RoboNomics

Chapter 21 - 2016

I shuffle gingerly down the sidewalk towards the subway station, pulling my jacket tight around me. The sun has disappeared even though it's only late afternoon. 

The wind tears through my clothing as if I'm wearing nothing. I keep my head down so my eyelashes won't freeze.

Under all this wrap I'm wearing a navy pantsuit. I've been to another networking event. I spent half the time wondering what to say to a room full of people in the energy industry. 

What qualifications do I have? Becky rhymed off my skills for me. She coached me on what to say. 

But I couldn't remember what she told me I was good at. So I cowered in the corner of the expansive room, examining the stains in the slate and grey checked carpet and smiling mutely whenever an executive passed.

My head snaps up at the sound of a high pitched whirring. A machine blocks the sidewalk. It's black, boxy, and is covered in a hard plastic shell. 

A plough blade hangs down in front while chunks of salt pour from its rear carriage. It doesn't have a face. It's not a machine meant for human interaction. 

It leaves a clear, ice-free surface in its wake. I won't have to worry about slipping. But first I have to get around it.

There's a bank of snow thigh high between the traffic and myself. I squeeze against the bank of snow as much as I can and stop to let the machine pass. 

It, on the other hand, doesn't stop. It runs over my feet with tank treads.

"Goddamn bot!" I shout as I kick the machine's backside. 

It rolls away undisturbed.

While I wait for the subway, I think about how two years ago Austin wanted a Domestic Support Unit for the house. Cleaning always triggers our marital riffs and we'd had another spat about it. It had been five days since either of us had looked at the growing pile of dishes.

"You know I've been on shift," Austin said when I'd pointed them out.

"And what, I've been sitting around all day eating bon bons in a feathered robe?" I replied. 

It was one of those frequent and well-rehearsed moments in our marriage. 

"I have a job too, you know."

"Yes. But mine is non-stop. All I want to do when I come home is breathe," he said.

"This is supposed to be a partnership, Austin. I can't just keep carrying your part of the load."

Instead of storming as he usually did to our leather-clad sectional in the living room to fight a round of digitized zombies on his video game console, Austin cocked his head.

"You know what would solve this?"

"What?" I asked angrily.

"A domestic bot," he announced. "We won't ever have to argue over the dishes again." 

He wrapped his long arms around me as if this made his point.

It had been a good idea and would have solved many domestic battles. But we'd already spent our way through next year's 'stuff for the house' budget. 

I said no to a domestic machine even though more and more houses in the neighborhood seemed to have them. We had one of those 'smart' fridges that informed us of the state of our groceries and InvisiScreens embedded in the walls and the surfaces of our kitchen counters; the computers that automatically and seamlessly keep track of our household. 

But we'd have to wait a little while for a domestic bot. And then I lost my job to a machine.

The subway whooshes into the station, driverless. Another job that has fallen away. 

As I settle into a seat I think about what a domestic bot could have been for us. It would have been just one more expense. 

I take the subway now that I've sold my car. I look around the subway car tentatively. I wonder whether anyone can see the distress on my face. It feels like a mask I wear everywhere. 

But no one is paying attention to me. The dozing workaday crowd that rode this line when I took it back in university has been replaced by people in torn and stained wool coats. 

One girl with downcast eyes and a fraying polyester backpack has her auburn hair twisted into untidy knots. Body odor hangs like a cloud.

The subway itself is in disrepair. The transit system had been one of the first things to be automated. 

It is ten years old now and anti-robot graffiti covers the walls of most stations and the interior of cars. 

Security is automated. CCTVs, tall and spindly patrol bots that kicked off the people who cheated their fare. 

Even with the bots that clean the subway, the stench of human waste rises from under seats in some cars.

When I exit at Spadina, a lone busker stands at the base of the station stairs. He is playing an auto harp. 

I've seen the man before. He haunts a set of street corners and subway cubbies. He is surrounded by the dingy salmon tiles of the station but he is playing slow, fantastical melodies that seem like they're from a different place and time. 

The deft way his fingers glide over the strings makes me think of tall, thin waterfalls that fall into jungle pools. The music is from some place that doesn't know winter.

His tunes often cheer me, but today they make me angry. 

The world is crumbling, I think, but he has no idea. He still has gainful employment, if you can call being a busker a job. 

How much longer, I think as I pass him and stare at his thin black hair that hangs in long, greasy strands from under his ratty tuque, until you're replaced by a robotic orchestra? 

I decide to skip the automated street car that would deposit me at the end of my street. It is too real. There is too much desperation that hangs in the confined air of the streetcar. I would have to stare into the faces of people who can't feed themselves. 

Instead, I walk. It's fully night now and the black sky is clear but I can't see the stars for the street lights. Bloor Street is remarkably quiet. 

There is a distant siren. It could be coming from a police car or an automated ambulance teeming with bots. A person or two in puffed coats that go down to their knees stumble along in the ice and snow. 

I tread down the street as quickly as I can and turn up my own street. The snow parts gently around the ankles of my thick black boots.

(Continued in Chapter 22...)

******************************

Hey, thanks for reading this chapter! As always, let me know that you enjoyed it by VOTING for it, and leave me a COMMENT if there was something you didn't like.

These past few chapters haven't ended with a cliff hanger or 'hook' for the next chapter. What do you think of that? Would you rather stories speed along like real page turners? Super curious!

Ok bye!