The day was almost pretty. It had rained all last week, and for most of the weeks before that: great torrential downpours that had threatened to drown what was left of England and cancel the train service besides. Today, though, there was no rain; the sky had been slashed open and its contents shaken free, and it would be at least a week before the storms started up again. The sun stared blearily downward, shafts of light winding through layers of greasy photochemical smog. It was a day of puddles, yellowish pools of sunlight catching on the rims of their watery counterparts. These large globs of silvery liquid, more acid than water, hissed languidly on the concrete. Somebody had poured a thin sheen of motor oil onto the street, and on its surface the light wove itself into intricate glittering rings of every colour imaginable. It was almost pretty.
The overall impression, Mrs BLEEP thought to herself as she hurried through, yellow trainers slick with mud, was that Heaven itself had eaten one GigaMeal® too many and been violently and unpleasantly sick.
She was a tall woman, youngish, smartly dressed, who had slouched all her life as if for fear of offending somebody by the fact of her height. In one arm she clutched a worn carpetbag, a smartly hideous blue-and-green houndstooth emblazoned with the Giga® logo. She had won it in a promotional raffle six years ago and clearly treasured it since. On this particular day, it sat inside a clear plastic binbag, carefully taped shut in a feeble attempt at waterproofing; thankfully, she thought, there’d been no need after all. The rain had stopped promptly at four that morning. The documents were safe. So at least there was that. They mightn’t have survived the rain, and then where would she be? The documents were paramount, yes, and they were safe.
At the end of the street there stood a squarish building, constructed solidly in the old style, and it was before this building that she stopped and absentmindedly shook her dry umbrella. A young man materialised on the pavement in front of her, glitching slightly.
‘Good morning,’ it said, ‘and a warm welcome to the Digitalis Ministry of Miracles, London Division. Please state your full name, citizen identification code and the purpose of your visit for security purposes.’
‘Triple Astatina 101 BLEEP. ID 172942. Job, housing and livelihood interview, Economy Tier.’
The man turned bright green for a moment, its face replaced by an enormous glowing tick. ‘Thank you. Access verified. If you would like to follow me.’
The doors slid neatly open; Mrs BLEEP hugged her bag as it was scanned, then again as she was. She was asked to leave the umbrella outside. She complied. The young man, now less pixellated, led her to a plastic seat and asked her to wait.
‘I am George®. Would you like my company while you wait? I know these things can be stressful,’ it asked sympathetically. ‘And I’ve been updated just this week with the latest in GigaAI™. I’m told my jokes are a lot funnier now, but personally I’m not sure! Your estimated wait time is 6 hours and 17 minutes. We have a special Tuesday package deal, so it would only cost you £416.2473. Would you like me to stay with you?’
Mrs BLEEP shook her head slowly. ‘I only brought enough for the train fare back. Sorry.’
George® beamed and promptly vanished.
*
When she woke, she was in the same chair in a different room. The carpet-bag was still there, thank God. There was, in no particular order, a man and a desk, and neither looked very pleased to see her.
The man stopped flicking through his papers and looked up.
‘Good evening, Mrs BLEEP. I trust you had a pleasant journey. Where is it that you live?’
‘Call me Tina. Dover. With my husband. We have a little house by the sea. Well, in the sea actually.’
He wrote something on a form.
‘It’s on stilts,’ she added unnecessarily.
‘What?’ The man asked, startled.
‘The house. It’s on stilts. We adapted it when the sea level rose. Well, before then actually. My husband had quite extraordinary foresight.’
‘Right then.’ He eyed her warily, as if she were a bit of bread he was scrutinising for mould. ‘I’m Officer Spuckle. I will be conducting your interview today.’
Spuckle looked down at his forms, then quickly back up again. ‘I didn’t think anyone still lived in Dover, not after the Ocean Reclamation Project.’
‘We do,’ she admitted, not unashamedly. ‘I didn’t know it was a Project.’
‘That does appear to be the case,’ he conceded. ‘Well, Mrs BLEEP. Why are you seeking work?’
She answered smoothly, with the sort of professional artifice one reserves for these situations. ‘I’m passionate about leveraging my potential towards the synergetic betterment of Digitalis society. I believe I’m a real team player, and I look forward to collaborating–’
Spuckle cut her off. She had a smooth voice, he noted, the auditory equivalent of melted plastic. He smiled at her fondly.
‘Come now, there’s no need for all that rehearsed spiel. It’s only us, I get it, I know you’ve got to put food on the table. Tell me about your husband – doesn’t he work?’
She smiled gratefully. ‘Not since he lost his legs manning the tidal turbines. The wheelchair ramps are all underwater now, naturally.’
Spuckle checked his forms again. ‘So you need to find an income soon, is that right? Haven’t you explored the subsidised organ donation programs?’
Mrs BLEEP nodded. ‘I’ve had my scans. My viability grade was too low. They said I was 57% sucrose and 23% unidentifiable toxic sludge.’
Spuckle tutted. ‘What about surrogacy?’
She paused for a moment. ‘Much the same.’
There was an uncomfortable quiet. Spuckle inhaled sharply. ‘Tell me, Mrs BLEEP, how old were you when you first started drinking Giga®?’
‘Eight.’
‘Eight! School meals start at six, do they not?’
‘My parents always said I was fussy.’
‘Surely they knew it’s crucial for early childhood development.’ He looked down at her papers again. ‘Perhaps that would explain your low intelligence scores. Genetic and environmental. Dreadful combination.’
She swallowed. ‘I know they’re low. I was hoping for a job in the Giga® cannery?’
‘The cannery! Heavens. Your value index is far too low for that sort of work. No, to be completely frank, you’d be lucky to get anything. Anything at all.’ Spuckle smiled winningly.
He clicked the microphone off, his eyes lingering on her for a long moment before he spoke again. ‘You know, Tina, you’re not unpretty.’
Mrs BLEEP shifted in her chair, staring quietly at the floor. It was white linoleum, scuffed in places.
‘You could always stay here in London. With me.’
She looked up wildly. ‘You’re very kind, Mr Spuckle, really you are, but I’ve always wanted a cannery job with Giga®, ever since I was a little girl, I know I’m not clever but I’m a hard worker, I promise you – would you please just check?’
Spuckle clicked the microphone back on. ‘As I was saying, Mrs BLEEP, the fact is there isn’t much I can do for you. There may be some suitable part-time labour in power generation. Check with George® on your way out. Please remember to remove all your belongings from the room. Have a lovely day.’
She gathered them numbly, taking both the carpetbag and the sheaf of yellow paper that he was waving impatiently at her. She felt the weight of his eyes on her back as she left, staring piggily at her, through her. Then she was in the lobby again, walking up to a different George® with the same face, asking it for a job. Now it was talking to her.
‘I can offer you a contestant’s position on the sixth run of the beloved game show Giga®’s AI or Die! This is one of the most heavily acclaimed shows streaming today. Ratings have been on a consistent upward trajectory for the last four years. Housing and nutrition will be included, and following the termination of your yearlong contract, you will be provided with a sponsored funeral and your compensation – in the impressive 49th percentile, might I add! – will be sent to your husband. Would you like to accept?’
Oh God, she thought. Over and over in a muffled beat, like something in her skull kept hitting up against it and wanted out. Oh God, oh God, oh God.
‘I was told there were jobs in power generation?’ she managed.
‘Yes. But not for you!’ George® blinked. Unnecessarily.
‘I’m stronger than I look. What do you have, turbines? I trained in engineering at school. I’m perfectly capable.’ She was begging now, this strange old-looking woman with terrible eyes and something trapped in her skull that wanted out.
‘Mrs BLEEP, I’m afraid that would be out of the question. The power companies require honest, moral workers. So you see my problem, don’t you?’ it said sympathetically.
She stared at it blankly.
‘Your security scan showed that you brought over £1000 in your wallet today. So why did you lie, Mrs BLEEP?’ It was talking more slowly now, as if to a particularly wilful child. Probably adjusting itself to her low intelligence scores, she thought savagely.
Again. ‘Why did you lie to my colleague, Mrs BLEEP? You said you only brought enough for the train fare home. That wasn’t exactly true, was it now?’
Her head jerked up and down, up and down.
George® smiled, satisfied. ‘Thank you. Isn’t lying wrong, Mrs BLEEP?’
She looked at the floor again. The same linoleum, but this was much brighter. Almost blue, in fact.
‘Shouldn’t liars be punished, Mrs BLEEP? Taught a lesson?’
She looked at it again, desperately. It shook its head.
‘Yes.’
George® beamed. ‘Good! I knew you’d come round in the end. Fill these out in triplicate for me, please. You can start immediately after.’
It started to rain. Outside, the umbrella clattered noiselessly to the ground.
ARCHIVAL NOTES
Over a period of several decades, the great Digitalis Ministries produced a large set of artificially generated texts concerning civilian-Ministry interaction. The purpose of these texts remains the subject of some contention, with hypotheses ranging from generative model testing to employee training. While the origin of this particular text is not definitively known, it is believed to be one of these generated texts; perplexingly, though, it appears to have at least some degree of human authorship. While this mysterious provenance remains unexplained, historians are certain that this piece never saw widespread circulation.