Heart to Heart

Temperature 47C, humidex 51C, air quality index 17: adjusting filter" the System informed Sandra as she opened the door. "Recommended time outdoors 11-13 minutes, recommended level of exertion: pulse 97-117, breathing 18-21 breaths/minute,” it continued as she stepped outside.

The backdrop was tropical jungle today, Sandra noted. She liked the temperate forest better. Here the vines looked too much like snakes.

A parrot shrieked from the branches just above her, and she jumped. "Arousal level exceeds optimal limits," the System warned. "Please take slow, deep breaths." Sandra closed her eyes, inhaled and exhaled as the System counted to ten.

I must try harder, Sandra told herself. Sandra was still only class 4b, and she hated the look of self-satisfied pity that came over Marylin's face every time she looked at Sandra's pale green heart. Yet Sandra had earned it, and she was proud of it.

Sandra opened her eyes. The parrot was gone, but she had other company. A girl had just stepped out from behind a three-meter wide Kapoc tree. Sandra raised her hand to wave, lowered it at once, frowning. The girl had just walked straight through a portion of the trunk. Sure enough, it was Emily. Sandra made as if to take another branch of the path.

But just as Sandra turned away, a glint of something bright caught her eye, and she looked back. Emily was wearing a shiny silver heart, on a chain around her neck. "Poor thing," thought Sandra. "She's trying to be like us. She doesn't understand that hers is just a toy."

"System incompatibility disorder," Sandra remembered the System explaining, the first time she had asked why Emily had no cyberheart like everyone else. “Commonly known as a "cyber disability.” In rare cases an infant's brain may reject the implants. Such individuals are unable to connect to the system.

It was hard to imagine what Emily’s life must be like. She could not see the brilliant hibiscus around them, or feel the warm, moist air, the drops of cool water that fell from the banana leaves. She could not reach out and pluck mango, that would appear on the nearest branch, perfectly ripe, as soon as she reached for it. She had no access to the limitless wealth of knowledge, literature, music, art, entertainment, which the system could provide at will. She could not take part in the corporate celebrations, the commemoration of Incorporation Day, or the CEO's Anniversary, or the Universal Lateral Merger festival. She could not even communicate expect by a few hand signs and animal noises. And of course, she would always remain an insurance beneficiary. She could never hope to be a real employee. Not even a trainee, like the other kids their age.

Sandra turned back onto the main path and walked over to Emily. She smiled at her, waved, and Emily smiled, and waved back. But even though Emily's lips smiled, her eyes were anything but happy. "How does she feel?" Sandra asked the System. But the system did not always answer that sort of question. "She's sad," thought Sandra after a moment. "Very sad, and scared."

Not sure what to say, Sandra pointed to the heart locket. “It’s pretty,” she said. A pretty toy, she supposed, shiny and silver, with delicate engraving. Without warning, Emily unfastened the silver chain and made as if to grab Sandra's hand. Sandra jumped back. "Arousal level high," the System warned her. "Please take deep, slow breaths" Automatically, Sandra did as she was told. But at the same time, Emily, more slowly, carefully this time, took her hand. She placed the locket on Sandra's palm. Sandra smiled, confused.

"You keep it," she said, offering it back to Emily

Emily shook her head, closed Sandra's fingers round it.

"For me?" Sandra asked, pointing at the locket, and then at herself.

Emily nodded.

"Thank you," said Sandra. "It's beautiful." She pressed her hands together to show her thanks.

But Emily still looked as if she would start crying again any minute.

"What's wrong?" Sandra asked, even though she knew it was pointless. "Why are you crying?"

"They're going to fire me," Emily answered.

"What?" said Sandra incredulously. "But you can't communicate."

"I can," answered Emily, and though Sandra stared, she could hardly disbelieve.

"But if you aren't connected to the System," Sandra insisted. "How are we communicating?"

"I am connected to the system," Emily answered. "Only something went wrong with my implants. They didn't catch it until I was four or five, and by then, it was too late to remove it."

"Why don't you have a cyberheart then?" Sandra asked.

"They wanted people to think I was disabled," Emily answered. "That way, no one would try to talk to me."

"Why shouldn't people talk to you?"

"My implants keep connecting to the wrong files," Emily explained. "Deleted files. The ones no one is supposed to know about."

"I don't believe it," Sandra said. "It's not possible. The Founding CEOs of the Six Corporations were enlightened and compassionate. They offered employment to everyone who wanted it, without discrimination. They cared for their employees like their own children. They instituted the Code of Corporate Responsibility and put an end to the oppression of the Nation States."

Emily smiled, hard and bitter. "I can show you," she said. She reached out and touched the light green heart.

The files started appearing, one after another, almost too quickly for Sandra to process. She felt light-headed, dizzy, sick. Her biometrics monitor did not even notify her of specific deviations, but simply began to sound a high-pitched alarm she had never heard before. But the file was clear in spite of the alarms. It showed decades of global war, famine, drought, pandemics, children deformed with chemicals and cancer searching through the rags of rotting bodies for a piece of bread.

"But that was all the Nation States fault," she protested.

"Some of it was," Emily admitted. “But the Corporations were worse. Look."

Sandra shrank back, but Emily had no mercy. A new set of files began to open. Scenes of clean, air-conditioned boardrooms and manicured golf courses. Calmly, coolly, the Founding CEOs looked at the evidence, tallied up the toll of lives and misery, set it against profits and share values, and decided, year after year, decade after decade that they would keep burning coal, keep drilling, keep fracking, keep killing, just a little longer.

And then, yes, finally, the CEOs realized they had a problem. It was becoming too hot, even in their shaded, gated communities. Too hot to live. One CEO's daughter developed leukaemia. Another had a grandchild who died of asthma. A third had lost her mother to simple heat exhaustion when a power outage cut off the air conditioning. Their colleagues in Asia warned of a new disease that even the air filters, ultraviolet sanitizers and security guards had been unable to keep from the head office.

So yes, the CEOs decided to purchase the Corporate Property, build the first domed business parks, build the wind and solar generators, the geothermal wells, put up the solar screens, and fill the air with cooling aerosols. They drove out the people who lived there, bulldozed their homes, paved their fields. The refugees gathered at the walls of the dome to starve. When they did not starve quickly enough, the security forces shot them. Then the CEO's the managers, the shareholders, the directors, and all the others who could pay arrived, in private, solar powered plains, or electric limousine, and Corporate Paradise was born.

Now it was Sandra who was crying. The biometric monitor flashed and beeped. "I hate you. It's all lies. I don't believe it."

"If you didn't believe it," said Emily, "you wouldn't be crying."

Sandra looked down. "What happens when you're fired?" Sandra asked the system. "Corrupt file, cannot open," came the response. "What happens?" she asked Emily.

"They expel you from the Corporate Property," Emily answered. "You become one of the Unemployed."

"You'll die," Sandra exclaimed. "You'd never survive in the Unacquired Real Estate. Not all on your own…they might as well just murder you."

Emily smiled once more, only half bitter. "Actually, I don't mind going to the outlands. Even if it's bad, at least it's real. Only I'll miss my Mum," she added, the smile fading.

"But you'll die." Sandra repeated

Emily shrugged. "Maybe. But living here isn't really living, anyway. At least whatever happens in the outlands, it's real, and it's really you that suffers. People used to be proud of that, in a way. They used to be proud that they could bear hardship and suffering."

"But the Unemployed," protested Sandra. "They're like animals. They'll eat you."

"Not likely," answered Emily. "The Unemployed don't eat each other except in the very worst famines, and even then, they wait until you’re dead. They look after each other, usually. It may not be that bad."

"Why did you give me this?" Sandra asked, taking the silver heart out of her pocket.

"Open it," Emily said.

Sandra opened the locket. On one side was a small, black and white picture of a woman sitting with a toddler on her lap. The woman was oddly dressed, and the picture didn't move or speak, or anything. On the other side was a lock of smooth, fine hair. "I don't know who they are," Emily said. "But they're real. Real people, not genetically designed bionic "employees" like us. And real people made it, with their hands. To earn enough to feed their kids, to look after their families. I can't download any of the deleted files to leave behind. But at least they'll still be a picture. At least someone can still see what a real person looks like, when I'm gone."

“But…” said Sandra.

"Here are the security officers,” Emily pointed. Sandra saw nothing but the many shaded green of the rainforest. Then, after a moment, two men two women appeared from out of apparent nothingness. Two of them took a hold of Emily’s arms, while the other two hurried towards Sandra.

"Are you OK?"

Sandra nodded.

"It's alright," the security officer assured her. "She has a disability. It's not her fault. We're looking after her. "

Emily was lying on the ground. The blue light of electronic handcuffs flickered around her wrists, and one of the women tied a blindfold over her eyes. The officers hauled her to her feet, began to march her along the path.

Then Emily and the three officers vanished. The background shimmered for an instant, and grew still.

Sandra stared, cold and sick, sweat running down her back. Her hand went to the silver locket, and then to the pale green heart she had been so proud of. She took a hold of the heart and began to pull.

"What are you doing?" the security officer demanded. Sandra clenched her teeth and pulled harder. "Stop," ordered the officer, and a wave of pain washed over her.

All at once, Sandra found she was perfectly calm. "Integration restored," the System pronounced, and the alarms ceased. The security officer loosened his grip just slightly. With a smooth, swift motion, Sandra tore at her pale green heart. A chorus of beeps, squeals, warnings and admonitions, then silence.

Sandra was lying on the ground. Above her was not the lush, thick canopy of the background, but dull, smoggy air, with the translucent roof of the dome above, grey against the background of radiation-reducing aerosols. She groped for the locket, opened it. Her sight was too blurred to make out the picture, but it did not matter.

"Every employee will be treated with compassion and dignity. Every employee will have equal access to knowledge and truth," she murmured.

"Real people…compassion…truth….real…" Her eyes closed, and the locket fell from her hands. “Truth," she whispered once more, as the dome melted away, as the aerosols dispersed and only the vast, empty heaven remained.