RoboNomics

Chapter 42 - 2016

In the corner of our kitchen is a cupboard with glass-paneled doors. As I open it, I realize that it's always been my favorite feature of the room. It's high above my head and I stand on tiptoes to reach it. 

I take down one of the plates to look at its smooth white surface and silver stripe. It's our wedding china. It was the most expensive item on our wedding registry. The day we picked it out, we wandered around Hudson's Bay, glancing at the stuffy floral patterned china sets. 

And then it finally appeared: a simple white set with a single silver stripe around the edge of the plates and the tops of the coffee mugs.

When we got married, Austin's parents came down from Montreal for the ceremony. They bought every last piece of this china for us. Then when we first moved into this house together, I would look at our new china and imagine the dinner parties we'd host and how we'd bring out our beautiful wedding china to impress the guests. 

But I know we're not going to need it anymore. This is where it will stay.

I worry about Austin's parents a lot these days. We keep calling them, especially during these past few months. By all reports, things aren't much better in Montreal than they are in Toronto, and Austin has been terrified that Christine and Grant, his parents, would lose their pension.

But they always insist they're okay. They are retired, and make quips about owning their home and having old age security. Unlike us, they don't have a mortgage so they even offer to lend us money. 

But Austin has always been too proud to take money from his parents. He never has, he's said to me untold times, not since before he was fifteen and got his first job at a fast food joint.

We have no other family to worry about, so I worry about my friends instead. I haven't reached out to them since the riot. But that doesn't make me stop thinking about how they must be doing.

I did hear from Henri, once, before our phone and Internet service was cancelled due to lack of payment.

"Andrea!" He shouts down the wireless line. "I've been trying to call you for days!"

"I know," I say. "I'm sorry. I can't afford caller ID anymore and I thought it might be the bank calling."

"You could have come see me."

"I...I know. I didn't want to bother you at home, I guess." 

It's a lame excuse. I don't want to seen out on the street. Not if I could bump into Chris. 

"And I was afraid that I tried to find you at the Protest Group Office --"

"Afraid?"

"I can't go back there, Henri. Not anymore. It's too dangerous." 

It's been a month since the riot. A month of watching my back, of avoiding the main boulevards, a month of sleepless nights, and of worrying how and when I'll lose my husband, my freedom, or both. 

I've had more than one good reason to avoid anything or anyone connected to the Protest Group, including my friends.

One of the reasons to stay away from major boulevards is one that I don't need to explain to Henri. Before we lost Internet service, we saw the reports of growing street violence and unrest in the city. 

Ever since the riot, everything changed. People are getting desperate. Young people riot every time they see a bot or an official or a RoboNomics or iTronics executive. 

They take people's bots, tear them up, use what's left to build "protest installations" on the street corners.

"Hey, it's not like I've been back there," says Henri. "Not since just after the riot."