The Helianthus Project

De: RM Briggs

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

Exerpt

It was a delicate balance of proving she could do the job—be alone—and being branded a luddite. Aisling wasn’t convinced the program was concerned about the psychological effects of isolation, so much as the government was worried she would join the ranks of the noncitizens—the technophobes who felt so utterly disenfranchised they relinquished their government-appointed habitat cubes, signed the irretractable resignation of their United North Americas’ Right to Rations, and disappeared into remote locales.

The government wasn’t happy about it. The United North American media and the corporations had worked hard on shaping culture—society—toward sustainability.

Minute Metropolises meant saving billions on infrastructure. The government ceased funding for rural and suburban roadways; exorbitant taxes priced the population out of automobile ownership; they phased out service and maintenance for outlying sidewalks and parkways, investing, instead, in the monorail and the eCar transportation system. Waste management was scaled back. Urban living was incentivized.

Citizens volunteered for geofencing—wherein, global positioning systems, radio frequency identification, wireless network protocols, and cellular data allowed the government to implement Conscientious Citizen Pricing. Going urban meant citizens who lived responsibly were entitled to special pricing on goods and services: a culture of living and working, ideally, within a ten-kilometer radius of the city’s epicentre. Districts were assigned in order to promote harmonious lifestyles—suitable to the citizens’ occupations and social needs. People were living in carefully crafted convenience—and taking responsibility for their carbon footprints...