by Terry Tyler
The reason I'm telling you this is because of what happened to me next.
I was having a drink in Nerve on an ordinary weekday evening, when this guy came up to me and asked me if I'd like to test for a modelling/media influencer job.
I said, "Yeah, yeah," and turned back to my friends. Heard it all before. But the guy persisted. Showed me his Heart ID: Chad Redmond, Assistant to the Head of Marketing for Nucrop, the sustainable, adaptable grain of the future. Chad Redmond wore the sort of suit that you don't get to wear on an E or even a D or C grade salary. He smelled and looked expensive, like Clinton and Jerome; he had that slick thing going on, that I first noticed when the Bettencourts visited me in Hope.
'Assistant to the Head of Marketing for Nucrop, eh?" I handed his com back. "So what do you do all day? Think up new ways of telling people to eat bread?"
He laughed. "Nucrop is used in loads of products; biscuits sweet and savoury, cereal bars, cakes, waffles, you name it. But I'm sure you know that. You probably eat most of them."
I shrugged. "Depends if they're on offer. I'm E grade. I shop at Afford."
He put his head on one side, like he was studying me. "Do you want to change that? As a media influencer, you'd be C grade."
"Yeah?"
He nodded, and held his com up to my face, to see my ID. "Tara Jackson, formerly Bettencourt." That made him raise his eyebrows, and he investigated further. "Former ward of Clinton, eh? The heck are you doing working as an angel?"
Usually, anyone brandishing their com at me for facial recog ID would wish they hadn't—it's something you just don't do in the megacity, unless you want a smack in the mouth. Rude and intrusive. The facility was actually taken off gen pop's coms in 2057, because it was abused far more often than it helped to catch criminals.
I let Chad Redmond off, because the prospect of earning C grade for something that didn't involve ninety-seven daily visits to the 2-Go kiosk had, I admit, piqued my interest. Big time.
I smiled sweetly. “The fact that you don’t have access to the information means it’s my business, not yours.”
That, he liked. “Okay, then, Tara Jackson formerly Bettencourt, do you want to come for a test?”
I got the job. I never found out if it was partly because of the ‘formerly Bettencourt’ aspect or not, but I didn’t care. Chad told me he'd sifted through hundreds of possibles from model agencies but never found that authenticity he was looking for; he wanted a real person, not a glossy goddess or a computer generated image.
"It was my idea to hit the bars. You're a bit on the young side, but your whole vibe, and the fact that you're on the lighter side of mixed race, makes you perfect. You're pretty enough to make guys fancy you and women from eighteen to forty—our target market—want to be you, but you're not so gorgeous they'll hate you. We don't want a goddess, we want a girl about town. You're ordinary, relatable."
Chad's boss gave me the thumbs up, and my life went from just okay to un-fucking-real.
One of the new 'pod' cars would pick me up each day to take me to Nucrop HQ in MC4. I got paid to sit around having my hair and make-up done by experts, wear great clothes, and be driven out to the farm lands which were off limits to most citizens, where I would walk through fields of Nucrop, being videoed and having my picture taken.
"We need new visual content every couple of days," the main camera guy told me. "Attention spans get shorter by the hour—if you see an ad more than five times it can actually start to have a negative effect."
We'd stand in a field on a sunny afternoon and the assistants would call out stuff to make me laugh so that they could snap me doing so; I'd laze around in gorgeous dresses or jump about in shorts, I'd sit in cafés, look hungry outside various branches of Bake Sale, then be driven back to base, where ten people would examine the results.
I mean, come on. What twenty-two year old wouldn't love that?
The camera loved me, I was told, and I had all these ad people fawning over me, to the extent that I had to tell Cosmo and my other friends to tell me if I started acting like a twat.
I was on the ad banners that popped up on Heart, eating a doorstep sandwich with lettuce and tomatoes falling out of it, laughing when I tried to shove too much into my mouth at once, sitting on the zip rail, com in one hand and a peach and pecan Grainy bar in the other, or settling down on a sofa to watch a movie while eating a jam and cream scone.
I ate Nucrop products on the beach, up Scottish mountains, on boats, by historic monuments, in beautiful gardens. I dressed as Anne Boleyn, as a peasant in olden times, as a tennis player, in a business suit and black-rimmed glasses, in cycling gear, in a witch's costume, a bikini—you name it, I stuffed my face with Nucrop while I wore it, except that I rarely swallowed anything because I had to stay thin.
Tara Jackson, the face of Nucrop. Discovered in a Tech Village bar.
I had to learn all about the glorious grain itself, the genetically engineered wheat that was delicious, gluten-free, sustainable, resistant to bugs, excessive rainfall, heatwaves, drought, tornados and mini-fucking-ice ages, high in protein and B vitamins. I had to learn how it was turned into the blueberry muffin on your plate, plus reams of statistics so that I'd be word perfect, whichever question was asked of me.
I didn't think, at the time, about why the modifying of a basic foodstuff might not be a great idea. I was having too much fun, and I even enjoyed the classroom—I liked using my brain, seeing how quickly I could pull out facts and apply them.
Clinton must have known—I hoped he and Jerome saw me every day on Heart. I hoped Tallulah and my ex-friends saw me too, and wished they hadn't been so quick to diss me. Living well being the best revenge, and all that.
Part of my job entailed going to Retail Villages all around the country, where I would stand in the middle of the bakery showrooms, offer samples and bang on about how just four slices of delicious Nucrop bread supplied all your vitamin B requirements for the day. Of course there was no such thing as a supermarket by then; I remembered them from when I was a kid, but by the 2050s they'd gone, with everyone ordering groceries on their coms.
I had no idea that floating around the dark net was information warning against Nucrop. They didn't tell me about that, or that more and more people were changing to products made out of more expensive, traditional grains, or getting their carbs from other foodstuffs. The purpose of my campaign was to make Nucrop cool again.
Me, the girl from Hope who'd shown that you could do anything if you set your mind to it. All horseshit, of course; if it wasn't for the Bettencourts I'd have been sleeping in a dormitory and cleaning toilets.
I didn't care. They wanted to give me a fake bio, I let them—I now had a pass to glitzy events for other Nutricorp product launches, and media awards. Attending these bashes was part of my job—and it was at one such that I bumped into Clinton.
I was walking around with my lime and soda, wearing a lime green dress and a bright yellow sash that told anyone who cared that I was a Nucrop Media Influencer, with gold and green beads in my braids and a yellow flower behind my ear, when he came up behind me.
"Well, look at you."
I turned, and felt like the temperature had dropped twenty degrees. Literally; just the sound of his voice made me shiver. Unfortunately, this meant gooseflesh on my arms. He ran his hand lightly down one of them, which made me want to kick him in the balls again.
"Seriously?" I pulled my arm away. "Touching without consent, violation of personal space—I'm sure that's at least a two-pointer."
He laughed. "Good to see I still get a reaction."
"Yeah, it's called puking. I don't have to put up with it now, so don't you ever touch me again."
He gave a wry little chuckle and stood back. "Don't worry, sweetheart, you're not my type. Not any more. You've lost that innocent, wild quality I loved." He reached out to push the flower more securely behind my ear; I jerked away from him.
"I told you—get your hands off me."
He laughed. "Touchy! Still, you've done okay for yourself, haven't you? Seems I did you a favour."
"How d'you work that out?"
"You wouldn't be here now if you'd gone to college." He smiled, and ran his eyes all down my body, and back up. "And now look at you. All set up. Till those looks start to fade."
Now it was my turn to laugh. "I'm twenty-four next month; I think I've got a few more decades left, and parading around at events like these isn't actually my goal in life."
"No, I don't suppose it is." He glanced around the room. "I hear you have your fans. I'd make hay while the sun shines, if I were you."
"What do you mean?"
"Snag yourself a high earner. Get back into the one per cent, while you've got the chance; you want to have a family, you need to marry an A or B."
I laughed. "What are you, a nineteenth-century throwback? Odd though it may seem, getting married and having kids isn't my goal in life either, and when I enter into a relationship committed enough to have a child, I'll have chosen my partner for reasons other than the figures on his bank statement."
Clinton sighed. "Ah, the young. So idealistic. You wait until you're a bit older; anyone who says that you can't buy happiness is bullshitting."
I stared at him, wide-eyed. "Oh, yeah. You must be right. Because Marilee always looks so happy, doesn't she?"
With that, I turned and walked off. I didn't talk to him again, but later I noticed him chatting up a waitress who couldn't have been more than seventeen. You'd think she'd have cringed away, but she was lapping it up. Rich and handsome goes a long way. Also, he wasn't her guardian.
I didn't see the light for some time. I was too busy living what I thought was the dream. I even went to New York a couple of times, to attend the annual celebration of all that was Nutricorp. The 'summer picnic' was held each year at the family mansion in the Hamptons, home of Angus Bettencourt, President of Nutricorp America, son of the late founder. When Paul Bettencourt died, his nephew Caleb saw to it that Nutricorp UK became a separate, autonomous company, but we were still part of the extended family.
Back home, I made the most of my partying opportunities and was hit on by numerous suits, but give or take the odd dalliance they left me pretty much lukewarm; I knew they only wanted to fuck Ms Nucrop for the novelty. If I'd still been doing the coffee run in Tech Village, they wouldn't have looked at me twice.
When I did fall in love—so wholly, completely in love that all other men faded away—Nucrop was not happy. I had my image to think of, they said.
Ned was a delivery man for the charity drop-ins in the wasteland.
The drop-ins were abandoned buildings in which a couple of charities—Roof Housing and Horizon—deposited goods donated by the public. Each one had a couple of guards on duty, to make sure nobody broke in and nicked the lot.
In November 2057 I was involved in a charity fundraiser for the Hope Villages, something Nucrop did once in a while to make out like they gave a crap. This was the pre-Christmas version. I was in the kitchen helping the staff to pack up the uneaten food to be taken to the nearest Hope so they could eat something vaguely nutritious for a couple of days, and Ned turned up to collect it.
It was pretty much love at first sight.
I saw this tall guy in a scruffy jumper, denim jacket and jeans, with longish dirty blond hair and a great smile, and I knew.
I had my hair tied up in a knot to keep it out of the way, and I wore a vast, faded grey hoodie over my cute female Santa dress (I was cold, and I'd borrowed it from one of the helpers). I'd kicked off my sexy red boots and put on tatty old Uggs, but he felt the same way.
Ned said, "Hi, I've come to get the stuff for Hope," and I said, "I'll give you a hand with it"—yes, our first conversation really was that memorable—and we couldn't stop smiling at each other. Big happy grins, all the time we were loading up the van.
When he was ready to go, he said, "Are you with anyone?" and I said, "No." He said, "Can I see you later?" I said, "Yes," and that was that.
He came round to my flat a few hours later, and we were together from that moment on. People who say love at first sight isn't a real thing, it's because they haven't experienced it. They say it's lust, not love, and I can see why, but it was more than just physical attraction. The minute I saw him I thought, oh, there you are. And he felt the same. Our eyes met, and we knew each other. Those who believe in reincarnation say this means you've been close in a past life, but I don't know about that; it just was, that's all.
My Ned. There was no disappointment, later. No thinking, oh well, I was carried away with how he looked but now I can see what a tosspot he is. We were crazy about each other from day one, and we stayed that way.
I'm talking about him in the past tense because we're not together now. But I'll get to that later.
I wanted everyone to meet him. We met up with Mitch, Cosmo and my other friends from angel days, and I found myself wanting to introduce him to Zia, too. Even Marilee.
I spoke to Marilee now and again; I felt a certain fondness for her, but part of the reason I kept in tenuous touch was to piss Clinton off. To show him that what he'd done mattered so little that I could call up his wife for a chat, though the conversations were always stilted, and as for Zia, we'd just have a catch-up about once every six months.
Since finishing her journalism degree Zia had stayed up north, working as a content creator for No Strings, a magazine site aimed at single women, with articles about fashion, beauty, sex, careers, world issues, etc. She lived in a posh flat in MC9's gated community, like the one Jerome lived in, which reinforced my belief that she'd succumbed to Clinton. I'd worked that one out shortly after arriving at MC12.
She was still dead skinny, but she and Marilee both told me she ate like a horse. I was sure I was right about bulimia, but both of them changed the subject if I tried to talk about it.
Just before Christmas, I got them on group interface to tell them about Ned. I should have known better.
"A charity delivery man?" Marilee said. "Are you doing this just to spite us?"
I laughed. "Marilee, I actually don't think about you and Clinton all the time. I just wanted to tell you about Ned, because we're so happy together."
And Zia said, "Oh, perfect timing. I should have known; sensitivity has never been your strong point, has it?"
I genuinely didn't know what she was talking about, but I soon found out.
Apparently her partner had just dumped her. Rosa.
"I can't pretend to be sorry," Marilee sniffed. "I don't know what all this nonsense is about, anyway. You never used to be a lesbian." And that made Zia burst into tears.
I let them battle it out. After Marilee excused herself, I told Zia I was sorry, and said she could always talk to me if she needed a sympathetic ear, but she practically spat at me.
"What would you know about heartbreak? Everything always works out just fine for you, doesn't it?" After which my screen went black.
Flogging a dead horse. Banging my head against a brick wall. I needed to break the fragile thread that still connected us.
In February, just after my twenty-fifth birthday, I was summoned to a meeting with Nucrop PR manager Amrita, who told me that now I was the 'face of Nucrop', my life was not my own. Well, she didn't actually say that, but that was what she meant. Ned and I had been together for three months; I imagine they'd been waiting to see if he was just a flash in the pan.
"It’s awesome to see you so happy, Tara," she said, "but I'd like you to give some consideration to what your association with Ned might mean for you, going forward."
"Which means what?" I asked, not yet rattled, as I'd been expecting this 'little chat', and had already rehearsed what to say when she told me to dump him.
She leant her elbows on her desk, head on one side. "You're a straight-talking girl, so I'll be straight with you. Tara, he's a van driver."
"Yeah, I've worked that one out. And he drives for a charity, which means he's one o
f the good guys, doesn't it? Like, he puts up with a crappy E grade salary so he can help others."
"Yes, and that's commendable," she said, in such a way that I knew she thought he was a total loser. "But most of his work is for Roof. And Roof has a history of working against Nutricorp and the government."
I laughed, and stretched my arms upwards, yawning. "Oh, get away with you! As if some little charity and my boyfriend are a threat to the mighty Nutricorp."
She gave me a thin smile. "That's not the point. Nutricorp employees are required to be fully on board with the company culture."
"So what are you saying? That I've got to dump him, or lose my job?"
She shut her eyes for a moment. "Tara, we like you. You've done so much to improve the image of Nucrop; since you've been with us, conspiracy theories about its so-called dangers are so far down the trending lists that they're no longer a concern. I'd like you to consolidate your future with us. That's all."
Of course I told Ned all about this, expecting him to just laugh it off, but he went kind of cagey.
"Ah," he said, "I've been waiting for this to happen."
"Why?"
"I think I might be what they call a 'known subversive'. Only minor league, but I'm sure I'm on a list somewhere."
And that was the night, as we enjoyed one of our favourite walks around Lark's Pond, that I learned about the additives in Nucrop thought to cause infertility in both sexes: a chemical called BPB that greatly reduces sperm count, and an artificial sweetener around which there had been controversy for fifty years—now known as Sygar to disguise its identity—which also preserves fat and stimulates hunger.
I knew that the UK's population was down ten million compared with that of forty years before. The media attributed this to the pandemics of the 2020s and the success of the one-child-per-family law, and I'd never questioned it because—well, because I didn't question much at all. I had too much going on in my own life to worry about bigger pictures, but what Ned told me made me think about the products I was promoting.
