Dinner 4_1: Dinner 4_1, #1

By J.A. Thomas

Rabbit Holdings continues to prosper on its baseline motto and assumption: "Human are hedonists." With 100% confidence that The Reforms, although antagonistic to the illicit drugs trade and branded merchandising, will prove beneficial for their performance in the long view. And they were right. Even though the measures set forth during The Reformation led to widespread panic throughout most lines of businesses during the war and commenced in an internet blackout that disturbed the entire digital supply chain eco-system, it in turn created a dependency on the structures and systems Run Rabbit so fortuitously supplies. Instead of discouraging the consumer from corporate medium and technologies, The Blackout resulted in a reflection of the human spirit and its utter dependency on the machine. Telephone Bar exists as an antithesis to this movement online but is controlled by the same peoples and systems that father the machines. In looking for an escape from the box, consumers find themselves slaves to new forms and shapes of technology's shackles. Still, automation breeds convenience and status quo. The incorporated territories of Post Reform America are a product of these silver linings. New York's Area 5 is no exception.

 

Telephone agents promise nostalgia—a return to innocence during a time before point and click. Nostalgia brought to you hot and fresh from the same people that brought you the driverless car. Officer Marcus Anderson patrols the 5 and he isn't much for stupid games. As far as he's concerned, the party ended the day he left Orange County. But from time to time, he finds himself wanderlust to the lure of modern devices. Like most of Area 5 service members, he loathes the machines. When it comes to people, he's optimistic. Most of the public is just happy the internet is back on nowadays. Others are glad the streets are clean again. It's the little things that matter.

 

Telephone agents promise nostalgia—a return to innocence during a time before point and click. Nostalgia brought to you hot and fresh from the same people that brought you the driverless car. Officer Marcus Anderson patrols the 5 and he isn't much for stupid games. As far as he's concerned, the party ended the day he left Orange County. But from time to time he finds himself wanderlust to the lure of modern devices. Like most of Area 5 service members, he loathes the machines. When it comes to people, he's optomistic. Most of the public is just happy the internet is back on nowadays. Others are glad the streets are clean again. It's the little things that matter.

• Language: English
• Publisher: J.A. Thomas
• Release date: Dec 29, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393582687

J.A. Thomas

Free resources available at: DRUGFR33.ORG --- J.A. Thomas is a crisis intervention counselor, award winning writer, author of The Dinner 4_1 series, and founder of DrugFr33.org . As a computer scientist, former Fortune 500 IT consultant, and clinical mental health researcher & clinician (TBI, BT, VT, PTSD), J.A.'s works feature a distinctive lens on the technology landscape and human-computer interaction. J.A. Thomas holds a bachelors degree from U.C.L.A. and masters degree in social work from Fordham University. A mental health parity advocate, J.A. Thomas spent over seven years interviewing active duty & retired law enforcement and veterans to inform and shape the narrative and tactical scope of her works. Her books place a focal lens on the intersection of faith and technology. Thomas hosts the nonpartisan late night national podcast program "Unfollow," which focuses on mental health parity for the digital native and media accountability. Thomas was a platform engineer and business analyst for notable companies such as Sony, Cleopatra Records, Timex, McKesson, United Water, SecureFleet, and ATCC Global. Thomas has helped expose the deep astroturf network of mass marketing and special interests that influence and control the digital landscape, social media and much of what people consume every day on the Internet. Other books in J.A. Thomas' portfolio deal with institutions & technology. The Dinner 4_1 and 27 Series explore the dangers of automation and digital immersion in the lovelorn Free Cities of a society decimated and reconfigured by technology corporations and the pharmaceutical industry. J.A. Thomas' fictional works belong to the realm of psychological thriller and convey how every act of kindness and cruelty, no matter how small, echo and reverberate throughout time and space.

Book preview

Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.

― Carl Sagan

For the brave men and women of law enforcement.

Dinner 4_1: Alcatraz 2020

Map Description automatically generated

1  Contents

2 My Mirror No Longer Reflects

3 The Outsiders

4 Below the Bar

5 No Device Connected

6 With Love, All is Possible

7 Shallow Times

8 The Magician’s Curse

9 An Arcade Fire

10 Three Hots and Cot

11 As a user, I would like to

12 Graceland

13 The Actor and The Gentleman

14 Project Nostalgia

15 Little Earthquakes

16 Strike That, Reverse It

17 Space Race

I’ll eat in the darkness tonight

So I won’t see my reflection

I’ll put out a place for you

Like I did last night and the night before

I’ll eat in the darkness tonight

Like I did last night the night before

I'm online.

Telephone

2  My Mirror No Longer Reflects

Marcus cuffs her as the patrol drone reads her rights. The halo lights emanate a blue spherical orbit around her wrists like icy bracelets. The restraints are hospitable. The girl doesn’t make a sound. These types of arrests are always surprising to Anderson himself. In his first year patrolling Area 5, his arrests didn’t delineate much from domestics, assaults and property crimes in The Wash. These past few months, he’s seen more of these Fed cases than he can count.

Left with no other options to control human trafficking, officers are directed to arrest victims and perps with equivalent discretion. The protocol serves a dual purpose:

1)  It protects the safety of survivors.

2)  It contributes to the vast data collection methods needed to trace the trafficking rings, which have grown prevalent among The Big Three.

Left naked and barren by the stripping of corporations and brands to their bare britches, The Reforms led to the total dismantling and reassembling of the entertainment universe. Tabula Rasa left a blank canvas for the world’s paintbrush. People are creating again. Free from the shackles of big studios, name brand and production labels, music, film, and television are thriving in unprecedented ways. And, of course, the sex industry is booming in The Big Three.

Those who lost their jobs during Reformations and the years to follow the American Opioid Crises are known demographically by their median credit scores. The Lower Middle-Class Evacuee or LME is a member of a service class by the State. Officer Marcus Anderson is a member of this service class, along with 90 percent of Americans in the country.

Still, LME’s are codified as such to protect their human rights, as slated by the Center for Economic Growth’s Post Reformation Declaration. A large driving force behind The Big Three’s return to flourishment is the Center’s partnership with Run Rabbit Technologies in San Francisco and their rapid deployment of autonomous cleaning fleets across the affected evacuation zones during The War. The maneuver saved taxpayers billions and the cleanup effort that followed has effectively employed the majority of LMEs left jobless or homeless during the crises. In the end, the merging contracts hailed a victory for both the private and public sectors alike. Run Rabbit’s purchase of the demilitarized zones outlying The Big Three is probably the greatest real estate deal of all time.

The zones are named according to their ascension into Run Rabbit’s public health Post Reform contacts. Los Angeles, being the first to adopt Rabbit’s faculty for transportation reform, is called Area 3. New York, quick to follow in the footsteps of its cross-country cousin, is called Area 5. Though it reveled in its ability to hold out from federal aid during the opioid crises, San Francisco gathered its effects and reorganized itself into Area 7 after war’s end. Luckily, Run Rabbit is native to the Valley so it made San Francisco’s transformational sweep as quickly and fluidly as possible. Most Area 7 evacs cannot recall distinct memories of The Wars themselves, pupils dilated with the flashing lights of the present tense and neon outfitted dancehalls awaiting their pleasure starved bodies. The internet was only down for a handful of months, but to San Franciscans and the lot of folks all over the world, it felt like an eternity in purgatory.

Total cost 110 billion dollars.

The opening of a venue, storefront, or even dry cleaner is a gala day for any of The Big Three, whose consumers are willing to buy anything that was deprived of them during Reformation. To both the evac and well-to-do alike, it is worth every single penny. People in The Big Three are safe again and living a new normal.

Anderson shakes his head and stabilizes the drone into autopilot. His reporting panel reads. Name: Unknown. Female. 16. As above, he thinks. Anderson’s bright green eyes glow against the gaudy black lightbulbs in Telephone Bar like rare gemstones against gas station neon light. They’re beautiful and sad—the type of eyes that are always wet with emotion. He’s carrying the weight of the universe on his shoulders and he’s running off the McDonald’s French fries he scarfed down before the last rush. Crime is fast in the Wash and officers get zero breaks in incorporated territories, but at least the arches have vending machines now. Automation has its perks.

Sgt. Nichols sounds over his radio, You secure the area yet freshman? Her voice is soothing against the backdrop of brass and dated dubstep bleeding through the walls. And although she continues to salt him on his rank, Marcus knows her well enough that she only kids because she cares. (Anderson graduates from field training this fall under Teresa’s supervision) "Stand together. Apart," means something entirely different in police work. Namely, it removes FTOs physically from their trainees making it great for the bottom line and noticeably terrifying for cops.

Hold your horses Sarge, Anderson bides his time. He hasn’t the heart to tell Teresa he’s found another one.

Why does everything you say sound like you’re eleven-ty billion years old 21? We gotta skijet. It’s norter past quine and you’re late for a very important date. Nichols has a way with spoonerisms although the lot of them are wasted on officers in Area 5 that don’t quite understand her wry sense of humor.

Some of us are not as ageless as you Sarge. It’s true, Teresa Nichols, an NYPD-5 patrol officer for going on fourteen years, doesn’t show the faintest signs of age or calamity of her youth. Benjamin Button is one of her guys’ favorite nicknames for her should the ballbusters find their opportunity to shine. It’s not that she’s particularly fetching or pronouncedly gorgeous. She is beautiful—that’s not embellishment, but the mystery lay more in the fact that she looks the same as she did in her Academy grad photograph snapped decades years ago. The beats in The Big Three tend to take a toll on the thickest of hides. It’s not rare for a stranger to ask for an officer’s age over their badge number or name ID anyway—the latter being outlawed in the big cities.

In Nichols’ experience, people won’t admit it, but they still love surprises. Its another reason she supposes people ask her age regardless of the occasion. Surprises are hard to come by in The Big Three nowadays. Things are morphologically organized and clean in New York. People rarely talk to strangers outside incident. Nowadays, you have to find your own kicks and create your own dangers.

Such a proclivity is unshared amongst the force. Perhaps it is the nature of police work itself—the grueling hours, the thankless nights spent sweeping up the remnants of a stranger's day. What could surprise and delight the average LME would bring equivalent ambivalence to someone like Nichols, who finds herself longing for a simpler moment of solitude free of the violence that accompanies the beat. In all her time in Area 5, she’s encountered surprises at every turn—not one of them welcome or pleasant.

Perhaps Anderson really does stem from a different cloth, she wonders as she steadies her mic on her shoulder.

Funny, she laughs, We cured the Opioid Crisis, quelled masse public hysteria, stopped a global pandemic and we've been using the same 2 ways since the 70s.

Actually 2 ways are from the 1920s. Marcus interrupts coyly from his end.

Nichols’ eyes roll deeply forming two pale white dots where green once lived, Who are you— Google?

Anderson gets away with a lot of his ego and know-it-all-isms on account of his good looks, but he’s earned some chips in his armor along the way. He's still relatively new among the Area-5 patrolmen, those that stuck it out past The Reforms that made the job even more difficult to navigate.

Along with the rise of Post Reform entertainment and the bells and whistles that followed came the reorganization of public works, social services and municipalities. Front line workers were promised certain benefits such as hazard pay, increased PTO and even private pension incentives as reward for their continued services both during and after The War. The only qualifying conditions for receiving such benefits were outlined in a memorandum expressing the urgent need for private investors to restructure and reorganize The Big Three.

Unfortunately, the term front line worker was misinterpreted amongst many in the force to include, inter alia, nurses, firefighters, medics, and, of course, police officers. The vernacular in the legislation that passed the landslide Reforms effective into perpetuity is reflective to include doctors and pharmacists only.

Disappointed to say the least, in both the brass for allowing the oversight and in her fellow man for continuing to endorse the newly cemented legislation in its precedented sophomore year, Nichols makes it a point to not read the news anymore. She’s quick to switch off any and all of her mates' station monitors if she catches a single headline or brief. It’s not that Teresa is some tin foil hat wearing skeptic. She just doesn’t like falsities. Nichols figures the set may surprise her or one of her guys with something informative or hopeful only to obliterate it the next day.

I’m really glad you hooked one tonight. Nichols finds herself proud watching her partner ascend in the ranks. Just a few months prior, she’d have thought him done for. A kid fresh off the party bus from Disneyland, California and he still hasn’t lost the skip in his step after working the trains for a buck. She’s beginning to think that this is about as maternal an instinct she’ll ever feel.

Anderson's patrol unit pulls up and he places the girl in the back. The cuffs disband. It's surprising that Area agencies are supplied with restraints of any kind nowadays granted the Reform's unprecedented lens on prisoner rights.

There is no cage separation in fleet patrol vehicles either. Each unit is outfitted with a ride along drone that senses passengers bio rhythms and issues a shock to any party that calculates a threatening score on the Risk-10 metric scale. The Risk-10, formerly employed by partners of Run Rabbit's pharmaceutical segment in their research studies, is proving quite beneficial in monitoring both the arrested and service member. The technology also reduces overhead costs by a third as it allows for Rabbits obsolete or elsewise aging product lines be more readily convertible for municipal use.

For the officer, it's a nightmare within a nightmare.

As a user, I would like to

It’s become a jib amongst Fivers coming onto the beat to pepper new officers. Since sprays are long since obsolete, there’s no better way to welcome a fresh new face than a stun issued from a patrol Phantom. The implementation of Rabbit’s pre-equipped fleets makes it that much easier to haze. It’s not to say that supervisors take a blind eye to the practice—Sergeants of a saltier era like Nichols find it barbaric to share a car with a robot let alone a weaponized one. It’s more of a clean slate nod to the inevitable short comings of contract negotiations between law enforcement and their newfound corrupt overlords from the private sector. Innovation breeds the beast and compliance makes her purr.

Run Rabbit’s innovation practice boasts its company mission to Promote and Protect The Safety and Happiness of the Consumer. Since their full adhesive incorporation as de-militarized areas of the State in 2021, Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco are quickly become the star test tube control babies for the new world. Luckily, news moves faster than the speed of light, and their cribs are stories enough to captivate the newly re-awakening evacuees. Had a working-class household outside The Big Three felt ignored or invisible prior to The Reforms, they now have no choice but to sit and watch in awe as the fresh celebrity child actors take the center stage like daffy marionettes on thin ice.

The polarization between the evac and the rich feels like static snow. Teresa is haunted by shadows at dusk—the way they bend into the night the longer one looks at them. There’s no remorse from the sun for its shadow, or across the set of its stationary ghost. When someone disappears in the night, the soul picking up the pieces is an officer—evacs sweeping up the remains of other evacs.

The noticeable dissemination of the working middle class remains largely unnoticeable some five years removed from Reformation. People feel it. They live, taste, and breathe it. Yet most find themselves feeling very lucky to be alive and well in the first place after The War. Well, most people feel lucky. Others remain in perpetual fluxing states of paranoia and anger. Evacs in The Free Cities are afraid of leaving the newly incorporated zones. The better off are afraid of leaving The Wash. Theirs is a fear that is palpable and tantric like the type of hormonal rage fogging up specs after years and years of sitting behind the gal he’ll never touch in a million years even if he tried. 

Sergeant Nichols is just now getting over her rudimentary first impression vibes about her former boot. Gifted with a supreme judge of character, Teresa is usually able to, Spot ‘em like when she sees ‘em, friend or foe alike. Something about Anderson threw her from the beginning. She steadies herself in her console. This is supposed to be a 10-hour tour. It’s been fourteen so far.

She smirks, Maybe I’ll get you on a riddle so hard you’ll get your cherry popped by that drone 21.

Spoken like a true friend T. Marcus is yet to experience the Phantom unit’s stun capability. He finds himself lucky to be paired with a partner who cares. It’s become harder to maintain comradery of their breed these days. Reforms means Stand together. Apart in the broadest of senses. LMEs no longer shake hands. People would have to go out of their way to feel bonded to one another. Sometimes Marcus switches off his autopilot and listens to the static beam over the radio.

Something about never knowing when a shock may come is exciting to Anderson. He’ll never admit it, but one of the reasons he left Orange County was to wake up.

Just make sure to make it hurt when you do it, he says. Nichols can here him smiling on the other end. He’s not sly enough to hide a feeling. There’s nothing static or stationary about him. In Teresa’s experience, sly people are one dimensional. Anderson is a good ole’ fashion Rubik’s.

If not for the age disparity or fundamental attraction to bad boys, Teresa wonders if she and the freshman would ever hit it off. It’s hard to delineate her feelings from one day to the next considering the circumstances. Area 5 imposes strict regulations on all patrol officers, many of which allude to the restrictions of fraternizing and extra-curricular activities between service members. Besides, working in The Free Cities is dangerous and even more-so for the LME. Why complicate things?

Teresa pulls up Anderson’s Vise coordinates from her deck, Hell if the price is right, I’ll take your sister out for a steak dinner after. Get her a nice Chardonnay.

Anderson checks his review and sees that the girl has fallen asleep. He doesn’t have a sister. He lowers his voice out of habit, You’re a gentleman, T. Just make sure to call her after you two kids knock around.

You know T’s ladies get the VIP treatment. I may take her to Telephone after. Set her up proper. Officer Nichols has a way with words. Surprisingly, it isn’t the beat that seasons her shake. Her lingo's been bingo since her days spent bent over math homework trying to invent another excuse for the NYPS system as to where in Jack City the bruises came from this time. Growing up, Teresa became so good with concealer that she can make consecutive shift under-eyes look like the cover of Vanity Fair.

Telephone Bar never interested Teresa. The thought of going into a space crawling with vermin never phased her—occupational hazard. But the mere mention of engaging in a socialized activity with strangers is a whole other story. For as long as she can remember, Teresa has had her reservations about other people. Her introduction to the world was cruel to say the least. The people in her life that were supposed to shield her from the evils in this world were instead insistent on inflicting the mortal coil on her.

Nichols doesn’t flinch at the mention of line ups or inspection. As much disdain she has for the private sector, big tech does have its perks. Work companionship is much more a welcomed affair to her. And although deep down in her heart there exists a longing to be loved, she still cannot help but feeling alone in a room full of friends. Naturally, although she plays along with a strong suit of armor, jokes about nightlife are lost on her. Luckily, she’s hasn’t been called out to investigate one of the spots in The Wash since her own FT, nonetheless Telephone Bar. She’d have stayed detective if she wanted to permanently erase herself from the circus. She supposed perhaps Anderson is right when he assures her about the good nature of people. She used to believe in it herself even with all the hacksaws thrown her way. Still, Nichols isn’t lonely and feels that losing oneself in work is better than losing oneself to the bottle, or even worse, some silly game.

Telephone Bar, originally opened as The Free Cities answer to the reboot of the American entertainment venue, is known as an adult paradise. The American Opioid Crises had, in turn, wiped much of the filth from consumer facing business and commerce in during the turn of the 20s. The Reforms took care of the remaining pipelines. Tabula Rasa not only meant the stripping down of corporate monolith to their birthday suits, but also meant a golden ticket for innovation.

It’s sad, she continues as she watches Anderson’s unit edge into the Riker’s loading bay. People love their freedom, but they can’t stand to be alone. It’s like we take every chance we get to talk to strangers for granted.

Marcus is familiar with sadness and the ashes of time. Like those with emotional quotients high for their age, it started within himself, but the sadness was fully realized by watching his mother. She became a nameless shadow somewhere between the cracks of his dad’s Sunday morning sports section and the hot concrete outside their dated OC track home. Star high school athletes aren’t supposed to take these routes or make these types of decisions independently. Five star running backs don’t become cops. By the time he opted for Academy over the game, his mom was already in the blind. Part of Anderson knew that he’d have to walk it alone. The sadness he saw in his mother is one he detects in everyone now. It’s subtle but it drapes like thick tar. If you let it, the sadness will suffocate you.

He tries for the best of words but finds few, It’s disappointment. Strangers disappoint people.

It is said that if you stand in just the right spots in Telephone Bar that one can hear a whisper from another section of the venue some 72 feet removed from each other. The theory is tested nightly by tourists mainly and largely the rumors have been dispelled. It’s just never quite quiet enough to test the theory at its capacity and, when it is quiet enough, it’s too silent to tell. Still, the barkeeps and regulars insist that, though they’ve not successfully employed the game themselves, that they know somebody who knows somebody who did.

Amen 21, Nichols automatically feels better when her officers return from Wash areas safely. Area-5 is dangerous to begin with. Since Reformation, a handful of lawless well-to-do rebels are deciding to take their aggressions out on law enforcement by targeting officers directly. This is the first watch in over three months that Nichols can report moderate marks on officer safety. The term ‘Safety’ has evolved since The Reforms to protect the safety of the suspect more than that of the officer.

None of the twelve officers she is supervising today has encountered a life-threatening event at the intent of a Wash inhabitant today —Fan-freaking-tastic. Last month, there were 11,520 attacks on officers in Area-5 alone. That is close to 30 percent of the patrol force affected. Because Run Rabbit’s fleet systems do not account injuries or assaults on officers as a part of its reporting, the attacks go largely unaccounted. Protecting officers from violent hate crimes is quickly become a matter in which company wide has been termed Embracing the Suck. In the wake of injustice, many are being silenced. Some are coerced into early retirement. Others are forced to watch the forest burn. Instead of improving officer safety, Area-5 opted to open its recruitment strategy to include new external forces, hence Anderson’s Inverse Manifest Destiny as he likes to call it.

Washers are typically well-off which makes them hard to spot for the less discerning eye. He looks like your friendly neighborhood drone operated out for an IPA with some of his old Sigma Chi brothers. She looks like a fashion blogger who came into some hefty pocket change after her company hocking fancy soaps or designer enzymes went public after The Reforms. She smells like expensive