Mind Your Own Business

By Bryan Whelan

Life in Melbourne in the 2080s had become very oppressive, very regimented. Social media had become so automated, so intrusive, and so smart that everyones lives were an open book. No one would ever dare to do anything outrageous or underhanded as they were guaranteed to be found out. It was the publics apathy that led to this society of conformity. Public opinion ruled your life. For three friends, enough was enough! They set out on a series of quests to fight the system and retrieve the one thing that people had forgotten was so dear to themtheir privacy!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Oct 10, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524516581

Bryan Whelan

The fourth in the Lincoln Cain Spy series from the pen of Bryan Whelan, following on from Edge of Reality, The Hexagonal Dome and The Bandaid Conspiracy. Bryan is a retired Maths, Science and Information Technology teacher from Australia, who has been a fan of science fiction all his life. Author of several science fiction adventure stories, including The Swirling Lights of Paradise, The Hives of God’s World and Truth of Time, he injects a distinctly Australian flavour to them.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Noah Arkonsen walked out the Government building where he worked. It was the end of another tedious day, watching screens and screens of figures. Tracking financial records of Government officials was not his idea of a worthwhile career but it was a job at least. But today was the day he was going to do it. Hang the consequences, life was too tedious! The sea of his patience had burst its banks. It was time to have a physical release!

He pulled his hoodie over his head as it looked like it was about to rain. He walked along at a brisk pace but not so fast as to draw attention. He had decided for once in his humdrum co-operative existence to walk all the way home. It was about twenty blocks. Everyone these days caught either the tram or train home. It was the done thing as it showed that you had a positive attitude to your fellow citizens and supported public transport. Governments liked that, especially for Government employees. Public opinion would ruin you if you stepped out of line. Noah was taking a grave risk.

His hoodie covered his gaunt face and jet black hair. He was thin, somewhat short, some would describe him as wiry. His full length coat also hid his features from view. He did not want Skycam tracking his movements today of all days. His one day of defiance! If one of those cameras identified him walking all the way home, it would appear, not only on his personal pages but the public ones as well. And when public opinion get a hold of such a radical action like this, his future was going to be grim. He knew was fooling himself. Skycam would capture his actions without any shadow of doubt. They were just that good! But he had resigned himself to make the attempt anyway. Anything to get out this rut!

Getting labelled as a walker rather than a public traveller would not only incur the wrath of the general public but more particularly, his work colleagues. Government officials can be much more judgemental that normal employees. It’s just their nature. If they found out (or when they find out) what he was doing, his life in his boring job would become a living hell or he may not have a job at all.

The first few blocks were exhilarating. The overwhelming joy of doing something he has longed to do for years was such an emotional release. A few drops fell on his face. It was beginning to rain! He quickly moved over to a nearby newsstand and purchased a disposable umbrella. Walking in the rain was seen as outside normal behaviour but could draw unnecessary attention unless he was suitably covered. As the rain became heavier, it was like watching a formation dance team of thousands as everyone on the street stopped and put up an umbrella. The congestion suddenly became even worse as most umbrellas were of the old fashion type and took up much more space than just one person. Which was fortuitous for him in some ways. He could now walk all the way home and not worry about those ever present cameras in the sky tracking his movements. All they would observe is a sea of umbrellas, at least he convinced himself that would be the case even though he would be found out anyway.

A quick double check on his device reassured him that his presence on the street was not being highlighted on the public pages yet, not even in his personal pages. Skycam and the Book were usually that quick in uploading such things. Thank goodness! So with hands in pockets, his umbrella attached to his back collar, he proceeded to walk all the way home. The pleasure of this was the most excitement he had had in years. He put the ever present sky cameras out of his mind and just enjoy every step of his walk.

The euphoria of his physical activity sent his mind back to the days when his father used to tell him stories of when he was a boy. He did this often. Mainly to keep the memory of his father alive. It was back in the 2020s when they still had primitive forms of communications. Something called Skype where you had to both be at a terminal in order to communicate. The video that went with it, was like watching a person in slow motion. And of course surveillance was pretty much a manual exercise. So you could with effort, keep your life to yourself. They even had people who were able to choose not to be on-line. Today in the 2080s, that choice has long gone.

Noah smiled to himself when he recalled his father’s explanation of the original Book. They actually called it Facebook. It was where the idea of pages came from. His humour was centred on the quaint rules they imposed to make sure that no one would be able to view anyone’s personal page unless they wanted to.

But humans being human, quickly fell into the trap of sharing whatever they could. It was like an addiction to show off what they had done with friends and family. The more outrageous, the better. It took some years for people to realise that it was more of a cancer and those outrageous antics became the downfall of so many. But the damage was done. Most were addicted to the point that they had to show what they had done, no matter how outlandish. The consequences be dammed. And technology, according to his father, started to grow at an exponential rate. Governments even tried to legislate the production of new devices to slow down the growth of technology. Social practices and even the law could not keep up and it was getting left further and further behind. The will of the people always won out.

Social pressure and the appetite for better devices brought forth many new changes. Social etiquette, laws and even individual behaviour just had to find a way to cope with the avalanche of technical wizardry. Eventually Facebook became just the Book once the almighty Google launched its Cloud Satellites. By then the cost of data was now so close to zero and virtually unlimited, so that no one had any excuse not to be connected. The Government simply gave into public pressure and connected everyone whether they wanted to or not. It made public records so much easier to manage and reduced fraud to nearly zero. This led to the development of Skycam as video and images by then were just as prevalent as text. Skycam was clever. It simply ran off the back of the cloud satellites by installing very sophisticated video cameras in them. Thus Skycam, the Book and Google more or less became one large worldwide shared conglomerate.

As Noah crossed the street, just six blocks from home, his confidence allowed him to venture a look upwards. No doubt, his image would be captured on some camera somewhere but he was more interested in checking if the rain had stopped. It had. So he ditched his umbrella in a waste disposal bin nearby. He heard the familiar zapping sound that the bin made as it reduced the umbrella to bare atoms. Those atoms would then go into making something else. Maybe shoes or even a roadside barrier. Who knows?

Noah resumed his walk home but kept his head down. His euphoria was still with him but there was no need to tempt fate. He was lost in thought, wondering how would it be ever possible to permanently dodge the ever present Skycam? In his father’s day, all cameras were fixed on poles and such and flying cameras were just a novelty. It took years for someone to come up with the idea of keeping visual tabs on everyone every day using such devices. By then the cost of producing those ancient drones was as cheap as a carton of milk. The software had grown to a point where it could analyse a person’s habits and report on them. Be it positive or negative. But then the power players, Facebook, Google and Skycam came up with the idea of satellite technology to cover the whole Earth. Fixed and drone cameras were still used in closed and covered areas but they became an extension of Skycam. Individual freedom disappeared the next day thought Noah.

Every movement could now be captured on camera forever. It could now not only be automatically analysed but worse yet, be judged and catalogued accordingly. Rather than rely on individuals to post events on their pages, Skycam and Book technology would do it automatically. This could free up people to do more productive things.

The reality was somewhat different. People really did not have anything more productive to do. In contrast, the technology gave them instant access to just about everything and let them be a fly on the wall to anyone’s life. And humans being human, it did not take long for the judgements to come in thick and fast. Even today, the comment section still exists and is the single most written text by all. This eventually led to people being persecuted by the general public for all sorts of misdemeanours. In Noah’s father’s time, the cynics called these judgemental people, the fun police. The name stuck and eventually turned from being a term of ridicule to a term of hatred.

So many people in those days had their careers ruined by the most innocuous actions. Noah even recalled as a child reading about a state premier being dismissed because of all the negative comments he received on the public page when he was recorded by Skycam arguing with one of his opponents. The problem was that his opponent was walking with a cane. Even though the argument had nothing to do with his opponent’s disability, public opinion was so weighted that his career was over in a flash.

The Governments of the day had no inkling of the type of restricted society they were creating. They could only see the benefits from their immediate concerns. With public opinion now having so much sway because of their instant access to such private information, no one in public office was game to do anything out of the ordinary. And the ordinary became more ordinary as each year passed. Even criminals would think twice about committing crime because Skycam could not only catch you in the act but identify you by tracking your movements. The police looked at this as a godsend for their service and Governments were only interested in the plummeting crime figures.

The fun police was now the term the secret cynics called the Government. But it really could not be held accountable for everything. It’s just that they sat back and let things happen. If anyone decided to do something outrageous, say something as mundane as wearing jeans to work instead of a suit, they either had to be prepared to defend it publically or risk being removed from said office for not complying with public opinion. And who would then hire such a radical after that? No business could take the risk of losing sales by hiring someone who was that non-conformist.

So everyone conformed. It was much easier than fighting social norms each day. It was like society had just given up. No one could be bothered standing up for any form of radicalism. People like Noah were literally scared off trying anything new or outrageous. So Noah’s decision to walk twenty blocks to home took on a whole new level of bravado.

Noah was now walking up his front path to his door in his modest little apartment. He almost felt a sense of relief having finally had the guts to carry out such an act. But he could not help thinking as he opened the front door, just who was really in control of his society? Who made the rules the fun police enforced? And what was going to happen to him now?

CHAPTER 2

Being a Government employee afforded Noah a reasonable abode. It was an apartment in a large block of units in Brunswick. He had the place decorated with turtles. Turtle posters, turtle statues and even a turtle shaped couch. They were Noah’s thing. He was astute enough to realise that each person to be politically conforming must have some form of innocent passion. He decided on turtles. He even kept a turtle in a terrarium. He called it Logo. It was named after some ancient software program his father had told him about.

Noah fixed his evening meal by throwing it into the microwave. While it was being zapped, he turned on the TV. He really just wanted some noise in the house. These days, TV was dominated by reality and cooking shows. Things had not changed in nearly a century. The only exception was that the ‘reality’ part of the show was publically shown to be faked so as to protect the poor innocents who signed their lives away to be portrayed as either evil or idiots on screen. The upshot of that was these shows lost all credibility. Not that they ever had any. But the masses liked to watch and be entertained by the outrageous antics of these supposed real people acting. It was a form of escapism for them as their own lives were so restricted.

Noah’s main form of entertainment was his movie satellite service. Movies were main escapism of the more discerning individual. They could forget their mundane existence and watch someone on screen having a real adventure. But again, the amount of information, comment and criticism of each movie detracted from its impact. So many good movies were canned by people willing to make comments, that the movie industry were now really hesitant to make movies that did not have some form of guaranteed success or socially acceptable message. So sequels of sequels and remakes of remakes are now the order of the day.

Noah was now munching on something in a silver bowl and trying not to take too much notice of the show on the telly. He was quite tired and starting to slip into a coma. Boring job plus long hours makes Noah a very sleepy boy. But an unusually happy boy. He had walked all the way home! This was probably going to be the highlight of his week, probably his year! He knew that the consequences of it were not going to be pleasant but he was happy to just enjoy the moment. As he was fast slipping into sleep, his last thoughts were again of his father. How he missed him.

His father was Jaxon Arkonsen. He was a software engineer in the pioneer days of the development of Skycam and the Book in the early 2100s. But unlike most people he could see the dangers that this technology was going to make. His software was the brainchild of new security devices that could not only observe but analyse. Despite the fact that he was connected with a large security company, or maybe because of it, he became a champion of privacy. His public criticisms of Government policy in relation to one’s personal data brought him into the spotlight.

The Government of the day were no fools. They saw the easiest way to remove such a nuisance was to beat him at his own game. So soon after his findings were made public, he was the subject of a scandal. Someone had hacked his email records and he was found to be having an affair with one of his employees. His campaign was finished before it got started. This ruined his career. His wife divorced him. His girlfriend stuck with him and Noah was the result. But his new love died in a car accident soon after and he had to bring Noah up himself. He eventually died in a plane crash when Noah was only thirteen. Noah idolised his father who would tell him stories about what life was like before Skycam and the Book. He was so grateful for those thirteen years with his father.

Noah learned all the intricate details of his father’s fall from grace after some newspaper thought it would be a good idea to dredge it all up again after a similar incident occurred. Poor Noah was only nine at the time and he was initially horrified that his