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08:47 Thursday 8th November 2091
Carole Drummond was driving into central London with her colleague Jethro Harper. They were both journalists and made the same journey twice a week; the rest of the week they worked from their respective homes. It suddenly occurred to Carole that the nature of the journey had changed over the years. She swivelled in her seat to face her passenger, leaving the car to do what it always did – drive them to work in perfect safety and without human intervention. The fact that she normally faced forward was just a habit that she and many others still could not shake off; it seemed so natural to face forward with one’s hands on the steering wheel, even though it was completely unnecessary.
“Jethro, how long have we been making this journey together?”
Jethro thought for a moment before answering.
“About fifteen years, I reckon. Yes, fifteen years.”
“Do you remember how we used to complain about the traffic congestion, that it was getting worse and worse?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Where’s the traffic now?”
“How do you mean?”
“Look at the traffic. When’s the last time we got caught up in heavy traffic?”
“A few years ago, now I come to think of it.”
“Exactly.”
“But it’s because of the Automatrix isn’t it? It’s got better and better.”
“It could be, if the number of vehicles on the road were the same or increasing, but look at the spaces between cars. The gaps are bigger. I’m sure there are fewer and fewer cars on the roads now.”
Jethro hadn’t noticed before, but he had to admit that Carole was right. Carole switched on the in-car monitor and navigated to the national twenty-four hour news channel. She wound the programme back until it came to the business news part of the schedule.
“Watch this report.”
The pair watched the screen as the news presenter gave the latest financial and unemployment figures. She turned the monitor off as the car entered the raised section of the M4 motorway, the old Chiswick Flyover.
“Record numbers of companies are closing down and becoming bankrupt. They’re not making sufficient sales to keep going. There’s less demand for their products so they’re producing less. If they’re producing fewer goods, they need fewer staff. But unemployment rates aren’t going up radically.”
“Surely that’s good, isn’t it? Unemployment not rising, I mean?”
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But why isn’t unemployment rising? It should do, if the number of job vacancies is reducing.”
“I don’t know.”
“Think about it. What if the number of people available for those jobs that do still exist is getting smaller?”
Carole switched the monitor on again and searched the Deep Web for the UK population figures, which updated in real-time thanks to monitoring software that had been introduced five years previously, registering each birth and death as it occurred and updating the system accordingly. These were the actual figures which governments would be aware of, as opposed to officially released figures. Carole wasn’t supposed to be able to access the Deep Web but she had a very helpful contact in the government’s IT department who had provided her with an authentic username and password, on the proviso that it was to be used only in an emergency. Carole’s journalistic instinct felt that this constituted an emergency.
“Look.”
Carole and Jethro watched as the mortality figure for the UK was displayed. Carole waved her hand to freeze the ever changing figures that were shown onscreen.
”Look there. The UK population is 67,147,707.”
“So?”
She waved her hand again.
“This is the population as of today’s date in 2080. What can you see?”
Jethro looked closer.
“78,496,348.”
“Now look at the previous year, 2079.”
“80,118,000.”
“The population should have increased. It always increases. But between 2079 and 2080 the population dropped by 1.6 million. And between 2079 and today it’s dropped by nearly thirteen million.”
Jethro was shocked.
“How the hell didn’t anybody notice this before?”
“Oh, I’m sure they did, but it’s been covered up for some reason. We’ve been fed duff figures for the last decade or so.”
Another gesture and the screen showed the projected UK population for the current year, 2091. Carole could hardly contain herself.
“This is what it should be now. 85,364,694. Or thereabouts. Today’s population is over eighteen million less than it should be.”
Jethro was starting to see the importance of what he was looking at.
“What about the world population?”
“Ok, let’s have a look. On this day in 2080, it was 10,550,487,014. Today it’s 8,587,453,766. That’s about two billion less. It was projected to be somewhere between eleven and twelve billion. That’s a shortfall of about three billion of what it should be. That’s not supposed to happen. In both cases, the population has fallen since the census figures of 2079. Something happened to cause this, and it’s my bet it happened in 2079”
Jethro tried to take a positive attitude.
“Looking on the bright side, fewer people means there’s more food to go around.”
Carole sighed.
“If only it were that simple. But why has it happened? We need to dig a little deeper.”
She ordered the car to park up on a piece of disused wasteland. She was on a roll now.
“UK deaths are about half a million per year. But those deaths are replaced by new born children correct? In fact, generally a few more than the number of people who have died.”
“Correct.”
“Let’s look at births for the UK.”
Another gesture was made and the history of births between 2080 and 2091 was displayed. Carole and Jethro gaped at the screen before them. Jethro was the first to speak.
“That can’t be right. Check the connection.”
“It’s nothing to do with the connection. Those are the figures.”
The screen was showing that there had been hardly any births since mid-2080. Jethro was in shock.
“I’m gobsmacked. According to these figures, the birth-rate hasn’t just gone down, it’s virtually stopped.”
Carole took a deep breath.
“This means that twelve years ago the human race suddenly became infertile. This isn’t just a doomsday scenario, it’s an extinction scenario.”
“But there are some babies being born.”
“A few, yes. But nowhere near enough. We may not go completely extinct but the numbers of births are so low that society won’t be able to sustain itself.”
“Fucking hell.”
“Fucking hell indeed, Jethro.”
“What on earth could have caused it?”
“I have no idea. Some disease I imagine.”
A thought occurred to Jethro.
“What was here before?”
“Where?”
“Here. This wasteland. What building used to be here? I think I know; I just want my suspicions confirmed.”
“Let’s ask Google.”
The search engine supplied the answer in a matter of microseconds. The car was parked on land that, until two years ago, had been home to a twenty storey office complex belonging to BabyCorp IVF, the world’s largest group of fertility clinics. Carole slumped back in her seat.
“No wonder BabyCorp collapsed. I imagine that initially there was an upsurge in sales, with couples being unable to conceive naturally, but when even IVF wasn’t working it was forced out of business.”
Jethro scratched behind his ear.
“This is huge. What do you reckon we should do now?”
Carole turned off the monitor and started the car.
“We say nothing to anyone. We go to work, act normally – we have to – and you can come round to my place tonight. About sevenish? We can sort out what we’re going to do then.”
Carole instructed the car to turn back onto the main road and continue its journey to Canary Wharf.