The Only Thing That Could Ever Unite Us

Five: commuting like savages

The Secretary General basked in a moment of warm sunshine in a rare gap in the cloud cover in a lush mango grove in the bustling city centre of Iqaluit. He felt the light permeate skin bioengineered to artificial pallidness to maximise vitamin D production on a cloudier world than humans had evolved for.

He marvelled at the strangeness of being there. After a lifetime of projection and service to the Earth which precluded extraneous activities other than eating and exercising for much of the year, he couldn't remember the last time he'd moved his body outside of Ottawa. The inefficiency was undeniable - even using the high speed eVTOL his office retained as a relic of barbaric times of physical mobility it had taken an uncomfortable amount of time - nearly 30 minutes - to get here. He had found it difficult to find a way to fill the time and had ended up engaging in a lesson with one of his symbionts to freshen up his Inuktitut in time for his arrival. "ᐅᓪᓗᓯᐅᑦᓯᐊᕆᑦ" he said to a passing couple, largely so that he didn't feel like he'd wasted his time. They eyed him suspiciously, wondering why on Earth a stranger would make audio contact, before pointedly replying "Salut". So much for that, then. He watched the passers-by. He had spent his life serving these people, they had heard his thoughts, he had provided them with direct emotional support through the 3T at the toughest times in their lives, fleeing towards the Poles to escape the encroaching Heat and sterile hot waters of desertification. And none of them had a clue he was there - security protocols deep faking his facial features into someone totally different - a reassuring father figure, albeit still with the election-winning Iroquois hair. Obviously, they knew that wasn't him - nobody looked old enough to be a father figure these days, but still it felt odd to sit so anonymously among them. He wondered when the last time he'd left his residence and offices had been, when he'd last positioned his body in such direct physical contact with unfamiliar bodies. It must have been decades.

The ambassador for Canada only kept him waiting another hour, which wasn't so bad for her. When she arrived, she greeted him by saying ᐅᓪᓗᓯᐅᑦᓯᐊᕆᑦ which gave him a moment of cheer.

"While I'm loving that you came to my province, how come we're not in Ottawa? It would have saved several minutes." She asked.

"Heatwave," he answered, "peaking at 52°C this afternoon - the whole place is on lockdown and all non-essential systems have been halted to keep air-conditioning and other life support functions running. Trains are still stopping there but there's no way they'd have had enough spare power for worker drones to get us access."

"Yikes." She answered. "I might not like the winter darkness at this latitude, but at least we never get much above 40°C."

The Secretary General looked out around the grove at the gleaming towers that stretched to every horizon. "How many, here, now?"

"It's getting better," she said "I think the last census came in at 25 million. We've taken considerable steps to relocate people to smaller cities. For those who have been here for less than 2 generations some are going to other provinces, which keeps the separatists vaguely satiated, although I think they still think that Nunavut is for the Inuit, they do seem pragmatic enough to accept that people must go somewhere."

"It's beautiful" he said.

"It was." She replied "and it will be again."

"Which way is it?" He asked, unsure as to the subtext of what she had just said and not particularly keen on asking more. She had always been very vocally Inuit herself - could she be turning separatist?

"This way, 3 blocks" she answered.

They strolled beneath palm fronds along beaten dirt paths between towering accommodation blocks, past the monumental tomb of Amaruq the Last Polar Bear, covered in flowers and solar powered votive lamps, neither of which, he supposed, were of much comfort to Amaruq, onward past little cafes and bars in replica igloos made of crystal, quartz and glass, air-conditioned to temperatures as low as humans re-engineered to survive perpetually warm weather could tolerate (around 10°C) so that patrons, wrapped in thermals and scarves could marvel at the novelty of tingling skin and visible breath, and arrived at the hyper loop station. The last remaining worker drones were clearing up the piles of vines and roots they had cut through to find the entrance.