Robyn's Egg

Chapter 1

Monday, 10 October

Moyer Winfield's father once said, if a man wanted to know who he was, all he had to do was look at where he was and what he was doing and he would know. And as Moyer rode the tube to work, jostled by strangers and largely ignored, he realized he was invisible as air, and like air, barely existed. He was a cog in a great machine that abraded men and women to dust, and an insignificant cog at that. The great machine would continue to churn with or without him without missing a beat. Without a lick of remorse. Without acknowledgment or recognition he'd ever been.

He wondered what would happen if he screamed; screamed so hard his throat bled. Would he even be noticed? But of course he wouldn't scream. Ever. Sticking out from the crowd was too dangerous.

Those around him stared ahead blankly, tuned into the net, disconnected from the world, oblivious to anything else. Their clothing flashed with an array of ads delivered through fiber optic threads, the content selected based on proximity metrics, what might appeal to those nearby. A Hogan-PerkoBirthing Center ad scrolled across the chest of a man seated near a group of married women. Global Brands Lo-Cal Beer appeared on a couple of riders seated amid a cluster of men. Moyer's coat flashed with an ad for diarrhea medicine probably aimed at the man across from him, which was more information than Moyer wanted.

Moyer clutched the rail to keep from toppling over as the train slowed. Those around him snapped out of their trances and readied for the rush for the doors. When they opened, Moyer allowed himself to be swept out of the car and up the stairs by the crowd.

Above ground, tiny white flakes fell from a clear blue sky dusting Moyer's clothes as he rushed with the throng of commuters for Freedom Circle. He attempted to brush the flakes away and left a smear on his sleeve. It wasn't snow; they were the ashes of the dead. Freak winds pushed the effluent from incinerators in the Northern Labor Housing ghettos back into the city, ghosts returning home.

Years ago, complaints from the city's elite closed the downtown incinerator and prompted construction of a new facility at the outskirts of the metropolis among those with little money and less influence. But even the wealthy couldn't control the wind, though they were certain to complain about it. When the winds blew strong from the north it meant only one thing, a storm was coming.

An advertisement for umbrellas and another for dry cleaning cropped up in Moyer's head, as well as campaign ads for the candidates up for election to the Consolidated Board of Directors. It was an intrusion Moyer resented. He hated how messages could be inserted into his brain as if they were his own ideas, and despised the effort involved to keep the constant bombardment of advertisements and propaganda from polluting his thoughts, to differentiate between his own and those uninvited placed inside his head by someone else. Then similar ads appeared on the clothing of those around him. Messages of discounts for cleaning cropped up, and maps for the nearest location to pick up an umbrella. When the net detected a commercial opportunity such as the ash fall, it wasted little time taking advantage.

Moyer trudged toward the Circle lost in a school of people, head down, collar up against the ash fall. Walking an instinctive weave through a maze of human traffic, avoiding collisions and eye contact, he moved without identity, a sardine among a massive ball of indistinguishable brothers and sisters flowing like a liquid amalgam. He felt safe. When they parted ahead of him, he moved with them and dodged an open manhole, its cover askew over the shaft, a rusted relic from another era forged with the city's old name, INDIANAPOLIS, printed in raised relief in an arc around the edge.

Government crews in tidy blue coveralls were out removing fresh Begat graffiti from buildings and off the bricks of the Circle. The sharp tang of chemical paint stripper filled the air. Half the letters had already been burned away, but even so, a faint watermark remained legible. Moyer didn't have to look to know what it said. The slogans were always the same and everyone knew them.