Max was taking his morning shower, still half asleep; it was just past 6:30 AM and he hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before. However, his morning drowsiness was interrupted.
“Master, you have exactly two minutes and 35 seconds to finish your shower, or you will have to skip breakfast,” said X200, Max’s personal robot, in its mechanical and emotionless voice while standing in the center of the bathroom.
X200, ‘X’ for short, was the result of many hours of work. The robot had a humanoid structure, following the latest robot fashion, and even its face was supposed to resemble a human’s but without skin. However, instead of tendons, bones and blood, he had wires, metal and circuits.
“Thanks, I can’t wait to eat that cheap cereal,” answered Max, as he stepped out of the shower, which made the water stop immediately.
He started drying his pitch-black hair, which no matter how much he tried to brush always came out spiky. He looked in the robot’s general direction, but it was too blurry to see more than a silhouette. He put on his glasses, obscuring his otherwise attractive hazel eyes, and suddenly the world was in high definition again. He took a set of clothes from a pile that X had previously prepared, and put on his usual work outfit: a sky-blue, long-sleeved shirt and black slacks, both crumpled but perfectly clean.
“Always a pleasure to help, Master,” answered the robot, with a tone that was supposed to resemble happiness, but never quite worked. The price one pays for trying to build his own robot.
“I could swear that even if you could understand sarcasm, your answers couldn’t get better than that, X.”
“Sarcasm? Unclear. I am familiar with the term and its meaning, but its usage is not comprehended, Master.”
“Don’t worry about that X, I would have to upgrade you so much for you to understand it, that I believe Julia would kill me,” said Max, while he sat down at the kitchen table and poured some cereal in his hovering bowl. It worked exactly the same as his other regular bowls, but it made a great piece of decoration. He glanced at the fridge’s front screen, noticing a blinking light. Dammit, out of milk again. Now, I’m gonna have to eat this dry, he thought, as he reluctantly grabbed a spoon.
“Is that what you call ‘a figure of speech’, Master? Otherwise, I could call the police for you.”
“I fear what she would do to me after she was done with the cops, to be honest. Forget about it X, you were right, it was just a figure of speech. I would say that you don’t need to worry, but I won’t, mainly due to you not having feelings, but also because I’m not really sure that it would be true. No hard feelings. Get it? ‘Hard’ feelings, because you are made of metal and stuff.”
“Was that an attempt at humor, Master? I could detect a joke pattern, but my systems cannot find where the humorous part is.”
“Sometimes you sound just like Julia. Even my own robot doesn’t like my jokes,” Max said, as he finished his cereal.
“Master, your Vertical Train will arrive at the closest station in 5 minutes, according to their schedule. I would advise you to hurry, or you might miss it. That would result in you being late for work. Again.”
“The ‘again’ was really unnecessary. But although I hate to admit it, you’re right. I’ll get going. I’ll be stopping by a few stores on my way home. My anniversary with Julia is tomorrow and I don’t have a present yet. I should be home at eight; have dinner ready by then,” Max said, as he left the apartment.
Max headed towards the Vertical Station. One of the few perks of renting such a small apartment was that the station was within walking distance, and it wasn’t even necessary to use the Horizontal Line as a connection. As soon as he set his feet on the metallic streets, several ads appeared on the ground around him. He normally ignored them all, but today one of the ads got his attention. It was a trailer for some historic movie; he guessed it probably took place between the year 2000 and 2050 based on the almost square-shaped cars. He watched it come alive with the movements of the led lights under his feet, but before he could get a grasp of what the movie was about, he decided to leave. As X had said, he had less than 5 minutes until his train arrived, and there was no time for distractions.
But the movie’s setting still lingered in his mind. It seemed crazy to imagine that at some point there were cars on the streets, side by side with people. The chances of an accident happening were so high that he doubted he would have had the guts to even leave the house. It made much more sense that the streets were solely for pedestrians, and that the cars hovered hundreds of feet above them. Although crashes weren’t unheard of, they were extremely rare.
After walking for two more blocks of other residential buildings, he arrived at the station and got into the smallest queue he could find, waiting for the train to arrive. Half a dozen drones were buzzing around, checking the validity of each person’s ticket. A few seconds before the train stopped, one of them approached him and he pressed his thumb against its sensor. A green light flashed, and it moved on to the next person in line. A few moments later he got inside. It was crowded, as always, but he managed to find a place to stand next to the train’s glass walls. It was built in a way that the passengers had a panoramic view of the city while the train travelled.
Weirdly enough, that was one of Max’s favorite moments of the day. From there he could see the entire level 21 as the train kept going up. All the different styles of buildings, some made of concrete, metal or even glass, most of them almost as high as the sky, just about 500 feet from the ground. He could also see the Horizontal Line going around buildings, moving so fast that one could mistake it for a streak of light. The people walking on the streets below become smaller and smaller, until the train went into the fake sky and stopped at the 20th level.
The city had 50 levels in total, amounting to a total height of 5 miles. That meant that only the people on the first level could actually see the sky when they looked up. All the people in the other 49 levels saw only a gigantic screen that mirrored the actual sky.
Sometimes Max’s commute to work was the best part of his day, just because he got to appreciate the view. He was born in this city and had only seen the world outside through pictures and videos online. Even though he remembered his great-grandparents talking about swimming in the ocean and standing on top of a mountain, all of that sounded alien to him. As stunning as the pictures looked and as excited as they sounded when talking about those things, he never truly thought of visiting those places himself, risking a trip through the savage and scary world outside.
Living on the first level was his dream instead, where he would be able to see the true sky whenever he looked up, instead of a screen, and the view would include the unreachable mountains far away, instead of only buildings. But Max knew deep down it was borderline impossible for him to achieve that dream; he was from the middle class and only the richest people in the city could afford an apartment on level 1.
Max was still daydreaming only to be roughly brought back to reality; with a maniacal scream, he realized that he had just missed his stop. Looked like X was right after all, he was indeed going to be late. The word ‘again’ reverberated in his mind.
***
“Maximilian Gutenberg, you are 5 minutes and 47 seconds late. You can choose between having this time reduced from your vacation time or deducted from your salary,” Max heard a flying drone utter, as soon as he set his feet inside the office.
“But the train was delayed!” Max replied, without even thinking, as he scratched his large and slightly crooked nose.
“My systems indicate that the average delay today is 1 minute and 21 seconds. I will consider that in my calculation. New calculation: you are 4 minutes and 26 seconds late. Would you prefer to have it reduced from your vacation time or deducted from your salary?” The drone’s red blinking light was focused on him.
Max knew there was only one way to get out of this situation. He checked his surroundings, and as soon as he confirmed that it was clear, he lowered his voice to a whisper and said, “Code Orange, overwrite command 34D-8, subject: Maximilian Gutenberg.”
“Processing... Systems reloaded. Congratulations for being on time today, Maximilian Gutenberg, I wish you a good day,” answered the drone, already flying away.
Max knew it was wrong to use codes like that on the work drones for his own benefit, and he didn’t do it all the time, but when someone has a boss like Max’s, one must adapt.
Delio Vargas was in his late fifties and slightly overweight, but what people first noticed when meeting him was his mustache. It was a thick, silver mustache, and it was so exaggerated that whenever Max saw it, it reminded him of those old walrus cartoons that were popular so long ago.
But it wasn’t due to his physical attributes that Max had problems with his boss. Delio used to say, quite regularly, that he didn’t trust computers. Although Max always believed that he said that simply to cover up the fact that he didn’t know how to use them properly, which was odd, considering that when he was born everything was already automated and computers were part of everyday life. It got to such an extent that technical support had to install an actual printer for him, even though it had been almost 20 years since the last one had been produced, simply because he didn’t like to read reports on the computer and preferred paper.
Delio always gave Max the computer work he himself was supposed to do and threatened to fire him if anyone found out about it. On top of that, he constantly complained about Max’s work, his poor punctuality, and even his hair and clothes.
Max had just sat down at his desk when he heard footsteps approaching.
“Maximilian! I asked you to give me the report on the energy distribution of levels 17 to 21 yesterday, and I haven’t received anything! That’s unacceptable!” Delio said, in his usual loud voice. Max suspected that if Delio were to appear on the radio, half of the people in the city would go deaf.
“Mr. Vargas, you asked me to do this report yesterday at 6:55pm,” Max tried to keep calm. He was already used to Delio by now; if he raised his voice, it would be much worse.
“And what’s the problem with that? Work knows no time; it’s always there!”
“But Mr. Vargas, my shift is only until six. I had already worked overtime by staying until seven to finish the quarterly report on nuclear power plant productivity!”
“There! That’s the problem! You did only one hour extra! You shouldn’t leave until you’ve got no work left, regardless of how much time you must stay here to do it! It seems to me that you do overtime only for the money in it!”
“With all due respect, sir, I don’t get paid for it at all.” Max was grinding his teeth, doing his best not to lose his patience.
“And neither should you! It’s not this company’s fault that you aren’t competent enough to do your job in the regular work hours, like everybody else!”
“But Mr. Vargas, you requested the report after regular work hours in the first place.” He let it slip, pondering whether Delio hadn’t just contradicted himself. But again, he knew the man simply didn’t care.
“You’ve got the guts to talk back to me after not doing your job!? That isn’t what working is! You should answer me with a simple ‘yes, sir’, and considering how often you screw things up ‘sorry, sir’! I want you to do that report by the end of the day, but to teach you a lesson I want it for all the levels, not just those five! If you fail to comply, God help me, I will have you fired!”
“All levels? I won’t finish before nine!” Max was already clenching his fists.
“What did I just say? Are you stupid or something?” Delio’s head was getting red; Max could see a vein pulsating in his neck. “Only answer me with ‘yes, sir’! Do you understand me?”
Max had to pause for a few seconds before answering. He really needed that job, he needed the money to pay his rent. If he got fired, not only would he have to move back in with his parents, but his idea of one day proposing to Julia would be gone. With all that in mind, he took a long breath and answered. “… Yes, sir.”
“Good! Now hurry up and start already!” Delio seemed satisfied with himself. He marched towards his office, which was just a few feet away, and closed the door behind him.
Max was glad that he was gone. It was taking a humongous amount of self-restraint to not throw at Delio all he had in mind, or maybe just punch him in the face; he wasn’t quite sure hich he would prefer. But thanks to this little exchange between the two of them, now he had much more work to do than he could have anticipated. He would have to skip lunch if he were to have any hope of buying Julia’s present before the day was over.
He opened the grid distribution system, but was interrupted before he could even start. “Hey man! Is this the Energy Department?”
Max looked up from his computer screen to find a guy around his age in front of his desk, but they couldn’t be more different; he was around six feet tall, and his sapphire eyes had a look that emanated confidence. I wonder if I would be confident like that if I looked more like this guy, Max thought. “Yeah, can I help you with something?” he said instead.
“Yeah, I’ve got this report on the marketing expenditures that you guys had last month,” he said, waving a few sheets of paper. “I thought my boss was kidding when she said to print the stuff, kinda weird to have it on paper.”
“Tell me about it. Delio’s the department’s head, he’s in that office over there,” Max said, pointing at the door. “But did you come here just to deliver that? You could have just sent a drone.” It was normal to receive reports from other departments, but nobody ever delivered them in person.
“Yeah, I know. It was more of an excuse to come to this level,” he said, with a wink. “I’m gonna take a detour to Accounting on my way back. It’s close, right?”
“Just take the elevator two floors up to the left.”
“Thanks, Max, my man!” he said, passing on his way to Delio’s office.
Max was surprised; he didn’t remember telling him his name. “Sorry, I’m terrible with these things, but do we know each other?”
“It’s me, Steve, man! We met during the analysts training, about two years ago!”
“Of course!” Max said, as he scratched his nose. He vaguely remembered that training, but certainly didn’t remember the people that were there with him. “Sorry man, I’m not that good with faces.”
“No problem! I’m the opposite; I never forget a face, kind of a gift I always had,” said Steve, passing his hands through his perfect, sandy, blond hair. “But I gotta go, or I won’t have time for my detour! Thanks for the help, anyways!” he said, and went towards Delio’s office.
Max wondered how much time this little talk with Steve had cost him. As soon as he was gone, he worked on that boring report for so long that he couldn’t think straight anymore. He managed to finish everything just after eight o’clock. It wasn’t easy spending the entire day having eaten only cereal, and he even had to take a few extra minutes to print the entire thing and leave it in Delio’s office, who had left a few hours ago without a word. Regardless, he was glad it was finally done.
He left the office in a hurry; he knew it would be hard to find a store that was open at this time of night. He thought about ordering online, as the service was available 24 hours and it would be delivered within a few minutes. If he did it that way, he wouldn’t have to worry about the present any longer. But Max knew Julia well, and despite her saying that presents weren’t necessary, she would certainly be happy if he got her something special or, if possible, even unique.
With that in mind, Max decided to take the Vertical Train to level 26, notorious for its high concentration of small, independent stores that had a diverse selection. If he had any luck, some might still be open.
Max suspected that it would be too late once he arrived there, though. He knew he should have bought the present in advance instead of leaving it to literally the last possible moment, but money had been tight. Max barely made enough to pay for rent, food and the occasional treat, so his only option was to wait for payday, which happened to be that very same day.
Once he arrived at the vertical station, he darted towards the shopping sector, but it was already almost 9 p.m. As he had expected, all the stores were closed, and the few movements in the street were of the employees leaving.
Max had almost given up, but suddenly he saw a single independent store that still had its lights on. He ran towards it, only to see, as soon as he got in front of its door, red letters saying ‘closed’ appearing on it. It was almost like fate was playing tricks on him.