Fred executed.
The robot firmly grasped his forearm Maybe Im clutching a little too strongly, but dont worry, its just to ensure youll stay still, itll be done in a minute.
Fred stared at the robot and thought with the voice they gave you, I could close my eyes and imagine without hesitation that youre the most beautiful woman Ive ever seen but he didnt say it.
The robot lighted his forearm with a warm green light coming from her right eye, then she aimed at a certain point with a beam of very hot red light and, with a needle coming out of the middle finger of her other hand, she quickly punctured him, absorbing both blood and organic matter while cauterizing the wound at the same time.
The procedure was unexpectedly painful and Fred understood why shed grasped him so firmly, otherwise hed have instinctively withdrawn his arm for sure.
Thank you for your kind cooperation, Alfred Nara thanked him with a slight bow youll receive the results and further instructions by your certified ethermail; if you dont have one you can ask for it at the governmental bureau for privacy or at the detachment of Keepers in your neighbourhood.
Ive got it, Ive got it he answered, rubbing his forearm. Who doesnt have it nowadays, he wondered, it had become automatic, it was provided at birth with the chronicle chip. Actually, the chip and the ethermail were connected and the chip was the key to access the ethermail. Obviously all the important personal communications, such as bank reports, taxes, fines etc. passed through the ethermail. One more small piece of the ingenious control system by the authorities.
Suddenly a door, that he hadnt noticed while entering the room, opened behind him.
Please, Alfred, you can go out from here and I hope not to see you again, which would mean that your new life has already begun! Nara the robot explained to him.
I hope not to see you, too! Fred said sarcastically, still rubbing his forearm and, while he went out, he heard the robot thanking him over his shoulders.
CHAPTER 3
As soon as he got out, he was immediately pushed by a pair of passers-by. Nothing unusual in this world, he told himself, smiling as he recalled the images that Martin had showed him. Broad, clean, half-empty streets for ten years. This alone would have been priceless.
He looked up at the dark sky where the clouds, loaded with rain and smog, prevented from seeing the stars and the moon. The stars. Hed seen only a few times. The few times theyd accepted his request to buy a ticket (at an exorbitant price) giving access to the highest skyscraper in town. Only from there could you see them, and only if the sky was clear, of course, which didnt happen very often, actually hardly ever, to tell the truth.
It started raining. Fred pulled his coat tight, raising the hood. It was almost nine pm. He hadnt realised that hed been in there for more than two hours. In a while the caustic (or salty? hed never really understood) fog would descend and he had forgotten the regular respirator. He looked around. Some people were already wearing it. A small silicon mask with a purifying valve to be applied on the nose or on the mouth, as needed. An essential tool for long term survival, but with such a high cost that not everybody could afford it. He himself had been able to buy it just four years ago. The private health companies obviously didnt give it for free and, by the way, they said that it wasnt necessary to stay outside after half past nine pm and, statistically, after that time there were more victims from crime than those from caustic fog. No one believed it, but the health companies were simply too powerful to counter.
Anyway, it was time to go back home, so Fred set out, letting himself be carried by the human river, until he reached the first Airtube entrance. He climbed up the wide metal spiral staircase. He reached the second floor and waited with tens of other people bundled up like him and like him looking for shelter from the hot rain loaded with desert sand.
The Airtube arrived, announced by a short siren sound. Fred lifted his eyes. The big metal tube, a little more than ten metres above his head, opened. A long articulated wagon started coming down. The gears that moved the cables supporting it screeched and seemed to scream, praying to be lubricated.
Fred looked at it, recalling how it frightened him when he was a child and he believed it to be a monster snake that ate people. He smiled. Actually, it did look like a snake and, as he discovered years later, his design was inspired by that animal.
The Airtube stopped next to him. Some coils receded to let him in. The seats were very few, but there were a lot of poles and handles on the low ceiling. The coils closed. There were no windows; they were useless. The snake wagon went up again, the tube closed. They left. It felt like a ride on the rollercoaster and every time there was someone falling. No one ever helped up the unlucky. Neither did he. Those who fell knew it and didnt complain; by the way, they had surely been among those who didnt fall as well and, just as surely, hadnt lifted a finger to help those who had fallen. Nevertheless, occasionally, someone complained about it, but he was inevitably stared at as if he was crazy. Nothing unusual.
Five stops later Fred got off and he came back down to the level of the street and the ubiquitous crowd. He had almost arrived but, passing by a small kiosk, he realised he was hungry, remembered he had nothing to eat at home and stopped by. He ordered a seaweed fibroburger and fried jellyfish sticks. He sat on one of the few stools of the kiosk and waited.
Hard day? asked the sweating and busy cook in the kiosk.
His face was dark and marked by deep shadows. His long and untidy beard hid a pitted skin. His flabby belly, typical of a beerotch abuser, didnt improve his already squat silhouette. He really looked like a person who didnt sleep enough.
Not as yours. Fred answered frankly.
The cook laughed Cook in the day, security in the evening, doorman at night he exclaimed, lifting his eyes in glory, then he slapped his own belly woe betide if I didnt have this to sustain me he laughed.
It took Fred just one look at his shiny slimy temples to understand why he was in such a good mood. You should quit he whispered, pointing at his temples
The cook, rudely but meaning no harm, threw in front of him the food he had ordered. Yes, and then maybe Ill climb up on the Tunnel Tower and fly away! the cook laughed again, wiping his hands and his sweaty face with the dishcloth before going to serve another client who had just arrived.
The Tunnel Tower. Nothing more than a pole, a little more than twenty metres high, overlooking a precipice at the edge of the poorest part of Neo Apuania. It should have been the starting point of a new Airtube line serving those poor people, but at a certain point some bureaucrat decided the project wasnt convenient nor profitable, so there was just the pole left, with the stairs climbing up to its top, reminding forever those derelicts that theyd been forsaken.
That pole overlooking that disadvantaged wasteland, dwelt by invisible people, had become one of the favourite destinations for suicides, also because, in zones like that, watchmen or Keepers of order were hardly ever seen. Nobody seemed to care about the fact that suicides happened almost daily.
Maybe the sadder thing was that, at the bottom of the slope, where the dead bodies of the suicides fell, a small crowd gathered every day to compete for the few belongings of the corpses. Oftentimes these quarrels ended up in a brawl, and the brawl in a homicide, which roused new brawls to grab the belongings of the new victim too.