I was behind in voting. It is compulsory to vote, and if you don’t, your vote is counted as undecided, and depending on the ranked importance of the vote, you can be fined. It isn’t a large fine and can be paid in either contributing time to a listed cause or in cred. I scanned through the list of votes, scrolling down from the most current through to the last vote I’d made. The list was mostly City council votes for New Singapore, as a resident there I had to vote on those, and there was only one Global vote that I had missed. That had been to develop a new City in the ocean off the Maldives. I would have voted yes but was too late. I credded the fine and changed channel back to the panel discussion. A suggestion for a new slimming regen unit was just finishing, yours for five thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine cred, and then a tanned and serious looking Barry came back.
“Thanks for staying with us. We’re talking about the new ‘Tag Law’, set for global PopVote Saturday 15 March 2110. Joining me on the panel are June Masters, President of the Goldman School for Public Policy, Andy Haas, former Head Justice of the Permanent Court of Arbitration and currently advisor to the New Aspiration Party responsible for proposing the ‘Tag Law’, Dan Quigley, of the Conservative Christian Party who support the Law, and last but certainly not least, Annika Bardsdale of the Social Responsibility Party who are opposed to the new Law. June, if I can start with you. Just before we went to the break, you were talking about the difference between the existing law and the new law.”
“Yes, Barry, thank you. As I was saying, the new ‘Tag Law’ provides more privacy. In the words of Bo Vinh: ‘Having nothing to hide from each other is the first step to having nothing to fear from each other,’ and that is what this Law is all about. No more carrying around a Devstick to prove our identity — it becomes a part of us. What could be more human?”
“That’s a dangerous thought, June, using technology to define what is human. Suppose the Tagged identities are hacked? What then? Your entire life is on display to someone?”
“Annika, our entire lives are on display right now. If a hacker wants to get into us and they’re skilled enough they can steal your identity right now — it happens all the time. With the Tag that will become much harder because you are the device. The Tag embedded in your arm is protection against identity theft because any action that doesn’t match your current location will immediately be seen for what is. You have to go beyond emotion here and understand the logic.”
I took another sip of my orange juice. I can’t say I liked the idea of having anything inserted into my body, but the idea of the Tag appealed to me on a number of levels. Firstly, it would cut down crime which has been rising steadily. Secondly, there really was no difference between an embedded Tag and a PUI on a Devstick. Well, the only difference is that your hands are free — but I guess you could say your hands are free if your Devstick is in a pocket or clipped to a belt. Even so, a one mil tag embedded in your upper arm is still more convenient to carry around.
I thought it would make shopping easier. Just step up to any Dev in any shop space and speak or key in your password. No more waving of Devstick at the shop Dev. If I understood it correctly — and privacy is not my area of expertise under the law — but location and other personal data belong to you. Ents have to delete any data that is yours within one month of acquiring it, unless you give them permission not to. In which case they can hold your data but not resell it to any other party without your express permission. You have access to any data the government holds about you, except where such access is deemed to be a threat to the Nation, and then you require a court order.
The security around personal data is massive, but then again I’d also just seen what Gabriel could do to those systems and that worried me about the Tag. What if someone could hack the data? What could they do? Well, nothing more than what they can do now, and that was why I though the Tag Law would be passed. March 15 — I had to remember to vote. I picked up my Devstick and marked it in my calendar. The time on the Devstick showed it was nearly 5:45am. I got up and swallowed the rest of the orange juice, taking the empty glass back to the food prep area. After putting the glass into the sanitizer, I headed for the shower.
I think up some of my best ideas while showering, but not this time, and I got it over with as quickly as possible. “Fast dry,” I said, and a blast of warm air hit me from above, driving the wet from my body with its force. No sign yet, a ton of questions and I have to maintain a normal life. That summed it up, but it didn’t help. Frustrated with it all, I looked at myself in the mirror. Who are you?
Standing there, examining my reflection, I realized something else, something I recognized but wasn’t familiar with — fear. I was scared. I ran my hands through my hair and a down my jaw line, feeling the stubble that had grown there. I had to get a grip: these thoughts were leading me nowhere and being scared, while a natural response, was counterproductive. I had to do something, but what? And that’s when it hit me. Take a vac. Get away from all of this. If Gabriel needed to find me he could, I was sure of that, and suddenly the idea of taking a vac grew. Would it look suspicious? No, not if I told Sir Thomas in advance and made it seem like I was rewarding myself with a hard-earned spell of relaxation.
Feeling a surge of energy I went back out to the living area and said to the Dev, “Find me a list of Vacenvs within one hour’s travel time from here. Search criteria: clean white sand beach, stand-alone bedroom or cabin, occupancy less than twenty percent, with sailing craft for rent within one kilom of Vacenv.” A list of Vacenvs came up. It wasn’t a long list as December is always high season in South East Asia which is where the map and list had focused, given my criteria. While looking down the list I thought about what I would write to Sir Thomas. It would be better to send him an email as I didn’t trust myself not to show emotion if I was looking at him. I’d just write something short but ask if he had any further leads on the runner — that way it would look as if I knew nothing. I called up my comms program on the Dev and, selecting Sir Thomas from my list of contacts, dictated.
Dear Sir Thomas,
Hope you are well. I am planning on taking a vac. I just wanted to check with you that I personally am in no danger from the runner that escaped? I was thinking about going to a beach in the Southern Thailand Geographic. In your opinion is it safe for me to do so? I should be gone for three or four days — I’ll bring you back some of that whisky you like.
With warm regards,
Your nephew,
Jonah.
Jonah James Oliver
Arbitrator at Law
Coughington and Scuttle
My signature appended itself to the message automatically. The ‘Chatnip’ app gave me a list of my ‘ums’ and ‘ahs’ to delete, which I did. I thought it looked a bit too formal but then I always attach my signature to my emails. Just stay normal, keep everything as normal as possible, I thought, and said, “Send.”
I turned my attention back to the list of Vacenvs and one looked particularly interesting. A tiny Vacenv in a small village called Tha Sala, about fifteen kiloms north from Nakorn Si Thammarat further up along the coast. Using the Changi Lev port, I could reach Phuket within ten mins, and then catch an airship transport across to Nakorn Si Thammarat. I could be on the beach in Tha Sala within an hour of leaving New Singapore. The Lev between New Singapore had only finished construction last year. The final section of tube was put in place in November, ready for pumping out the air. The resulting vacuum allows us to travel at eight thousand kilos per hour, with high speed mag-lev, in the little sixteen seat pods that we call Levs. The idea was adopted for building elevators and many buildings now have the Lev tubes coiled up like a giant spring either inside or outside of the structures to which they provide transport. They were first called Vactrains but when the pods came along and they were put in buildings, trains just didn’t fit anymore. The Transatlantic Lev can take you from London to New York in less than an hour.