Celista 2077

Part 1: Peregrines and Dandelions (chapters 1-3)

Chapter 1

Aurelia May 14th, 2077

Seattle

I suppose if I had to pick my favorite subject in school it would be history. I'm a sucker for old photographs of frontiersmen and stories about the silly reasons certain wars were started. War is such a foreign concept, and there haven't been frontiers in nearly two centuries. Sometimes I think I was born in the wrong year. Well, maybe the wrong decade or the wrong century. I like to think that I'm brave. I could have been just as bad ass as Joan of Arc if given the honor of having been born in the fifteenth century. Or, I could have been a pioneer like Amelia Earhart. I'm writing all of this right now on paper. Which makes me feel silly because no one writes much of anything on paper anymore. Writing things on paper usually means one is writing secrets in 2077. But, I suppose, that's what all of this is. I like the romantic idea of writing letters by candlelight, sealing them with wax and then having them delivered by means that require equines. I was born about three centuries too late for all of that. But, I guess the good news is I'm not at major risk of dying of yellow fever or tuberculosis in my day and age.

All of this goes on paper and I have to hide it because having paper is suspicious. Paper these days is used mostly for young children to learn to draw and grasp basic motor skills. I hope someday, in the future, people use paper again. I like the way you can crease it. I like the way it smells. I like that it's static and not dynamic. I turn 17 in one month. That means I get B-Linked. The B stands for brain supposedly, but some say it used to start for the guy who first invented it, Cassius Borenson. A few people say the B is for binary. Truth is, it really doesn't matter. My brain gets linked to a computer. That computer is linked to other computers. I get to become all knowing finally. I no longer have to look up information manually. I can communicate with the same ease as thinking. It's a relatively painless experience. I'm lucky in that regard. Compulsory linking has been a reality for nearly a quarter century now in nearly every developed country. Only thirty years ago it required surgery and a weeklong recovery in the hospital. In 2077, I take some pills and nanobots do pretty much everything. I get fitted for cornea implants and I'm good to go within thirty six hours. One stay overnight in the clinic to make sure everything went accordingly and that I have no blood clots due to the linking. The craziest thing is that pretty much no one questions or rejects technology anymore. But I question it. How do I know the positives outweigh the negatives? Will I ever have a private thought again? Will the world look as beautiful after everything is augmented? I'm not sure I want my reality augmented. That's why I'm running away. That's why I write this down on paper.

Lucas May 16th 2077

Celista

Another day chopping firewood. Look forward to school tomorrow because we get to play basketball in gym, and we only have three weeks until summer vacation. Dad asked what I want for my birthday next month. I don't want to ask for too much. Maybe a sweater and some books.

Aurelia May 17th 2077

Seattle

My birthday is June 15th. I like to refer to it as the ides of June. My birthday falls on a Tuesday, which is the coveted birthday day for 17 year olds because it means you miss four days of school for the linking procedure and recovery, and then get a full weekend to immerse yourself in the new reality that is the computerverse. You can have your linking procedure delayed by a week or so if totally necessary. Like, if you're a star athlete and your 17th birthday is the same day as the state finals. I'm not an athlete and, if I were, I probably wouldn't make it to the state finals of anything. Because you get linked on your 17th birthday, you usually get linked your junior year of high school. You finish your junior year of high school with limited access to your neural super capabilities during school hours to make things fair. But, it's easier to do school work after you're linked. That's why some parents now try to have kids with September birthdays. That's the earliest birthday month you can get linked and still have two years of high school. It's an advantage. My April birthday would be seen by most as a disadvantage, but I was dreading being linked since I was 7 and my older cousin got linked and was never the same to me. Regardless of when you get linked, senior year of high school is mostly a transition into the technology. You still physically report to school and all. But you're learning via the internet. You're accessing information. You're not really learning. You're preparing for how people learn in college. Information is, after B-link, intuitive. Some people questioned this back in the 2030s when linking was becoming common (although not required like today). Their whole argument was that if you simply accessed information but didn't understand it, then it wasn't always valuable. These guys were the precursors to the bands of people now known as the Non-Plants. They were accused of being the Luddites of the 21st century. At first they were allowed to live in their own communities without much fuss. People could join these communities freely and live the lives they wished. That all changed by the 2040s when the prevailing thought was that not linking young people (typically between 17 and 22) was cruel. Being linked offers more than possessing all the information in the world and being able to talk to anyone in a nearly telepathic way. The linking technology is also a diagnostic system and it increases your immune system by a million. Being linked meant nanobots destroying cancer cells in your body. It meant protection from the onset of nearly any infection. It meant detection of any cavity in your mouth and immediate repair by nanobots. Because of linking, people could expect to live until 120 easily. It's accepted now that, in a matter of no time, nanobots and detection will ostensibly stop aging. Some people say we will live centuries. Some say until the sun blows up. I suppose that's why no one questions linking anymore. Who could argue with a pain free life that lasts forever? You can't join the Non-Plants anymore. Not legally. But they're still out there. They live in what we call bands. They resemble Native American tribes of centuries ago in that matter. They're allowed to live their awful and painful lives. Their children are pitied by society and every now and then some politician says we should raid all the bands and rescue the children. It never happens. The courts protect the bands and allow them to go on in their archaic existence. Besides, every kid in a band knows they can simply walk away and join society whenever they like. That's one thing the governments make certain. Kids in bands know they are different. And they know they have a choice. But most don't leave. Canada treats their bands a little better than the US. One of the most famous bands is Celista. It's in British Columbia. It would take me about a week or so to hike there I'm guessing.