2
The day Jon quit his job
The village of Sandwich was by the sea, on the western coast of Icomo, in the province of Mo.
Its blue ocean and green hills made it an idyllic place to live. Jon had never lived anywhere else and had only had that one job before his adventure began. He worked at the post office, managing robots as they sorted incoming mail.
Jon never had much to do, unless one of the robots broke down or needed reprogramming. He spent most of the time reading in the sunshine, while behind him through a glass wall the metallic robots organized envelopes.
Unlike the times before, his compulsion to quit refused to fade. On the following Friday, he went to work and finally did it.
“I am unable to process this input,” said a robot upon being informed of Jon’s resignation. “Can you please repeat or rephrase your question?”
Jon may have been the manager of the robots, but a robot substituting his own manager had not been programmed to process the word sequence ‘I’ and ‘want to quit.’ The real manager from Omb, in the province of Co, only came in several times a year for inspections.
“I said I’m quitting.”
“My apologies, Mr Vélo, but I am unable to understand your request. Would you like me to contact your manager?”
“That’s fine, I’ll give him a call myself.”
Anyone standing there would not have noticed anything happening. Jon was using his Eye to access the contact information of his manager, Patrick Mote. The man appeared in front of Jon from the shoulders up.
“What can I do for you, Jonathan?”
After a deep breath, he said, “I just wanted to let you know that… I’ve been thinking recently… And I think that I might want to…“
“Quit?”
Jon took a deep breath. Telling the robot had been much easier.
“Yes, I’m quitting. My final day will be next Friday.”
Mr Mote sighed but seemed resigned to the news immediately. He probably had other important things to do, and a supervisor of robots quitting did not rank highly on his list of concerns.
“Thank you for letting me know a week in advance. You do realize, however, this job will be filled immediately, don’t you?”
“I know.”
“As long as you understand that, then nothing more needs to be said. I wish you the best of luck.”
Being from Co, his manager was exceedingly practical—and rather cold. It is a reputation that has persisted since ancient times.
(There is some truth in this still, just as the people of the southern province of Mo, where Jon was from, are thought to be slow-moving, artsy, and hopelessly romantic, owing to the southern climate. It is a stereotype to be sure, but there is some truth in stereotypes. Most of the great artists and poets have indeed come from Mo, and the great scientists from Ii, of which province there will be more to hear. The people of Co make excellent athletes, managers, and rather strict teachers.)
All of this about the people of Mo being hopelessly romantic was occurring to Mr Mote as he listened to Jon, thinking the young man wanted to slip off the Field and become a painter in the hills by a blue lake.
Jon had already known that he would be easy to replace. His job required few special skills. Ten years ago, it had needed only a superlaureate degree in robot maintenance, but nowadays any fifteen-year-old with a primalaureate could do it. It needed only simple engineering know-how and basic programming, which everybody learned at school.
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Quitting his job did not immediately feel like the wonderful breath of fresh air he had expected, and during the last half hour of work, he felt like an intruder. Relief came as he stepped outside at five o’clock. His feelings at that moment are preserved in this journal entry:
I can’t believe I did it. It’s too late to take it back, and I wouldn’t want to anyway. The more I think about it, the more I can’t stop smiling. This weekend, I’ll fix up my bike, buy a tent and supplies, and set off next Monday. The only hard part left is telling everyone.
The next evening, Jon told his friends, Catherine and Harold, who do not appear to us, from the advantage of the future, as having been at all important. They were nevertheless good friends to Jon and kept his interests at heart. Jon delivered the news while at a local bread soup restaurant operated by smiley-faced robots.
“You’re planning to do what?” asked Catherine after hearing the news.
“Ride my bike around Icomo.”
“All of it?”
“Mm-hm.”
Catherine and Harold exchanged looks.
“I have to say,” said Catherine, “I didn’t think you were that athletic… I’m impressed. But a bike ride? I mean, nobody even rides bikes anymore.”
“Well, I still ride mine.”
Harold poured more beer into everyone’s glasses from a dewy, ice-cold pitcher on the table, saying: “Jon will be one of those old men telling kids about how, back in the day, we actually had to cut down trees to make paper.”
“The world needs old people like that, don’t you think?”
Jon grinned, and his eyes scrunched up.
“This sounds dangerous, though,” said Catherine. “Don’t you realize how long this trip is going to take you?”
“I’ve been planning it in my head for a while now. Only thing left to do is do it.”
Catherine leaned back in her chair, but without slouching; she always had excellent posture. “A bike ride around Icomo…” Her eyes grew thoughtful.
“Which way are you going to go around?” asked Harold.
“Clockwise.”
Catherine looked knowingly at Jon.
“This doesn’t have anything to do with Brittany, does it?”
Jon laughed and looked down at his food.
“Of course not.”
A clockwise trip around Icomo meant that one of his last stops before reaching home again would be his ex-girlfriend’s hometown, Port Midalles, a second-tier city.
Finishing their meal, they paid and went outside to continue their discussion on the boardwalk. Bushes with altered DNA produced firefly luciferin in their leaves, glowing faintly blue and replacing streetlamps.
“Are you sure now’s the right time?” asked Catherine as they stepped into the warm night. “What are you gonna do for money?”
“The government stipend we get every month will hold me over,” said Jon, sticking his hands into his pockets. “I won’t need anything but food. As for the question of time, I don’t see what the big difference is between now or next year… But if I keep saying ‘next year,’ it might turn out to be never.”
“What about your father?”
Jon had expected this pushback from her. His journal entries describe her as a perennial ‘whatabouter…’ Being from Co, she embodied that region’s unrelenting pragmatism, and was stereotypically hard-headed. But she always had a point. He should have told his father earlier.
“I’ll tell him tomorrow morning.” Jon buried his hands deeper into his pockets. “Oh, and one more thing,” he went on. “I’m going to do it without my Eye in.”
Catherine and Harold stopped walking.
“You’re joking, right?” asked Catherine.
“That does sound a little dangerous,” said Harold.
“I’ll take it with me just in case. Don’t worry.”
“Well, as long as you have it…”
“But I wonder if you’ll get lost without your map,” said Catherine as they continued down the boardwalk..
Jon grinned.
“Not possible.”
“What’s not possible?”
“I’ll be riding around the coastline, so I’ll always know where I am.”
Harold shook his head, smirking. He had graduated with a superlaureate in infrastructure development, and had studied the geography of Icomo for years.
“In most places, there aren’t walking paths by the coast like there are here in Mo,” he explained. “And some places have geography that makes bike riding impossible. Like up in Co, where it’s rocky and mountainous.”
“Right, I hadn’t thought of that…”
Catherine eyed him archly.
“Haven’t you been thinking about this for a long time?”
“I have been,” said Jon, “but mostly about the wind in my hair, and grilling dinner every night, and falling asleep to the chirping of crickets, or the crashing of waves…”
Catherine rolled her eyes.
“You are a romantic.”
“I’ll have my Eye with me if I need it. But I just don’t want to have it in all the time. It’s not the same.”
They paused at the edge of the boardwalk where dark waves splashed and sparkled. An advertisement for flower-based cooking oil sailed across the starry clouds. Despite the optimistic motto (‘100% natural!’), this product was later discovered to be slightly poisonous.
“You’ll probably spend your first night by Sandwich Spoon?” asked Harold. From a bird’s eye perspective, this narrow peninsula resembled a spoon dipping into the sea. “It’s about a day’s bike ride from here.”
“Yeah, by the temple ruins.”
“Is this the last night we’re going to see you?” asked Catherine.
“You sound like I’m never coming back.”
“For all we know, you might not be!”
“I have to admit,” said Harold, “it’s a crazy idea, but it’s not as dangerous as it sounds. In this day and age, you’ll never be too far from civilization.”
He had said this as though it were an undeniably good thing, but Jon wondered if escaping civilization was the entire point.
“Guess I’ll find out soon,” Jon said quietly.
Saying good night, they went their separate ways and, in the morning, Jon woke up early to visit his father.