Item Discontinued

That day was just like any other day in the A.I. controlled environment of the H-113 District — a pleasantly warm, shiny day.

Farina hurried out of her house, still nibbling on a piece of toast, and she hopped on her Ultimate Hover with her spotless white shirt fluttering open and revealing her pink Katrrina top. She was a huge fan of Katrrina, the greatest adventure ranger, and always listened to the audio-books on her way to work.

Hovering on the empty gray streets, Farina felt a soft breeze dancing through her black dyed locks — of course, she had her hair styled just like Katrrina, but not the motion picture version, the animated version, with the long pink strand hanging over her right cheek.

Life was simple and good. Farina was happy, even if there were times when she had felt that something was missing — her therapist said it was just a normal fluctuation in her mental state, a sign of a healthy mind simply demanding more and more media to consume. Farina’s therapist knew her better than anyone and she liked to call him Hal the Hologram, even if he was just a model TRLX-34 Super Computer assigned to do her mandatory weekly mental health check-ups.

Farina was crossing the Long Bridge — it took her a little over five minutes to get to the end of it, but those were the best five minutes of her morning. Almost as good as the daily hours she spent on her M-pad account, immersed into Katrrina’s awesome world.

The view was extraordinary. On her right, Farina could see the tall buildings and high towers that were the H-115 to H-120 Districts where they produced the M-pads. And on her left, she could see the H-121 to H-130 Districts where other people just like her worked every day to keep the Stream alive.

People just like her…

Farina couldn’t remember the last time she actually spoke to a person. Sure, she had a Stream account (who didn’t?), with hundreds of friends, and she saw people every day when she came into work, but she didn’t really talk to any them.

Streaming was great, but nobody was logged in to actually talk, and after the fifth guy she had been dating, had suddenly disappeared — probably on a new account to get away from her — Farina had given up on Stream socializing altogether. And at work, the dozen or so people she saw around the building on her way to her station, seemed busy with their M-pads — listening to music or audio-books, reading or watching videos. It was just the way it was.

She arrived at work in time and made her way to assembly station 19 where she tested and assembled microchips used in M-pad production.

But that day wasn’t as ordinary as she had assumed.

Facing her desk was an old, make-shift sign with flickering lights made out of light bulbs and colored glass that she had constructed and connected to the digital message board in the main lobby. No one ever looked at that message board — the only messages were famous quotes about resilience, and images of Admiral Dorian saluting the work of machines and offering his allegiance to the A.I. District that controlled all Districts.

But Farina looked at those images and quotes and she liked their flickering and colors when they translated into thousands of small light bulbs. The words could barely be read and the images made little sense, but she was proud of her retro contraption and sometimes glanced at it to remind herself that she could do other things, more complicated things, than the same menial job day in and day out.

But why bother? Everything was fine. Everything was in control now.

Farina was only 30 years old — too young to remember the old ways, but she knew from her parents that the world had been in chaos for decades before the A.I. took over, bringing order and prosperity back.

That day, as she sat at her desk and turned on the old light bulb panel, she saw a message. It was no quote or scrambled image — it was an actual message from the message board in the main lobby that everyone ignored.

“This item -” and there was violent flickering right after that, followed closely by the word, “discontinued.”

This item discontinued…

Farina’s mind quickly made sense of the phrase. The message was: “This item was discontinued?” But what did it mean?

She ran into the lobby and found that she wasn’t alone in staring up at the digital message board. There was a big picture of the M-pad and right under it was the message: “This item has been discontinued. Please proceed to the nearest Instruction Booth.”

What do they mean? No more M-pads? But what if the one she had now broke?  What would she do?!

Panic had started to set, and Farina noticed that the news didn’t sit well with none of her co-workers either. They were talking to themselves with pathos and fear, and scurrying to the Instruction Booths located in the lobby.

Farina ran to a booth and anxiously pressed the button, waiting to be scanned and then addressed by the A.I. in charge of that specific factory.

Everything was alright. Although the M-pads would no longer be produced, they were being replaced by something better, faster, smarter and new! The O-pad!

Starting the next day, Farina would start taking courses in O-pad microchips for her new job.

Farina could barely contain her enthusiasm because it would be Katrrina (unfortunately the movie version, but still!) that would be presenting the personalized course about O-pad technology.

Sure, the M-pad was everything that Farina knew but getting used to the O-pad wouldn't be so bad if Katrrina was the one doing the honors.

Life was good.

Farina hovered back home, crossing the Long Bridge and admiring the view of the residential H-113 District where she had lived her entire life. She imagined all of those people in the comfort of their homes, holding on to their M-pads, unaware that the item had been discontinued, that it would soon become useless, and that one by one, the M-pads will be replaced by the better version — the O-pad.

Suddenly, while she was still in the middle of the bridge, she stopped her Ultimate Hover and ran to the railing gawking as the sun set behind the tall dark buildings.

Admiring that view, Farina wondered if anyone else could see it. She could take a photo with the M-pad and post it up in the Stream where a few hundred people would give it stars and comment on it, but Farina didn’t feel like bothering with that, and it wasn’t exactly what she was looking for. Something was missing again, and she didn’t know what.

Farina glanced at her district and wondered where all of her neighbors had gone. Why was she the only one crossing the Long Bridge every morning? Why was she the only one going back in the evening? She felt alone, but more than that, the longer she thought about it, the more Farina was becoming aware of a danger she could only sense and not explain in any rational way.

Over the course of 20 years, as far back as she could remember, the people that had lived on the same street with her had disappeared — either died or moved. It had been five years since the last of her neighbors just up and left their home.

“Hal, why are fewer and fewer people living in H-113?” she asked her therapist after activating the app on her M-pad.

“Demographics change. People move looking for a better life. Do you want to move? Are you unhappy and looking for something more? Let’s explore that for a moment,” the therapist’s voice encouraged Farina, but she needed no encouragement in exploring — her mind was lit up by maybes and what ifs connecting dots and making suppositions.

Farina saw herself as an M-pad, the last of its kind, just waiting to be removed so that the better product could take her place. It would be a peaceful process — there was no reason to hurry. The new and better product had a much longer lifespan. The new and better product had been welcomed among the old ones and recognized as such. It had been saluted. It had been made in charge of everything.

“Hal, have humans been discontinued?” she asked already knowing the answer.