The Future 01
As soon as I stepped foot in my cube, I knew things would be different. Back then, I would have adored working in the position I have now. Yet, that was before I learned things I shouldn’t have learned. To everybody, working in The Company is a privilege. It’s one step closer to controlling the world, and I mean that in the most literal sense possible. At least that was what made me an orphan.
For those who don’t know anything about me or the world in which I live, here are things I do know.
1. It’s the future, or so my history teachers keep telling me. Apparently, we are living in a block universe and the past, the present, and the future exist, simultaneously. Don’t bother me with your questions about how that happened. I don’t even know why we bothered to know which universe we were in. The people from the Present claim that this universe we know is a science fiction idea. Yet here we are, messing with them.
2. The Present doesn’t know we a.k.a. the Future People now control their lives. Controlling the past isn’t even a question. My Philosophy teacher always thinks of it as “the Past affects the Present, not the Future.”
3. I work at The Company in Earth-Future World (EFW) and being here does not make me feel privileged in the least.
I downed the last of my coffee and the will to get out of here as soon as possible. I took another step inside my cube. Knowing I’ll be waking up in someone else’s world, this cube’s cramped space is all I have. I donned the augmentation device and logged into the system.
Here I am again, in my cube, waiting for the next case to handle. To be terminated or not to be terminated?
I awoke staring at the metal ceiling. The full clothing rack leaned to one side while a dress hung alone on the other. “Kendra Valencia (Main Actress) - Jane Lansen - Scene 42,” read a note on the hanger. As I looked around the trailer, a pair of light brown eyes got my attention. They were puffy from sleep. She got out of bed and walked over to the mirror which was a few feet away. Her black hair the color of the night sky draped over her shoulder. A shorter hairstyle would be more flattering on her. Not that she’s not attractive, to begin with. Regardless of her attire, her beauty will leave people’s mouths hanging open. I came to my senses when there was a knock at the door.
The trailer van, a full clothing rack, and people’s voices outside. My new case is an actress. I scanned for information, her name, status, anything that says demographic. 23-year-old actress, Kendra Valencia has been single and living alone in a one-bedroom condominium for the longest time she could remember.
“Ms. Valencia? We are rolling in 20 minutes. Please be ready.” A woman’s voice called from outside the trailer. Before I knew what was going on, I turned to look at the labeled outfit one last time then back to the mirror. Uncomfortable, I hastened to remove my augmentation device before any of her clothes hit the ground.
“How dare you? I was about to enjoy it!” I let out a groan before facing my visitor. Now that there were two of us in it, the cube seemed a little cramped. Seeing Bret leaning on the door jamb of my open cube made me anxious. I remembered closing the cube before logging in.
“What are you doing here, B?”
“You realize that for the past year, you are the only person who called me B.” I glared at him and he coughed out a sigh. “I was just checking in on my best pal. You know, seeing how you’re holding up. As soon as I set a foot in the office, they were all talking about you getting a female case this time. You know, females are rare in our department. Mostly, they are all in the G, L, E, and S departments.”
Females rarely get too prideful about something, that’s a fact I learned after a year in the Company. The Company has 7 departments that deal with the known 7 deadly sins. The Envy Department deals with envious people. The Sloth Department deals with lazy people. Anyone can fill in the rest. I work in the Pride Department. It’s an easy job, compared to training in the Training Center or healing people in the Hospital or teaching in the School. All we have to do was to log in to the life projection system, observe and absorb the daily lives of the people entrusted to our care. Then, decide whether or not to terminate them.
Absurd, but it had been working for a long time. I don’t even know if the discovery of this connection is a part of the Future Block or the Present. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that the employees in The Company should look into a case, a.k.a. the person from The Present entrusted to them. Assess if they fit into Company’s standard. Then, file a termination report if they don’t fit. Easy peasy. Except I don’t like the termination part of this process. After a year on the job, I’ve seen fathers tearing families apart. I’ve written
What the company has been doing exactly is playing God. The Board access the Present to find people that are candidates for termination. The company believes that by reducing the number of people who are Prideful, Envious, Greedy, Gluttonous, Lustful, Lazy, and Wrathful, the world will be a better place. A key deciding factor is TCS or The Company Standards. A termination report should not be filed if an employee has checked off at least 60% of the TCS lists. There were about a thousand of them.
It’s self-explanatory what happens during the Termination process. Once the Board approves of the report, they will attempt to exert control over the lives of the people in the Present. The process depends on the gravity of their being. One guy has to go through a serious court trial to earn a life sentence only to have it stepped over by a death sentence. Another one was hit by a bus and the other was due to his obsessive intake of alcohol. Any Termination process will do as long as everything is explained in two sensical sentences. For all I know, a heart attack and a death by accident are both the same, the Termination. Human beings tend to believe what they believe in because that’s somehow the only way to hear the answers one wanted and not needed.
“Yeah, whatever. Female or Male, we are still expected to treat them equally. So no, I won’t be too soft for this one, if that’s what you want to know.” I prepped my augmentation device again and looked at Brett one last time before shooing him out of my cube. My words ate me up when I remember the fascinating image in the mirror. The moment I wore the device for the second time today, the bright light blinded me for a second. Then, I was back in her world. Kendra Valencia. 23 years old. Accused of Pride.
