Ducks By The Lake [Part Two: The Rat-Eaters]

It's never too late to change something...

Prison was a breeze. It always was back then. It's amazing crime levels remained constant to be perfectly honest with you. You got half an hour's exercise a day, 3 square meals (sometimes literally in the shape of a square) and you got time to socialize. I don't see what's wrong with it personally. Not that I'd like to have stayed longer or anything because I wouldn't. I did want another job after I came out. Society was judgmental enough as it was without having a major criminal record next to my name. It's not something I needed really but I still got it.

But it gave me time to reflect on what I'd done. Which sounds really cliched I know, and it also gave me time to think about what was up with those freaking droids and what they were planning. You have to remember that I didn't know then what I know now so anything that happened consequently was beyond my control and beyond the realms of my knowledge at this point. But still I thought away as much as I could. Why did the Governments bring in these robots anyway? Why did they put them into every job sector? And why would they phase out their own species at a higher expense than that of keeping humans on?

Well, maybe that was it. Money. That's what it always comes down to isn't it? Maybe the fat cats and decision makers brought in the robots so they could lay off the human staff and live off the exponential profits they'd make. Why pay a robot? It doesn't need to eat or drink and it doesn't need any kind of amenities at all. That definitely seems the most logical but it's also further from the truth than anything else I could've come up with. That would only work if the general public had no money or provisions in order to keep them and their families alive and satisfied. Perhaps, considering you might be reading this far in the future for history coursework or something, I should remind you about the state of the society I occupied at this point in time...

It was a simple yet mundane existence. As I've said before, humanity was gradually becoming obsolete. The robots were taking the jobs little by little and we, as humans, had nothing else to do except watch it happen! No-one worked. Except in jobs that involved water. Because, for all the technology humans had developed by the turn of the century, the robots could not cope with being underwater. You couldn't have a robot lifeguard at a swimming pool or at a beach for instance as the chips and stuff inside it would fry. You also couldn't have robot ski instructors as the snow would melt on them if they fell over and scramble their parts and circuits. The only liquid they could be safe around was oil, like the cartoons they used to show on television centuries ago. Because they needed oil to operate. It's funny because, like those cartoons, the robots were of a crude design. The aesthetics of a standard robot wasn't something to marvel at or coo over. It's was just, for lack of a better word, basic. The only complex things about them were the data cores they had in their positronic brains.

Each robot that was made was given a primary function in order to make it useful. One robot in one part of a factory could be specifically conditioned to be a lumberjack while another robot in a room across the complex could be programmed to become a receptionist. It had that function and that function alone during work hours but, outside of work hours, it could act like a normal human. They'd go to football matches, school concerts, even to the pub. (Though they couldn't drink alcohol you understand, so they'd be given an empty bottle and pretend to drink out of it in order to fit in with the humans around them). Every single robot in the world had a purpose which, by the time they became popular and widespread, was more than any human had.

So, what did WE do during the day? Well, while the robots went off and did their 9-5, we did anything. It was a complete mess. The children went to school, (which is frankly odd to me because why send the kids to get an education if the robots are going to have the jobs anyway?), the women just did little odd jobs around the house and wherever they were needed and the men just did what they could. (Although this usually meant ending up at a pub or a golf course or something just wasting money).

Money came in from the central Government as a never ending severance package/benefit/commodity and food was rationed in order to accommodate the fact that every family in a certain band was getting a set income. There were 3 "bands" set up that you and your household were placed in according to the amount of income you were receiving before your replacement. There was Band 1, which normally consisted of the highest earning families in the country who earned copious amounts of money like CEOs or Politicians, Band 2 consisted of what people in the 20th and 21st centuries would refer to as the "middle class" and Band 3 were the ones who received the lowest amount and/or lived off some kind of Government benefit in order to survive.

Food was rationed according to the bands as well as other stuff like entertainment packages and luxury items like sofas or gadgets. The people in Band 1 got the most food and luxuries while Band 3 got the least. This was mostly due to the fact that the people in Band 1 were now seen as a major target market for various different companies who wanted people to buy their banal shit in order to occupy themselves in the boredom of day to day life. Despite the changing shape of the world, the form of human hierarchy remained more or less the same. With the exception that the Bands were also segregated into different area. People in Band 1 were in one part of a place, Band 2 in another and Band 3 in the slums.

People from Band 1 and Band 2 could interact but Band 3 had to remain right where they were and weren't allowed to associate themselves with anyone above their own standing. Well, why should they? The people in Band 3 were all thieves and money-grabbing benefits bastards who expected everyone else to pay for their luxuries rather than earning it themselves. Why should they mix with the upper echelons of society when they come from a whole different gene pool? No. You couldn't have the cretins and thieves mixing with the elite and right. It was unheard of!

I belong in Band 2. I'm from a "middle class" family. And I want to make it clear now that I never agreed with the popular opinion of the Third Banders. (That was the colloquial term for them. Just like I'm a Second Bander. Although, strangely, those in Band 1 weren't called First Banders as you might imagine. They were called Peaks. Like they'd reached the peak of a mountain because they'd worked all their lives to get to where they were in society. Which, obviously, wasn't always true). You'd have thought that, with the robots taking all the jobs, that the perception of Third Banders would change because, then, everyone was getting some form of benefit. But no. The Peaks still looked down on Third Banders as animals and insects. So did many Second Banders. But I didn't. I never believed it. (I was originally a Third Bander. And I worked my way up to Band 2. As did my wife, Freya). Despite what the popular media would have you believe.

Oh yes. The media. If it wasn't the Central Government or the big businesses who ruled the country, it was the media. The media was as it's always been; the happy medium between the ruling classes and the Banders. Telling us what was happening in the world and, ultimately, shaping the way we perceived it. (Because everything you see on television's correct right?) But it did more than that. It also reminded people in society where their places were within it. The Peaks remained at the very top telling us what to say, what to think and what to believe, the Second Banders remained in the middle ground and enjoyed a mediocre existence and the Third Banders were at the very bottom. The diseased. The rat-eaters. The undesirables. The people who shouldn't really be alive, but are allowed to live by the Peaks.

That was the scariest thing about the society I lived in. The Peaks could change their mind at any moment and cull the Third Banders. It's been talked about numerous times in the popular media and in Government. But, luckily for the Third Banders, the robots that were now in charge did not wish to pursue an openly Nazi-esque eugenics policy. But the issue would come up again from time to time.

"Is it time we eradicated all Third Banders?" - 'Peak Mail' (19th November 2112)

"The only destiny for them is death". - 'The Second Bander' (30th July 2113)

"Is it time to initiate Protocol 198 and end their misery?" - 'British Daily Press' (18th January 2114)

These were only some of the headlines banded about in the media regarding the issue. People would openly discuss it, sometimes even taunt the Third Banders with the prospect, without any remorse or thought as to what they were saying. No-one cared if they upset a Third Bander. They probably didn't understand what you were saying anyway, with the being so uneducated and everything.

But what if this was a ruse? Maybe the media were distracting us with the Third Banders because there was a much bigger issue at hand? A more controversial one? Something hidden? The robots ran the papers now and had complete control over what the nation could see or read. And would they be prepared to hide their own agenda away from human eyes? What if the Third Bander debates were just a cover for something more sinister? Because it's a well known tactic. Control the media, control the people.

What if they had us right where they wanted us?

Maybe they did...

Original criminal record picture adapted from: http://jmjmad1.deviantart.com/art/OC-Police-Profile-Blank-Meme-339342166