Outlaw posted 11/10/2007 4:19:05 PM | 3 kudos what's this?     report abuse

thenewguy295

A peal of thunder woke Stan from his sleep; he sat up cursing and looked up at the ominous cloud formation overhead. Dark black and gray clouds swirled above, maybe with a hint of green in them; a sharp cold breeze caused him to shiver; tornado weather. He looked over at the alarm clock, 5:45am, universal standard time. He hit the alarm button and the clouds dissipated, the breeze died away and the ceiling lights came on. He never would have installed the indoor weather system of his own choice but it had come with the apartment and he had grown to enjoy it despite the government mandated weather ‘quirks’ embedded in the programming. No matter how pleasant the setting, sunny day, day at the beach or a user created program, a cold breeze, a dark cloud, wind, rain, sleet, hail, something would dampen the experience. Stan just set it to thunderstorm and left it, no way to ruin a good thunderstorm.
He got ready for his day, washing, dressing and munching a food bar. It was the weekend and he had nowhere to be and nothing to do until he reported for his shift Monday morning at eight. He did however, have something in mind and thus determined, set about his business.
Taking the elevator down to the 100th floor, the shopping district, he chose a store. No reason for it, they all sold the same stuff but it was habit he guessed. He picked out a few food items and a blanket of appropriate material and stood on the white line painted on the floor, waiting to pay. The lined inched forward, everybody it seemed was shopping this morning although once he thought about it, it made sense. A hundred thousand residents in the building, most of them working the standard 10 hour day, five day work week and four stores for all of them. Sure they could have chosen any number of stores in any of the other buildings in the city but what difference would it make, they were all pretty much the same.
The woman in front of him placed her items on the counter, the cashier rang them up and then she sat down on the concavity next to her. The unit scanned her rectal insert and then deducted the amount owed from her account. She stood up, the robotic arm handed her her purchases and off she went. Stan was next.
Having processed Stan’s items, the clerk waited for him to sit down to finalize the purchase.
“I’ll pay in cash.” Stan told him.
“You’ll pay in what?” The man asked.
“Cash, money.” Stan answered. The clerk stood frozen for a moment.
“I…I don’t know how to do that.” He stammered. “They never taught us how to do that.”
Stan leaned over the counter. “Look there,” he pointed, “the total is 184 units,” he took two 100 unit bills from his pocket. “I give you these and you owe me 16 units in return.”
The clerk looked dazed. “I better call my manager.” He decided. A moment later the manager appeared. “Is their any problem?” He smiled.
“This man would like to pay in cash money.” The clerk replied. The smile left the managers face. “Well, I suppose, it is still legal,” he muttered. He showed the clerk how to make the transaction and handed Stan his change. “You should get with the times, forget about the old inefficient ways, you’re holding us all back, wasting time and making things more expensive for everybody.”
“I just don’t think paying by butt plug and having all my personal information up my rear end is progress.” Stan answered as he walked away.
“Radical.” He heard the manager whisper to the clerk not to quietly.
“Radical.” Stan thought, “name calling, anybody that stands up for their rights and liberties gets vilified with a name, that’s how they change things, outlaw things. First some government functionary will create a derogatory handle and the media will ape it until everybody thinks that way, then the legislation or vote…that’s how they got rid of the homeowners and private landholders. Proposition 64,” he thought. “The protection from environmentally unsound land uses act. They’d got that one passed by calling individual home ownership a ‘radical’ departure from traditional land management practices, told people they didn’t pay their fair share in taxes, used up precious resources, called them names like renegade homeowner and wealthy elitists and said we needed the land and once we had it there would be more room for everybody. The propaganda had worked and the private ownership of a home or land was abolished. They didn’t mention the amount of money that went into the hands of the builders and the owners of the two or three kilometer high buildings that went up. Room enough for everybody indeed and no need to ever leave, just as the authorities wanted. One could be born, raised, educated, eat, sleep, work, recreate, procreate and die all under one roof.”
It hadn’t ended there either. Virtually any kind of individualism had been tamped down under some marginalizing or pejorative term, radical, extremist, terrorist, renegade! They’d gotten the owners [extremists all of them] of any privately owned motor vehicle like that. Outdoorsmen from hunters to hikers, birdwatchers, boaters, even skiers had become threats, called survivalists, white supremacists or militias and the average person went along, as it only took one or two examples of bad behavior to paint everyone indulging in such activities as representative of the whole.
The ‘Revision of government act’, an attempt to simplify the language of the laws and the constitution had passed overwhelmingly even though as a result the individual right to vote was no longer recognized. It had become a right held in common as long someone got to vote in every election the right was being upheld. Almost no one cared.
Lost in his thoughts Stan wandered down to the ground floor, ahead, through double doors was the park. 300 meters by 300 meters it was the largest open space in the entire building, with the exception of some necessary support structures. A sign on the door said that the creek was drained for maintenance, though another creek on the other side of the part was operating. He knew that few people would walk through the park to get there, going around was the best way to avoid getting lost.
He looked in, a crew was power-washing the creek bed, the difference was obvious as algae and assorted crud was sluiced off and carried down the synthetic waterway. Nearby a troop of scouts was setting up their camp. No doubt some of them would be going for wilderness survival badges. He wondered if any of them had ever been outside the building before. The sun lamps grew slowly brighter, mimicking a real sunrise. The captive plants resumed photosynthesis, mimicking their outdoor counterparts. Holographic animals flitted through the dwarf forest, the trees swaying from the fans that simulated the squall that was scheduled to blow through shortly. The cleaning crew looked at their watches hoping

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