A Kind of Armageddon

A kind of Armageddon

Towards the end of the third decade of the third millennium, Armageddon, took hold over much of planet Earth. The cause was unexpected, nothing to do with nuclear fusion, climate change, asteroid, or famine. The cause, when you get down to it was, the root of all evil, money. Corporates decided that employing people had become too costly, what with the living wage, sick pay, holiday pay, compliance costs, maternity leave and compensation for injuries physical and mental. One company after the other invested in AI, artificial intelligence and began utilising robotics. The initial setup cost was high, but as predicted the robots squeezed workers out of the workplace. No vocation was exempt save the Tech-geeks, they were the programmers.

In a quest for growth and a healthy bottom lines, companies nor governments considered the consequences of a total population without employment. Sure the companies paid out redundancies, one year’s worth, which was quickly gobbled up on excesses. As AI evolved only the Tech-geeks had jobs, governments cared not for the people, because the people no longer paid taxes, it was the companies that provided the revenue, but they had been evading since per-digital times.

Life expectancy dropped and gangs thrived. Follow-the-leader type gangs, cults led by the charismatic, perhaps through religious belief, or through racial affiliation, all developed a tribal mentality of violence and crime. Gangs fought to wipe out other gangs, to take slaves who would scavenge for them, sell drugs or perform deviant acts, which is where the profit was to be made. The police became as a gang, cops were slowly phased out and replaced by The Enforcers and drones. They had spy-drones and kill-drones. There were no jails just places of torture or death. Criminals caught in the act were summarily shot.

Colleagues and friends knew Josh Gardner as Sequence because of his cop number, 54321. Sequence had been replaced ten years ago and he immediately took to the hills, away from the gangs, The Enforcers, and anyone else who might have an axe to grind. He hadn’t turned in his hand gun or his anti-ballistic vest, which is why The Enforcers, robotic cops, and bounty hunters were on the lookout for him. He knew the dangers. Sequence was careful, he had found a hillside cave in the forest and built himself a comfortable dwelling within it. He had acquired the materials over time, small pieces but took care to cover his tracks. He gathered his food; mushrooms, berries, inner bark from trees, and leafy greens. He snared rats and the occasional rabbit. He never risked a fire, there was a flat rock above his cave that baked the sun for eight hours of the day. He sundried what food he couldn’t eat fresh, and he kept a store of dried food.

One day out on his rounds to check his snares, Sequence was surprised by a five or six year old boy who was standing beside a snared rabbit. It was the boy’s blonde hair that first alerted him. The ever-cautious Sequence, scanned the area, not sure what ploy might be afoot to capture him. There was nobody else around, no drones. But it was a dilemma for Sequence: what should he do about the boy?  The boy hadn’t seen him yet, but if he returned to wherever he came from and told them about the snare… He could possibly sell the boy, but that meant negotiating with one of the gangs, which would compromise his anonymity. Maybe he should just kill him and be done with the threat, another killing wouldn’t make much difference in the scheme of things. He couldn’t take the boy and abandon him somewhere else, if he was found, he was bound to talk. Sequence remained suspicious, because the question repeated in his mind: where did the boy come from?

Sequence strolled up to the boy, ignoring him at first, focusing on the snared rabbit. The boy stepped back and watched him out of round, violet-blue eyes. Where had he seen eyes like those before? Sequence skinned and gutted the rabbit, tucking the pelt into his belt and scooping the guts under a rock. He turned to the boy and said one word.

‘Lost?’

The boy nodded.

‘Where are you from?’ Sequence asked.

The boy pointed westward, towards the city, but remained silent.

‘Are you afraid?’

The boy shook his head.

‘You’d better come with me then.’

Sequence continued around his round, picking up one rat and three wild turnips on the way. The boy followed along in silence, but kept up.

Back at the cave, Sequence gave the boy some strips of rat-jerky to chew on and they sat sunning themselves together on the rocks outside the cave. They were facing towards the west, chewing in silence when they saw a huge, orange fire-ball, followed a few seconds later by a massive roar! They stared into the distance even after the birds had returned to their chirping. Explosions weren’t unusual because of the warring gangs, but nothing like that! Maybe it was a petrol dump, or maybe it was an explosives magazine. Sequence felt the urge to find out.

He wasn’t prone to acting without reason but here he was taking on the boy without thinking it through and perhaps worse, leaving the relative security of his cave, for no reason other than curiosity. He couldn’t decide: if the boy hadn’t appeared, would he be going to the city? It would take two or three days to reach the city outskirts and although he had only eleven bullets left, he would take his firearm and antiballistic vest. With enough rat and rabbit jerky to last a few days, the pair set off for the city.

A day out from the city, Sequence became aware of voices! They were coming from beyond a small copse of Ash trees. Sequence put his finger to his lips to warn the boy to keep quiet and they crept towards the copse. There were perhaps thirty people grouped around a woman who seemed to be trying to assert authority. Sequence recognised her, it was Carmichael, his sergeant in the force. She had been replaced a month or so before he had. He hadn’t cared at the time, because they had seldom agreed on much. Over time they had formed an uneasy truce, united in the cause against the artificials and Tech-geeks. And come to think of it, she had the same eyes as the boy.

Carmichael had sent her son to fetch Sequence, her spies knew all along where he was. Before the crowd, she was espousing that the time was right to revolt against AI, the robots and the Tech-geeks who had used the chaos to take over control of the government. The blast, the crowd was informed for the benefit of Sequence, was the first of a united gang attack on the pseudo-government forces and the artificials. In a few brief seconds, Carmichael told all this to Sequence. Adding that the very survival of all humanity would depend on a united confrontation against the Tech-geeks and their artificials. Most of the gangs had already agreed to parley, the birth of new cooperation.

‘There’s a willingness out there, we have a reason to fight on a united front, and so, Sequence,’ Carmichael asked, ‘are you in?’

‘I’m in.’ he replied.