“Fantastic.” Mia stared as her precious bag of pounds floated down the river of perfectly glorious gunk that is the Hudson. Her dreams were slipping away fast, melding with and rippling under the reflection of the crumbling skyline of NYC. Putting on her best death glare, Mia turned to see the cause of her troubles. The death glare is a weapon that is trained by people in the unfortunate position of knowing they’re in the right, but they have no other tools to prove this fact. So Mia trained her weapon on the little boy who was responsible for this misadventure.
“Go on. Swim after it. A dirtball like you could use the bath.” He sneered up at Mia.
Mia’s gaze remained unshakable.
“I think you should. Someone like you could use the exercise,” she said.
“Whatever. I don’t have to listen to scum like you.”
The boy rubbed his fogged spectacles with a polyester handkerchief, adjusted the ridiculous multicolored buttons at the top of his shirt, and walked off. The boy’s clothing, too, was shiny and reflective—with a gray cap, he had the dubious distinction of looking like a speckled, hobbling, water bottle. A water bottle that was hobbling into a limo with “Viewers LLC” emblazoned on the side. Mia clenched her fists, her breathing began to accelerate, and her expression became that of a mother rhinoceros whose calf had just been poached. Who was he, that pompous little bastard, to steal her hard-earned pounds? Granted, the way they had been acquired was a little unsavory, but she had to work to get it—something a Viewer’s kid would never understand. Yes, he deserved what was coming for him.
Ah-Enlai, head of the Department of Public Safety, was a bored man. He had been sent by the CCP into exile for advocating for a democratic transition to help govern the East Coast. The CCP had spared his life because of his competency, a rare thing in an autocratic environment. China needed him to help maintain the lie to the American people that they were still governed by three branches with ‘checks and balances.’ China had defeated America in the Second Pacific War, and in the terms of the surrender, China had allowed the US to maintain its government—but Communist China is not, and never was, a country that honored its side of the agreement for agreement’s sake. Enlai’s job consisted of the following exciting trio of tasks: writing speeches for the faux president, censorship, and delegating those roles to his inferiors. Of course, there was the task of suppressing and arresting civilians—but suppression was easy for a country that didn’t know it was being oppressed. Right now, in lieu of his duties, Enlai was analyzing a painting behind his desk: a majestic dragon glares down at the Earth, its head eclipsing the sun. Lying within its serpentine coils are a bald eagle and a white, maneless lion with eyes colder than the vacuum around it. A gray, winged horse bows before the dragon, while a black bear dangles precariously from the dragon’s jaws. Lying on top of the dragon’s head is a small bird.
“A fitting painting for the state of the world, no?”
A small, Asian woman with short hair and rimless spectacles stood in front of Ah-Enlai’s desk. Ah-Enlai searched his mind for what he knew of her, which was surely filed away somewhere. Miss Gwen Zhou. She was the Junior Vice Secretariat of the Department of Monitoring. Wanted his job. Officials like her were a dime a dozen.
“What do you want me for, Miss Zhou?” Enlai clutched a book of Western Poetry under his desk, his knuckles white with tension.
“The algorithm has detected a future severe misdemeanor—one that will be done to a Viewer.” Ah-Enlai sighed, but his face betrayed no inner weakness.
“Send a car.” Ah-Enlai waved his hand, dismissing her. She bowed and left the room, her heels clicking on the smooth marble floor. Ah-Enlai was the head of the Department of Public Safety, but he was powerless. The algorithm made most of the decisions for him, regardless of his personal objections. All decisions favored autocracy and the CCP—leaving Ah-Enlai without occupancy, except for his trio of duties. He had to stop this misdemeanor because the party would lose the support of the Viewers, causing him to lose his job, and then a purge of his precious few supporters. The Viewers were integral to the Chinese grip on North America. They sold the scraps of tablets, computers, and cell phones no longer in use. More importantly, they made and spread the false news. Maintaining the mirage president was outsourced to them—a distinctly American tradition kept even under Chinese rule.
Mia clambered over the remnants of a long-collapsed skyscraper, looking at a stately apartment building. A sign hung from the building that read:
Jacob Viewers Industries PM, PR, and Parts
Mia had placed spiked bottles in the road to give the boy and his driver an unpleasant surprise. Mia began to hear a sputtering sound from down the road. Was someone’s generator running out? Was the boy having an absolutely tragic stomachache? Was it the sound of the heart of democracy, beating its last, troubled intervals? Or could it be that fate had decided to step in and serve justice to the boy? Naturally, it was none of Mia’s bizarre daydreams. Mia cursed under her breath as she saw a sputtering, ancient Mini Cooper round the corner. Given how incredibly fast the Cooper was going, Mia waltzed up to its window and moseyed alongside the car.
“Excuse me.”
“Yes?” An old lady, swaddled in a shawl, with round spectacles, and wearing a shirt with outdated political slogans, greeted Mia’s eyes as if they were cut onions. With her strange clothes, the old lady was as much of a relic as the car itself.
“Ma’am, the road up ahead is closed. We took the liberty of installing spikes.”
“Is that so? Well, I have to make it to my grandson’s birthday.”
“Where do you need to go?”
“The Bronx.”
“The safest route to and through the Bronx is down Madison Street and through the tunnel into Riverdale.”
“Thank you. Here’s a tip.” The old lady placed something cold and metallic into Mia’s hand. Mia stuffed the object into her pocket.
The old lady U-Turned and drove in the opposite direction. Mia realized that maybe spiking even a slow street like this one, especially with safe city tech being widespread, might not be such a good idea. As she walked over to remove the glass, the fading sputtering in the distance was replaced with the whirring sound of a hover car. A robotic voice blared over the car’s loudspeaker.
“MIA BERARDELLI, YOU ARE HEREBY PREEMPTIVELY DETAINED FOR CONSPIRACY TO INCONVENIENCE. PLEASE DO NOT RESIST. WE WILL TAKE YOU TO YOUR COURT CASE, WHERE YOU WILL BE PROSECUTED BY THE ALGORITHM.”
Robotic officers descended from the car on belays and hoisted Mia into the car. It was pointless to resist. Everyone knew the police had every martial art programmed into them.
As the car flew away from the glass that was still left on the ground, Mia morosely stared at the decrepit skyline of a decaying, dying America.
To be continued.
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