The Last Few Dollars

Chapter One

The dark alleyway smells of old garbage and stale urine. Barely any light manages to infiltrate its depths, which is probably a good thing. It's not likely I'll be found here, but there is always a chance. They normally find me after a day or two, even after disabling the location services on my old iPhone XV. It sounds modern, but the thing is about twenty years old and barely works anymore; I can't even remember why I hung onto it, but it's the safest phone there is.

About thirty years ago, everything began to change. My parents were born into Generation Z, back when the technological development of the world was just beginning to really kick off. What little I can remember of them involves stories of their childhood, and how excited they were when the latest Samsung computer or iPhone was released and there was a mad rush to get one before they ran out. And then, everyone would do it again the next year. But as the technology developed, so did the government's ability to track the movements of everyone under their control, and I don't use that term loosely. When the government wants to control a population, they will do everything in their power to do it.

With the technological advancement of the age, tracking people became a normality. It wasn't unusual for family members to know exactly how far away from home you'd gone, what you'd done, how you'd done it, and what time you did it. And the government, seeking alternative ways to increase their power, began to use that, employing computer technicians to hack into people's phones and home security systems, until they too, knew everything about everyone.

But the biggest change they made was that around the importance of money. How much money you had to your name began to dictate how long you lived for, your usefulness to the government. As the amount of money you had to your name declined, the government began to take less and less notice of you, until, at long last, you ran out. Once that happened, you had to say your goodbyes to your loved ones within a few minutes, because as soon as you hit rock-bottom, you could guarantee the authorities would dispatch someone to get rid of you.

I've seen it happen, more times than I can count. It's why I stopped hiding out with other people, for fear of it happening to me. Well, again anyway.

The first time I'd seen the government's abuse of power in action was when I was three. My parents were out of a job and once that happened it was damn near impossible to get another one; with so much value on money, people didn't want other people working for them because it meant that they were losing precious hours or days of their lives to others, although there were a few benefits to having a big business; more people meant more spread of influences, and that, by extension, meant more money. My family, meanwhile, were behind on the bills and by the time we paid them, we literally had nothing left.

My father grabbed me and a few sets of clothes and raced me out into the cubby house. I was half asleep but the second the cold night air hit my face I jolted up.

"What's going on, daddy?" I asked, barely able to form the words in my terrified state.

"I don't know, sweetheart," he told me, but I knew he was lying. Yet I couldn't speak, as he carried me up the stairs of the cubby house and laid me down on the floor. "Stay here, I'll be back with Mummy." He kissed my head and held me for a few seconds. Then he was gone.

I chanced a glance out the window. There was no glass there, but there was a large amount of cobwebs in them; I didn't like to break them because then the spiders wouldn't have a home, so I had to make do with what I could see through them.

I heard the shattering sound of glass and splintering wood and my mothers terrified screams broke the silence. Lights flickered on across the road, doors flew open, but no one helped them. Then my parents were being dragged out of the front door, forced to their knees and, without much more warning than that, two gunshots louder than anything I had ever heard in my life slit the air, and my fathers sobs stopped, my mother's screams were silenced, and I became an orphan.