Three days drifted by. The city was soggy and hot, smothered by overcast. Kasia began each morning making Eva’s breakfast - rice cracker, oolong tea, anxiety gummy - before necking her own pills and heading out.
She worked daily, hanging on to the month’s bonus from one call to another, always hitting her targets, always playing with danger by not exceeding them. For her employers, to be merely satisfactory was a negative, though they never accepted perfection. Something had to be labelled ‘needs improvement’.
In her free time she shared content with friends, trending once with her rant over Riese Elektronik’s lack of gamification. Other companies had game rounds between calls, MMO hubs where colleagues mingled, and wheels of fortune after good reviews. All Kasia had was the never-ending jungle screensaver. One friend countered that those workers could pay for extra wheel spins and game time from their salary, and many bled themselves out. This comment annoyed Kasia. It took the wind out of her argument, detrending it. She left the friend a passive aggressive thumbs up emoji.
After shift she queued outside the supermarket for her weekly shop, wishing for the day that she could live in a better neighbourhood and get food delivered. For now, she waited with the riffraff for supplies to carry home. The checkout till offered her a choice of prearranged boxes disguising what some pundits called rationing, and shoppers agonised over the best times to queue before popular options sold out. Kasia went for her preferred Sichuan box - familiar, easy to cook, forever in stock, with agreeable flavours.
She walked home with the box cutting into her arms. Beggars pleaded for handouts, making her swerve and panic from street to street. A truck of Chinese soldiers scared one of these vagrants away. She went to thank them, then saw their leering eyes; the beckoning motion one of them made. She ran down the street, chased by a truck full of raucous laughter, safe only when her pursuers got bored and turned away. Back home, she slept early to make the most of the upcoming day off.
* * *
It was strange seeing daylight on the estate when shifts were bookended by twilight. The weather was pleasant and clear. A breeze calmed the naked sun’s heat. Kasia watched the block from the walkway outside her door. Screeching children played around, enjoying their dwindling months in person before technology brought them online forever. Young mothers stood alone in the doorways, gossiping into phones. The elderly cackled from inside their flats, hooked to traditional online games, as teenagers did the same with new releases. Kasia only got involved with Sermon and Imany. The neighbour to her left was a Hong Kong refugee who forever stayed indoors, surviving in complete isolation to the shock all locals. Kasia was grateful for one less source of social stress.
She headed indoors and immediately a realisation punched her in the stomach. Eva was at school. Imany was out. She had one chance. She checked the door lock and equipped her headset, entering the second password to reveal apps she didn’t want Eva seeing. A panel of rendered AI actors entered a film studio - the default cast - as popups reminded her of different payment tiers. As a free user she had stock actors on shuffle, with one daily skip if she wanted someone else. The next tier, ‘Player’, disabled shuffle and allowed infinite skips. ‘Cupid’ tailored actors to fit desires many customers had yet to realise.
‘Aphrodite’ offered real-life celebrities. Some of these stars were still alive, either wanting more fame or caught in bad contracts. Most were deceased, unable to defend themselves in court. A few were jealously held by their estates, but film industry lobbyists were eroding their rights, and many relatives of such stars backed down to financial settlement.
Kasia could afford none of these, instead seeing another carrot out of reach, another incentive telling her to work more. She dismissed the popups, set the scenario parameters, and used her one free skip. The control to direct the actor nestled in her right hand. Her left hand squeezed through her jeans and took her away.
“Sista.”
“How the fuck did you get in here!?” she threw her headset across the room, “fuck you Sermon!”
Kasia had pulled herself up, panting and trembling, to find Sermon in her kitchenette, holding up a teabag and asking if she wanted one too. He was now gripping the counter for stability, tears of laughter rolling down his cheeks.
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I saw you did your food shop, came to get the beers off ya and to my shock found you skippin' ahead to dessert.”
“The beers are in the fridge, I should charge you extra! Kurwa you’re a shitbag!” Kasia darted into the wash corner to scour the shame from her hands, “how’d you keep getting in here!?”
“You need a proper lock! No use havin’ a hack-proof one if a card can swipe the latch. I’ll find you a new one.”
“Can you get me one that doesn’t let you in?”
“An American model? Facial recognition. Bastards even named their company ‘Blackguard’. You should see the logo…” Sermon wiped his tears away and started raiding Kasia’s fridge, “who you foolin’ around with anyway? Couldn’t wait for a nightclub?”
Kasia sat down and pulled a sulky face. She kept her tastes in porn clean - tech companies feasted on every click - but doing the deed online implied something too unsanitary for a real hookup in a club.
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“It’s the same app you recommended me, probably the same guy you wank over too.”
“Not likely Kash; I paid for Madame Aphrodite, chaa,” he pulled out two Tsingtao lager cans and held one up with a suggestive face. Kasia looked down and shook her head. She avoided alcohol but always received some in her food boxes. Sermon liked to buy them, and since he dealt with hard cash, he left a £100 note on the counter, pocketing one can and cracking open another.
“There’s another reason I’m ‘ere Kash, remember Misha on ground floor?”
Kasia had a vague impression. Another mother across the estate. They never spoke in person but Misha had added her online. Her profile was covered in pro-caliphate content and fundraisers for whatever shelter she worked at. Kasia recalled sending a message without getting a reply, and had understood not to press further.
“Yea we’re friends, why?”
“She’s sayin’ she came home from work the other night and Joey wasn’t there.”
Kasia shrugged, “is he not with the other kids outside?”
“If Eva was gone would you be askin’ a drug dealer for help two days later?”
“Why’d she wait that long!?”
“Embarrassed to say obviously; probably thought he’d just turn up.”
Kasia blinked. Sermon swigged his lager, realised he was chasing a dead end, and carried on.
“She went to Imany. Imany’s checkin’ the nursery and... she sent Misha to me.”
“Shit it must be serious,” Kasia snorted, “I’ll share a post and let you know, alright?”
“Sounds good. I was gonna ask if you’d seen him since you got your fingers in so many pies,” he flicked his middle finger. Kasia tried stifling her laugh but it burst through, making him recoil.
“That bloody laugh o’ yours... poor Eva’s got it and all…”
Still giggling, Kasia pushed him outside, rattled the lock at him, and shut the door.
She spent the rest of her day off reacting to things with friends. The TV played a calculated, bottomless list of funny clips, pranks, displays of wealth, and brilliant feats. Eva charged indoors and told the TV to play Britpop instead, ignored her mother’s protest at the overrated new genre, and climbed on her bunk with her phone. Kasia pulled herself from her bunk and began microwaving a black bean stir-fry.
“How was school?”
“Well annoyin’. The teachers were goin’ on about the Reds all day but they won’t actually say what’s goin’ on, if you get me.”
“Haven’t seen much either really, but for once there's a bit more gossip in Kendi. You know Joey from downstairs?”
“Yea, hyper little shit he’s well irittatin’. Is he dead?”
“Might be. Have you seen him around lately? Apparently he ran off; the neighbours are searching.”
Eva mumbled and continued browsing on her phone. Something caught her attention, “guess what’s back on later tonight!”
Kasia raised her arms high, “It’s only the next season of Penthouse: Soho!”
Of all the reality shows, Penthouse: Soho was closest to home. Its contestants fought and preened to win a luxury flat in a block of former winners - a tower of poor people bathing in riches they weren’t raised to use healthily. The post-season downfall of each winner entertained as much as the show itself.
“I’m literally gonna audition on my 16th birthday! At midnight!” Eva jumped from the upper bunk and joined Kasia at the dining table, “won’t we look good in one of them flats!?”
Kasia balked, partly due to the disasters contestants faced, partly because Eva would have the looks to get in. It was the first time Eva had brought it up, and so Kasia decided it was time to switch to Polish. The language of lecture.
“Relax my daughter! Even if you win they will cause you a lot of problems. Mental illnesses, and bad men will follow you where you go! Men aren’t all bleeding aunties like Sermon. And besides the Penthouse won’t let you take your mother -”
“What else could I do!?” Eva stuck with English - an act of defiance, signifying her mother was being overdramatic, “I can handle my own mental health, and I wanna help us both one day -”
“Absolutely not. Look out for yourself Evie. You deserve your own place and your own life.”
“Ojejku can’t we have both?” Eva gave up and returned to her bunk, “I’ll be online; grab me when Penthouse is on will ya?”
She hid inside her headset as Kasia fretted. The ideal future was impossible to picture: something loosely like Eva with a husband and child, and Babunia Katarzyna visiting every Sunday with a tasty lunch in hand.
It was a stupid fantasy. A memory of a life before her own time. Commitment was dead. Intimacy was cringe. Marriage was either a dog whistle for fascist traditionalists or else promoted by nauseating spiritual cliques. Conveniently, both movements tended to end up in bed together.
For normal people, venues covered enough vices to render the old ways obsolete. The famous marriage - the President’s - always gave him grief. He had been caught recently spurning polygamy rings - a liberal's pleasure he joked was worth half of marriage, since ‘marriage serves two lovers and polygamy serves one narcissist’. The progressive cosmopolitan elite were outraged, and he was made to apologise.
Still there remained a comfort in the old idea of romance. The desire to resurrect it simmered within Kasia as it did with so many others.
Another facile desire to repress with a reality check. She was certainly unable to picture a spouse of her own. She switched the thought off and took Eva's meal to her bunk.
Her chest hurt. She wanted sit with her daughter, let Eva rest against her and tell her about all the virtual worlds she explored. The chance of rejection scared her too much. She took her own dinner to the table and ate alone.
Eva checked her homestead's farm yield and opened a daily loot crate - a randomised parcel containing unique cosmetics. She dressed her character up - a humanoid, cutesy sea creature trained to use magic - and joined her allies in hunting down a ditched friend. This reject didn’t fit in anymore, had been kicked out, and foolishly sought sanctuary in a safe-space server.
The band found their target and chased her into a dungeon, where they unleashed a fusillade of spells and hurtful messages. The reject was told to kill herself if she wanted the attacks to end. Eva said nothing but hurled balls of fire and frost at the girl, who stood motionless, unwilling to fight back as her health bar evaporated. She didn’t want to do it, but if she held back her friends would target her next.
There was something heavy in her throat. Her eyes felt watery. She wanted to sit on her mother’s lap and play something with her, but she was afraid of being laughed at. She was too old for that now.
Kasia yanked her arm.
“What!?” Eva ripped her headset off, startled and angry. Then she saw her mother’s fear.
A fist hammered on the door. Both girls jumped. A line of blue light beamed through the door frame.