed to miss the first wave. So, even with a lot of countries slowing down and even with layoffs with her firm, Nadia’s research was pretty secure. Plus, she could do the work of the laid off crew, so double protection.
“Crap!” She glanced around again. She’d missed picking up her prescriptions when she went round. She’d have to get in line to go round again, or go without. Fuck.
Nadia rolled her thumb over the grapes. The reading came back: $23.50/lb. Jesus. That was like a buck a grape. Not today. Nadia moved on, keeping pace with the people ahead of her. The bots jumped in and out of line, ignoring the space limits. Fucking millionaires; they got discounts for staying home and having their bots shop.
Military lined each aisle today.
“Hmm, wonder what brought them out?” Nadia silently gave them the finger, then scanned some soft apples. Her thumb reading came back, $10.25/lb. She bought the least bruised one she could find. They’d just grab any one when they collected her list, Nadia knew, but it still gave her pleasure to think she actually chose the food she bought and paid for, not some packer.
In the end Nadia chose the apple, some frozen spinach, 2 potatoes (@ $7.00/lb she had to have two) and some protein powder. Protein always made her think of ham and beef and chicken. She’d start to salivate, but those were all gone now, their diseases wiping out millions of the creatures in just weeks, all around the world, followed by 6 billion humans in half a year.
“No loss there,” Nadia whispered to herself.
The bulk of losses were in China, Europe and India. Even most of North America went dark. Nadia felt relatively safe in Australia where the military kept most of its navy in the north to bomb, shoot, or drown the billions who tried to swim, boat or even parachute into the country. At first, Nadia thought the beaches were shut down because of the pandemic; then she realized it was so people couldn’t see the carnage washing up onshore.
She hurried out of the store, an insistent beep near her ear reminding her she’d got to get Jeremy asap. She couldn’t run, her gimp leg too painful for any speed. Lucky for her, people always made room. Nobody wanted that on their shirts, if she popped unexpectedly. But they could read her, so they’d lift their thumbs—a perverse salute—and read her registration and body temperature data and know she was okay for now. No one ever asked. Just get the reading, not look at her or her swollen leg.
She likely looked like one of those balloon shapes you’d get at the circus, bits blown up, twisted and bulging into a dog or bird or umbrella. Nadia smiled ruefully at the memory of a normal time. And now her thumb was swelling.
“Fuck. Can’t catch a break,” she thought again. There was Jeremy.
Perfect. Still. Smiling. Always. As Nadia neared, the pain began and she started screaming, screeching, her leg poppped, her thumb burst, her arm splotched open, all the time her eyes on Jeremy, Jeremy, Jeremy, Jeremy, as that old spot on the back of her head started to swell.
Scenario 2.
It is 2050.
Godot finally arrives to find that all humanity has metamorphosed into giant beetles and electric monkeys. Ooh ooh eeh ah . . .