The sun climbed higher and higher over the soulless buildings of the grey City, where it slowly chased away the smog and most of the clouds. Motionlessly I was observing the skyline through Evelith’s window, noticing its slow changes in light and colour. This was a much better view than I was used too, but still I was distracted by too much diverging thoughts that were running through my head like a crazy magnetotrain.
Meanwhile Evelith herself was busy in her tiny kitchen, doing some mysterious food preparations. This also was a first for me, a human doing such things themselves, and it made me wonder: Didn’t she have any robomachines to do that for her? If she had them, she didn’t use them at all, just like the infoscreen that lay in a corner, unused and unplugged and mostly just busy gathering dust. There was something weird and possibly illegal about this woman and her lifestyle, but it didn’t seem to bother me for some reason. For now my curiosity was winning from my suspicion.
The meal she finally came back with was as much of an anachronism as the building itself and the musical projections from last night, and equally glorious. It looked a lot like scrambled eggs with green stuff, bacon and rice balls from older eras, but in The City all of it must have been made withh synthetic ingredients and tissue-culture products. I never had seen such detailed accuracy in food-synthesising outside of an expensive restaurant though.
“Wow. You eat like this often?”
“Yes, we regularly cook for each other here. Even dear Leste can cook quiet well too. It’s Velia, the old janitor, who has taught us some of the old recipes. You’ll meet her later. But let’s eat first and then you tell me what you think.” I tried it, and it tasted even better than it looked. Amazing how she, a poor woman living rather out of place in the Light District, ate like this regularly and even was able to prepare it herself! And the others here did the same? What wondrous new world was opening up to me?
“So, I suppose this is all made with standard prefab ingredients from the supermarket. But what is the green stuff on the eggs? It’s quite strong.” Her eyes twinkled. “Hah, you noticed… I try to cook with non-artificial ingredients whenever possible but they are rather hard to find. Fresh cress greens are all I have now. Yes, don’t stare at me! They are actual living plants, just a tiny herb though, not really much of a vegetable. Not bad, aren’t they?”
In amazement I investigated those tiny green leaves on my artificial eggs. I was eating actual living plants? The idea alone was completely new to me. Centuries ago already the City had been completely cleared of all organic lifeforms that weren’t Homo sapiens. The world I lived in had been completely sterile as long as anyone could remember, or at least in theory. But even though an insect or a tiny moss or so was seen sometimes in recent times, actual living plants of this size were extremely rare. “I’ve never eaten real organic food.” I had to admit. “Come, look, I grow them myself. I have a friend who can get seeds from time to time. And if you know how to care for these well enough they will reseed.” I stared at the pot with tiny plants in her kitchen. “And that’s not the best thing we have here. You have to taste Velia’s mint tea. From fresh mint herbs, not the stuff in bottles they make from chemicals in factories.”
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I went back my breakfast, and looked out of the window. She suddenly pointed at something outside: “Did you see that? A bird. There have been several pigeons living around the squat since last year.” Again I stared out of the window, looking at a tiny speck of non-human life on the skyline. “You’ve seen real living birds regularly?” “Yes, they’re coming back. I’ve heard reports from other places too. And bigger plants have been seen too.”
I didn’t answer, slightly in awe of all the non-human organic life that I encountered today, which was more in one day than in most of my life together. “Wow. This is all so new to me. I am really waking up in a new world.” She looked brightly at me and hummed one of Les’ projected songs from last night, something about with ‘spend the night together’ and then ‘wake up to live forever.’ “I don’t think that’s what the song is about, Ev.” I mumbled. “No? Didn’t the man in the funny 20th century hat predict this morning of you and me waking up, sharing this breakfast, and looking at a pigeon circling the skyline of The City? Shame…” Her eyes were teasing me again.
Humans were complicated, but somehow I knew that she was safe.
“So, what did you mean when you said a real man is hard to find? Why are you and Les saying that humans are rare? I still see lots of people every day. They pass me by. They drive vehicles. They come to your bar. They…” She stopped me by putting her finger to my lips.
“Adaman my dear boy. Don’t say silly things. You haven’t even spoken to any human in years before me. You don’t even know any actual human anymore. We’re getting extinct and you haven’t even noticed. We’ve been replaced mostly by robots and holographic beings!” I looked at her, letting her words sink in. “And, by the way, have you seen any children lately at all? Do you know any children?” “Children? Not that I know. I’ve only seen adults, real ones or AI’s that look like them. The difference is hard to see nowadays.” “Ever wondered about that? Ever heard of extinction of a species without a new generation? And that’s not just the effectiveness of AC42 as a contraceptive I’m afraid.” I must have stared at her in a weird way, because she said “No funny ideas I said. No baby-making plans here now. Really, you men! Sigh… But come on, you have until two before your shift starts. That gives us all morning to talk and meet some people. There’s so much you need to learn.”
“But, I need to go home, find new clothes and stuff.”
“Nah, you look just fine, boy. Those machines and computers won’t care at all. Come, we’ll go to over to Velia’s for some mint tea. You just won’t know what you taste.”
Again I had no choice but following her.