Jan of the Future Chapter 1

This is a bit of a rough start, but everyone needs to begin somewhere. Any comments would be most helpful. Thank you for reading Chapter one of Jan of the Future.

Jan of the Future

The first peeping rays of sun hit the solar-panels on the window and a jolting vibrator and shrill alarm startled everyone inside the house awake. The same system woke others in different housing units all around the area. The complex had solar panels arranged to catch sunlight from the appropriate directions all throughout the year. The sun measured time and partially powered the housing complex. Each unit received a share of energy proportional to its size. Small lights beside all the screens lit with the solar panel power-up. There was a screen in each room which connected to information databases, displayed the time and measured activity. During periods of inactivity, these measurements would be categorized and computed against an individual’s records of health and behavior. Some information would also be transferred to an individual’s Score, which determined their status and capability. When the alarm sounded, most everyone sat up and stepped out of their hammocks. But one girl happened to be stubborn.

“No” she mumbled to the incessant noise. It did no good and so she rolled out of her hammock. She hit the cold hard floor and muttered an extracurricular vocabulary word, “Fuck”. As described in the historical transcripts, it did, irrationally, make her feel a bit better. She smiled but was cut off from enjoyment as her eyepiece chirruped and whirred and recalculated her score. She knew that if she didn’t have a high score, she would be dismissed from the educational system and sent to sort garbage or pull weeds for her career. The eyepiece glowed and displayed a number which scrolled across the screen. Her name followed the figure and she felt a little shame as if the number really meant “Failure JAN0314772”.

She scurried up to the hygiene plate so lateness would not continue to dock her points and began to speak rapidly about the development and varied traditions of the ancient celebration of “Christmas”. After comparing some of her facts she drew dry and dull conclusions. The computer whirred as it absorbed new points to her score. She chewed the breakfast bar as the shower walls raised, which earned her efficiency points. To boost her score, she sang a few lines of “White Christmas” as a footnote to her morning essay for extra credit. The number recalibrated again. Bright blue gel filled the shower tower she was in and vibrated for thirty seconds. Then it glopped off into the drain and a steamy mist rinsed her clean.

JAN0314772 remembered how in the old days, they used this sort of technology for cleaning dirty jewelry, though most of what people wore by the time the technology had been invented had ceased to display jewels. She thought it was very interesting how words did not mean exactly what they should have- and yet the civilizations thought themselves so superior. She supposed that in a way they were, to even earlier cultures.

She donned her orange jumpsuit and stepped up to the main screen in her sleep quarters. It quizzed her on yesterday’s lessons. She did fairly well and had enough trivia about teen fiction, which she had been reading in addition to her assigned list, to increase her score substantially. Her parental units were in the common area, preparing coffee and fruit. One of the benefits of being a parental unit was a larger house, days off, and fresh, whole fruit.

The male parental unit frowned and glanced meaningfully at the main screen in that room, which was counting down in red numbers the time until the tram was coming. JAN0314772 picked up some of the sliced pineapple and started chattering about its growing conditions and the island from which it originated. Her eye unit clicked and whirred as it recorded and processed. The screen reached five and beeping accompanied the flashing numbers. JAN0314772 continued chattering, adding in questions and hardly stopping for breath. She stepped out the door and ran down the hall, which gave her more points for exercise and deducted none for recklessness as there were no others in the hall so she was unable to endanger anyone’s safety. She stepped onto the tram with a few seconds to spare and waited with a smirk as her eyepiece figured her score.
At the end of the day, her score would be compared with the scores of her Peer Relations Group to give her an idea of competition. Most of the time she excelled above them because of her unconventional methods of cheating the system and impressing it with historical cultural data. But she also occasionally messed up and the deductions in score were severe enough to undercut all her successes. Missing the tram had reduced her score so severely that she had received a warning about occupational opportunities being revoked.

JAN0314772 really desired to become a teacher of historical cultural studies. Something about the chaotic and dramatic irrationality of the past was attractive to her. There was warmth and feeling and a connection between people that she was fascinated by. At least, the idea fascinated her. She wasn’t sure that everything she read about had actually occurred. Romance was something she highly doubted. Accounts were so inconsistent and many sources claimed that they were exaggerated.
JAN0314772 stretched inside the tram, as points were docked if she did so in a classroom.

She met with her Peer Relations Group as scheduled before class. They all received points for participating in these meetings and for communicating with each other. Sleepovers were required every weekend, at alternating houses, and simulation trips were scheduled as well. The content of these trips were voted upon by each group. The other two in her group, who she referred to as Pop-Tart and Theodore, often wanted to go listen to lectures or participate in research which increased scores in their areas of interest. JAN0314772 found it all rather boring. The last trip had earned them many points, but was a lecture on the toxic content of various types of grey paint used for walkway edging. There was no conclusion but that no better paint was available in the appropriate shade so it would continue to be used. JAN0314772 had fallen asleep for most of it and had points docked anyway.

The scheduled trip was for this weekend and it was JAN’s turn to pick. She wanted to visit the city of San Francisco and take a tour of the streets, especially China Town. Pop-Tart and Theodore greeted her coldly and pointed to the main screen on the side of the educational facility. Jan glanced up momentarily but continued on, “Whatever, I was thinking that for this next trip, we should go to China Town, San Francisco. Wouldn’t that be supreme”?. She looked expectantly at her companion’s faces but she got no response. “Hey, come on. It is my turn to choose and I believe you will really like it this time. It’s just as many points as—“ She was cut off. Pop-Tart was growling. “JAN0314772. Be silent. No one receives scores for your use of ancient English. Be factual. The trip has been cancelled. Good bye.” He finished and turned away. Theodore also turned away and they both walked to their respective classrooms to wait in an orderly line outside the door for the bell to ring.

Jan looked up at the screen. Slowly words scrolled across. It took her a moment to adjust to reading modern script from thinking in ancient english. It translated to “Transport barge arriving today will use energy= insufficient power for simulated trips which were scheduled to take place in 2.8473 days”. Jan turned to the direction of her class but continued to look at the screen. Why did a transport barge use up the allotted energy? All barges had to be pre-scheduled. So was it possible that this one wasn’t pre-scheduled?

Jan ran to her class and stood in front of a person standing in line. They did not turn as customary, to communicate with her. She spoke anyways “ Why would there be an unscheduled barge? Is the system malfunctioning? Will there be a crash?”. No one answered. She repeated her inquiries, “ Well, could there be a problem with the system? Why would a barge take up energy unless it was not pre-arranged? Something is out of order! What do you think it is?” A girl third from the front the front of the line yawned involuntarily. She sighed as she realized she would have to deal with JAN0314772 today. “The only barge authorized to move without scheduling energy is a maintenance barge, class 782E. If there were any problem, the workers on the barge would fix it. The most likely situation is an update to the scheduled excursion simulator, which is why it is closed for this weekend” she said. Jan was about to argue but was cut off by a sharp click of all the doors opening for class.
Internally she wondered about the idea of “conspiracy” which Science Fiction writers had used in many of their stories. Jan was interested by the Science Fiction stories, which always made development of technology seem exciting and dangerous.Unfortunately, Jan saw the reality of progress as nothing but boring and meaningless.

Jan found it difficult to pay attention in class, so she imagined that she would later be suspended over a giant sand monster and questioned on the material. If she missed a question, she’d be dropped to her doom. Jan liked this idea much better than the reality, which was a test at the end of the period on a screen in front of her seat. The score would be added to her overall score and would determine the occupation-proficiency level of her career. It was too weak a punishment, too indirect a motivation. Her idea featured life and death, dramatic music and lighting, and perhaps a scantily clad hero shooting a gun in somewhere nearby. If she failed, she’d be dropped, and would not have to suffer a slow and inevitable demise to a lowly occupation category.

Jan missed the last question on the test. She screamed and fell out of her chair. She noticed the numbers whirring around on her eye piece, trying to measure the action as efficient or not. But Jan just lied on the ground. She felt the corners of her mouth stretch. It was a strange feeling that she often noticed while reading or reviewing historical records. No one moved to help her, they just completed their tests and sat in their chairs until the door clicked open for the end of the class period. She opened her eyes and saw the grey walls and ceiling, the orange jumpsuits, and the twitching display of her eye piece. Jan stood up and walked out of the room in an orderly line. She must have fooled herself about seeing traces of old-world emotion in others. The fictions she read and watched and the records of history must have all been fabricated. Either people had evolved away from exaggerated emotions, or they had never had any. Perhaps unhealthy and inefficient living conditions had made everyone go crazy back then.

The students stretched and jogged to raise their heartbeats and keep their muscles awake for more efficient information retention. They drank water from a line of drinking fountains and walked in line to the next class. To get the position she wanted, it seemed to make sense to be as efficient as possible. But Jan couldn’t help day dreaming. And, she argued to herself, no matter how well she did, she might still be selected as a breeder or a test subject for medicine for those occupations were selected by genetic make-up and physical health, almost irrelevant of score.

At lunch break, students walked outside in the sunshine to absorb appropriate amounts of vitamin D as they reviewed the day’s lessons on their eye pieces. They always walked in the same area, sat to eat in the same chair, and took the same amount of time to do it. This negated any outside concentration which could detract from studying. Jan, of course, wandered. She glanced at her notes occasionally, but was more concerned with experimenting with a nonsensical pastime about which she had read. Jan eyed the areas which were allowed to grow the native plants. It was more efficient and plants had been proven as good cohabitants of oxygen dwellers. Grasses grew in the middle of wall and rooftops.

Jan saw a low wall and attempted to scale it. It took her much grunting and turning around to figure out how to complete the procedure. She finally managed and crept along the concrete edging of the plant bed to a place which afforded a good view of the water on the horizon. From this perspective, the hydraulic pumps at the shore were almost out of sight. If Jan turned her head at the right angle, she didn’t see the industrial landing bay and the suspended tram tracks to her right or the many levels of blocks and grids which made up most of the housing in that area. It was perfect. Jan plucked a wide strip of green grass and examined it. She then pressed it between her palms and against her mouth and attempted to blow through it. It was quite an endeavor, with just enough hints of success to make her continue despite her failures.

A maintenance barge arrived and settled onto the docking bay just as Jan managed a hoot from her grass instrument. Jan was unaware of the arrival. Some other students looked up and noticed a group of maintenance workers step out and scurry into a building. They assumed that work or updates would be done to the scheduled excursion simulator and turned back to their studies. Jan was looking at the water and imagining living in a long-gone civilization and missed what happened next.

A government official stepped out and snapped a command. He was followed out by lanky young man in an orange jumpsuit with a smug expression on his face. Jan repeated her procedure and procured a noise again, but noticed that it did not have the bass and resounding power of her first success. She tensed and looked around, surprised to see maintenance barged and two figures on the docking bay. Jan tried to duck below and behind the grass with thoughts of conspiracy running wild in her mind. The official seemed to have finished what he was saying and the young man nodded in agreement. Jan gasped. It was behavior that she had studied. Then the official stamped his foot and started to re-enter the barge. The young man pounced suddenly and caught the older man in an embrace. After a brief moment, the two separated and the young man picked up a duffle bag. It was as if Jan had stumbled into a movie set, but there were no cameras. Aside from herself, there seemed to be no interest in a non-educational movie, so why would one be made? The maintenance workers finished filling out a localized digital screen which served as a record of the repairs, updates, and such for the building which housed the machinery for the Scheduled Excursion Simulator. Then the workers filed into the barge and departed.

Jan was interested and took the noise of departure as cover for arranging herself into a lying position among the tall grasses. She could watch through the blades of grass, but was unable to move without making noise. A school coordinator walked out onto the dock and stood in front of the young man. Jan became more afraid than curious at this point. She would surely have her score reduced for being on a planter and having left her eye piece un-repaired for more than five minutes. She was stuck though, as to move and jump down would draw attention. The young man straightened up tall and put out his hand at a right angle. Jan grew excited. Maybe this man could give her a simple explanation for the purpose of a handshake. She had studied many interpretations and reports of it.

The school coordinator stepped back involuntarily from the gesture, then stepped forward and began an overview of the rules and regulations. He handed the young man a portable screen and looked at the duffel bag for a few seconds. The young man lifted it and seemed to be explaining something. The tone of his voice shifted to the purpose of his statements. Jan inhaled sharply. He really was like someone out of the historical records.

She was surprised by an unexpected noise from her eye piece. Jan breathed the word which had made her feel slightly relived that morning. She liked how silly it seemed. “Fuck”. She was still nervous. She moaned quietly and repeated herself as she removed the eye piece to check it for what caused the freeze up,“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, bollocks, fuck, fuck, crud cakes, ahhh”. Her slew of curses was interrupted by the eyepiece, which flashed a spectrum of colors and began to scroll a message. Jan bent her head down to the eye piece to read the message. She accidentally dropped it. She cursed in whispers a bit more pleadingly as the sensation of pinpricks seized her right arm when she tried to move it to reach for the thin glass screen. Her arm twitched and the eye piece became buried in the grasses. Jan stopped breathing for a second.

The young man stood so that his face was level with the girl’s and looked through the grass. She seemed struck with horror. The young man timidly whispered, “Hello miss?”. Jan squeaked, looked in the direction of the noise, saw a face very close to hers, and rolled out of the grass. Unfortunately her panic caused her to scream and fall off the wall as well. The young man turned to the school coordinator who had followed him and smiled. “Why yes, I think this assigned peer relation group member will be quite sufficient to acclimate me to the area. No need for that re-education program”. The coordinator seemed to protest, but the young man spoke before the coordinator could form a verbal veto. “It would be more efficient”, declared the young man,” to be immersed by association rather than spend time isolated with no one to answer questions and no one for me to mimic, eh?” The coordinator coughed and tapped his eyepiece. “ I have to go sir, or I’ll be late for class” the young man said as he picked up the eye piece from the grasses and helped Jan to her feet. Then he pulled her arm and they rushed off towards the second floor of the building.