Sci-fi story Pt.2

I woke at 7.00 am. That was the program. At 6.55 am my biomed unit initiated the process by stimulating my hypothalamus. That little peanut of tissue starts releasing hormones and sending out its messages and gradually I start coming to. As I return to consciousness my dom also starts coming to life. The lights gradually build in intensity. I’m meant to feel good about this. At least I’ve stopped Billy from starting my day with that infernal saccharine-sweet music. That would push me over the edge. As it is I feel that my whole life is controlled. I’m not even allowed my own moods! I’m corralled into and out of sleep. My food is adjusted to provide the precise doses of nutrients to fit my body needs. My mental state is assessed and adjusted.

Is there anything that is me? I’ve become some jugging robot; some social experiment, tailored for my own good!

It’s the same every day. I start with my usual disgruntled state, then the meds kick in.

When Billy considers me fully roused and suitably primed he proceeds to update me. I can’t even turn the fucker off! He’s always there even when he’s not saying anything. Lurking like some underground spy, checking my chemistry, noting my brain waves, nudging my metabolism into line. I can’t get away with anything.

The dissatisfaction passes.

‘Fifty credits has been deducted from your account for air, sixty credits for water,  forty credits for power, one hundred and twenty-seven credits dom rental, one hundred and twenty five credits local amenities, one hundred and eighty-five credits for your servo and one hundred and seventy-two credits for general items, tridee, comcom, communicator and charges. I have sanctioned the deductions of the seven hundred and fifty-nine credits which leaves you with a balance of one hundred and forty-one credits.’

Well screw me, why don’t you? It’s the first of the calendar unit – time for all good citizens to pay their bills for the privilege of breathing the artificial air and being a social unit in this hive. For a mere seven hundred and fifty-nine credits you can function. I wouldn’t call it living, exactly. Seven hundred and fifty-nine credits bought you existence. If you wanted to live that cost a lot more.

A scintillating start to the day. One hundred and forty-one credits to splurge on whatever I fancied. Not that there was much you could purchase with that. Thirty days to exist through until I reached the next calendar unit and the pattern repeated.

I reached across and helped myself to a tumbler of nutrostim from the servo and lay back in my somni staring at the plain white walls of my dormi. They could have been anything. I could simply instruct Billy to have them any colour I wanted, any pattern, even moving scenes. I could wake up to bright sunshine and green trees with birds chirping, some scene from long ago when such things actually existed. I chose white, plain white, but that was only because Billy wouldn’t allow me to have black.

Gradually my mind settled. I sipped the nutrostim and thought. For once Billy was quiet. That was a relief.

That ancient trapdoor.

I sat up in my somni, the whole structure automatically adjusting to support me, while my mind racing.

I had spent ten minutes wrestling with that jugging door before giving up. The jugging thing didn’t appear to have any security devices and was far too old to be persolocked. I had tugged and heaved but the thing wouldn’t budge. I guess time, dirt and corrosion had welded it into place, or else there was some unseen locking device that I couldn’t detect. In the end hunger, thirst and increasing anxiety had driven me away. I’d recorded the location in my communicator and trudged off back to the droppie. I figured I needed some tools.

Now, lying back in my somni, my thoughts wouldn’t let it be. What the hell was under that portal? What shop had it been? What fabulous goods might be stashed down there? My mind summoned up all manner of things.

I knew that I was being stupid. The old city had been stripped bare. Nothing would have been left. The chances of stumbling across a treasure-trove was zero, zilch. But the thought would not let me be.

Besides, what was I gonna spend twenty credits on? I might as well waste it on that. In my imagination I pulled that door up and there was a whole room full of the most incredible stuff, antiques from a bygone age. Riches beyond the imagination. There was no way I could simply let it be.

But I knew it didn’t stop at the droptube charges. There was no point in going back unless I was properly equipped. I’d have to purchase stuff from Scoot. What would I need? Could I afford it?

I quickly rose, had a quick vibro and put on a clean purpsuit. A vibro always left me feeling tingly and brightened me up. It wasn’t just about personal hygiene. What if there really was something incredibly valuable down there? What if the gleaners and strippers had missed it?

I opened the comulator and spread it over the mense, summoning up Scoot and reflecting on what products I might possibly need to open that jugging portal.