On An Upswing

Emma remembered reading the headlines:

“Housing Crisis Solved, Roofs for All”

“The World Hungers No Longer: Global Food Distribution Achieved”

“Diplomacy and Disarmament Leave World Peace in Their Wake”

“Climate Change Slowing, Heading for Reversal, After Unprecedented Global Summit”

After a lifetime of “once in a generation” events, between wars and pandemics and extreme weather phenomenon, record unemployment and record homelessness and record corporate profits with record cost of living increases and record gaps between the wealthy and the working class, these were miracles. Finally, something had clicked, and things had taken a turn for the better.

Emma was proud to have voted for President Leslie Sanders. She was a force to be reckoned with, and over her first term had wrangled even the most hardheaded holdouts into submission on plans that made The States—and the world—a better place. No one quite knew how she did it.

Perhaps the timing was just right—there had been a wave of obituaries for some very long-standing Congress members, and these were eagerly filled by younger generations with younger politicians, which may have helped. As many older Congresspeople had taken to handling their duties virtually from their mansions on the Moon, since the lack of atmosphere and gravity felt much better on their centennial bones and lungs, they had become even more out of touch with the crises unfolding hundreds of thousands of miles below. The young adults who took their place, however, were fresh from the coffeehouses, unpaid internships, and parents’ basements, daily confronted by the festering consequences of the older generations’ actions.

And there was no doubt she capitalized on the worker riots that brough corporate consumerism to its knees. She championed the people who had forced Rainforest to shutter its last warehouse through a combination of strikes and boycotts that made the Boston Tea Party look like a toddler’s temper tantrum. Where their annual sale, Supreme Day, would normally tally up multi-billion-dollar figures, the public had finally reached their breaking point. After losing sales and stock value for months, Supreme Day saw zero warehouse workers show up for their shifts—aside from the robots, which only made up about a quarter of their workforce-- and they managed only $900,000 in sales. Whether this was from a consumer boycott, or a network of vigilante hackers who managed to obstruct traffic to their sites for the better part of 24 hours, no one could say. But a month later, Rainforest had gone under. No one seemed to give it much thought though, since they had seen an influx of mom-and-pops that made shopping local much easier, and the social safety nets were being mended and expanded rapidly for those suddenly out of work.

Presidents Sanders’ second term had been spent hashing things out with global leaders, since things at home were on an upswing. As in The States, there had been a great deal of turnover, trading gray and depleted for green and invigorated. It took several years, but eventually nuclear weapons were non-existent, and global borders were completely open. A series of inalienable freedoms belonging to each and every person was established and agreed upon—those were tense negotiations that almost upended everything— and the cultural blossoming was something to behold. Yes, some cultures needed to change, to adapt, to become more tolerant and less violent, but much of the core beliefs remained intact, if not stronger than before. The communication and diplomacy required to achieve this was staggering. And yet, a new era had dawned. People were listening and working together. As each small piece came to fruition, the results encouraged the next piece to fall into place. It felt like magic.

Despite her own protests, the people voted to keep President Sanders on through the completion of her projects—8 years was not enough to achieve these lofty but clearly worthy and desired goals. But it only took two more terms to reach the zenith, much faster than anyone could have thought possible. People really were motivated, it seemed, to make Earth a place that was easy to live in, easy to love. And two months before election day, President Leslie Sanders and all heads of state held a joint press conference, announcing utopia had been achieved. This was not simply a PR scheme; everyone could feel it, see it, in their everyday lives. Grocery prices had come down and supply was lush. The streets of Los Angeles, Baghdad, Lagos, and New Delhi were bustling with life and free of poverty and filth. Everyone who wanted to work had a job, and everyone who didn’t want to or couldn’t was still taken care of. Honor killings, airstrikes, gangs and homeless camps were all a thing of the past. And as far as anyone on Earth was concerned it would stay that way forever, whatever it took. It was beautiful.

Then Emma was ripped from her dream.

“EMMA! WE HAVE TO MOVE!!”

A blast shook the world apart. Gunfire rattled nearby, and drones with loudspeakers were relaying directions to return to dwellings or face the consequences. They were emblazoned with the colors of Rainforest and The Elite. Emma leapt up, grabbing her backpack, and followed her comrades out from the now crumbling wall they’d been sheltering behind. When they’d put some distance between them and the drones—quieter now though they could be heard for miles around—she asked companion Jon how long she’d been out.

“Oh, maybe 20 minutes. I know you needed it, I’m sorry it couldn’t have been longer.”

20 minutes. 20 peaceful minutes of a world that wasn’t on fire, losing hundreds of thousands of lives by the day. The uprising had been going on for weeks now—9, maybe 10—and while the People were holding their own, as AI still wasn’t smarter than the collective human mind, the onslaught of the corporate government mechanical army was wearing them down. They were running out of supplies, and frankly, there weren’t many safe spaces left since Big Sky was expanding rapidly. The global neural network would be complete and inescapable very, very shortly. If they couldn’t stop it, that beautiful new era would never have a chance to start.

Emma looked around, spotting hidden camps behind knolls and roadblocks and ruins all around. Those close enough to see clearly looked weary, but they were still fighting back. There was still the fire of human grit there, and if that still burned, there was still a chance.  

“Give me the map!” she shouted to Jon as an unmanned jet flew overhead, sparks showering down from its damaged sensors. Jon tossed her a tablet and she pulled up the holographic globe tracking Big Sky’s expansion. They were still in the clear here. If they could just take out a tower or two before it reached them, they might be in a good position to create a gap. That gap would be enough, it would have to be. Of all the dreams she’d ever had, this was the most important. They had to make this one come true. Leslie Sanders had to become president. And right here was where her story would begin.