Repository

By Ela Lond

In a future without politicians where the economy depends on 3D printers, the manual labour of androids, recycling, and a platform called Repository, a girl's investigation about the disappearance of homeless people and migrants not only threatens her life, but the existence of her society

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ela Lond
• Release date: Jun 10, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463988589

Ela Lond

Ela Lond writes paranormal and fantasy aimed primarily at young adults. A lover of adventure and intrigue herself, she has long enjoyed exploring supernatural beings and the worlds they inhabit along with her adventurous heroes and heroines.

Book preview

Chapter 1

‘The Unit will arrive in thirty minutes.’ The dark blue words appeared in the glass before Maya Bell’s right eye, looking as if they were floating before her, before they disappeared, replaced by numbers in the upper right corner of her vision: twenty-nine minutes and fifty-eight seconds that started to count down.

Snooze, fifteen minutes. Maya readjusted the small rectangle of glass that was held on by a wire connected to a single headphone covering half of her right ear. She was in her room, with a simple bed, desk, and a large wardrobe. It looked the same as it had when she’d started her first day of school. It had changed very little, even though she was now a student in university. The only change was her reading corner, which was just a few large pillows piled on the carpet in the corner.

Snooze confirmed, a soft male voice said from the speaker in Maya’s ear, and the numbers cleared.

Her fingers wrapped around the messenger bag by her desk. She grabbed it and her jacket and went into the living room.

Her mother was behind the counter that divided the yellow and brown kitchen from the living room and served as a bar and breakfast corner. She was holding a cup that she put on the counter. Coffee.

Thank you. Maya slid onto the stool at the counter, setting her bag and beige jacket on the stool beside her. She drew the cup of coffee towards her.

What do you want for breakfast?

Bread and jam would be great, Maya said, not bothering to offer to prepare her breakfast herself since she knew she would just be chased out of the kitchen.

Are you sure? her mother asked.

Yeah. Maya leaned her elbow on the counter and rested her chin on her hand while she watched her mother move around the kitchen, her wheelchair gliding over the brown tiles and the machine buzzing as the seat and its back moved up and down, lifting her mother so she could reach the things in the hanging cabinets. It had been six years since the Unit accident that had taken her mother’s mobility and her father’s life. Maya couldn’t bring her beloved father back from the dead, but someday she would return her mother’s mobility.

For lunch, I’m thinking of making us cannelloni. We haven’t had that for a while. Her mother lowered a plate of bread with butter and jam onto the counter before Maya.

That sounds good. Maya took a sip of coffee.

What time are you coming home?

She had already finished with the theoretical part of her school year a week ago when she’d aced the test in behavioural psychology, and now she only had to work off the practical part — which involved working with Undesirables — and write this year’s thesis. I plan to stop by the university; I need to see Professor Sparks. He was her mentor during this first year at the university. We are going to set the direction of my paper’s theme and pick up the title, and then I have to be at the Social Services Department before eleven, to oversee this fortnight’s preparation for the city’s soup kitchens. So, I think I should be back by one at the latest, so we can have lunch at two as usual.

I wish you had chosen some other subject than Undesirables. Even Outsiders would have been better.

Maya had wanted to study Outsiders, too, since they offered much more variety and options for the theme of her thesis than Undesirables, but her schoolmate Claire had managed to snag them right out from under her nose. She didn’t want to have the same theme as Claire, knowing that if she did, she would end up having to help her, as always. She picked up the bread and took a bite, enjoying the taste of her mother’s homemade strawberry jam. Her mother was way too overprotective. If it were up to her, Maya would probably roll around wrapped in yards of cotton wool. I have already told you they are not dangerous.

A girl was attacked by one just two weeks ago.

You don’t know that.

It was in the news.

I read the official report, Mum. He forgot to take his medication, and he just got a little carried away, and the girl got in the way. But a Helper stopped him. Helpers were androids that did all the manual labour in industry and government. The city’s Helpers, coloured light and dark blue, were connected to the city’s police and the Army, notifying them at the first sound or image of distress. You don’t have to worry.

Don’t I?

Her mother buttered another slice of bread.

There are Helpers at every corner. Given how docile the few Undesirables Maya encountered were, she had never needed Helpers.

They also have this strange sense of entitlement, and with your generous nature. I’m just afraid they will take advantage of you.

Oh, Mum, only you think that. Everybody who knows me is very well aware that I don’t possess a hint of generosity. Maya smiled and took another bite of the bread.

Yes, you do. Her mother returned the smile and patted Maya’s cheek. You just aren’t aware of it.

Maya rolled her eyes.

Grandmother called yesterday evening; she invited us for lunch on Saturday, hoping that this time you’ll come too.

Maya scowled. Grandmother was her father’s mother, and even though she lived in the nearby city, an hour’s drive away, because of her obligations, Maya didn’t see her very often. I can’t. I have an obligation I can’t get out of on Saturday.

That’s your excuse? Her mother arched her eyebrows. She’s going to be disappointed, you know.

Yeah, well… The glass in front of Maya’s right eye coloured red, and black words appeared before her: ‘The Unit will arrive in fifteen minutes.’

Snooze five minutes, she said before she told her mother, My ride will be here soon. She started to shove the food into her mouth, washing it down with coffee.

Aren’t you taking your bicycle? Her mother put the bread she had just topped with jam on a napkin. She set it on the plate before Maya. Stop stuffing yourself. Just take it to go.

The forecast says it’s going to rain in the afternoon, Maya said. I have enough time to eat, but can you give me some coffee to go? She pushed the last piece of bread into her mouth.

Her mother took a paper cup, poured coffee into it, put a lid on it, and slid it onto the counter beside the plate.

Thank you, Maya mumbled around her mouthful.

‘The Unit will arrive in ten minutes.’

Maya quickly ate the rest of the food and then, with a short wave to her mother, she put her jacket on, slung her bag across her chest, took her coffee, and went outside. She looked at the sky dotted with high-flying drones, then at the driveway.

The egg-shaped, one-seat vehicle in grey, blue, and white already waited for her, hovering over the stones of the driveway.

She reached the Unit and saw a cow walking across the pavement and stepping onto the grassway to graze the short grass there.

Send a text message to the Slates; ‘One of your cows escaped again,’ she said to the eGlass. They had a small farm at the end of the street and their cows liked to stray here and there, just like Mr Thomson’s chickens.

‘Sent’ appeared on the eGlass’s display.

She touched the Unit.

The white outline of a hand appeared on the upper part of the Unit’s glass door. She pressed on it and the door slid upwards, giving her a view of the upholstered light blue seat.

She slid inside.

The door lowered and a woman’s voice said, Welcome, Miss Bell. Please enter your destination.

University of Public Relations, Seventh Street, please.

Confirmed. The Unit moved; it crossed the cement pavement that ran alongside the houses onto the grassway. She felt a slight shake when it extended the blades from its bottom to trim the grass off the road to suck it into its tank to use as fuel.

Cup holder, please.

A cup holder glided out from a smooth panel under the front glass.

She put the cup into it and touched the outer edge of her eGlass. She activated a keyboard and a menu.

A menu appeared before her, together with beams of green light that drew a keyboard on her knees. She tapped first the ‘network’ menu and then ‘university.’ She signed in and used the search feature to pinpoint Professor Sparks’s location.

‘Not found.’

She knew he was on the campus, since according to his schedule, which she had looked at yesterday evening, he was available for student consultations between nine and ten, and she had reserved a slot at nine-fifteen. So, he either had to be cloaking his presence to avoid drop-ins, or he had cancelled his office hours and the university administration had forgotten to send out the notifications about it, something that happened much too often.

She took a sip of coffee before she looked for an available AVTAR — Audio/Video Transmitter And Receiver — and connected herself to it.

The world before her right eye turned into the inside of a drawer.

It opened and an AVTAR, one of the metallic balls that were in the drawer, flew out and she could see a bird’s-eye view of the hallway lined with wooden panels and the top of the students’ heads as they rushed across the black-and-white checkerboard floor, the same metallic balls that she was using floating above their heads. Some of the AVTARs had their transmitters out, making them look like spiders. Light came from the tips of the transmitters, forming a hologram, a replica of the body of the person who was using the AVTAR. It made the hallway look as if ghosts in red, blue, and yellow, and all the colours in between, walked among the living people.

‘Direction’ flashed before her eye.

Professor Sparks’s office.

The AVTAR flew to the end of the hallway and then at the intersection turned left, joining other AVTARs that were flying under the ceiling.

She tapped the icon in the upper toolbar and a map of the university spread out of it, with a blue dot marking her AVTAR’s progression. How much time before we get to the university?

The final destination will be reached in ten minutes.

Enough time for her to verify whether the professor was present or not. She could have stayed at home and used an AVTAR for her conference with him, but she was well aware that he preferred personal contact without the intermediary of an AVTAR. Because of this, she never used an AVTAR in his classes or when she had a conference with him. She wanted to be in his good graces, since it could never hurt to have somebody as influential as Professor Sparks, the world-renowned behaviourist, on her side. She was counting on him giving her a recommendation when she applied for the internship in the Social Services Department. She hoped that, since she was already working there ten hours a week as a volunteer through the university, applying was only a technicality.

She’d had a plan since the day she had learned that her mother would be tied to a wheelchair without a nerve reconstruction, a very expensive procedure that their social insurance didn’t cover: To go to the right kind of school and to find the right kind of job, the kind that had the right kind of employee benefits. The only kind of job with benefits that extended to an unemployed close relative, and which would also cover the cost of her mother’s operation, was in the government. Since she wasn’t the kind of person who would normally be able to get into public relations and presentation, public administration, which included the Social Services Department, was her only choice. There was one other private firm that offered benefits as generous as a job in the government: Repository, the company that had invented the eGlass technology as it was today. It built and controlled the commerce platform which enabled anybody to sell their services or their goods on it, and owned most Clouds used by commerce and residents alike. The firm that only the best of the best in engineering and computer science could get into. Since maths and physics weren’t her forte, that wasn’t within her reach.

Her AVTAR had reached the professor’s office and hovered before the door. Under the tag with the professor’s name was another black tag, which read, in red letters, ‘Occupied.’

So, he was just cloaking his presence. She terminated her connection with the AVTAR. The Unit slowed down and then parked in one of the spaces in front of the path that led up to the entrance door of the university’s main building. She climbed out of the Unit and directed her step towards the entrance door, feeling her hands getting clammy and her heartbeat slightly accelerating. It was just a conference about the theme and title of her first-year thesis; there was nothing to be nervous about. But it was also the paper that could if it earned an honourable mention from the board professors, be published on the first page of the university website — something that would make getting the summer job at the Social Services Department much easier. She needed that summer job and she needed to get it every year since only those who worked for the government every summer had a shot at getting a regular job after graduation.

Chapter 2

You need to think in broader terms, Miss Bell. Professor Sparks put his elbows on his dark antique desk. Don’t focus only on the Undesirables and their lifestyle or what brought them into their situation, but also on the position they have in the hierarchy of the U.C.E.’s society.

They hold a lower, inactive position, Maya said. But I think I understand what you’re trying to say; my paper should be about our society, and since my theme is the Undesirables, it should be from the Undesirables’ point of view.

Yes, that’s exactly what I mean.

So… Maya rummaged through her mind for something that could pass as an appropriate title, thinking about what the professor had just told her. Would ‘The Undesirables and Their Position in the Structure of the United Countries of Europe’s Society’ be okay?

Yes, that title would be good. It shows the theme well, but for now, let’s keep it as a working title since I want you to be open to any new directions and ideas you might get in your writing process. It shouldn’t take you more than a month to write a first draft, so I propose we set another meeting for one month from now. Let me look at my schedule. His gaze shifted away from her, but he was still looking straight at her through his eGlass. How does Monday, the 22nd of May, at ten sounds?

Fine. Using the calendar via her eGlass she marked the date and set the alarm before she bid him a short, polite goodbye and left the room.

Two students sat on one of the benches pushed against the wall opposite the office door. They lifted their heads, giving her a nod before they resumed their quiet chat.

An AVTAR hovered near Professor Sparks’s door. The orb in the next second extended its transmitters, and a light shot out of its tips to form a body outlined in light red.

Even before the features of the hologram set, Maya could recognise the tall ponytail and the large bow on the tie, Claire’s trademark. Her irritation rising, she squared her shoulders and pushed out her chin as she greeted the girl. Claire, I thought you were on holiday, skiing. Skiing and parading around in plastic-looking clothes made from non-biodegradable and hard-to-recycle materials — which, because of the high environmental tax on them, were quite expensive — for the sole reason that she could afford it and she liked to display her family’s wealth any way she could. Her family probably didn’t even have recycling accounts and bought everything new, unlike the rest of the U.C.E. population.

I am. I have only taken a short break so I can talk with Sparks about my thesis. A sweet smile curved Claire’s mouth as she flicked the tail of long hair that fell over her shoulder and down her back, the result of the most expensive speed-grown procedure. You know, the one about Outsiders.

Yes, the theme Claire had reserved as soon as she had heard Maya enquiring about it to Professor Sparks’s assistant when they got the list of themes.

My brother’s girlfriend is Trice’s assistant, you know, as in Angela Trice, the head of the board of professors. She’ll help me with my paper, so I’m bound to get the honourable mention. She flicked her hair again.

Good for you. Maya forced her lips into a smile and turned away from the girl. In life, there were rare occasions when you met a person and there was some kind of magic between the two of you, a magic like your souls just clicked, because of which you knew that you two would become best friends. But, in life, there were also occasions when you met a person, shook hands with her, and just somehow knew that no matter what, you would never get along with her, as was the case with Claire. Maya had known that from the first time she had seen Claire, at the entrance ceremony at the beginning of the school year. The representative of the first-year students had introduced Maya, mentioning that she had scored one hundred percent on her entrance exam, the only one in that year Claire had directed her eyes at Maya, scrutinising and studying her, and Maya had known Claire would do anything to get in her way. That was why, although she was careful to always be polite, even when all she wanted to do was to punch that smile off the girl’s face, she gave her a wide berth.

She walked across the hallway, her hands fisted and the same fake smile frozen on her mouth, greeting the students she knew, while the AVTAR buzzed over her head. The Social Services Department, the division for Undesirables, was in the commercial part of the city, twenty minutes away by foot. Since she had a student pass, the drive there wouldn’t cost her anything, but she decided to walk there, enjoying the warm spring sun and the fresh breeze.

She reached the double entrance doors, which opened to her. She walked through them and went to the grassway, separated by flower beds from the pavement, bustling with bicycles on one side and pedestrians on the other. She stopped just at the edge of the pavement, her eyes on the Units that drove by and inhaled deeply, feeling the tension leaving her shoulders while the sweet scent of violets filled her lungs.

Every year the board of professors gave only four theses an honourable mention, one to each class of students. So, Claire, because of her connection, assumed the one from their class belonged to her. At that thought, Maya’s jaw clenched again, and she had to focus to relax it. There was no way she was going to allow Claire’s thesis to take the top spot – not without a fight.

#

Hey. Maya closed the frosted glass door behind her and gave a small smile to the middle-aged man sitting behind the white glass-like desk, one of two facing the door, with two chairs made from the same smooth material as the desks before each of them. Social Services, the division for Undesirables, was just an office with two desks. Mr Oliver was the only employee here, but he usually had help in the form of two students; this year, though, he only had Maya, since the other student had withdrawn due to illness.

Good day. Mr Oliver gave her a nod. His attention was fixed on something before him as his fingers moved over the desk as if he were typing.

The window at his left was open and the cold breeze lifted the man’s thin greying hair, which was combed to cover his forehead. A faint smell of decay and ammonia teased her nose as she passed the plastic chairs on her way around the desks. I see you had visitors.

It was Mr Cruz. He wasn’t impressed with the Undesirable Common Rooms’ rules about hygiene and he came to submit a formal complaint.

Again? Maya put her bag on the white glass-looking desk and sat down. She connected her eGlass with the Social Services network, signed in, and went to the Soup Kitchen menus.

First was the menu for Angel Park’s soup kitchen, which for now included only dates, fourteen of them. The various meals were listed on the left side and were grouped into breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The first time she had done fortnight menus, she’d made one menu for all the kitchens: She just tapped on the meals, adding three meals plus a vegetarian option to each day, then had the program calculate the ingredients based on the number of Undesirables registered at the kitchens — which updated every time a new Undesirable registered to it, or every time one died. It was something that a simple program could do. But just four days into the menu, the voice messages had started to pour in, and the Undesirables’ displeasure with her choice of food was quite evident. She now made different menus for each kitchen, after checking the statistics on cancelled and returned meals.

She went to the directory where she found the table with that data for Angel Park’s kitchen and opened it. She first went to see Cruz’s statistics, even though whenever he disliked something, he made sure to notify her about it the same day. That man lived to complain. She shook her head, rolling her eyes, then focused on the data. Just four returned meals and three cancelled. That’s not bad, she thought, but then she saw the number of unclaimed meals. Thirty-two. And all from one person: Leonardo Leif.

She went to the Angel Park kitchen’s register and looked him up. He was still registered there. Mr Oliver.

The old man looked at her.

I have a whole week of unclaimed meals from Leonardo Leif. He’s still registered at Angel Park.

A whole week, you say? Maybe he is getting food somewhere else. Some Good Samaritan could be feeding him.

It could be. But she doubted it because if that was true, there was a good chance that Leif would have sold his meals to somebody else. It was something some of the Undesirables did to get money, since if they were caught begging, they could lose their ‘Undesirable’ status, and with those three meals a day, the use of the Undesirables Common Rooms, the use of showers, a sleeping pod, and a small storage unit.

Or he could be dead and they haven’t found him yet, Mr Oliver said. It wouldn’t be the first time.

No, it wouldn’t be the first time. The death rate among the Undesirables was quite high. But usually, they were found in a day or two. From the data she had studied, she remembered that there had been a case of four days’ worth of unclaimed lunches, but she couldn’t remember if there had ever been a case of having a week’s worth. She checked the database, including all the country’s kitchens and the last ten years. No, the four days seemed to be the longest time it had taken to find out about the death of an Undesirable. What should I do? Take him off the register or leave him on?

I’ll call the police and notify them about Leif’s situation, so for now, leave him on.

Okay, she said and returned to the menus. While he talked to the police, she found two more cases of unclaimed food. One was two days’ worth of meals and another one day. Nothing out of the ordinary. She finished with the menus two hours later. I’m done. Is there anything else you need me to do?

I have some data I need sorted out, he told her. And some memos that have to be sent out.

It took her another hour to do that, and when she finished, he asked her if she could do him a favour.

When I notified the police about Mr Leif, they said it would be good if I could talk with some of Mr Leif’s friends. I don’t know even who he is, let alone who his friends are, which I told them. His mouth narrowed in irritation. They demanded I send them Angel Park’s kitchen register so they would know who to talk to and they will get to it as soon as they can. Which is probably in a month, if not more, which means that if Mr Leif doesn’t show up, we will be wasting this department’s resources. So, I was thinking of talking with Mr Cruz about Mr Leif. He knows everything about everybody; if anybody knew Mr Leif, he would. He’s usually at Angel Park from ten to one, which is just around the corner, but right now I’m busy with this month’s budget, which is going to take me all week to sort out, and I won’t have time to visit Angel Park. So I was hoping you would go and talk with Mr Cruz instead of me.

She frowned, remembering the last time she’d had to deal with Cruz, two weeks ago, when he had come to the office, all upset about something or other, pacing around and acting like a diva having a tantrum. Oliver had needed at least fifteen minutes to calm him down. I guess I could.

He imagines himself as a representative of Angel Park’s Undesirables; if you tell him you came to him because you’re aware he has influence in the community, he’ll be more inclined to cooperate.

I see. She logged out of the system and turned off her keyboard. She put on her jacket, hung her bag over her shoulder, and, with a goodbye, left the office and then the building. When she stepped onto the pavement, she turned left, her gaze going past the passers-by to the trees that were visible between the buildings.

She straightened her spine and lifted her chin. If she had to talk to Cruz, she might as well use this opportunity to gather some information for her thesis. Yeah, she could do that. The frown that had been on her face turned into a small smile and the step she directed towards Angel Park, twenty minutes away by foot, was light, almost bouncy.

From the corner of her eye, she saw herself reflected in the glass of the building. She rolled her eyes at herself before she turned her attention forward. AVTARs and drones flew over her head almost silently, bicycles breezed by on her left side over the solar cells embedded in the bike path, and a flower bed away, Units of various sizes and colours drove across the grassway, where droplets of water, the remains of the rain shower an hour ago, sparkled on the green blades. A couple walked ahead of her; a small distance away were a mother and a child, while behind her was a group of holograms — tourists, she assumed, since they talked in a foreign language.

After fifteen minutes, she caught a glimpse of the park, framed by a wrought-iron fence. She reached the crossing, the packed earth that looked like a wide forest path, waited for the floating square with a pedestrian drawn on it to turn green, then walked across the road to the arched entrance into the park.

The park had been the same for hundreds of years, famous for the marble fountain with angels in the middle of it, with a domed shield that protected it