World Wide Runners

Run

           

I had accepted the job of Runner about six months ago and was loving every second of it. I'd always liked running, regularly taking part in marathons when I was at college, so this was an almost perfect job for me. The money was pretty good as well, even if there were some issues around life expectancy.

In the years following the introduction of the International World Wide Communications Monitoring Act, IWWCMA for short, runners had become the backbone of communication in the modern age. With all intelligence communities around the world monitoring all communications around the world, there was no such thing as privacy in the digital age. Because of this, large corporations had decided to go a little medieval and started employing runners to literally run between buildings to transfer sensitive information.

Initially they had thought that using standard courier services would be good enough, but with the Internet of Things being so prevalent now, even bicycles were tracked now by law, let alone cars and vans. People had also fallen foul of the new laws, chipping was now mandatory. You could not speak without someone in the world knowing what you had said. There was talk of the next generation software for the chips even reading thoughts.

However, there was a black market for those who had escaped the chip implants, and I was one of those rare people. It was not deliberate on my part, not getting chipped. I had been traveling when the law came into being and had just slipped through the cracks a little. I found out about the runner job the same day I was finally going to get my chip.

A friend who worked for one of the Big Three corporations had been talking about the fact their last runner had been caught and they were quietly asking around to see who might be interested. He had no idea that I was not chipped. His eyes lit up when I told him and he took me straight to see his boss. I was hired on the spot and given a very large upfront payment to show how serious they were! I had no idea such a role existed, but I was not going to pass up the opportunity to make this kind of money, even if the risks were high.

I was just about to have my 40-mile break when I realised that I had seen the same black car five times in as many hours. I knew that the job had some dangers attached. Corporate rivals were pretty ruthless when it came to getting company secrets from runners, but they offered an infinitely better set of choices than the police. With jails filled beyond capacity, they would almost always shoot runners on sight. They were given bonuses for the number of people they could keep out of prison in this manner, incentivised to shoot first and forget the questions. Seeing the coast was clear, I stepped out of my hiding place to continue my run. Just over 40 miles to clear before the end of tomorrow.

I hadn't even taken my first step when the pain shot through me. As I succumbed to darkness I said a silent prayer, hoping that it was anyone but the police.