Year: 2292
“Well, that’s bullshit,” Mark said as he had his arm around Portia who was wiping away the tears in her eyes. “Kicking us out with no notice. Just like that.” He snapped his fingers together and then abruptly kicked a crate that was on the sidewalk. “We might as well be this box and let The Shew stamp down on us. It’s what she did anyway.” Mark drifted away from the group and started stamping down on the plastic crate until Gaz came over and put a hand on his shoulder to calm him down.
For as long as anyone could remember the economy hadn’t been in a place where it was safe to lose your job. However, recently, the job market had been declining even further. It was entirely the wrong time for them to lose their jobs.
Gaz and Portia would not be so badly affected. Gaz was almost retired and had saved enough to get himself by with maybe the odd job here and there, and Portia had the safety net of still living with her parents. By contrast, Mark and Brigan were both family men and had little in the way of savings or security. In Mark’s mind if he didn’t find work soon his family would be on the street by the end of next month.
“Let’s all go to Big Al’s,” Brigan said, “we can discuss options and get our heads around this situation with a mug of tea.” He didn’t think there were any options, but it was better to be warm inside in a friendly environment than out here watching Mark kick every crate he could find.
Everyone agreed that was a good plan. The group often went to Big Al’s Cafe after shift for a breakfast, or maybe it was dinner, and they could take one of the private booths at the back and be free to discuss without prying eyes or ears.
When they arrived at Al’s it was almost empty, just a few late-night workers mostly sitting alone reading the latest news beaming out from the table centre. Al’s place might be a bit of a greasy spoon, but it had some good tech compared to the competition, which is why it was a favourite in the area.
“Friends, friends! Come in, come in. How are you all today?” Big Al’s personality was as big as his stomach, so much so it was difficult to know for which he was called Big Al originally. Now, it was, without a doubt, his stomach.
Al walked over to them, slapped Brigan and Mark on their shoulders, grabbed Gaz’s hand and shook it wildly and then grabbed Portia in a big hug lifting her off the ground. Nobody could help but smile, even despite the situation they found themselves.
“What can I get for ya today?” Big Al boomed.
“Just a tea to start with,” Gaz said, “and we’ll probably take one of the booths around back, if that’s ok?”
“Ok? Of course it’s ok! You’re not plotting something sinister are ya? Big Al’s laugh felt like it shook the entire room, some of the existing customers looked up annoyed at the unwelcome break in the silence. “Go, go, find your seat, I’ll bring your drinks over.”
After about 5 minutes Al brought over their steaming hot tea, although at this stage it was just water, and a set of small metal cannisters that were about 5cm in length. The mugs the water was delivered in were self-heating and you could control the exact temperature you wanted. At the bottom was two connection points where you would insert the metal cannisters depending on what flavour you wanted. The water was then infused by the flavours which would either mix or rise above and below each other depending on what density you decided.
Some adventurous people, like Brigan, infused their drink with no less than five flavours and others, like Portia, thought themselves a bit more refined and kept to one cannister so they could truly appreciate the flavour. Mark and Gaz didn’t really understand the fuss and often just tried any infusions that were placed in front of them.
After Al had brought their drinks and each had decided the flavour they would have, the four started to discuss their options.
“I just don’t know what I’m going to do now,” Mark said, “Brig, what are you going to do buddy? How’s Jaleah going to handle the news?”
Jaleah was Brigan’s wife and mother of his 3 children. They had slowly been sorting their finances out and were now getting by ok, not great, but they had everything they needed and what they thought was a steady income from Brigan’s job.
Brigan heard Mark’s question but was not capable of answering. Sitting there staring into his grape infused tea he had a million thoughts running through his mind.
Gaz moved about restlessly in his seat. As the oldest and, often considered, leader of the group he felt it was his responsibility to provide some of that leadership.
“First things first,” he started, “we need to contact Laz at the union. They must have had other calls come in by now and the quicker they can act on this the better. Laz will know what we can do and where we stand, there’s no way I’m letting them kick us out without a fight.”
He dialled Laz’s direct line from his LyteBeam glasses and shared the audio out to the group who connect through their various devices and implants.
Laz answered and what greeted them was a frantic background noise with what sounded like Laz shouting at someone. After 30 seconds of unintelligible noise they heard an apologetic voice. “Sorry about that Gaz,” Laz said, now focussed in on the call, “it’s been chaos at the office for the past hour or so. I can’t believe it’s taken you this long to call me, I assume they’ve removed you and your team too?” Laz sounded out of breath, he’d probably had a hundred calls coming into him, so it was a testament to his relationship with Gaz that he answered theirs so quickly.
“Yeah, we’ve been booted out, by The Shrew of all people. Speaking of the team, everyone is here and listening in. What can you tell us?”
Sunsets on Britannia 