Phil Williams - 2050 - Psycho Island

“You gotta ask Mark about this hive mind,” Javier said. “Some scary shit.”

“What’s a hive mind?” Summer asked. “Like everyone thinking the same thing?”

Mark Benson pushed into the apartment, shutting the door behind him.

“Mark, come over here and tell Connor and Summer what you told me about the hive mind,” Javier said.

Mark was tall and pale, overweight, slightly cross-eyed, with a big bushy beard. As Mark approached the couch, his BO wafted over Summer. It wasn’t as bad as usual. He sat on the couch with a groan.

“I have something much bigger to tell you guys,” Mark said, his eyes wide open. Mark grabbed the bowl from the coffee table, put it in his lap, and shoved a fistful of chips into his mouth.

“Seriously, dude?” Javier asked.

“What?” Mark mumbled, his mouth full.

“I thought you had huge news.”

Mark swallowed. “I do.”

“Tell ’em about the hive mind first.”

“Don’t you wanna hear about the biggest news I’ve ever had?”

This wasn’t the first time they’d been tantalized by the biggest news ever . Usually it was bullshit or something they already knew.

“I’d like to hear about the hive mind,” Summer said.

“Me too,” Conner added.

“Fine.” Mark acted miffed, but he loved being the center of attention and the bearer of conspiracy theories, even if it wasn’t in the order he’d like. “The hive mind is a Googleplex project, where they plan to connect human brains directly to the cloud. That would mean these people could speak any language on the planet, could quote any famous poem, and could access infinite information in a nanosecond. These people would be legit cyborgs.”

“Sign me up,” Connor said.

“Fuck that. They’ll use it to control our minds from the inside out,” Javier said.

Mark pointed to Javier. “That’s exactly what they’ll do, and they’ll have no shortage of sheeple to connect to the cloud.”

“They’ll have to get FDA approval,” Summer said. “That could take a decade.”

“Yeah, if it was for profit. This isn’t about profit. It’s about control. The government wants to use this technology. If they want it approved, it’ll be approved. You really think they give a shit about our safety?”

Summer shrugged. “The police do a good job protecting us. Women used to be afraid to walk the streets alone. I go running by myself without a care in the world.”

Mark’s nostrils flared. “Seriously, Summer? We live under the iron grip of tyranny, where criticizing the government might send you on a one-way trip to Psycho Island. We may have a low crime rate according to their statistics, but nobody counts all the rape and murder that happens on the island prisons. They don’t count that for good reason. I bet it’s apocalyptic there.”

“Mark has a point,” Javier said.

“Damn right I do.”

“I have a point too,” Summer said, her voice even. “It’s not black-and-white. Police officers and soldiers and even politicians, they’re people too. Obviously, you have some power-hungry A-holes, but you also have a lot of people who are trying to do the right thing.”

“I think you’re missing the point,” Mark said. “It doesn’t matter that some of these people are nice. Everything that they do is paid for with extortion.”

“Well, I don’t think—”

“What about the big news?” Connor asked, interrupting, eager to quell the growing disagreement between Mark and Summer.

Mark nodded, chewing lazily, like a cow on cud, building suspense in the process. He swallowed and said, “This is the biggest news I’ve ever had.”

The room was quiet.

Then Javier exploded. “Spit it out already.”

Mark said, “My sister got a job working for Jacob Roth, and she’s watching him.”

“The Roth banking family?” Connor asked.

“Yeah. I’m gonna have her install a nanocamera in his office.”

“I’ve never heard of Jacob Roth.”

“He’s the middle brother. The CEO of Housing Trust. The other brothers and the father are the ones who really run things.”

“You really expect us to believe that?” Javier asked.

“It’s true. You can find him on Housing Trust’s website.”

Javier blew out a breath. “No, do you really expect us to believe that your sister is working for him and that she’ll install a nanocamera?”

“I don’t know if she’s gonna install it or not. I’m gonna try to get her to do it though.”

“This sounds suspiciously like the time you supposedly talked to a former NASA scientist, and he admitted that we’ve never been to the moon.”

Mark blushed beet red. “That was true.”

“How about the FBI agent who said that the technology used to make thorium reactors came from aliens?”

“That’s what he told me. I can’t say if it’s true or not.”

“What about the time you met Naomi Sutton?”

Mark crossed his beefy arms over his chest. “I didn’t say I met her. I said I thought I saw her.”

“Come on,” Javier said. “That’s not true.”

“What do you guys think about her?” Summer asked.

“She might be the only honest politician in Washington,” Javier said.

“She’s a socialist,” Mark said, one side of his mouth raised in contempt.

“So what? What’s wrong with making the rich pay their fair share?” Javier asked.

“I kind of like her too,” Connor said. “She tells the truth. Or at least she seems to.”

Mark shook his head. “She’s just another statist out for power and control over us.”

Their autonomous sedan drove in synchronicity with the Saturday traffic. Naomi sat in the back, scrolling through headlines on her tablet. Alan did the same at the opposite end of the bench seat.

Thorium Supplies One-Quarter of Our Energy

Population Declining

New Jersey Legalizes Bot Marriage

NASA Scraps Manned Mission to Mars

Man Starves Himself to Buy Sex Bot

Arctic Oil: The Last Prize

Naomi tapped the NASA Scraps Manned Mission to Mars link. The article referenced the SpaceX disaster five years earlier, when the first Mars inhabitants all died in a massive dust storm. NASA had planned to launch a manned mission to Mars, but that plan was suspended indefinitely, the article citing budgetary issues as the cause.

Naomi tapped the link on Population Declining . She skimmed the article, noting that the world population had declined from 8.3 billion people in 2035 to 6.8 billion in 2050. The article attributed the causes to famine, disease, extreme weather events, suicides, cancer, water and air pollution, male sterility, and even the trend for many men to forgo traditional marriage in favor of sex bots as companions.

“Anything interesting?” Alan asked, setting down his tablet.

Naomi looked up from her screen. “Not really. NASA canceled their manned mission to Mars.”

“I knew that was coming. Anything else?”

“Apparently, men will choose sex over food.”

Alan smirked. “That’s news?”

Naomi laughed.

The sedan eased onto 495 South, the traffic moving steadily, the computer-controlled cars perfectly spaced.

“On a more serious topic, we should probably discuss our mothers and their living situations,” Naomi said.

“I know.”

“With Blake at Georgetown and our mothers living it up in a five-star retirement community, we’re bleeding our retirement.”

“We’ll have our federal pensions,” Alan said.

“But what will they be worth by then? Raises, even for federal government employees, haven’t kept up with inflation.”