Displaced

By Steve Harvey

This is the story of Ian, a man who unable to keep up with the pace of his work, is removed from not only his job but his home and lifestyle too. After many years of frivolous spending and following all the new trends he is displaced from his home in the metro and his hopes for the future. He is sent to a work camp where there is some small hope that he may one day return to the metro and take up his old job. When this seems unlikely, once again due to his inability to keep up with the demands of his job, he decides to take a huge gamble. He modifies his android work 'companion' to a higher level of intelligence in the hope that his job performance would improve. This has disastrous results when the android first questions the consumerist existence and then runs amok, almost killing one of Ian's work colleagues. Rather than being sent back to the metro Ian is sentenced to the displacement community, a final stage in eliminating those who are unfit for normal society. Expecting the worst Ian finds himself in a friendly hard-working farming community which he struggles to fit into. On the verge of suicide he is drawn into helping with an emergency which gives him the perspective he needs to see his life for what it really is.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Steve Harvey
• Release date: Mar 26, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370557660

Steve Harvey

I am going to be sixty this year and feel I've led a fairly interesting life starting in Glasgow in Scotland and after a period of thirty years in South Africa I have been in Australia for the last sixteen years. My working life has been mostly in manufacturing and quality management. I'm 'Joe Average' in most respects and been through most of what you'd expect for someone my age. As I grow older though I am happier too. This is mostly due to my wonderful wife and an attitude to life that often only comes with the years of experience.Since studying psychology at university in the late 1980's I have always been interested in motivation and the reasons why people do what they do. I've often thought about what gets people up in the morning and motivates them to go on every day. From many hours of debate on this and similar subjects and wide reading I conclude that it's growth that motivated us. We either grow in ourselves, learn as we do to solve life's problems or we don't. If we don't we are doomed to a life of relative unhappiness, sometimes without really being aware of our situation and what we can do to change things.

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Displaced

By

Steve Harvey

Published by Steve Harvey at Smashwords

Copyright 2017 Steve Harvey

Smashwords edition, License Notes

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favourite eBook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Contents

Chapter 1 - Displacement

Chapter 2 – A lost life

Chapter 3 – The Camps

Chapter 4 -Losing hope

Chapter 5 – A light at the end of the tunnel

Chapter 6 – All gone to hell

Chapter 7 – Worse than hell

Chapter 8 – Life’s end

Chapter 9 - Perspective

Chapter 1 - Displacement

As the only passenger on the bus Ian sat in the front row with his brief case on the seat next to him. A drop of rain ran down the outside of the window and following this with his eyes Ian thought that this was a fair representation of his life in the last few weeks, a seemingly unstoppable downward spiral as if in the grip of a strong gravitational force. His life as it had been was now behind him and a new life awaited him at the end of the journey. There was no use in speculating about what would happen; as far as he knew no-one ever came back from the camps to describe things there. It may be the end or something worse. ‘How long to the camp?’ he asked the companion driver. ‘Fifteen minutes and forty-two seconds.’ The driver said without looking around, very precise and with a companion’s lack of emotion. Returning to his own thoughts Ian ran through the events of the day in his mind, from his short talk with his boss to boarding the bus to the camps.

The day started off as usual, a bus ride to the office, through security and upstairs to the first floor office he shared with eight other members of the department. A cold shiver ran down his spine as he saw that his desk was missing. His so-workers avoided his glance and seemed not to notice his arrival. He had heard that when people were destined for the camps that they were essentially made to vanish in some Orwellian fashion, never to be spoken of again. Being confronted with this reality left him in shock and he just stood in the entrance clutching his briefcase with white knuckles as though to make sure it too did not disappear. His boss Graham appeared and took his arm, leading him into his office. The rest of the staff seemed to be pretending to work and not to notice what was happening.

Ian knew what was coming, he was to lose his job, his flat and be transported to the camps. Graham asked him to sit down and offered a cup of tea. With a sick feeling in his stomach and a strong sense of unreality Ian sat down clutching his briefcase to his chest. ‘As you are aware,’ Graham began to say when Ian interrupted ‘Look Graham, I only need a few more weeks and I’ll have enough credit for the next level of enhancement, then things will be fine. I’ll do better right away, surely you can wait a couple of weeks. I’ll stop spending so much too. What do you say?’ ‘Sorry Ian, this is out of my hands now, you have three warnings on file about your performance and now there’s nothing I can do.’ Just then one of Ian’s erstwhile colleagues knocked loudly on the office door and popped his head in. ‘Boss, you are needed in our nine o’clock meeting.’ ‘I’ll be there in a sec’ said Graham. ‘Let’s talk more about this after your meeting’ said Ian ‘I’ll wait in your office if you like?’ ‘Sorry Ian but this is done, you are to leave immediately for the camps, there’s nothing more we can do.’ At that point the companion bus driver stopped outside the glass office door, waiting for Ian to go with him. Graham stood up and offered his hand to Ian. Becoming angry now, Ian ignored the outstretched hand and ripped the office door open and stormed out of the office. ‘Come on you’ he said to the companion ‘Let’s get the hell out of here.’ Pausing half way to the hallway Ian turned and shouted ‘Hey, you lot!’ Looking up from their desks and meeting tables the office staff met his gaze reluctantly. ‘It’ll be you next you know, this won’t be over until we are all gone, good fucking luck!’ Ian followed the companion driver down the hall. There was no use in resistance or refusal as more companions would be called and he would go where they were taking him, willingly or not.

Out in the hall Ian used his briefcase as a battering ram to push his way through the crowded common areas, immune to the shocked looks and sideways glances. He knew he was never coming back and felt betrayed by those who had at least been his acquaintances during his time here. ‘Bastards’ he thought, it won’t be long before this building is empty or staffed by companions, quietly getting on with it with not a human in sight. In a deepening sense of reality Ian walked outside and boarded the bus. On the side of the bus the screen was showing an ad proclaiming that ‘To live is to Consume – seen the latest catalogue?’ in red lettering on a white background with a crowd of smiling faces in the background. Grey skies overhead promised rain and cold, just the right weather from a trip to the camps. It was strange to think that he was finally leaving the job behind for good, not only that but his visits with the escort companions and his flat with all his collections and comforts, and Bickie.

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Chapter 2 – A lost life

On the morning of his transportation Ian was awakened by Bickie. ‘Morning Ian, time to get up now’ she said from the wall screen. ‘Your coffee is ready and the morning news brief is ready, should I play it now?’ ‘No,’ said Ian. ‘I’ll watch