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4: NeoBean, the average citizen and a true patriot

 Tom's alarm sounds.  He fumbles for his phone.  0700, alarm due in 1 hour.  As he's dragged unkindly back into consciousness, he realises that the noise isn't an alarm, it's GBulletin, and it's LOUD.  A few of the older citizens can still remember the last time GastroTech issued a priority 1 instruction.  There'd been a fire in one of the residential districts, a big one, and evacuation orders had been distributed to all citizens within 5 miles.  The fire brigade had brought it under control, no major loss of life, but everyone remembered that sound.  It was drilled into the collective psyche of anyone living in the city, like the air raid sirens of old.  Tom paled, unlocked his phone, checked his notifications. "From the Desk of Joe Winchester.  You're in, Tom." He blinked.  Well at least the noise had stopped but he wasn't getting back to sleep after a scare like that.  It certainly didn't LOOK important.  He pottered a...
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3: The taste of the future, an inquisition and the trusted face of NeoBean

WELCOME TO GASTROTECH HR Please enter your credentials. Biometric scan confirmed.  Welcome user HRAdmin. -Return citizen ID 23420798 Please wait. Citizen 23420798: Housing structure GT-1-320: Lot 72.  Local designation: Hawthorne Place.  Registered occupant: Thomas Johnson. Census data.  Address as: "Tom".  Actively opposed to "Tommy" for reasons unknown. Occupation - none recorded.  Marker: OfBr-1 (review April tax returns, signoff required from senior accountant) Parents - none recorded.  Marker: OfBr-26-1 (no annual leave permitted for parental bereavement) Siblings - none recorded.  Marker: OfBr-26-4 (no annual leave permitted for sibling bereavement) Dependants - none recorded.  Marker: OfBr-26-2 (no annual leave permitted for child sickness or bereavement) Next of kin - none recorded.  Marker: OfBr-56 (in case of death in service, life assurance to be paid to individual's nominated charity) OfBr-56 addendum: no charity nominated, d...
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2: Mr. One Strike, what happened on floor 4 and a damned fine cup of coffee.

 The Sun shines on an industrious Bridlington.  It shines on a few other places as well, presumably, but they're well outside the scope of this story, so we'll let them look after their own affairs for the moment. GTech1 sparkles like a metaphor near a, given the setting, surprisingly clean ocean.  I mean yeah, we're a little overcrowded here but we haven't gone full dystopia, yet.  Global conservation efforts have really made a difference.  Our perspective shifts to the coast, soaring over shopping and industrial districts.  Nobody but the absolute creme de la financial creme actually LIVE here, lord no, but even at 1130 on a Monday morning, it's bustling.  Quite thoughtfully laid out, too, architected and decorated in a quite effective early-2000's minimalist style with art deco flourishes that really... Well, it can look however you want a tremendous futuristic city to look.  That's between you and the art director when this inevitably gets pur...
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1: The world is saved, the world is ruined and Jeb, the richest man in the world.

The year is, to the day, precisely 65 years from now.  Terribly convenient, isn't it?  Certainly not some kind of lazy attempt to establish a setting that can never quite be reached in order to appease such people as like to debate amongst themselves whether fictional scenarios could or could not occur. Just 65 years from now.  And if you stop reading and pick this up a week later, it'll be 65 years from then.  I'm sorry, I don't know what to tell you, I don't make the rules here. Life is, for the most part, very much the same.  People are born, usually into crowded cities, are educated, choose a career path, burn out, have a midlife crisis and retire feeling like they've not really lived for most of the best years of their lives.  But that's all perfectly normal and nothing that can't be overcome with a little therapy.  We've gotten quite good at therapy recently.  The world has, however, changed.  Of course it has, it's been 65 years. ...
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