Your SP rating is 7. Unfortunately, this guarantees you to only a universal basic income. Please increase your SP to benefit from a higher income. For suggestions on how to increase your SP, select the link below.

He sighed, blinking resignedly at the slowly pulsing text in front of him on the flexi screen. The virtual tablet receded back into the halo band on his wrist. The logo and SP text on the band glowed faintly when off, reminding the customer who provided this technology to them even when not in use. Duncan knew that he had to increase his SP. Of course he did. He dragged over the plain cube of greyish jelly that served as his meal and dragged the spoon through its gelatinous, spongy texture. The tastelessness of it in his mouth somehow felt like it had the flavour of ashes. All in his mind, he knew. Yet it served as a reminder as to his station in life. ‘Like I need one.’ He noted aloud to himself. The screen on the wall of his apartment also featured his SP of 7 as its virtual surface displayed a multi tiled rolling update of his top ten StarPower feeds. The 1 through 5 slots were locked by the system, generated by the universal rankings. The next five were of his choosing. The last showed his ex-girlfriends feed occasionally shifting to different updates she had made in the past twenty four hours. With each iteration, the displayed ended with her ranking of 26. He took another spoonful of his meal cube and gazed at the shut curtain of the tiny apartments one window. Like every other occupant of the standard tenement, Duncan enjoyed a one room living area including kitchen, dining, lounge that converted into a bed with a small door leading to a bathroom. He hadn’t seen out of the window since he’d moved in one day, three years ago. His workstation butted up underneath the window and his virtual monitor when powered on would contrast against the dark fabric of the curtain. He’d long given up surveying his domain with disgust, sinking into a self-defeated apathy. His main screen blared an advertisement about increasing his StarPower despite the muted setting. He sighed and gave up, leaving the half finished cube to be reclaimed by the wall mounted server unit. It would be broken down into its constituent parts and then recycled back to some other tenement dweller to be consumed while their eyes were glued to their screens. Time for work.

As an average to poor rated user, Duncan worked to receive his universal income. Voluntarily, of course, as StarPower would provide him regardless due to his being a user. With 86% of the world’s population using StarPower, there was a lot of content requiring constant maintenance. His above average computer skills at least allowed him to keep busy, assisting those higher than him to produce their own content. These average-Joe users relied on their friends and families for their StarPower and couldn’t afford dedicated technicians to produce their feeds. Enter Duncan, knight to the masses. Cutting together their lives into bite sized chunks for the world’s entertainment. He didn’t communicate with the ‘Clients’. That would be far to personal. Simply took their raw footage or photographs and spliced it into sensical formats. He truly witnessed the best and worst of people and in return, the company paid him regular bonuses above the Universal income line. He could use this extra income to purchase products and to travel to locations to produce his own content. So often however, he used the money to provide food with actual flavour. He did buy clothing on occasion and to be fair, better quality garb was a sure fire way to make your content more interesting. When everyone on Universal looked exactly the same, anything that set you apart (or more importantly above) the general populace guaranteed more interest. Interest was supposed to generate SP and therefore income. Duncan was smart enough to realise that this was a plateauing benefit that would do little after an initial bump. He might get a few more friends from school checking his feed and liking his posts but it would bottom out, reducing him again. He didn’t have affluent parents able to send him on holidays to important places to generate his content. He was an everyman, faceless and winless. Duncan supposed he could go the shock-jock line, espousing ridiculous theories about the SP rankings conspiracy or spewing hateful venom about the top SP users but he didn’t have the stomach for it.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

He finished cutting together a birthday dinner video created an hour earlier. Looking at the locations specifications, Duncan realised this person actually lived in the same building that he did. This wasn’t as surprising as it initially sounds, given that his apartment was one of 1500 in this building alone and geo-location was quicker for delivering the user data. Still it wasn’t entirely common for him to be working on content from so close. Generally in the same city, but not same building. A quirked eyebrow was all the reaction it caused however. He checked his edit and replayed it from the start. The video was fairly short. An hours’ worth of video compressed down to 45 seconds of usable content. Studies showed that anything beyond this sort of time frame and the watcher would become disinterested. An unknowably frequent sigh passed from his chapped lips and the video began. The birthday girl grinned widely at the camera, her pretty face initially taking up the frame before she directed the hovering camera-bot to move backward and bring her apartment into frame. A carbon copy of Duncans own home came into view right down to the short benchtop and server unit. Hers however showed efforts of decoration that his utility did not. A cake bedazzled with holo candles and miniature fireworks took pride of position and the young woman announced it was her 22nd birthday. Many hoorays and energetic pronouncements of happiness were made. She ‘blew’ out the candles and the footage quickly cut to a cute still of her nose lightly dusted with icing. He watched her exclaim over a small present provided by her parents. She held up the second generation holo-screen emitter that far outstripped his own but was lightyears behind the top technology of today. Making a point to show its brand with her carefully placed fingertips she grinned with joy. The video ended with this moment, fading into the familiar StarPower screen with her rating of 11. Duncan shook his head slightly in sadness. He had given her what she looked for, portraying her as a cheery and upbeat young woman enjoying her birthday. There were many moments he cut where he could see her glassy expression that gave him the impression of vast loneliness. His workstation displayed both the StarPower screen and her forlorn expression with a stark cut between the two. He shrugged to himself then published the video to her feed. Feeling hollowed out, he folded out his converting sofa-bed and lay down praying tonight would give him sleep.