RE: Cycle by Winthrop Murray
17 May 2022 { Science fiction }
Donald leaned on a tomb, or at least that's what he thought it was called, maybe it was a mausoleum or a sarcophagus? Anyway, he leaned on it.
He was taking a short rest from his walk through the cemetery, his untreated atrial fibrillation had returned so he was just being sensible in taking a break. Looking at the heavenly statues on the tomb he was pretty sure the Poole family wouldn't mind him resting there, the last person was interred in1928 so he guessed there was nobody left to complain. As he stood there catching his breath his gaze fell on a mini excavator in the next field; it was digging graves. They were side by side in a very neat row; both their position and proximity to each other were determined by GPS and remotely controlled by someone hunched over a screen probably hundreds of miles away. Donald looked at the old graves all set out higgledy-piggledy; the small gravestones with names long since worn away, then the more affluent larger marble gravestones with still pristine names and then the Tombs like the one he was leaning on. Nothing was uniform in the old days, there were trees, hollows and hillocks between the scattered headstones but modern graves were all identical. Each headstone had a small logo of the company that owned the cemetery, there were no engraved details of the deceased person on the stone, this could only be read holographically when you scanned the logo.
When did it all change? He mused. When was the last grave dug by hand? He could remember seeing the gravedigger when he was a child, he would always smile, say hello and tip his cap. He'd be hot and sweaty and covered with soil but he was conscientious and had a sense of dignity as he stood there in his vest and britches.
In the intervening years the world had been drained of much of its humanity. Donald could remember when supermarkets had tills with real humans totting up your shopping, banks had staff inside to help with transactions and people used to smile at each other and say how can I help you?
He cast his mind back trying to remember when things had started to change. It must have been about 2028 when there had been a disastrous series of warm winters and the icecaps suddenly melted. In one rare piece of cooperation between the nations an emergency law banned the domestic use of fossil fuels.
In the UK the change was heralded by the Climate Change Solar Cycle Project. The idea was to get everyone using bicycles instead of cars and as a rather crass politician had said due to global warming the weather was certainly warm enough for cycling. Donald could remember the new Mayoral Councils being set up as the old Westminster political system had become obsolete and was phased out.
The country was split into five political regions; Scotland, Wales, North and South England and the East (Ireland having been reunified years before). Each region had its own elected Mayor with absolute control over budgets. The Climate Change Solar Cycle Project was put forward as a solution to the loss of fossil fuels. Initially there was a lot of opposition to the project and the different regions vetoed the idea but eventually with a little political skulduggery a law was passed. The Northern Mayor, Bob Ginnel and the Southern Mayor, Verity Bollinger formed a power block and using an obscure and frankly ridiculous piece of archaic law they managed to get the other three regions downgraded to overseas territories, thereby reducing their voting power.
So the legislation for the project was passed. It was basically a nationwide scheme of cycles for hire; there were hundreds of thousands of them and anyone could hire one for a small fee. When you no longer needed them they were programmed to cycle themselves to the nearest storage area. Each cycle was identical, painted in black and yellow. They became somewhat affectionately known as Bumble-bikes. The whole system was regulated by a small electronic bio-chip that was inserted just under the skin on the back of the user's hand. At first there were marches and demonstrations objecting to this infringement of human rights but eventually it was simply agreed that it wasn't compulsory. If people didn't want a chip injected into their hand they were free to make their own travel arrangements.
The scheme worked quite well at the beginning although with each bio-chip software update, which was always carried out whilst on a bicycle, there seemed to be more and more services added. It wasn't long before you needed a ‘hand-chip’ to pay in shops, for banking, council tax payments, medical services and so on. People refusing to have the bio-chip implanted found themselves unable to access basic services, they couldn't even get a mortgage. These Refuseniks slowly became ostracised and formed an underclass of disenfranchised people. Amnesty International called these Bumble-bikes a 'Modern Trojan Horse' a way of obtaining information and thereby gaining control of society without people realising. Shortly after making this claim Amnesty International was bought out by a chain of pole dancing fast food restaurants, their headquarters being turned into a Mega-burger Palace which proved to be very popular.
Over the years people stopped caring about the loss of their liberty it didn't seem to matter. With each software upgrade more and more human rights were ignored. Without the knowledge of the customer the bio-chip would make medical changes in their body; hormone levels were routinely adjusted, mind altering drugs could be synthesized within the chip to treat mental illness before it became a problem. As a result there were fewer incidents of illness, violence and law breaking. The majority of people were fine with all this but the Unchipped weren't, they began to notice that people stopped smiling, there was no fun or laughter and often commented that the Chipped were dead behind the eyes.
The Unchipped became more and more separate; they were an underclass with no home, work or property. They had to live in small shanty towns tucked away by railway lines and under bypasses. They were considered wild people and the Chipped looked down on them and scorned their weird music and drinking.
The companies running the cycle hire and the bio-chip maintenance were eventually combined to make one big organisation known as The Human Unified Information Hub. It controlled everything and by the time people realised what was happening...it was too late.
Having recovered, Donald carried on his walk through the cemetery. He hopped over the barrier and walked under the bypass towards home. The area was filled with makeshift housing; this was where the Unchipped chose to live. It was a lively place with music, drinking and dancing. People were full of life and had joy in their eyes; the place was colourful with flags flying and street food filling the air with amazing aromas. These people had been ignored so far, somehow they had just gone under the radar, but all this was about to change.
As they partied and caroused they didn't notice a large group of several hundred solar cycles coming along the bypass and silently cycling down the side road towards their shanty town. They had been upgraded yet again and guns had been fitted to the cross bars. At the request of The Human Unified Information Hub they were heading towards the Unchipped and they were ready for trouble. A lady from the Nepalese street food stall noticed them cycling towards her, she screamed. Everyone looked round as the Bumble-bikes changed up a gear and sped towards the Shanty town. The battle began...
***
Years later an investigation into the atrocities at the Battle of the Shanty uncovered no direct link to the HUIU, it appears the cycles themselves had issued the order to attack.
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