3: The taste of the future, an inquisition and the trusted face of NeoBean

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-Return citizen ID 23420798

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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, default to GT Finance Petty Cash ("Widows and Orphans fund")

Age: 31

Gender: Male

Pronouns: He/Him

Conviction record: null

Civic threat score: low

Notes: [Last updated less than 6 months] Tom claims to be a day trader of some considerable skill, plying his trade "as and when required".  While this aligns with his willingly volunteered GloBank statements, finance request marker OfBr-1 to remain on account for the forseeable or until such a time as Tom obtains a stable job.  For all intents and purposes, regard as unemployed but in posession of funds enough to be ineligible for any and all government benefit or corporate social support schemes.

Aside from his unusual employment record, Tom is otherwise a wholly unremarkable person.  As a personal remark, they may be the most unremarkable and, frankly, dull individual ever to be reviewed by this bureau.  This is a fact he appears to be aware of.  While Tom isn't employed by GTech, he has obtained housing near GTech Plaza through a infrequently exploited loophole, owning enough shares in the company to be entitled to attendance at our annual shareholder meeting.  So long as he contributes at least one suggestion per session, he's able to legally declare himself a freelance consultant under our employ.

TODO: review that ridiculous shareholder policy.

-

Tom's phone rings  out its normal 0800 alarm.  Not that he has anywhere to be, he doesn't have a work day scheduled until next month.  He just finds it useful to wake and sleep according to a routine.  Gives the day some shape, gives you a sense of purpose.  It'd be too easy to become idle and from there, he fears depression would follow.  So he wakes, showers, breaks his fast.  His daily tasks are to follow.  Read the news, some light exercise, check his emails.  There's a comfort in the monotony of it.  

His home is humble.  It resembles a mid-1900s budget hotel room in size and layout.  Bed, desk, chair, lamp, modest bathroom.  This is a room to exist in, not a room to live in.  There are no windows, but according to government health guidelines, there's a single pane of glass on one wall with a curtain over it.  It changes colour according to the weather and time of day.  He opens the curtain and underneath, the panel is currently faintly illuminated and a pale blue.  Looks like it's going to be a pleasant day.

His friends, few though they are, find his living situation and behaviour confusing.  "You could have the world on a plate, mate" they cry, "why don't you travel, buy a bigger house, get into cars, do SOMETHING".  But no.  Tom doesn't like stuff.  Things.  It's all amusing for a while and then what?  You have to maintain it, next thing you know, it's a regular chore.  He's happy with his little life, free of stress.  If he wants stimulation, he lives in the largest city in the world, he'll just visit the arts quarter and take in a show.

His phone emits a cheerful little tune.  That's odd.  He uses the default ringtone and notification sounds.  He sits on the bed, he checks.  It's a GBulletin.

One of the "benefits" offered to citizens of GTech settlements is heavily discounted electronics.  Phones, laptops, televisions, whatever you need.  However, this did come with a small price.  Only GTech-approved electronics could be legally used in the city limits.  They didn't brand their own kit, they sold goods made by all the world's premium manufacturers of such things, but they were known to run their own proprietary software.  Multiple investigations had concluded that there wasn't anything untoward about this practice, usage wasn't monitored, nothing was being censored, nothing... sinister.  And after those investigations were published, a number of more reputable, independent investigations were conducted by hobbyist influencers, software cracking groups and other such white hat fiddlers.  The same conclusion.  The software only did two things.  First, it allowed your device to broadcast your company ident to a 2 metre radius at all times.  If you were authorised to access a restricted area, the doors would simply unlock at your presence and only if they didn't detect an unauthorised individual tailgating you.  Second, it allowed for messages to be sent to staff.  It wasn't a privilege the company used very often, they had enough social awareness to know that little and often was more effective, less ignored than frequent updates.  You could expect a new year greeting in January, a birthday wish and other than that, if you didn't do anything especially naughty, that'd be it.

Very odd to get one today, then.  He opened his GBulletin app and it played automatically.  A video file featuring a young woman, quite tall and slim with tied back red hair.

"Hi there.  I'm Sam Jansons, lead innovation strategist of GastroTech.  Sorry to intrude on your day, I won't keep you for long.  I'm here to inform you about an exciting new product development that we're just about ready to unveil but we're going to need YOUR help.  At the end of this video, you'll find a link to a invitation to a product testing event scheduled for next Wednesday at the Jacobson Munitions warehouse in the dock district.  No qualifications necessary.  If you pass a quick eligibility screening, you'll be among the first to taste our latest and most exciting product!  And while I'm not at liberty to disclose the details yet, I AM allowed to tell you that it's a hot beverage.  I hope to see you soon [Tom.  Actively opposed to "Tommy" for reasons unknown]."

Nice one, guys.  Real personal.

She wore a lab coat that looked a little too clean, unbuttoned to show strategically "casual" attire underneath.  An unbranded tshirt, smart jeans.  She was sat on a red leather sofa in a well lit room, an A3 poster behind her displayed the ad that originally launched "Log".  Very corny Americana stuff, a healthy and rosy cheeked family at the dinner table about to carve into a steaming log decorated with a sprig of parsley.  Tom always found it paid to notice the details.  This was all very carefully calculated.  This was a peer, someone you could trust.  Not a corporate face, but a face in a corporate setting.  Smiling, welcoming, approachable but not condescending, casual but professional.  It made Tom's innate cynicism itch a little with every box he could feel being ticked.  He clicked the link, anyway.  Reams of legal nonsense, terms and conditions and a calendar entry that'd be added directly to his schedule if he consented.  He was, unsurprisingly, free all day.  Eh, why not?  It'd be a nice walk.

The appointed day came and he set off early with a view to taking his time, enjoying the scenery.  He lived in a concrete hellscape, sure, but one with regular green spaces.  He was about a mile away when he saw the line.  A long snake of people working its way down the street, across roads, even through buildings.  A harassed, somewhat tearful looking young man in a suit and GastroTech lanyard waved him over.

"Good morning.  One second while we confirm your ident... yes, fantastic, you're here for the product demo, yes?"

Tom nodded slowly, eyeing the line.  The rep obviously noticed and the professional demeanour slipped a little.

"Yeah, I know, it looks bad.  I swear it's moving at a decent pace and we've got reps at regular intervals handing out refreshments but if you're having second thoughts, no problem."

Tom craned to see the end of the line.  He couldn't.  He shrugged.  "I don't have anything on today, I've got time to wait.  You look like you're having a fun time out here.  How long have they got you on for?"

The rep looked surprised, maybe a little grateful to have been asked about their wellbeing.  "The first appointments were from 0500 and they're running until... well, it was supposed to be 0900 until 1700 but the more folk show up, the more they move the goalposts.  I've heard it's until 2300 but that's not a done deal."

Tom blinked.  "Are you okay?  Do you... I don't know, want to talk about it...?"

They shook their head.  "I know it looks like a bad shift, friend, but we're getting paid triple time.  You'll not hear me complaining, I promise you."

That was GastroTech all over.  Identify a problem, throw manpower and money at it until it went away.  Their business processes were fiendishly overoptimised but they had the resources to make ANY problem go away almost instantly if they really wanted to.  It was obvious what had happened.  They'd run the promotion on a weekday expecting most people to be at work, expecting most of the invitations to be declined.  This was just an event that had gone horribly right.  It didn't matter, Tom genuinely didn't have anything else to do that day.  He'd catch up on some podcasts, maybe check out how the foreign markets were performing, get a bit of recon in.

5 hours later, the sun was lowering in the sky.  Tom had made it to the dock district and while the refreshments had indeed been plentiful, the line was getting notably tetchy.  The only thing keeping most of the people there at this point was, quite blatantly, the sunk cost fallacy.  They'd been here for hours, they weren't going to have that much wasted time be for nothing, they were seeing this thing through to the bitter end.  Tom had pulled up a map, they were one last turn before the old munitions warehouse.  It was well known that it wasn't used for munitions in the conventional sense any more.  It had been, once, right as the world was about to embark on its last war, but it'd been emptied out now and was used for festivals, conferences, basically anything needing a lot of space.  The name had been retained.  It was important to remember WHY we weren't stockpiling bullets now.

There was a notable commotion up ahead as they were beginning to round the corner.  It quickly became apparent why.  The four main entrances to the warehouse were stuffed with pushing, sweating, fighting bodies.  The event had become a full riot, spilling out into the car park in the front, a heaving crowd of bodies filling almost every available square inch of space.  The reps weren't intervening any more.  A few had actually been issued with GastroTech branded riot gear (generally only used during times of trade union strikes) and were trying to keep the press of bodies into a manageable area while allowing the heat stricken, the wounded and the claustrophobic room to access some hastily erected medical tents.  Tom was impressed.  This looked like it was going to be more entertaining than he'd expected.

Tom knew what he was.  He was a beige entity.  A nothing in a crowd.  There was a strange kind of situational power in that.  All he had to do was keep his head down, occupy spaces as they opened up, murmur along with the shouts of frustration without saying anything that'd get him noticed.  Blend in, keep moving, duck the occasional punch.  A few folks had the foresight to bring folding chairs with them and had apaprently formed a faction of their own, now arguing internally about whether to rent them by the minute to the weary or to weaponise them and gain more ground.  Some had taken the mass gathering to be a sign of an impending Rapture and were trying to gather converts.  Conspiracy theorists with megaphones were being tackled by security, immediately martyring themselves to their various causes.  Frankly, blending into a crowd like THIS was pretty trivial.

It didn't take all that long to reach the doors.  Most of the crowd had beaten itself into submission by this point in the day and the biggest difficulty was picking his way through the bodies.  Inside things were relatively civilised, though utilitarian.  They'd clearly set up the space in a hurry to be functional rather than pretty.  Long queues, each with an attendant rep, leading up to various temporary office spaces, nothing more than 3 partition walls enclosing folding tables bearing laptops at which a rather better dressed rep could be seen tapping furiously while consulting a ring binder.  He was assigned to queue H-7, one of, at best guess, 75 or so.  The queues were really moving quite quickly now and he was able to see that most of the people ahead of him went through the same process.  A handshake, a greeting, a short conversation with the occasional forced laugh then a page being torn out of the binder and added to a large stack of papers which were periodically gather up by a tired looking runner.  He reached the head of the queue, watching this all play out with mild interest.

"Tom, right?"

His appointed rep nodded to the chair opposite her.  A badge on her crisp, expensive-looking blazer read "Hi, I'm Tammy and I'm a GastroTech satisfaction associate!  How can I help YOU?".  It was a fairly large badge.  He sat down, shook the offered hand.  "Yeah, Tom, that's right."

"Great, Tom, glad to meet you.  Thanks for waiting, it's a real warzone out there, isn't it?  Ahahaha!"

Tom gave her a slightly appraising look.  "Yeah, I wasn't expecting a body count."

Her smile didn't slip in the slightest.  She was clearly a pro.  "Oh, well aren't you a RIOT Tom!"  (Did she really just joke about that?)  "Right, are you excited to taste the future?"

Tom noticed a banner on the wall behind her.  "Taste the future, taste the moment" with some 20-somethings enjoying leisure time on the concrete beach, each carrying or sipping from a bottle bearing a prominent question mark.  Oh dear.  "Sure", he said, "so what does that entail?"

"Real glad you asked, Tom." she replied.  This was public liason all over.  Affirm the name, keep a positive statement in every interaction.  "It's all just a formality, really, and then we'll pass your details through to the screening team.  If you're selected, we'll be in touch in the next 5 working days."

"Wait, so we're not tasting today?"

"Oh, Tom, I'm sorry but no, you're not.  Paragraph 8 of your Ts and Cs.  The samples are still being packaged up but we're identifying candidates ahead of time, getting all our ducks in a row, you know how it is.  Big business.  I can see from your ident that you're a... day trader?  I don't need to tell you how bureaucracy is in an organisation as large as ours, I'm sure.  But I'll tell you what, because you've been such a good sport about this, I AM authorised to give you a complimentary coupon for a week's supply of Log Viper."

Tom actually smirked.  Quite a rare occurrence.  "What, the product line that tanked your share prices 3 years ago?"

"I wouldn't know about that kind of thing, Tom, I'm not a shareholder, just a satisfaction associate.  But we're getting off topic, huh?  I've got a few questions here if you'd indulge me, then we can get you out of here and you can get on with the rest of your day."

"Yeah, okay."

"Great, great.  So I'm just verifying your citizen ID here... do you have a place of business, Tom?"

"No."

"Colleagues?"

"No.  I deal with a broker, but I don't have a regular contact there."

"Family, children, dependants?"

"No.  I like to keep to mys-"

He realised that with every no, she seemed to be getting increasingly... excited?

"Super, any next of kin, romantic partner, close friends..."

"I meet with friends occasionally to play board games."

She frowned.

"How many, how regularly?"

"I don't know... 3?  Does it matter?  And usually only every few months.  You know, just for a bit of a catch up."

"Okay..." a note was scribbled on a file in her binder.  The frown eased a little.  "Any landlord?  Regular contact with medical professionals?"

"No.  I own my apartment and my health's okay."

"Social media following?  You look like a big influencer, Tom."

"None whatsoever.  I follow a few in the financial space but I-"

"Great Tom, that's great.  Okay, I think that's all we need... any underlying medical conditions?  Allergies?"

"How would I know?  I've eaten nothing but hypoallergenic gelatinous food paste since the day I was born.  If I was rich enough to afford food, I don't think I'd be queueing for free samples."

She seemed to genuinely think about this for a second.

"You know Tom, that's a really good point.  I'll have a chat with the guys upstairs about getting rid of that question."

He tried to read the notes she'd been taking about him, but her laptop was positioned (he spuspected deliberately) in such a way that he couldn't.  But he did notice that she didn't move his file to the pile of papers next to her.  Instead, she pressed a small button on the desk which summoned not a runner, but another satisfaction associate carrying a sturdy briefcase.  The file was put inside, the briefcase locked and the severely dressed man left without a word.

"All done, Tom.  Here's your voucher.  Heck, take two, you've really been great company today.  And I hope you're ready to taste the future!"

"Not as ready as I am to taste the moment." he replied, stone faced.

She just for a fraction of a second shot him the merest suggestion of a withering look.  He took that as a victory, but accepted his vouchers graciously.

It only occured to him as he left that he hadn't really been asked any questions at all, just had his personal details confirmed.  As if the all seeing eyes of the city council weren't keeping an eye on his spending, travel and leisure habits.  As he left, the folding chair faction had arranged their precious commodities into a makeshift obelisk, atop which unsteadily sat a child no older than 10 wearing a kind of sumo thong, his face and body smeared with Log, an empty can perched on his head.  Similarly dressed adults formed a protective ring around the base as the child screamed edicts in a made up language known only to himself.  Tom elected to leave before the phrase "burnt offering" came to any of their overly receptive minds.

It had been a rich, full day.  He quite sincerely looked forward to tomorrow's news reports of the event.