Sequence Six: Burn Me In My Boots

JUNE 26

"Are you going to resign?"

I looked up to see Jaycee glaring at me.

The first thought that went through my mind - and it launched itself all on its own, with no pre-planning or first-level mental intention - was that he is a typical MidCent and that is what drives me nuts about him. He's intellectually brittle, thin-skinned, and his arrogance well transcends entitlement. He's not entitled; as they say nowadays he's "self-appointed."

Self-appointed little asshole. Those were the words, if thoughts are made of words, that went through my wetware. Luckily, I was on guard to keep that response to myself.

"Why would I resign?" I sighed. Every interaction with Jaycee was an extended battle and I was already feeling weary.

"Posting that attitude on your Mind Wall?" Jaycee snorted. "If I were the super, I would totally have fired you already."

My Mind Wall? What had I posted there now? Ever since the Company instituted the requirement that all associates must hook into the MindShare feed, I've been posting both intentionally and inadvertently. My youthful colleagues - who grew up on this tech, and who know how to dissect their thought processes so that they can keep private thoughts private - snicker at me over my accidental posts, which are invariably random, trivial notions. Beige is a pretty color scrolled fleetingly through my subconscious and landed permanently on my Mind Wall a week ago, and I got a barrage of comments on that one, I can tell you. They say calicos don't scratch the furniture as much as other cats I posted the other day, without realizing I'd done so, and the blistering hate prompts that flooded in gave me a migraine.

Shirlene appeared just then on the other side of my desk. "Aren't you on deadline?" she asked Jaycee.

"I was just passing by on my way to the men's room," he responded sullenly, though there was no trace of sullenness on his Mind Wall. I know, because I checked in on his Mind Wall to see if there would be. But Jaycee had an icon of a smiling sun, its golden rays pouring down over a kelly-green meadow.

Shirlene said nothing; she simply fixed her stare onto Jaycee until he retreated.

Once he was gone -- Little twerp, I thought, keeping that thought well corralled in my private mind - Shirlene leaned close over my desk.

"Ray, you have to learn how to regulate what goes on your Mind Wall. Don't you have a MentLap refinement?"

I hadn't even heard of that, and I told her.

"Go to the MindSource store and get one. They help you filter what you post on your Mind Wall. I can't believe you're operating without one."

"Shirlene, until two weeks ago I never had a Mind Wall," I protested. "How am I supposed to know these things?"

She gave me a Sucking A Lemon look, as though I were being deliberately obtuse. "Everyone knows this stuff," she said. Then: "Listen, Jaycee has filed a complaint against you."

"What for now?" I asked. Jaycee had filed complaints against me before, usually because he didn't like the length of my Thought Shares in commthreads. Any share longer than three or six words triggered his always-ready bitterness.

"Seriously, no one has dinged you on this?" Shirlene pointed a thumb at my holoscreen, where the artwork for an upcoming Mindvert hung on display.

"What about it?" I asked.

"The working title of the vert is 'Bury Me in My Boots,' " Shirlene said. "Four minutes ago the post went up on your Mind Wall: 'What kind of title is 'Burn My in My Boots? That's a stupid thing to call it.' "

I looked back at the holoscreen, and then I saw it: The hen-scratch graphics made the Y in "Bury" look like an N.

"Have you even looked at your pingbox?" Shirlene asked.

I braced myself for the tidal swell of contempt and accusation I knew I was about to face. Sure enough, there were already 454 messages, all of them belittling me as an Intellectualist Snob.

"My kid brother needed IQ refinements, would you have burned him in his booties you Nazi," one ding blared.

"Old guy thinks he is smarter than everybody else, that's the usual Cruncher attitude," another screeched. The rest of the dings expressed similar thoughts.

"Brain farts stink but this one is a doozie," was the kindest of the lot.

"Sorry, but this has happened too often and this time the content of your post is in direct violation of HR standards," Shirlene told me. "I have to give you a warning."

JULY 4

I got fired today. Shirlene was very apologetic, especially since she was the one who told me to go find a refinement to prevent accidental postings to my Mind Wall. Well, the one I chose was buggy. It was called Privatude, and it promised to filter all thoughts containing snark and other troublesome factors. But what it didn't filter was thought content that could be construed as violating the Faith Laws.

Of course, in hindsight I see I should have avoid political thoughts in general. But when I looked at my Mind Wall this morning I saw a holoclip of the Theopublican candidate for Primarch, Maizie Stent, and the slogan WHO SAYS THE POOR WILL BE WITH YOU ALWAYS?

There were lots of sigils of agreement and approval decorating this post, which - I noticed - originated from Jaycee. In a moment of irritation at Jaycee's ignorance and pushiness, I posted my own response:

JESUS SAYS IT.

It took one second and three-fifths for Jaycee to respond with, COWBOY ROUGH RIDING ON MY FAITH AND MY VALUES.

I posted back, THIS AIN'T MY FIRST RODEO BUT YOU DON'T GET TO CALL ME COWBOY OR NOTHING BUT MY OWN NAME.

Shirlene was at my desk about two heartbeats later.

"In my office," she said.

I got the full riot act - Shirlene quoted me chapter and verse from the Faith Laws about how it was criminally actionable for anyone to "malign, defame, threaten, or intimidate on the basis of positive doctrinal adherence." Bullshit-ese for, "If you say anything an Evangelical takes offense at, you're screwed."

"And the fact he's been calling me 'Cowboy' ever since the 'Burn My in My Boots' flap?" I protested. "Day and night, that kid is there to malign and defame me."

"You're a Roman Catholic," Shirlene said. "Not one of the positive doctrinals."

"Which is to say, not legally the True Faith," I argued. "But nothing is the True Faith except for Evangelism. Don't we have a First Amendment conflict here?"

Shirlene waved a hand impatiently. "The courts have settled this. In cases of First Amendment conflict, doctrinal adherence takes precedence. The Freedom of Faith laws make it very plain, and the courts have upheld the Faith Laws, so - "

"So if I'm not an Evangelical and my deeply held ethical, moral, and devotional beliefs are trampled, that's just too bad."

"Right," Shirlene said, smiling. "See? You get it. And if you wanted to, you could just convert. Embrace the faith. Don't ask for special rights. Just know the laws and policies and follow them. That way, if you find another job, you can keep it."

"Shirlene," I started.

"You're done," she said, with flat finality.

AUGUST 18

Spent my first day on the streets today. Most of the day I was still trying to truck two suitbags and a rucksack from place to place, because to settle anywhere would be in violation of the laws against transients. First I got rid of the big suitbag - it had wheels, and I was fine dragging it along behind me, looking for some out of the way patch where I could have a breather and maybe catch a nap. I never noticed it before, but the city had almost no parks or other open spaces, and the ones that do exist are paved with concrete, surrounded by fences, and shaded with tarps. Trees? Bushes? Only in cerebrex mods.

I kept trying to drag the big bag after the wheels came off, but that was exhausting. So I finally just left it next to a dumpster. There was a warning sign on the alley wall above the dumpster, and the array of cameras mounted on the walls swiveled toward me the moment I paused, and that made me think I was about to be arrested for leaving it there, but I was so tired by then I didn't care. If they wanted to lock me up, let them. I could starve in a jail more comfortably than on the street.

Two hours later no one had detained me, and I was a few miles away from the scene of the crime. I felt confident enough that no one actually cared - and exhausted enough to surrender the smaller bag, which I had been carrying by a strap. I found another dumpster and left the smaller bag there. I was halfway back to the street when I heard someone behind me opening the bag. I turned to see a man about my age rifling through my abandoned belongings.

"A good shirt here," he said, continuing to paw through my stuff.

"Where did you come from?" I asked.

"Abandoned building," he replied. "Don't think about joining me. Go find your own. There are plenty between 24th and 30th streets."

"I'm new at this," I said. "What else can you tell me? Where do I find food?"

"Ha!" The man still didn't look at me.

After a moment I turned and headed back to ward the street. A tram glode by, and for a moment the bright dynagraphic on its side was framed by the sides of the alley: Maizie, smiling out of the picture, her arm raised in a salute and the slogan POOR NO MORE blazing beneath her.

What that message meant, though her campaign never came out and said it, was that the homeless and destitute were being rounded up and... Well, no one knew what was happening to them. No one wanted to know. All anyone cared about was Maizie was going to make the streets safe again.

SEPTEMBER 18

I thought jail would be easier than the streets, but no such luck. In the name of security they stripped my few refinements out of me - they didn't even use anaesthetic or offer me bandages, they just ripped them right out. I kept a hand pressed to the side of my head to slow the bleeding, but I needed both hands to fend off the most aggressive of my fellow prisoners. Some of them were deranged; some were catatonic; some were plain mean. A lot of them were dead by the time the cops moved us up from the tank and into the court. They took us as a bloc, all of us homeless and transients and accused assailants. As a bloc we all stood in front of a bored judge who barely allowed the charges to be read - charges applied to all of us regardless of why we'd been arrested - before pronouncing sentence We were to be humanely excised from society.

Howls of rage and protest rose around me but the bailiffs started in with the tasers and batons, and - as a bloc - we were herded out of the courtroom once more and down a long sinister corridor, half shrouded in darkness, with what looked like streaks of blood on the walls.

I caught sight of the guy I'd seen going through my bag. He seemed calm. He seemed sane. I thought I could talk to him.

"Why are they doing this?" was all I could think to say.

He actually smiled in response. "It's human nature," he said. "People prefer their own convenience to the well being of others."

I didn't have the first idea how to think about this. He was probably right. There was something in his look, some assurance and gleam of literacy, that made me think that he might once have been a professor or a writer or even a citizen.

The herd stopped moving for a while. Then we moved forward a little and stalled. About six minutes later we moved forward again a few steps, and then again we had to stop and wait. The pattern repeated again and again. There was a sound ahead of us, something like the noise water makes tumbling over an edge - what do they call it when a river goes over a cliff? A waterfall. It was that kind of noise. Gradually, it got louder. Gradually cries of men and women became distinct, separating from the ambient noise. I started to grow afraid. I looked back to the man I'd spoken with.

He had slipped back a little. Looking back, I met his eyes. "What's going on?"

"Well," he said, "I don't know for sure, but I've heard that instead of incarceration, the new way of dealing with excess population is to chuck them into a waste furnace. You know what that is? Once we had no more room for landfills and the oceans were getting too choked with trash, they started to build ultra-hot incinerators. You can throw anything into those babies - plastic, metal, people - and in a few seconds all that's left are trace elements and water vapor." He smiled. "That's the rumor, anyway. I suppose we are going to find out."

An incinerator? The horde lurched forward another few steps. Was that our destination?

I was surprised not to be scared at the prospect, but the truth was, I've gotten tired of this life and this way of living. Somehow, nothing matters. Not the past, not the future, not the idea of being shoved into an incinerator. The one thought that gives me a sense of pleasure... and I am sure if I still had my refinements and access to my Mind Wall, this thought would end up posted for all to protest, and for Jaycee to grin his nasty grin over... is that through all of this I managed to keep my favorite pair of shoes. A month of life on the streets has worn them out, just like it's worn me out, but they are still comfortable. Ahead it looks like they guards are making people surrender any garments still in decent shape before shoving them, a couple dozen at a time, through that wide, dark carbon composite door at the end of the hall. Most people, of course, have nothing left worth taking.

I doubt they will bother with my shoes, battered as they are. I hope not.

Burn me in my boots.