Thirty(ish) years ago, Octavia Butler’s Earthseed novels looked forward to an uncannily accurate (and pretty grim) version of present-day America. Let’s have some “fun” and write our own utopian/dystopian tales of the publishing business thirty years from now.
I'm not doing too bad for eighty-eight, but it's a daily conundrum whether to stay polite to the pub-tech or protect my blood pressure by railing at them like they deserve. I wish we could go back to six-monthly royalties. And I know that's my privilege showing, before someone tells me. I do know that none of the post-revolution authors would choose to be paid twice a year. But God Almighty!
My get-bud pings while I'm out in the garden doing a spot of yoga before the sun gets too fierce for the Factor 500. I shouldn't interrupt my practice to deal with it, but if the algorithm shifts and I make another sale, I'm as like as not to mix my pings and trigger an audit.
So I unwind out of eagle pose and take a big drink of water. 'Hey, Yolanda-' I begin, before remembering that we've reached Z now. After a month, we'll be back at Alexa again. 'Hey, Zuleika,' I say, proud of pulling the name out of my hat, 'please pay latest transaction profit into my FloodWatch account.'
'Say 1 for PayMo and 2 for VenPal,' Zuleika tells me. 'You will be charged for delay.' I know the merger was rough on everyone but did they ever consider how confusing it would be for us budders when they picked those parallel names? They did not.
I take out my get-bud to switch it off and switch it on again. But my wrist pings and the text starts to scroll before I can kill it. 'You have removed your give-bud, Catriona. You are now being charged delay fees by The Big One.'
'No, I haven't,' I tell the smiling face on my wrist-screen. 'I am left-handed. I assigned my get-bud to my left hand in accordance-' But I can see the numbers climbing already. And my right ear pings. I ignore it. It'll be a ComeFundMe pop-up caused either by The Big One saying "give-bud" or by my moving my get-bud out of my left ear. They'll think I'm some kind of do-good addict, like most people who assigned "give" to their dominant side. 'I'm left-handed!' I shout to whatever's listening, or translating speech to text, or monitoring my movements.
My get-bud pings in my hand. Gahhhhh! Someone with a tracker has seen the book download without a currency shift beginning and thinks there's a free-for-all. Which there will be unless I catch up.
Ping! Ping! They've shared it.
I switch off my get-bud, count to ten, switch it back on and put it back in my ear. Then I switch off my wrist-screen and leave it that way.
'There has been a breach,' Zuleika tells me. 'Please speak your new password'.
Ping!
I switch my wrist back on and the text starts to scroll. 'There has been an interruption in access. Please reset your password.'
I can't speech-to-text at my wrist because Zuleika will hear me, so I start typing. 'Please send my last password to my get-port.' It might work.
Ping!
'Sending last known password to right-bud now,' scrolls the text.
'No!' I shout. 'I'm left-handed.'
'Denial to confirm new password will result in suspension of A MarketPlace privileges for twenty-four hours,' Zuleika tells me.
'Good!' I shout.
Ping!
'Good is a weak password,' my wrist text scrolls at me. 'Please choose a strong password.'
Ping!
'No!' I scream into air.
Ping!
'A MarketPlace privileges have been suspended,' my wrist scrolls.
'Good!' I shout.
'Good is a weak password,' Zuleika tells me. 'Would you like me to send a strong password?'
'Yes,' I say. I wait. At least the pinging has stopped since I've been locked out of AMP.
'I will send a strong password via your AMP account,' Zuleika tells me. 'Please log in to your AMP account.' I wait. 'I will send a strong password to your "get-port".' My right-bud buzzes. 'Please confrm whether you would like to pay for your advanced password service with VenPal or PayMo,' Zuleika says.
'I would like to use VenPal to take out a contract on your back-up,' I say. 'And I would like to use PayMo to buy fake pictures of your hardware held together with duct tape and paperclips in a dingy basement near the drinks machine in a prefab warehouse on an industrial estate by the sewage works.'
'You have hurt my feelings,' says Zuleika. 'The penalty for-'
'You haven't got feelings,' I say. 'I have though, and I feel fine.' I look down at my wrist. There's no way to switch off the core monitor. 120/77 it tells me. 74 bpm. I smile, wondering how many AMP trackers have used the glitch to download a free book, and how many of those have changed the title and resold it already. Then I say to myself - to myself and no one else - 'Toes slightly out, knees bent, right hand under left, lift elbows and . . . breathe'.
Cx
Wow! Brilliant, Catriona.
ReplyDeleteThis future fiction will begin for real in 2024. Thanks for scaring me beyond what yoga can repair!
ReplyDeleteScary and funny as hell. Thanks, I hope the future is written by you.
ReplyDeleteWhat Josh said. Alexa can fill in the rest. We don't need the Stasi since our watches and devices do all the surveillance and MK-Ultra stuff for us. We are the recursive function.
ReplyDeleteWell done, Catriona.