by Cat Rambo
My son Stephen’s boys, Tom, eight, and Ethan, six, curious about my implant. We were in the kitchen where I was pouring drinks for them. The others gathered round, faces grave.
“Whoa, lots of questions. No,” I said, “it didn’t hurt and no, I can’t feel it.” I was still surprised the technician had turned up so early on the day of my birthday to insert it. “Geri is short for Geriatric. It’s another word for old.”
“I’ve now got a unique identification number,” I went on, quoting from the official website, “which tells anyone that reads it my name and more importantly my age. It means I can no longer be considered for medical treatment. It also means I can’t leave the country to try and get treatment somewhere else. Because of the Geri-chip, I’d be stopped at the port or airport.”
No-one spoke for a moment when I finished.
“We’d have come anyway, of course.” Stephen’s wife Nicole broke the uneasy silence. “But, well, with this new law, a person’s seventy-fifth’s a real milestone now, isn’t it?”
Mid-morning the same day and the roast was in the oven. We went down to the beach, nine of us: Stephen and his family down from London, and my daughter Jane, her husband Matt and their two children. And me. Patrick had died two years before. I was still getting used to being without him.
It was one of those rare sunny wind-free February days. We walked along the seafront, Jane and I bringing up the rear. She walked slowly, and I sensed she wanted to talk.
“I’ve got some news, Mum,” she said at last. “I’m expecting another baby.”
I could hear the anxiety in her voice. I didn’t need to remind her she was forty-five. I squeezed her hand. “I’ll always be here for you, darling,” I said.
Later, we were all sitting round the dining room table. I was feeling full after a delicious meal, and I let the conversation drift over me.
I love having my family around me, but sometimes they’re too quick for me, jumping from one idea to another, and I can’t keep up. Maybe I was going a bit deaf. Would I be able to get my ears syringed under the new law, I wondered, or was all medical treatment forbidden? It had only come into force the month before. There were bound to be wrinkles, I thought, that would need sorting out.
“Matt, hush.“ Jane’s voice, low and sharp, intruded. I must have dozed off.
“May I remind you—” Stephen, sounding pompous, bless him. “This is my mother we’re talking about. My mother and millions like her.”
“I realise that. But facts are facts.” My son-in-law the actuary. Facts and statistics are his lifeblood. “The population of the country is ageing. Last year, 2035, eleven per cent of the population was aged seventy-five and over. Think on that. More than one in ten. Seven million people.” He paused. “The burden on health services is considerable, and growing. And remember, their pensions are coming out of our taxes, and we, the workers, are a shrinking proportion of the population.”
“Don’t tell me you support this new law.” Nicole was close to tears. Her parents were in their early seventies.
Matt hesitated. “No. I don’t. But I can see the problems. The increasing cost of the state pension. How to fund social care for older people. Whether to provide sheltered housing.”
“But they, we, also contribute to the country, the economy,” I said. “We work, volunteer, buy stuff –”
He reached across the table and covered my hand with his. “I’m not denying it, Alys. I’m just explaining why Parliament brought this law in. They say the system we had before was unsustainable.”
He was right. As so often, the politicians had captured the mood of the public, picking up on the stigma attached to being old and ill. Over seventy-five, you’re a burden on the state, draining precious resources. And you’re expected to do the decent thing.
“Still,” I said, “I’m fit and healthy. It’ll be years before the law affects me.”
With a small sound of annoyance, I bring my thoughts back to the present. Hubris. That’s what they call it, don’t they?
Counting the days. Eighty-seven days to go.
“You seem different, Mum. Determined.” Jane frowns. “Last time you were like this was when you went on those anti-fracking protests. Remember?”
“I do. Was that really ten years ago?” I smile as I hand her a mug of coffee and usher her through to the living room. She’s having a screening test for Down’s in two weeks’ time, and I don’t want to worry her further, but this isn’t something I can keep from her. I’ve planned to tell Stephen this evening.
I wait until she’s sitting down. “Jane, there’s something you need to know. I collapsed at work a fortnight ago and the doctors say I’ve got a heart problem.”
“No.” She shakes her head.
“They’ve started the countdown.”
“No.” All colour leaves her face. “No.”
She comes to sit next to me on the sofa and takes my hand. I put my arm round her and hug her to me. We stay like that for a long while, drawing strength from the other’s warmth, each thinking our own thoughts.
At the end of the hundred days, I’ll be offered the means to end my life. “Offered” is the wrong word, of course. I’ll have no choice but to take it.
It’s not going to happen. Jane’s right, I am determined. Driven. Like millions of others, I sat back and let the new law come into effect. Oh, I sent emails to the national papers, but that was the extent of my protest. Well, things are going to be different from now on.
“I mean to fight to get the law revoked,” I say. “I’m going to start an online campaign.”
Counting the days. Sixty-three days to go.
I’ve never been busier. Creating my website, putting profiles on Facebook and Twitter, sending out newsletters and email updates, posting on my blog, guest-posting on other people’s blogs. You name it, I’m doing it.
“I’ve got to have another test,” Jane tells me over a cup of tea. Her face is grey with anxiety.
I reach across and squeeze her hand. I ache for my daughter. I want to be there for her. Thousands are in the same position as me, I’ve learnt. And millions support my campaign. Only a few, though, a trusted few, know the full extent of my plans.
Counting the days. Thirty-eight days to go.
It’s Easter Sunday and I’m in London. Hyde Park. My heart pounds. I’m jittery with nerves. The noise is stupendous: people are chanting, clapping, cheering, blowing whistles, banging on drums. Hundreds of coaches have brought them from towns and cities all over the country. Not just oldies. People of all ages, children too, are milling around. I’m constantly being jostled, and I feel not only proud but humbled: they’ve come to support me, my cause.
I turn to Jane. Both my children and their families are with me. “Remember, Jane.” Even though I lean in close, I have to raise my voice. “I’m going to say something that will shock you, shock everyone. But I won’t mean it. I’ll be saying it to make people see how absurd, flawed, cruel this law is. Remember that.”
I climb up on to the stage and tears spring to my eyes. People everywhere, as far as I can see. More than a million, the police are saying, and I can believe it. They’re singing and shouting, holding up placards, waving banners.
Scrap the new law
We say NO
Geri-chip Geri-chop
I look around and pinpoint my trusted few, dotted around the vast crowd, waiting to unfurl my special banners. I take the microphone and start my speech.
The crowd love it. They roar with approval. They’re with me. I’m like a surfer riding the crest when I reach my conclusion. “We know what they say . . . diverting resources away from other groups . . . an unproductive sector of society . . . costing each family thousands of pounds a year.” I pause. “And they’re right. The group I have in mind are all of those things. That’s why I say—”
I raise both arms. It’s
the signal. Nine special banners unfurl. I stand tall and defiant as I wait for the reaction.
The message is simple, stark, and nicely alliterative: Kill the Kids.
About the Author
Kathy is English but has lived in a beautiful corner of France for almost thirty years. She taught English in a French high school until her retirement, and has since taken up writing.
Her short stories have been published in women’s magazines and placed in writing competitions. She has also written two historical romances, both published in paperback. The first of these will shortly be appearing in large print too.
Being part of If This Goes On is a particular thrill for her: not only is it her first sci-fi story to be published, but it’s also the first story of hers to reach an American readership.
Editor’s Note
Much has been made of the struggle between generations, particularly the baby boomers, Generation X, and the millennials, who have been blamed for everything from killing malls to overreliance on avocado toast. What happens when someone pragmatically decides that taking care of the elderly is overly costly—and what will those elderly do about it?
As we watch 45’s administration doing its best to strip the country of the healthcare provided by the Affordable Care Act, also called Obamacare, this scenario seems particularly poignant, especially among self-employed creatives.
Making Happy
Zandra Renwick
Lena’s walking home from the rally at 5:18 a.m. when the corporate boundaries switch over for the day and her entire neighborhood flips its pixels. Change starts at the far end of the block, shifting colors rippling the entire length of the old Assistens Cemetery wall’s pixel mesh overlay up the sidewalk toward her as if replacing every brick one by one, flipping them from the soft glowing pink of the previous sponsor’s abstract pharmaceutical logo to a million shimmering tiles of the CuppaJO’s cheery green mermaid. Lena strokes a thumb across her temple implant to activate her corneal screen and manages to blink-snap a few still shots: blink-blink-blink; snap-snap-snap. She drops them into her livestream feed and despite it being a suboptimal time of day for engagement, they’re pretty swell pics, so 14 friendz approve.
Lena doesn’t like coffee much but has loved the CuppaJO mermaid logo since she was a kid. That was at least ten mergers ago and she can’t remember the Ameriglobal coffee conglomerate’s original name was but she’s glad the logo has endured. It reminds her of Copenhagen’s Little Mermaid statue, den Lille Havfrue on her lonely harbor rock weeping her salty verdigris tears, except made magically happy by the prospect of whipped cappuccino.
Thinking about the lonely mermaid makes Lena sad, so she thumb-strokes herself five happiness credits. They blossom in her feed as little picticons—rainbow; rainbow; unicorn; umbrella; lollipop—and her bliss rating inches up a notch. Not everyone likes purchased happiness rather than earned credits, so 8 friendz approve, but 4 disapprove.
Disapprovals always bum her out. You’d think friendz ratings would be less distressing because they’re anonymous, but that’s not how it works. Not for Lena. If she could manufacture realspace happiness for herself on command she’d never need to purchase happiness credits, but it’s been a long time since she’s felt the sort of genuine, organic rush of joy people are always supposed to be seeking. Stroking her left temple to activate corporate boundary map mode she makes a rapid eye-scroll search for “magically make happy.” The search function autocorrects to making happy and a dozen sponsored results bloom on her corneal screen. She blinks again to illuminate routes mapped from her geopoint. She veers off the main street to follow the green arrow projected onto the surface of her eye, and 23 friendz approve. Since she’s in their freshly acquired territory, CuppaJO even drops her a corporate-sponsored happiness booster picticon of a tiny green mug of steaming latte. 19 more friendz approve.
Lena needs some approval. She passes the shiny red door of a rival coffee shop emitting mouth-watering scents of fresh pastries . . . but stays focused on the green dot glowing against her eyeball. She and all her neighbors are CuppaJO citizens as of 5:18 that morning. Until the neighborhood gets acquired or their sponsor merges with another corporate entity, the company can impose sanctions against any area resident doing business with rivals. Last night’s rally had been about consumer resistance, the rally channel’s livestream feed peppered with slogans Lena wasn’t sure she should approve: Up with your hackles; throw off the shackles! And Defy forced consumerism: refuse and reuse! And, with the most friendz approvals, Be heard not herded—vote by not buying.
Lena’s intrigued, but doesn’t have the energy to resist coerced brand loyalty right now. Besides, without Ameriglobal corporate sponsorship, how would any city keep their streets clean and their schools running? Lena pushes open the green door, blinking a snap of the mermaid logo under her hand and dropping it into her feed. Her neighbors are waking up to their new sponsor blitzing the local demographic’s favorite channels and are eager to show brand loyalty, so 148 local friendz approve.
Lines have already formed at the automated counter. Lena’s livestream CuppaJO blitz offers all the morning’s new citizens double happiness credits for every Soyavocado Latte purchase. Their drinks taste pretty much the same to her, so she orders the double happiness special when her turn comes at the dispenser. 172 friendz approve and one sends her a green smiley picticon with an oversized upthumb.
She slurps her thick warm green slush and resumes her route home. Only a couple blocks to go. After not sleeping all night she’s so tired, thought of bed provides a burst of relief close enough to happiness to make Lena smile around her straw. She’s deciding whether or not to drop mention of the feeling into her livestream when a wet thud makes her pause.
The neighborhood is old. It meanders and zigs and zags. Not even updated consumer population density mandates and corporate underwriting have erased all the cobbled dead ends and leaf-moldy nooks and brick pie-wedge crannies. In a deep shadowed well between two residential edifices only a block from Lena’s place, four crouching figures hunch over a fifth on the ground. The crouchers erupt in another flurry of kicks, another round of soft damp whacks Lena now realizes is the sound of hard steel-toe boots meeting soft flesh.
The rounded lump on the ground moans, an unmistakably human noise that forces Lena to abandon fleeting notions it’s a sack of garbage, a laundry bag—maybe an oddly human-shaped pile of dead leaves. Forgetting she’s still tapped into her livestream she blinks a few snaps and accidentally drops one into her feed. Even blurry and shadowed and indistinct, the snap instantly garners 10 anonymous disapprovals. People on her regular channel don’t like scary stuff.
Lena hastily thumbs off her livestream. “Hello?” She takes a few hesitant steps into the dead-end alley mouth. “Is everything all right in there?”
Her voice sounds tinny and underused, but the four upright figures turn to her as one. She doesn’t recognize their fashions: iconic Ameri-style paramilitary gear and clothing popular in some distant neighborhood zone, nothing from around here. These people surf a totally different livestream from the one Lena lives on. The corporate sponsor for their zone must be an Ameriglobal home security provider or weapons manufacturer—something thriving on a wholly different consumer profile than the one Lena and her neighbors provide. Her neighborhood gets regularly acquired and merged and taken over and bought out, a popular demographic for corporations selling things like fast fashion, elective health services, or mass entertainment. Health food automats. Virtual vacation packages. Fertility suppression.
The largest of the paramilitary citizens saunters up to Lena, thumbing his temple. She imagines snaps of herself dropping into his livestream, carried off on the swift virtual currents of channels she’ll never see to earn approvals and disapprovals from an anonymous set of friendz she’ll never know, never meet or think about, citizens of a neighborhood so distant from hers in geography and tem
perament she can barely imagine the pixelated mesh overlay of their streets flushing the dank bloodlust colors of their corporate sponsors: coagulating splatter crimson; light-suck grey; necrotic fungal brown. She’s seen snaps of such neighborhoods on her feed and swiftly disapproved them so they wouldn’t turn up again in her stream to distress her. It takes vigilance to maintain the proper consumer profile for avoiding unnecessary unhappiness.
Lena can tell by the look on the guy’s face her presence and image aren’t helping his friendz approvals. He must ping his three companions on a private thread; without speaking they abandon their activity and trot past her into the street, treating her as invisible. She feels invisible, with her livestream switched off.
Another damp moan comes from the figure on the ground.
“Hello?” she says again. “Is everything all right?” Up close, in the dim blue light of dawn, she can see everything is not all right. She helps the man to his feet—a young guy, practically a boy, but closer to Lena’s age than not—and sees that his bloodied nose skews at an awkward sideways slant on his face. If not for the blood smeared across his cheeks and dribbling down his chin it might look like one of those silly filters you apply over snaps of yourself before you stream them. Sometimes those get a lot of approvals.
“Do you live in the neighborhood?” she asks, hoping he says yes. She’s not looking forward to potential credit sanctions for dropping him at her local corporate zone’s clinic; investing in their own consumers is one thing, but sponsors hate eroding bottom lines taking care of each other’s citizens.
He says something in a thick rasping tone, an accent she doesn’t recognize—PanCanadian, maybe? She leans closer when he repeats himself, makes sure she hears him properly when he rasps, “Assistens Kirkegård. Please. Help me to the cemetery.”
Awkwardly clutching her near full CuppaJO cup in one hand, she helps him wrap his undamaged arm around her shoulders. The other arm dangles limp at his side, looking nerveless, boneless. The cemetery at the end of the block seems much farther away than it should, its exterior wall’s pixelated ductile mesh pulsing the exact soothing creamy hue of a Soyavocado latte.
