Seven Lost Stories - A Future Decade

By Simone Malacrida

A decade projected into the future of the Earth transforms into a way of imagining what will become of us, divided between a sense of will and thoughts of freedom, between remaining faithful to an inherited tradition or yearning for extreme innovation in an eternal antithesis between doubts and securities.
The future, so uncertain and unknown, materializes in every moment and is built with individual personalized bricks.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simone Malacrida
• Release date: Apr 11, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224701353

Simone Malacrida

Simone Malacrida (1977) Ha lavorato nel settore della ricerca (ottica e nanotecnologie) e, in seguito, in quello industriale-impiantistico, in particolare nel Power, nell'Oil&Gas e nelle infrastrutture. E' interessato a problematiche finanziarie ed energetiche. Ha pubblicato un primo ciclo di 21 libri principali (10 divulgativi e didattici e 11 romanzi) + 91 manuali didattici derivati. Un secondo ciclo, sempre di 21 libri, è in corso di elaborazione e sviluppo.

Book preview

SIMONE MALACRIDA

Seven Lost Stories - A Future Decade

Simone Malacrida (1977)

Engineer and writer, has worked on research, finance, energy policy and industrial plants.

ANALYTICAL INDEX

FREEDOM

I

II

III

WILL

IV

V

VI

TRADITION

VII

VIII

IX

INNOVATION

X

XI

XII

SAFETY

XIII

XIV

XV

DOUBT

XVI

XVII

XVIII

EARTH

XIX

XX

XXI

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

The main protagonists are the result of the author's pure imagination and do not correspond to real individuals, just as their actions did not actually happen. It goes without saying that, for these characters, any reference to people or things is purely coincidental.

Furthermore, being set in the future compared to when they were conceived, the stories and references are completely invented, without any real connection.

A decade projected into the future of the Earth transforms into a way of imagining what will become of us, divided between a sense of will and thoughts of freedom, between remaining faithful to an inherited tradition or yearning for extreme innovation in an eternal antithesis between doubts and securities.

The future, so uncertain and unknown, materializes in every moment and is built with individual personalized bricks.

"But if you ask for a rise

It's no surprise that they're giving none away"

FREEDOM

"It is the evening of the day

I sit and watch the children play

Smiling faces I can see

But not for me

I sit and watch

As tears go by"

I

Boston, January 2036

––––––––

"I was swimming around in a circle

I wasn't always in view.

You said ? We might get into red flag danger

And I am alone when I'm not with you?"

––––––––

A sudden communication threw George's schedule into disarray.

It was said that the architectural firm where he worked had received the commission for a complete restoration, in original style, of the main buildings that constituted two of the main universities in the city, Harvard and Boston University, where George himself he had graduated, more than ten years earlier, in Architecture and Fine Arts.

With a quick gesture, he put away the sensorial glove with which he was moving inside the virtual three-dimensional model of a building being completed.

The office manager had just sent an instant message visible on the screen of every platform to which colleagues and employees connected on a daily basis.

A way to share updates and project progress live.

He glanced at Mick, standing at the other end of the room.

Is it true?

George didn't really believe the rumors that were constantly circulating.

Usually, less than half turned out to be true or valid.

He had been accustomed not to believe a priori what was fed from above.

Only in this way was he able to avoid being overwhelmed by the Drift, as the era of the last twelve years was defined in the United States of America.

It comes without any adjective.

Used in a negative sense for those who opposed the dominant power and in a positive sense for those who sided with it.

For once, everyone was in agreement, as only on a few occasions was it possible to do.

The playing of the national anthem, the Olympics, Thanksgiving and the Super Bowl.

Aside from that, the United States had become the very symbol of internal division.

Without half measures, as has always been their way of doing things.

Mick nodded.

Always positive, in every situation.

With a quiff pulled to the side that was vaguely reminiscent of the fashion of Elvis's time, while George wore his hair almost completely shaved, as if he were going to enlist any day now.

Come on.

With a thrust of his kidneys, he pushed himself and dragged his colleague along.

The announcement room was located exactly in the middle of the office space, a very bright all-glass floor that opened onto a breathtaking view of the city.

In the round, as if you were inside a magical sphere.

You could glimpse all the myriad colors of Boston, from the glacial white of winter, now almost always mixed with grayish, to the splendid green of spring or St. Patrick's Day.

In no particular order, everyone present in the office appeared, while the others connected virtually, providing a hologram avatar of themselves or directly projecting their movements and appearances scanned by the camera integrated into the connection device.

Thus, even if someone had been at home or on a construction site or in any other place, it would have been as if the office environment could expand outside in an indefinite way.

Some sociologist had cataloged such a conception as the end of the concept of privacy and protection of private life with respect to work commitments, but it had been silenced.

There was no longer any time to insinuate doubts.

In particular, those that are counterproductive and therefore hated by both the political and industrial classes.

In full compliance with current laws, the firm had implemented a philosophy of targeted hiring, guaranteeing percentage quotas for each ethnicity and each gender.

The majority had to go to the white ethnic group of European origin and the same could be said for the male component.

It had been one of the most bitterly contested laws but which, after endless legal battles involving the Supreme Court, had put an end to the dictatorship of minorities, at least that was the presidential slogan.

One of the pillars of the Derivative was given precisely by similar provisions which had gradually limited the rights of Asian, African-American, Hispanic minorities and then of the entire galaxy which, once, was called LGBTQIA+, an acronym which has been practically abandoned for several years.

Indeed, irony and battle had broken out precisely over that acronym, underlining the continuous proliferation of new categories.

George, despite not agreeing with any of this, was not interested in the effects on his life.

He limited himself to studying, working and paying taxes, seeking ever greater earnings to increase his standard of living.

Already, at thirty-six, not being married and having children was seen as an attack on national morality.

Beyond that, he hadn't pushed himself.

He was careful not to frequent political or ideological circles or to be an activist.

He didn't idolize anyone and he didn't take sides with anyone and, even if he had had ideas, he wouldn't have expressed them.

An indistinct mass of people who only thought about living, surviving and making money, leaving the battle for the conquest of power to a few minorities.

They're all the same anyway... was the maximum possible protest in that mass in which George felt very comfortable.

Exactly the opposite of his parents, Jerome and Justine, the former with British ancestors and the latter with Irish roots.

The two, who were well over sixty and were about to approach seventy, had always been supporters of the Republicans, in particular of the exponent who had dominated the last twenty years of the party, namely Donald Trump, the only one to have been elected three times since Franklin Delano Roosevelt, although not consecutive.

Because of the coup d'état, otherwise it would have been four times, so his parents had repeatedly underlined, who had returned a few days ago from the anniversary of the so-called march for freedom, a commemoration that had been held for six years in Washington on January 6th, to recall what the Trump family and the Republican Party had defined as the first attempt by the people to take back what rightfully belonged to them.

I wanted to announce that...

The department head was not a man of many words.

He could not speak well and had severe communication difficulties.

"Well...you already know.

It's all true."

In the end, the rumor proved to be true.

Some deep throat on the upper floor, the one reserved for the administrators, must have leaked everything to some neutral place.

A bar, a cafe, a restaurant, a hotel room.

Something not written, given that electronic communications could be intercepted and used against workers.

There were countless possible combinations and no one would have gone out of their way to discover the mole.

It was of no one's interest, not even the higher echelons who, thus, knew of the existence of an unofficial channel that they could exploit to leak what was of interest from time to time.

Mick stared at George.

His colleague, a year younger, seemed to live in a world of his own.

From a technical point of view, it was second to none, but it lacked that typically managerial malice.

It probably wouldn't be a problem for any future promotions.

Unlike Mick, George would have learned the news with classic detachment.

He was there to work and any job would have been fine.

He wasn't interested in logical implications and conspiracy theories.

The meeting was adjourned after just ten minutes.

Nothing to comment on from anyone.

Sharing was a value that was both flaunted and not put into practice.

Mick stopped to exchange a few jokes with other colleagues.

We would have talked about when the projects would become operational and who would coordinate them.

I'll get a job in design, they owe me a favor.

Another introduced other elements of discussion.

"If they make Robert the general coordinator of the construction site, I will go to the site.

Much better here nearby than some place far out in the Midwest!"

George was already at his station.

He had made up his mind to complete the virtual exploration that the meeting had interrupted.

That day he couldn't stay long in the office, but would have to stop by his parents' house.

He still hadn't seen them since they returned from Washington.

Their house was located in the Beacon Hill neighborhood and was the classic red brick construction.

The most traditional thing you can imagine for the most Anglo-Saxon and Irish city in the States.

Conversely, George lived downtown, in the financial district, a few steps from the office.

So it could be comfortable during the week, given the incessant work pace.

On average he spent ten hours a day in the office, with peaks of twelve when he was approaching a document delivery or a project deadline.

Immersed in his work, he didn't even notice the arrival of Mick, who shook his head at George's lack of foresight.

He was probably one of those people who would only notice the change once the game was over.

No advance moves and no planning.

He shrugged and continued with his tasks.

Catapulted out of the office, George found himself mixed up in city traffic.

Something oppressive and gripping.

The quantity of cars had not decreased at all and, from many parts of the world, the United States was pointed out for the general failure in the fight against climate-changing emissions.

Indeed, the years of presidency of the Trump family had dismantled such a thesis piece by piece, going so far as to define it as a colossal hoax and trying to manipulate information to mask the great changes that had occurred almost everywhere.

Heat waves and droughts in central and southern states, followed by terrifying hurricanes.

The fact that they did not always happen and that human memory was fallacious supported the presidential theses.

A virtual projection on the walls of downtown skyscrapers brought George back to the news.

It depicted a middle-aged woman, evidently made up and retouched so as not to give any idea of her registry office.

It was the President of the United States, the first woman elected four years earlier, Lara Yunaska Trump, one of ex-president Donald's daughters.

Elected in 2032 at the age of fifty-one, she was now standing for a second term, taking for granted the nomination of the Republican Party, now dominated for over twenty years by the family in question.

She had managed her father's presidential campaigns and had always been an excellent television producer.

A great communicator and expert in the political management of the media, she had established herself with a mixture of innovation and tradition.

In the wake of the family, but also as prima donna.

Despite this, he had passed restrictive measures on women's freedoms, such as a general prohibition on abortion, the incentive for women to stay at home to look after their children and the limitation of their presence in the workplace, as well as the total change of language in use.

The father had already paved the way, clearing certain terminologies and destroying the reluctance, typical of democrats, to accept the politically incorrect.

Internationally, it stood out for America's further disengagement in major issues.

Less money for NATO, fewer troops in the Middle East.

Everything is centered within America, looking for the best way to grow the economy and citizens' wallets, even in defiance of laws and regulations, which have been purposely modified.

Thus the stock market had reached new highs, tripling the previous ones and creating disproportionate financial wealth, at the expense of the federal debt which had become the largest in the world, in absolute and percentage terms.

Now the President could exploit a great emotional wave, given that her father, who had been celebrated by the Republican Party as the greatest statesman after George Washington, had died just nine months ago.

The slogan was catchy.

The Drift strikes again.

Everything done was claimed as the very symbol of the politics of the majority, understood on a political and social level.

George smiled.

Ultimately, it was a mystification, but no more than what advertising and the Internet did on a daily basis.

He had to hurry otherwise he would have reached his parents in complete darkness.

It was cold.

Intense and pungent, despite the lack of snow.

Jerome and Justine spoke of times gone by when there were meters of white mantle, while their son, from memory, only remembered a few exceptional years in his early childhood.

Then, year after year, there was less and less rainfall and, when there was a fair amount, no one was used to it anymore.

The dashboard of his car, strictly LED, sent a series of real-time information on the traffic status and on the messages received from the apps on George's phone, which had disabled almost all the accessory functions.

He didn't want to be interrupted too many times while driving, even if there were now assisted automatic pilot programs that intervened in the event of failure to brake with a nearby obstacle or to park completely autonomously.

It was not an advanced model with everything available technologically.

George just needed a little taste of all those comforts.

He took a look at the city, already cloaked in evening lights.

He wouldn't have known how to live anywhere else.

And not so much for the emotional bonds, which in reality he didn't have, but for the atmosphere we breathed.

A mix of climate and traditions, spaces and urban planning.

He found other cities in the United States too different in character from the one he grew up in.

Or too Hispanic or too spacious or too chaotic.

Nothing reminiscent of Europe and the origins of four centuries ago.

He arrived about ten minutes later than he had planned.

He was welcomed in the same way as always.

Formal from the father.

Jerome Hill was one of those old-fashioned American men who was all about defending the values of the past, even if he didn't understand what that meant.

If his ancestors of a century earlier, the same ones who thought they were the bearers of true American values, had certainly seen him, they would certainly have ignored him.

No one, in 1936, would have thought that the world would undergo such an evolution and Jerome would be kicked out of that circle of conservatives.

The mother, however, showed greater openness, due in part to her Catholic education.

Justine O'Neal did not retain much of her Dublin origins, nor her speech, nor her accent, nor her facial features, given that, for generations, the Irish part had mixed with other types of European immigration.

Italian, Greek, English.

The reddish hair was just a reminder of old family photographs.

George asked how the visit to Washington had gone.

Not that he hadn't glimpsed the social media shares and instant messaging apps on his cell phone, but he thought the in-person description was different and more complete.

Being able to see the person speaking to you in the face, without any artificial filter, gave different nuances to the words.

His father didn't flinch.

He described the preparations and the atmosphere in great detail.

"It was the first time without Donald.

It was evocative."

Her mother added the note from the speech of her daughter, President-in-Office.

"Moving and touching.

We will win again."

Both had no doubts that the choice should be obvious and they weren't even worried about what the Democratic Party would put in place .

Otherwise, they fared well compared to the average of their peers.

For now, no medical insurance had had to intervene to cover the costs of hospital admissions or long stays.

Periodic checks also returned encouraging results, of people in perfect health.

George took his leave, without mentioning any new work.

He preferred not to share the vicissitudes of the office and construction sites with anyone.

What happened in those places remained there.

It already seemed like night, if it hadn't been for the artificial lights.

Less than half an hour had passed since the visit to the parents' house, so long had their confrontation lasted.

And it was already a lot compared to average.

There were families living on the two opposite coasts, keeping in touch only through technology, even during holiday periods.

Others who, however, never saw or called each other.

The feeling of close, communal familiarity of the first emigrants had disappeared and had given way to the country's greatest characteristic: individualism.

Everything was supported by a mass of economic and political interests, keeping most people in the dark, who did not have to ask themselves many questions, but obey just one precise command.

Consume, preferably something produced and designed in the homeland.

George had nothing to do that evening except go to the gym for a session of weights and treadmill running.

In some way, he wanted to counteract both the arrival of the fateful threshold of forty with its load of fatigue and the general vision of the male in an armchair drinking beer while watching baseball or football.

Plus, he'd experienced some female company at the gym.

Joanna was the woman with whom he had a relationship that lasted almost a year.

As soon as she was separated, she wanted to have fun without too many worries.

George did well until he decided to move to Miami, to the heat of Florida without enduring the harsh winters of Massachusetts, but running into possible problems in the hurricane season.

Since then, they hadn't heard from each other again.

A way like any other to end ephemeral relationships based on nothing.

The others had only been temporary entertainment.

Little to really remember, other than some drunkenness and some sexual performances.

Run this evening and then do weights...

The virtual personal trainer had a mainly motivational purpose and had been introduced in almost all gyms using artificial intelligence programs.

Preset models could be created or with constant learning so as to increase interaction with the public.

George preferred not to let people know too much about himself and had chosen the classic and traditional approach, which also cost less, with a monthly subscription about twenty dollars lower.

The treadmill started with the selected program.

Smooth and jerk-free ride.

No climbing or acceleration.

Rhythm and vitality, this was required.

The bracelet on the wrist, something that was worn at the beginning of the training and which was kept inside a special box at the reception complete with a coded number, would have transmitted the biometric data in real time.

Heart rate monitor and heartbeats that were projected on the machine's screen, together with the prediction of calories consumed and the ratio of lactic acid produced, the threshold of which should never have exceeded 70%.

George used to start slow.

He was one of those people who needed slow and constant progression, having great resistance, but little sprint.

After five minutes, he revved up and looked up.

He noticed a woman with her back turned, she seemed to be a few years younger than him, with a ponytail of hair tied back.

Smooth and shiny, reflecting a golden streak.

Dry physique.

He was sure he had six pack abs.

He was pushing a frenetic pace, but his legs were still spinning well.

A mixture of admiration and attraction, of curiosity and the desire to strike up a conversation, made its way through George.

He would keep an eye on her, stopping his training in unison, risking going overboard and not keeping up.

Maybe it would have been worth it.

For those few times that she turned her head a few degrees, he seemed to understand that she was make-up free and had delicate features.

No strong jaws or surgical operations, things that were very fashionable even among the very young.

The external image, especially of a woman, had to be assimilated as much as possible to that provided by applications in the cloud, the all-encompassing cloud that had inherited the tradition of the media and social networks, where every single frame was corrected and viewed by superior artificial minds hidden who knows where.

This had greatly influenced everyone's customs and habits, as well as the very pattern of marketing and sales and, above all, news and politics.

By now films and news programs, public speeches and conventions appeared on the screens in a completely different way than they actually were, live.

In one case, the filter was given by the human eye, in the other by what a machine made the human eye perceive.

Subtleties at first glance, but essential to muddy the waters.

International agencies, almost always not cited in the United States or used to counter the Drift, had underlined that nine out of ten contents were false or falsified.

No one could discern everything that was real or really happened from what was produced, and every person had fallen into the trap several times.

In all of this, President Lara Trump wallowed like a fish in an aquarium, given her natural propensity for communication and the enormous staff at her disposal.

Finally the woman stopped training and George did the same.

He met her face.

It was exactly as imagined.

Two black eyes without any sign of retouching.

Thin lips that revealed regular teeth.

Tight arm muscles and thin hands.

The upper part of the trunk was very lean and thin, a sign of great training and careful diet, while the legs were typical of those who ran regularly.

The gym was probably just a winter activity, waiting for the summer when everything would take place in the open air, among the greenery of the parks and surrounding areas.

The woman smiled at him.

George was certainly no stranger to female attention.

Good looking and well cared for.

He sketched a timid greeting.

HI.

Wiping her forehead, the woman stopped.

Do you come here often? Not bad...

In fact, George had wondered why he hadn't seen her before.

Maybe different times or different days.

He nodded.

I'm Sarah...

The accent didn't seem to be from those parts.

Maybe from the Washington area.

George.

Silence fell between them, a sign of a certain embarrassment.

What could they have said to go beyond the first exchange?

How do you approach people you don't know?

The slightest mistake would have decreed the end of the relationship, before it even began.

And then we have to dive in.

To risk.

This is why the majority prefers to discuss this and that, about futile and banal things.

To minimize the danger and to slowly discover a part of oneself, searching for the other.

By doing so, the next steps are already, in part, addressed and the bar can be raised while maintaining the risk level within the acceptable threshold.

This is what the majority of people, the indistinct mass of the world, would have put into practice.

But that wasn't what was happening in an ordinary gym in a frozen Boston in mid-January.

In the air and in the air-conditioned and muffled environment, with music and lights modulated to perfection, a minimal disturbance had entered, a hint of different worlds that had projected itself into everyone's mind.

In an independent world, the recombination of atoms and smells, sensations and stimuli had generated a series of electrical impulses decoded by the brain and sent to the part dedicated to language.

From there we would have searched within the library of terms and the command to the vocal cords would have arisen.

A sound produced by making them vibrate and modifying the air pressure, which, by hitting the eardrums, would have generated the listening mechanism.

All this magic concentrated in less than a second.

More than artificial intelligence and processing speed.

There was still nothing in the world that surpassed the inventiveness of a human mind, its complexity, its way of extracting a series of behaviors from nothing.

Not even if thousands of quantum supercomputers had aligned themselves could the myriad of possibilities that lay before George and Sarah be imagined.

The first would have wanted to break down the barriers, the second would have wanted to know everything about those places.

Aren't you from here?

Interrogative question from the man, but actually a fake statement.

Sarah admitted she was from Washington.

George smiled.

In short, they exchanged a few jokes.

Aren't you having dinner?

Nearby there was one of those unpretentious places, a restaurant that churned out typical American cuisine taken from who knows where.

They found themselves talking about their lives.

Architect and journalist.

University studies.

Both of half Irish descent, George on their mother's side and Sarah on their father's side, with the trademark of an evocative surname like Connor .

Comparable ages, not asked, but guessed.

Sarah maybe two years younger.

What was he doing in Boston?

Why was he there ?

How had she ended up in a gym?

Why was he having dinner with someone he hadn't known until a few hours earlier?

All unanswered questions.

The only certain thing for George was that the evening was going smoothly, without any problems or hitches.

Fun, but without a level of complicity that would lead to a night of sex.

A compromise like this suited both of us.

Something not written, but agreed on the word.

George felt he had to pay, but Sarah absolutely wanted to do it out of her own pocket.

I'll stay in the city a little longer anyway. A week.

Would there have been other joint releases?

It was time to draw conclusions and understand how everything would evolve.

Exchange of virtual identities on the cloud?

It was normal practice for those who had just met, a practice that had replaced the exchange of telephone numbers.

The virtual identity on the cloud identified each individual person and, based on the request received, a series of precise information could be shared with each other contact.

Your phone number, status updates, social media profiles, email address , photo or video albums, interests, trips or much more personal.

It was a way to guarantee privacy, so it was said, without asking who would protect individuals from the interference of the companies that managed the cloud.

Companies that then profiled people, selling the packages to certain bidders, among which mainly industries and politics stood out.

George made the move.

He told her his cloud identifier.

Sarah seemed to appreciate it.

In short, everything was notified on their devices.

"Before I disappoint you, I'm here in Boston for one main reason.

For the campaign..."

George didn't understand.

What campaign was he talking about?

Boston was a city!

The Presidential Campaign.

Sarah, understanding the misunderstanding, had to reiterate further.

It was a journalist who would prepare the campaign for one of the candidates.

And for whom?

Now George's curiosity was captivated.

Certainly not in favor of the Drift.

Sarah was therefore not on the side of President Lara Trump and the Republican Party.

George knew little about politics and even less about who the various candidates in the primaries were.

Furthermore, he had received no news from the Democratic Party.

And which candidate are you preparing the campaign for?

Sarah, with pride and great determination, promptly replied:

For Agatha Durban, the governor of Idaho.

George didn't know much about her, only that she was the first woman to be elected governor of Idaho, among other things putting an end to the unchallenged domination of the Republicans.

Sarah highlighted some key points.

"She's a woman, she's young, she knows how to beat the Republicans, and she wants to give people their rights back.

This is a fight for freedom.

Ours and everyone's."

A light came on in Sarah's eyes.

Something George had never seen before in any other person.

Was this the consequence that freedom could generate?

––––––––

" We've gotta hold on

to what we've got.

It doesn't