A Wonderful World

25 Year-old Loser

I was excited as I left the mall. I had to hide the item I bought after saving multiple months' worth of paychecks. It was the entry model of the new Dark Space headset. Some people would have laughed at me, saving months of hard work just to afford the poverty level hardware. You see, I worked as an astral pump attendant. Actually, I didn't do any pumping. The robots did it all. The attendant had to be a human because they had to go under the cars and scrape off the silica gunk. That kind of stuff would make the robots expensive to clean. It didn't pay much, but at least I had a job. So many people had lost their jobs to robots, but I guess they were still happy. They got to escape to Dark Space to have fun all day. I wouldn't know, I was one of the unlucky ones to not be old enough. After my parents got their Dark Space headsets, I never saw them again.

It was a little tough on my own, but that's what was happening to a lot of the people my age. My parents were part of the first Dark Space adventure and a lot of others' parents too. It was a headset that opened up a wormhole that led to the Andromeda galaxy. After the Silicon Chip War, China finally got the major share and pumped money into research and technology. They wanted to go beyond the stars. They had their eyes on Andromeda - a brand new place for humans to conquer. Within months someone was able to create a chip that used Dark Energy to activate the wormhole long enough for a human body to disappear. After filling the higher roles of society with humans on Earth, anyone over the age of 30 was drafted into the first Dark Space adventure. I didn't make the cut - I was a 25-year old loser.

They called us leftovers the caretakers. We were the ones left here to take care of the robots that would continue our society. We did the jobs that the robots didn't do. Or rather, we did all the jobs that the upper management didn't want the robots to do. Anything that would jeopardize their integrity or dirty the robots would be taboo. Humans had to do that to preserve the lifespan of the robots. Thus, my low paying job.

What a weird world that we lived in. I remembered my grandfather telling me stories of weird things like "grass-fed beef." Like, what was that a type of food? Maybe it was a delicacy back then. He told me that they were from cows that ate grass. You mean, those animals that were caged to produce the world's energy? Why would someone want to eat meat from those diseased creatures. I couldn't believe humans would do that.

I had to hide my headset while walking home because everyone wanted to leave this planet. To them, automation was the tyrant and it was degrading to scrape the goo off of the shoes of a robot. They also missed their family. It was called it a voluntary draft, but I didn't see anyone decline it. Perhaps they also wanted to leave so badly. I suppose I was in the same boat. After all, I lived minimally and finally purchased my own. It was only the entry-level, but how much worse could it be than the other models? The models really increased in price exponentially, but was the benefit a more comfortable warp? I didn't know. I didn't read the others because I just needed to get back home before my next shift started. I couldn't wait to see the expressions on the robots when they realized I didn't show up for work. My stomach grumbled from not eating for 5 days. All that disgusting "grass-fed beef" actually made my body hungry.