DECEMBER THIRD
ANNIE O’CONNOR
PLANET EARTH
YEAR 2100
Annie wished she had someone to talk to, because she doubted that she had ever needed advice as bad as she did at the moment.
At one hand, she hated the 100 Richest, NASA and everyone and everything else that stood behind The Great Evacuation. They had taken the people needed with them; presidents, world leaders. Left was poor societies, poor people. Sick societies, sick people. The ones that wasn’t sick or poor was dead. As simple as that.
Dead or a millionaire, profiting from The Great Evacuation.
But on the other hand, Annie and her mum were starving. And if this really was a way to make money, it was worth a shot.
Annie didn’t go to school. Even though her mum though she did.
In reality, school was expensive. And they had no money. Annie had quit school mid-2099. They needed money more than she needed education.
Her mother still hadn’t noticed.
Instead of attending school, Annie had made a habit of walking around town doing nothing, really. Her mum had told her that poor kids used to dig in garbage containers for food - but nowadays poor people couldn’t afford throwing anything out, and The New Millionaires compressed their waste before throwing them out to make sure no kids like Annie would dig in their dumpsters.
Instead of taking her normal route around town, she walked straight to the plaza she had been avoiding since the snow first came.
It was still snowing.
Screens bigger than than standard size were being put up by people im grey clothes.
Annie didn’t even allow herself a second of hesitation before she walked up to one of them, standing as straight as she could. Chin up.
“Can I help?” she asked. The snow fell over her, stuck in her blonde hair.
“I suppose you could,” the man replied, standing on a ladder. The rich didn’t own ladders, they could afford expensive footstools that obey voice commands. “Who are you?”
“Annie O’connor, sir, I’d like to help celebrate The Anniversary.”
“You’re not here to help, Annie, you want money, isn’t that right?”
Her cover had been blown in the span of a few minutes.
“Does it matter? I’ll do whatever you tell me to as long as I get paid.”
He laughed a little at that, stepping off his ladder. He quickly looked around the plaza before he turned to her.
“Go to the headquarter, tell them you’re serious, that you want a job. They’ll pay you as long as you know how to keep your mouth shut.” He looked at her, then added. “And I just scanned your face, so a word about me and you’ll be gone before you wake up tomorrow.”
She sucked her breath in through her teeth. “Okay.”
“Go there tomorrow, early tomorrow.” He turned around, and then turned back again. “And don’t tell on me, girl.”
As Annie got back home, she was set on one goal; to not be suspicious.
She found her mum, watching the new at the kitchen table, as usual.
“Hi mum,” she said. “Could you show me what the pictures in the… calendar mean?”
For over an hour, Annie sat through a long lesson about ginger-men and snow-men. She found it all amusing, but didn’t want her mum to lose her trust in her.
Because Annie was about to do the right thing.
She had to do the right thing.
