Page 7 of Tyton: The Spider and the Dragonfly
Callie finished chewing.“I’m going out with Sparx.”
“On New Year’s Eve?”Mike sounded incredulous.“Don’t you need someone to kiss?”
“I could kiss Sparx.”
“She doesn’t seem your type.”
“You think you know my type, Mike?”
“It’s bad luck is all I’m sayin’”
Callie shook her head and tossed her empty Hexcel cup in the overflowing trash can.“I need to go take a nap.I’m too old to go out and party without one anymore.”
“I could…”
“No, Mike.”
Callie left The Cars and walked the three blocks to her flat.At this time of year, the dark clung to you almost as much as the residual filth in the air.Midday would appear as a thin streak of red on the horizon.It would take another month before they actually got to see part of the sun again.
The stairwell of her building reeked of months-old excrement.The addicts who were still conscious enough to feel shame faced the corners as she nudged her way past them.The ones whose cyberware still functioned would hang around for a few weeks longer.When it failed, they’d disappear along with all the others.Somehow, even with the dwindling global population, the supply of homeless people never seemed to run out.
When she had first moved out of her place with Brin to this flat, she would give a few scrip to the ones who were conscious enough to receive it.Regardless, they still disappeared.Now, if she had any, she would leave leftover food outside her door.It was always gone in the morning.
Her job paid reasonably well.She could afford a subscription to her Opti and rent.The flat came with a personal Vendr, a bed, private bathroom, a small desk and a closet.She’d had more when she lived with Brin, but she was okay with less.Less meant fewer responsibilities.Fewer things to take care of.More to leave out for the homeless, she rationalised.
Callie laid her head on the thin pillow and tried to drift off.Binge would have a Lumijute demo tonight and shedidwant to see it.She hated to admit it, but Sparx and her mom were right.She needed to move on from Brin.
At one point, her and Brin had been pretty involved in the kink scene.They’d had friends, seen a lot, and bonded over shared interests.When Brin left, Callie had let those friendships wither.
And in typical Callie fashion, she felt guilty about it.Guilt lead to paralysis.Now she had a chance to get back into something she used to enjoy, used to lean on to reset her mind for a bit so she could function day to day without her cortisol levels going through the roof.If she could will herself to take a damn nap.
She got ten minutes, which was better than nothing.Callie rolled over and booted up her Opti, relaxing her vision to focus on the images projecting across her cornea.
Today’s pages were mostly fluff for NYE.Listicles likeWhat Zodiac Sign is Your District?Which Failed Cyberware Product Are You?What Your Favourite Protein Bar Flavour Says About You.Callie settled onPredictions About the Future From Centuries Ago.
Thankfully, Sparx had installed a black-market ad blocker on her Opti.Callie would likely see enough bare flesh tonight – she didn’t need more of it plastered across her eyeballs.
The article started off mocking Tyton’s original name,Facility Twenty-One.Back then, NovAITech owned everything.Employees colloquially referred to it as‘Ty-one.When they filed for city status,Tytonstuck.Later, some planner had thought they were being cute by naming the districts after Greek Titans.
Next up: the perennial predictions.Flying cars, pills for meals, robot servants.None of those happened, nor would they ever.Humans were barely capable of navigating in two planes.Add a third and transportation would grind to a halt.
People enjoyed eating too much to just swallow pills and robot servants required a dangerous amount of AI to be useful.It turned out that there was nolaw of roboticsthat a bigger, more powerful machine couldn’t argue a smaller one out of violating.That had led to the destruction of Facilities One, Five and Eleven.Several more had collapsed because their big Models escaped and simply shut everything down, taking the nearby infrastructure with it.
Other predictions, such as the population hitting fifteen billion were way off.Global fertility rates had started dropping in the 2050s and then dove off a cliff fifty years later.History courses taught about the Great Regression.Several countries had banned abortion, birth control, women's education, and even personhood to stave off population collapse.
Nothing helped.Women still couldn’t conceive after roughly twenty-four and no-one could figure out why.Women in Finland led a stunningly violent revolution, which then spread to the rest of the Nordic peninsula.Women, it turned out, had a much higher tolerance for gore than men had assumed.
Much of Europe and Africa reversed course, just as their women were about to pick up their own pitchforks – literally in some cases.The countries that didn’t collapsed due to poor literacy and high poverty rates.
Corporations swooped in like vultures and took over local governments to exploit whatever natural resources remained.The last regime fell about seventy years ago; far enough away that Callie hadn’t lived through it, but recent enough that it still served as a useful warning.
In the end, for the first time since anyone could remember, baby girls became more valued than baby boys.And yet, having no children was still more common than not.Having more than one was almost unheard of.It turned out that no matter what angle they used, be itdivine femininewoo, a religiousgo forth and multiplycommand or just a familial sense of duty to continue a bloodline, most women would rather watch the world burn than have a child.Callie wondered whetherhomo sapienswould have even made it out of Africa if women had been able to refuse from the start.
And now, it didn’t even matter what women wanted.Nature had decided for them.Misogyny was dead, long live the Matriarchy.Though since they were going extinct, it felt a little too much like a glass cliff.
Callie scrolled further.Climate disasters – correct.Japan had disappeared a century ago.Large swaths of Europe were gone, as was most of California.Florida had disappeared decades before that.
Underwater cities and space habitation?Not a chance.Corporations were bad at maintaining infrastructure without governments and they were effectively the same thing now.
