jeriendhal | FYS: The Quisling's Tale, Part Six

The plane stayed in the air for what seemed to be at least six hours. With everyone’s phones taken away it was hard to tell. Anna spent her time playing games on the entertainment system mounted on the seat, trying to figure out what was going to happen next. About halfway through the flight lunch was served by a cheetahmorph in the uniform of a Sundsvallsflyg flight attendant, and the angry fellow in the restraints was released on good behavior to eat.

Xavier got up to check on his fellow stores employees who had also been taken aboard the bus, returning to sit back with a sigh in his seat.

“My people are worried,” he said to her. “I can’t blame them. When they cut off our phone service everyone lost contact with their families. Anything could have happened to them.”

“I think they’re all right,” Anna said. “The morphs haven’t hurt us. Why would they hurt anyone else?”

“Why are they doing any of this? They have to be under the direction of somebody,” he said, running his hand through his hair in frustration.

“Yeah, but who? What’s to gain by taking over the world like this?”

“I’m sure they’ll announce themselves when we arrive.”

An hour after that the plane landed. The bus drove itself out of the plane and for another half hour down what sounded like a gravel road. Once it stopped the cheetahmorph politely ordered everyone out of the bus. Anna followed Xavier and his employees off the bus, to line with them at what seemed to be a receiving station, with hundred other buses neatly parked in a row, offloading passengers.

She looked up, neck craning to take in the view. The receiving station was at the edge of a vast inflatable dome, perhaps a full kilometer across, with what looked like a desert barely visible through the translucent material. At the center was a tall tower a half a kilometer high, reaching up to support the center of the dome. Around the central tower there were automated construction units moving like busy worker ants, assembling pre-made concrete walls to build more towers, possibly housing units from the looks of them, several already assembled.

“This way please,” a grey lepusmorph in a traffic warden’s uniform and wearing a bright orange safety vest announced. It pointed towards a growing queue in front of a line of security kiosks. “Please come this way and line up. Be prepared to empty your pockets.”

Anna got in line, pulling out her wallet and keys and dropping them in a basket to be scanned like at any other transit security check, walking through a body scanner arch before retrieving them again. On the other side another lepusmorph handed her a new phone, already programed with her old numbers, and an ident card with her name and an unfamiliar street address.

“This is your new apartment,” the morph told her. “Your clothes and personal effects will be delivered there shortly.”

“Thanks,” she said absently. People were bunching up in front of her, where a curb with a long queue of autotaxis were being ignored, as people looked at their new ID cards and tried to figure out where to go next. Anna guessed that none of them were too keen on putting themselves in the hands of automated machinery if they could help it, with most electing to walk. She just shrugged and chose a cab at random, letting it take her around the circle of already constructed buildings to the her apartment. It was thirty stories tall, sitting on the edge of a shopping plaza with a variety of restaurants and goods shops.

Her apartment was on the tenth floor, a comfortable studio a bit larger than her old place in Stockholm. It was furnished with more innocuous modern pre-fab furniture, the fridge and pantries already stocked with basic foodstuffs, and there was even a nice entertainment center along one wall.

“Oh, the horror,” Anna muttered to herself. Well, as prisons went, this one was certainly comfy enough.

She took a closer look at the entertainment center. The attached com system had the usual stereoscopic camera and microphone system built in, for face to face calls or VR parties. Which meant whoever the mysterious person/people/little green men behind all of this could look in on whatever she was doing. Right, try not to wander around naked in the living room, Anna, she thought to herself wryly.

She pulled the new phone out of her pocket, looking at it apprehensively. Anna tapped in her mom’s com code, and waited.

“Anna?!” her mom answered. “Thank God!”

“The feeling is mutual,” Anna said, collapsing onto the couch with a sigh of relief. “Where are you?”

“In some kind of city, under this huge plastic dome.”

“Same here. Heard from Pappa yet?”

“Still nothing yet. Anna, I’m being sequestered with a lot of other government officials. I think they, whoever is doing this, is trying to keep people from organizing. If you try anything…” Her mother paused, apparently unable to go on.

“I’ll be careful,” Anna promised.

“Love you, Sweetheart.”

“Love you too, Mamma.”

She slipped her phone back into her pocket, getting up to use the shower, luxuriating in the warm water and soap after three days of sink baths. When she finished she slipped into a pair of clean shorts and a t-shirt, pondering the view of the half-built city outside the window.

It just didn’t make sense, all the niceness of this peculiar revolution. The city that was still being constructed to hold them must represent a tremendous amount of resources, resources that could have been used to fight whatever remaining military resistance there was beyond the dome. Whoever was behind this was bending over backwards not to hurt anyone. Well, no civilians at least, though the news hadn’t reported any military casualties either.

Still pondering this, she left her apartment, heading downstairs to the street. There was a narrow two lane boulevard for the autocabs, with much wider pedestrian sidewalks on either side. No bicycle lanes through, which she found curious. Actually no bicycles period, not even parking racks by the shops that she saw. They want us to walk, or depend on the autocabs for long distance travel, she figured. Did the local transport include buses or a subway? She hadn’t seen any station entrances or bus stops yet.

At random she stepped up to a bakery with open storefront, manned by a cheerful raccoonmorph in a chef’s hat. “How can I serve you, Miss Anna?” it greeted.

Face recognition, Anna realized. Of course it would know her face. Her image had to have been recorded by at least a dozen cameras around the city already. It was just like the way morphs would greet you by name when you went into any store in a particular chain that you’d shopped at before.

“Did the troll tell you to address me as Anna instead of Miss Quisling?” she asked it.

“That datapoint is part of your personal FAQ, ma’am,” it sidestepped. “Can I get you anything?”

“I don’t supposed my bank account still works?” Anna asked.

The morph shook its head. “No, Miss Anna. But food is all part of the service here in the Rest and Recreation City. Up to twenty-five hundred calories will be provided for free per day for adults of healthy body weight from vendors, in addition to restocking whatever you use from the pantry in your apartment.”

“Thanks,” she said. “Give me a plain bagel with cream cheese, and a green tea.” She took the bagel and drink and sat at a nearby table, people watching as she ate. The streets were almost empty, the few people wandering from the safety of their apartments looking shell-shocked. Oddly there weren’t any morphs visible, except for the ones manning the shops. The closest thing to a guard she’d seen since entering the city had been the lepusmorph directing people at the bus stop. But then she glanced over to a nearby lamp post, seeing the bulge of a camera housing atop it, matching the one on the next post, and the next, and the next. No need for visible guards, until someone starts causing trouble, she supposed.

She glanced over as a familiar figure approached. It was Xavier the supermarket manager, waving as he spotted her in turn.

“Anna! You’re all right?” he asked, looking concerned.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

“In this place? You do realize we’re in a fishbowl, right?” He gestured towards one of the light poles.

She shrugged. “And this makes it different from any other city in the world how?”

“Most of their cameras aren’t being constantly watched,” Xavier countered. “Anyway, I’m glad I found you. I’m going to have a party in my apartment. I figure if we’re all going to be stuck here for who knows how long, it wouldn’t hurt for us to get to know each other, figure out how to get by.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” she agreed. “Sure, what time?”

“Maybe tomorrow, around seven pm? I’d like to see how many of my friends were rounded up and brought here first.”

“Sounds good,” Anna said. She smiled up at him, and he smiled back, grinning like a schoolchild. “I hope it’s fun.”

“Might even be productive. Who knows?”

TBC