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The shimmering, translucent gold dotted line stops in front of a peaked-roof pile of weathered brick, so far south it's almost on the shores of Lake Ontario. With a flick of my eyes, I turn off my I-yes AR mode and the dots leading to the building disappear. I look up at the discoloured lettering on it that says, "The A.R. Williams Machinery Co. Liberty St. Plant." It's a relic, surrounded as it is by tall glass skyscrapers filled with condos.
I pull open the glass door, my breath catching as I do. I don't know if I'm making the right move. I don't what people are supposed to do when they've lost their career to an android. But I cross the narrow, gleaming lobby anyway, and press the elevator "up" button.
I turn AR mode back on, just for a moment. Just to double check my note. Second floor, as I thought. As soon as I'd arrived home from school after signing the part-time contract, I panicked. Adrenaline surged in my veins, stinging past my elbows.
So I logged onto iVerse – VR mode. Pacing through the halls between virtual spaces while I sat on my apartment couch, vacantly staring at the wall. Wondering who or what I could turn to: my union, my best teaching friends, my teacher's college friends. But no one was online.
I went down rabbit holes instead, trying to figure out what to do. Eventually, I stumbled on an ad in one of the open social spaces. It was frightfully simple with no graphics or bright colours. Just text on a white virtual poster.
Lost your job to a machine?
Join the Reclaim Our Future Movement & help fight the automated scourge.
Sign up at 2nd floor, 80 Lynn Williams, Toronto.
I turn off my I-yes when the elevator doors open with a ping and climb inside. I clasp my palms together. Sweat slides between them for the entire short ride. When the elevator door slides open, it reveals an expansive yet shabby loft.
A half dozen people sit at mismatched desks. Wood tables with peeling veneers and metal school desks painted mint sit together in groups of four. No one is staring into the middle distance, gesturing. Instead, they scrawl on paper.
Rusting metal machinery crowds the corners of the room. Some pieces I recognize from period dramas: pinball machines, microfilm readers, and pieces of clockwork. There are other hulking machines with exposed gears. I don't know what they do. Some of them are on and working away. The smell of burning dust fills the space.
A middle aged fellow with a thick black beard walks by and raises his bushy eyebrows. He looks at me sideways.
"Hi, yeah," I say to him as introduction. "I found out about this... group... on iVerse. I wanted to ask some questions and maybe sign up. Are you taking new members?"
"Wait a minute," he turns further towards me. "You said you found out about us on iVerse?" His tone is concerned.
"Um, yeah."
"Just sit there," he points to a high stool that stands beside a derelict wood desk. "We'll be with you in a minute."
He bustles away towards a set of metal steps that lead to an overhanging attic and clang with his every step.
I take off my pink trench coat and fold it in my lap as a sit down. Beside me sits a young girl in a gold and royal blue striped hijab. She's writing something on bits of paper.
Before I can ask her why she's not using her I-yes, the loft stairs roar to life. The black-haired man I introduced myself to is followed down them by another man who's not much taller than I am. He's wearing grubby beige coveralls and a flannel shirt. Dirty blond hair sticks out from under a dingy ball cap and matching scruff covers his face.
"Who's that?" I lean over to ask the girl who sits next to me.
"Chris," she says. "He's the one who started the group."
"You're kidding!" I swing my head around to look at her.
"Nah. He doesn't look like much, but he works like crazy. He's almost always here, working until he crashes. Good thing he owns the place."
"How..."
"Yeah, that's what I asked. He looks like a bum, right? I still don't believe it. He's a garbage man. Or I guess, was."
I look over at him and fiddle with the thin chain around my neck as he approaches. His steps are spritely, he swings his arms. His quick movements belie wells of nervous or joyous energy. His eyes catch mine and he ignores the man who is gesturing at me and is about to say something.
"A potential member!" I realize his eyes are blue as they crease into a smile. Long, near transparent lashes frame his gaze. "At last."
"Yeah, hi," I extend my hand as I rise from my stool, still clutching my trench. "My name's Andrea. I'm interested in joining this... coalition. Group?"
"We like to think of it as more of a movement." His hand is warm in mine, and as he lets go my eyes wander to his other one, handing by his side.
No ring, I immediately think before I can stop myself. There's dark stains in the cracks along his fingers and palms, as if he's tried and failed to wash away years of grime.
He hasn't said anything else. He's looking at me with a smirk, as if he caught me examining him.
I instinctively grab at my own engagement ring and twist it around my finger. I take a deep breath and hold it a moment, looking around at the office space.
"Here to sign up? Amit, will you bring --"
"I might be." I cut him off before I'm rushed to sign another binding contract before I'm ready. "What do you do here, anyway?"
"We're trying to get our jobs back from the goddamn machines." His smile fades and he raises his hands. "But I'm curious... how did you hear about us?"
"In the iVerse."
"That can't be right." He frowns.
"What?" I ask. "Why not? Do you not want new members?"
He nods. "We're just not ready for the iVerse yet." He turns to the girl in the hijab, then the man with the dark beard. "Do either of you know anything about this?"
"No," he says. She just shrugs.
"Are you wearing them?" He asks me.
"What?"
"Those contact lens."
"I-yes? Yeah, of course."
"Look," he takes a step closer to me and lowers his voice as if sharing a confidence. "I know this is going to sound like a weird request. But can you take them out? Once you do, I'll explain everything."
"I can turn them off, but don't you want to see your group's ad first?"
"No," he says sharply. "They have to come out. I mean... we just don't use them here. I don't need to see the ad. I trust you."
I pull my chin in, away from him, but he's smirking at me again.
I close my eyes, holding them shut for a count of three. "They're off. That's the best I'm willing to do before I join you."
"Fair enough."
"So what's the big deal about the ad?"
"I really don't want to scare you off if I haven't already. But it's important that we keep the movement's activities –"
"Even our existence," the dark-haired man at his side cuts in.
"Yeah," Chris continues. "Even that, under the radar for now. We're anti-automation. That's big business. A lot of people with a ton of money would like to stop us before we get going."
I can't fault him for that. RoboNomics is a company worth over a trillion dollars, and they're not the only competitor on the scene. The produce plenty of androids, but iTronics fills in the automation gaps that make iVerse and other AR and VR environments a reality. And that company's valuation is almost as lucrative.
I nod my understand.
"So we have to keep it on the low, build our strength until the day we can take on the giants."
"Do you ever think you will be ready?"
He folds his arms over his chest and tips his chin up as he looks at me. "We have plans."
"Not all of them are above board," the girl sitting at the desk supplies. "So we have to keep them –"
"Miriam," Chris interjects. "She's not a member yet."
The girl deflates visibly in response. She bends over her pieces of paper. Something sparks in my mind.
"So you use paper?"
"Only thing that can't be tracked," the bearded man states.
"It's why I can't stand those lenses. Why I have everyone take them out when they're heading here. Even if they're off, iTronics can track your activity. Hell – they probably record everything you see and hear."
"Not necessarily," I counter. It's my turn to smirk.
It looks like my smile is infectious. Chris and the dark-haired man both grin at me.
"You know something we don't?"
"Let's just say I have a certain skill set. Makes it so I can tell when I'm tracked. I can turn on no-track mode even when I'm wearing them. Even when they're on."
There's a sparkle in his eyes that makes me think he's impressed.
"Besides," I continue. "Haven't you ever heard the myriad ways to hide on the internet?"
"That's not foolproof." Neither of us have to mention the virtual dark web to know what we're referring to.
He turns abruptly to the girl he called Miriam. "I want you to make sure there are none of those ads left. Track them down and then get rid of them."
"Um..." Miriam hesitates. "I don't know how to."
"Well, Teach," he looks me up and down. "Looks like you're up."
"How...how did you know I'm a teacher?"
He gestures at my high-collared dress with a cardigan thrown over it. It's my teaching uniform: modest, yet quirky.
"You're wearing a dress with flowers on it, for chrissake. Doesn't scream high pressured corporate job, does it?" I feel my face get hot with sudden rage.
"And yet you have no one else around who can help with your tech issues." I raise one eyebrow involuntarily, then I address Miriam. "I know how to help you."
"Looks like you're needed here," Chris admits as he turns away. "Amit will grab you some membership literature."
Before I can wonder whether I'm even ready to join, the girl on the stool beside me sticks out her hand for me to take.
"I'm Miriam. Former teacher like you."
"Oh really?"
"Yeah. Less than a month in my class. Grade two. It was my dream job. Then they tell me about that... robot. Three weeks into the year, and I'm out. I tried to get out of my lease."
"Pretty much the same for me, although my fiancée and I aren't ready to give up our place. What will you do?"
"I only just graduated. I have like, nothing. Had to go back to Whitby. Boy, were my parents happy."
"Did your school offer you another job?"
"Yeah. Said I could train as a robot babysitter. You?"
"Yeah, they did. What did you say to them?"
"That I'd think about it."
I nod. It's madness. I'm a fully qualified teacher and they offered me a crappy technician job. I still can't believe I signed the contract.
"You come in here from Whitby?" I ask Miriam.
"Pretty much every day. I figure it's my best shot. I wasn't sure at first. It's not like it pays. Chris said that if we don't stick together, we might as well give up our jobs for good. It gets me out of the house at least."
"Is the group big?"
"Pretty much everyone is here."
I look around the room. A tall, burly man is talking to Chris. Beside him stands a shorter man, his face weathered, and a tall rod of a woman with a deep brown complexion. They all wear coveralls and flannel jackets. The few others, wearing business casual, gather at desks or around the analog machinery.
"Wow," I say.
Amit walks up before I can add more, and hands me a stack of papers.
"Membership info in the front, sign up on the last page. Come find me when you're done." He doesn't wait for a response as he turns and leaves.
It's a lot to take in, and I read over every word before signing and taking it back to him.
"So, get anywhere yet?" I ask Miriam when I return to sit beside her.
"Pretty much membership drive. Though without I-yes we're knee-capped." She rolls her eyes. "But Chris and his... colleagues always go out to 'take action.' They're vague about it. Kinda sketchy, to be honest."
"Really?"
"Yeah, Chris is pretty passionate about all this. Says we have to do anything it takes to get our right to work back."
"Anything?" I ask. "What does that mean?"
"Nothing crazy. Nothing illegal, I think," she says. "But I don't see everything they do."
That wasn't in the membership info, I think.
I look back at Chris. His faded jeans cling to the lean muscles of his legs. There's something about him, some energy that surrounds him and makes it clear why he's the leader here.
Even so, he's hiding something and there's a fear forming about him in my mind.
To be continued in Chapter 4...
A/N:
You've lost your job to automation, and it works like your entire career - your entire industry - will no longer have a job or a career for you. Is this the move? To join a protest group or resistance movement, whether IRL or online?
I honestly don't know that I would. I think my personal first instinctive would be to crawl under the covers and pout. But eventually I'd have to face reality and I'm not sure what my next move would be. How about you?
Also, what do you think of Chris? He'll be back after we met Andrea's fiancee in Chapter 4, which is coming next Friday, May 12!
In the meantime, be sure to connect with me via my socials:
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All the best,
Stephanie