The sun had almost reached its highest point in the sky. Alida pulled the hood of her SunSuit further forward to shade her face. She counted seven flyers left until she’d need to collect another stack from the hub. Throughout the morning she’d traipsed clockwise around the city wall until reaching the South East Settlements. Dusty tents covered the ground as far as she could see.
People in shacks, especially those under some kind of shelter like the market roof, looked down on the tent city. Mum had always told her the place was bad news. That was the slickest thing about this gig. Alida had a legit reason to be nosy and go into all the districts of the Demi-Settlements and chat to a shitload of different characters without being told to rack off and mind her own business. Plus it was better than lying on her back with some pervy Citizen on top of her or slogging through the burbs on the slim chance of finding something worth some dosh.
She scanned the edges of the tent city for her next target. A few metres to her left, beyond a clothes line full of stinking river-washed threads, a circle of five chicks laughed and gabbed on in the shade of what remained of a sports stadium. At their feet four littlies in stained SunSuits played with plastic bottles filled with dirt.
‘Hey, guys. Would you like some info about the IntelliEnhance rollout?’ Alida stepped forward, holding out a flyer.
They all held out their hands.
‘I’ll have one.’
‘Me too.’
‘Pass ’em round.’
The oldest chick pursed her lips and peered down her nose at the flyer. ‘None of us can read. What does it say?’
It wasn’t the first time that day Alida had been asked to read out the flyer. She cleared her throat. ‘No worries. It says: IntelliEnhance brain implants will be fitted to all registered Demi-Citizens starting on the sixteenth of this month and concluding on the twenty-fourth. You will be allocated an installation date at your next ration collection.’
The chicks all looked at each other, confusion giving way to smiles.
‘Well, that’s something,’ one of the younger chicks said as she lifted her SunSuit and moved a suckling baby from one breast to the other.
‘Yeah. I think that’s a good thing.’ Another leaned forward and tugged down the sleeve of a toddler’s SunSuit. ‘It should give us some protection against the super-viruses and infections and things. Is that right?’
‘As far as I know, that’s the point of it all.’ Alida winked at the toddler, tempted to reach out and pinch the cute little dimples on the back of his hands.
‘The kids too?’
‘Yep. Everyone.’ That had been the first question she’d asked too. The implant could be the answer to all of Graycie’s health problems. It would save dosh on medicines and be one less thing to stress about from day to day.
‘What about entertainment and all the other bells and whistles?’
‘We’ll have access to some entertainment functions. It’ll be pretty basic compared to what the plastic-faces are used to, but it’s gotta be slicker than crowding around an outdated OmniScreen. There’ll also be communications functions so you can send a message direct to someone else’s brain.’
They all smiled at each other and nodded.
‘Thanks, sweets.’
‘Should be tops.’
The chicks scrunched up the flyers to make little balls for the littlies to play with. Alida headed for two guys patching a slit in the side of a tent.
‘Hey there. Info on the IntelliEnhance implant rollout.’ Alida held the last two flyers in her hand.
One of the men, a guy with deeply tanned skin covered in red and brown moles like flecks of mud and gore, put his tools down and cracked his spine straight. He was a head taller than Alida and he used that whole head, as well as the mound of his gut and the width of his shoulders, to get into her space.
‘You some sort of LeaderCorp shill, girl?’
The other man – possibly the jerk’s son, going by the resemblance – stood back, turning a stapler over in his hands.
‘Hell no. I’m just handing out flyers. Just getting the word out.’ He wasn’t the first jerk she’d come up against that morning. Just the largest.
‘The word, huh?’
Alida had messed up. These guys weren’t wearing SunSuits. They were likely Rewilders and opposed to any kind of technology, especially if it came from LeaderCorp.
‘Look, if you’re not interested, that’s okay by me.’ Alida turned to split. It wasn’t her problem if some characters were too stupid to realise what a slick opportunity the implant rollout was.
‘You’re a fool, girl. I would never let LeaderCorp tinker with my brain,’ the older guy yelled out.
‘Odeene told us what those unnatural implants are really about,’ the son called after her.
Alida knew she should keep walking, but the name Odeene always made her arc up. She turned, scoffing. ‘Odeene? That scam medicine dealer? You’d rather trust your health to her bullshit than a state-of-the-art piece of technology used by Citizens?’
Bloody Odeene. If she messed this up for them all, for Graycie, Alida would drown her in her own homeopathic water.
The older guy forced a laugh. ‘They’re not going to give Demis the same implants they give Citizens. Open your eyes, girl. They’re going to put spying and tracking devices in Demi brains. They’re gonna turn all the Demis into some kind of zombie robot slaves.’
‘Right, zombie robot slaves.’ Alida waved over her shoulder at the men and offloaded her last two flyers on a couple of teens frying dandelions in front of their tent.
She headed back to the hub. As she neared she saw Zave tramping up a side street. She kept her gaze forward and hoped he hadn’t clocked her. Yep. He’d clocked her. She had a big flashing credit symbol above her head, as far as Zave was concerned.
‘Hey, Al.’
She gritted her teeth and kept walking, pretending she hadn’t heard him. She’d never avoided Zave before, but he’d been treating her as his own personal credit provider. He was almost as much of a pimp as Freel.
‘Al.’ He grabbed her shoulder.
‘Oh, hey.’
‘I was calling you. Didn’t you hear me?’
‘I was lost in my own world.’ Alida kept walking.
Zave kept pace with her. ‘So, um. Do you have any dosh you can spare?’
He looked like shit. His SunSuit was hanging off him, the skin under his eyes was the purple of a bruise and his cheeks were skull hollow. He was a living example of why she didn’t want to work for Freel too often. Every time she thought about taking another job in plastic-land she imagined the passenger capsule popping between her teeth and the sweet burst that took away all the harshness of her feelings. She could get used to that feeling. Before Mum died she had never understood the broken-down junkies around the Demi-Settlements. But now she saw how one hardship after another coated a person’s self-respect like layers of grime until they were trapped beneath it all.
‘I don’t have any dosh to spare, Zave.’ They moved to the side of the path to let a corpse cart pass. ‘I haven’t worked for Freel since last week. I’m trying to stretch out what I have left.’ Why did she feel she had to explain it to him? She wished she could just tell him no.
‘But you’ve been doing some work for the hub. How much do you earn from that?’
The hub came into view, and Shuqba looked up from the wrist she was scanning to smile at Alida. After she’d been nabbed in the back of the truck Alida had been a bit shy around Shuqba. Not for long though. They’d had a chat every time Alida collected rations and sometimes when she had shit-all else to do. Shuqba had told her all sorts of interesting things about Neos. Like the fact that clones had different personalities because they all had titchy differences in their DNA, and even their life experiences could change the way their DNA worked. Alida had been disappointed to learn they weren’t all part of some big hive mind and they couldn’t communicate telepathically or anything.
Alida suspected Shuqba had offered her this gig out of pity. Alida wasn’t ashamed. A gig was a gig.
Shuqba’s smile faded when she clocked Zave hanging off Alida’s shoulder.
‘I don’t earn enough, Zave.’ Alida stopped and faced Zave head on. ‘Look, I love you, but I can’t keep shelling out for your drugs.You have to stop. When you’re ready to do that, I’m here for you.But I’m skint. Okay?’
Zave blushed. ‘Yeah, yeah. I know. I’ve been a dickhead. I’ll try. I’ll try. I just need one more cap. Then I’ll be cool.’
Alida backed away. Zave grabbed her wrist and she shook him off.
Shuqba strode over. ‘Excuse me, sir. Please step away from the LeaderCorp employee.’
‘Okay, okay.’ Zave threw up his hands and stalked away.
‘What was that about?’ Shuqba said.
Alida sighed. ‘He’s having a hard time. He’s not himself.’
Shuqba looked at her for a second longer. ‘Did you distribute all those flyers already?’
‘Yep. Everyone’s eager for the news.’ Alida was grateful for the change of topic. She didn’t bother telling Shuqba that most of the Demis couldn’t read and had taken the flyers for fuel or for their littlies to play with.
‘All right, then. I’ll authorise your credit transfer, and then there’s another stack if you’re interested.’
‘Hell yes, I am.’