2069 ... A busy day for Harriet ... and Babu is recruited ...

Babu shivered inside his tent. The wind was flapping the side wall but at least it had stopped raining. A branch was moving about, rubbing on the outside. He had had to find a new pitch in a hurry the previous night, and in the dark chose an area in a thicket, concealed from the road by a big bank of brambles. Normally the patrols are pretty lenient, but yesterday after dark he could see a lot of vehicles massing for a big clear out, so had moved before he was confronted.

His N’cripes device tapped on his leg. The authorities had tried to outlaw the encrypted service, which they couldn’t listen in on. But the underground developers had managed to keep ahead of them, so far.

Roni’s face appeared on the screen.

‘Hello Babu. How are you?’

Babu hesitated a moment. He could see his own face on the split screen. It was not a pretty sight. His black beard looked matted.

‘I’m fine. I’m standing up to the journey “A ok”.’

‘Good. Shall we go through your application form? You have experience as a general surgeon.’

‘Yes, I did three years of surgical training after my medical degree.’

‘What makes you think you would be suitable to work in a care home?’

‘I am used to handling patients, and have always had a very sympathetic approach towards the problems of the elderly.’

‘Why did you leave your home.’

Babu thought for a second. ‘The water came in. It never went out again. Everybody had to leave.’

‘Yes, I hear that a lot, Babu. You’ve made it to safety now though. All we have to arrange is a time to get you across.’

The light from the goobie oven turned from red to green. Harriet hungrily opened the door and removed the still steaming toastie. She needed a bit of warmth in her food today. The goobie allowed her one journey for recreational purposes in the middle of the day, so she had come to her favourite spot overlooking the sea. It was chilly, with a biting wind. The grey clouds hung low and merged in tone with the sea below as the waves made their way relentlessly from far out on her right into the bay on her left. The new bay, as it was called. The battle to keep out the sea was lost decades ago. After the gabions and walls that made up the defences were breached or simply bypassed when the far away melting of ice masifs ensured their early obsolescence, the giving up of man’s works to the sea was accepted. At low tide Harriet liked to trace with her eye the original shore line; the revealed foundations of architect designed sea view houses nestling behind eroded concrete pathways, the odd island where the ground had been higher that now provided nursery space for the ever reproducing seagulls, and the occasional still standing telegraph pole albeit at an exaggerated lean.

Pylons marked the current coastline. At one hundred metre intervals, and set a hundred metres inland from the high tide line, they looked ready to take a further step backwards when such a move was deemed necessary. Harriet could see the line they took for several miles from her high vantage point. It curved around the bay, each pylon diminishing in size from her perspective, fading into the dull haze of the day. They ensured no one could enjoy an invigorating stroll along the new beach. Why would anyone want to celebrate such a scene of destruction anyway? The threat of inundation by the sea was followed by the fear of a flood of displaced people. It became a political imperative to demonstrate a will to “keep them out”. Defend what you have from their hungry mouths, even if what you have is the reason for their debasement.

On a day when dusk was falling, Harriet had watched lights flash from a pylon halfway around the bay. Marksman-like, it will have shot a capsule of indelible paint at a detected intruder. She saw the patrol wagons arrive soon after to surround them, search beams firing up the luminescent stains on those poor unfortunate bodies. She wondered what tales they had to tell. What drove them to travel across continents, to make this their final destination? She knew it was either too much water, or not enough water, that made their homes uninhabitable. But nobody talked about it anymore. It was just too horrible, or too boring. Yesterday’s news.

‘Just hold still a little longer.’ Harriet said quietly in a slightly strained voice. She had the filament in the jaws of the forceps and applied steady pressure to withdraw it slowly from the deep pit of her patient’s enucleated orbit. It moved a couple of millimetres, then wouldn’t budge.

‘OK. Just take a short breather.’ Harriet straightened her back and readjusted the surgical light so it shone more directly over her right shoulder. Mrs Arbuthnot rolled away and coughed from the other side of the couch.

‘I do appreciate the time this is taking, doctor.’ The next phrase, I know you are very busy, hardly needed to be said. She had been a tech designer, and so at the forefront of the implant craze. When things started to go wrong, and the implant failed, hers among many, she lost her job also.

‘Let’s have another try.’ This time Harriet got better traction and after some initial resistance, the filament accelerated away from its deep anchorage inside the cranium. Its end exited, to be followed by a flood of thin green pus from its track. Harriet mopped the cavity with a swab.

‘Here’s the little bugger.’ She waved the wire in front of Mrs Arbuthnot’s naturally functioning left eye. ‘Let’s hope it will heal up now.’

‘Thank you doctor. It feels so much better already.’

After a goobie-prepared coffee, she had left her place of peace on the cliff top. The afternoon promised mainly minor ops for the Dreds, and the Hunnies presented a whole array of problems. The goobie had slowed down as it approached the picket at the entrance to the Hundred. One of the Hunnies broke away from the group who were warming themselves by a brazier, its low flames giving a single focus of colour on this grey day.

‘It’s ok. It’s only the doctor.’ He shouted back to the others as he dragged back the makeshift barricade to let the goobie through.

‘Don’t forget to tell her to pay a visit to big Alex.’ The foreman of the picket made his way over, not trusting his mate to deliver the message accurately. Security was a big issue around the Hundreds. When you haven’t got much, it seems doubly important to protect it. Myths circulated of raids, from other Hundreds in the country, or from bands of travellers, or even foreigners.

‘It’s all right. I heard you.’ Harriet said when the foreman had his face against the glass. ‘I’ll see him after surgery.’

The foreman retreated to let the goobie pass. He had an anxious look on his face. He knew if the doctor forgot he’d cop it from big Alex.

The road went through woodland on either side. Winter light penetrated the scanty canopy and highlighted the odd tippee made from stacked branches visible between the bare trunks. Harriet spotted a tree house, and below it a child was suspended by the ankles and was being swung from one child to another around a group of five or six. They looked grubby compared to the screen kids she knew. But the outdoor life did mean she was less likely to see in her consultations today those disturbances of mind, the attention deficit disorders and hyperactivity, more likely cuts and bruises.

Woodland gave way to low terraces of housing. The rendering was breaking away from the brickwork and roof repairs had produced a variegated pattern of tile shades. The goobie turned left up the drive to the back of the surgery. A small crowd had already gathered, waiting for the main door to be triggered when she approached the back door.

‘Been on your rounds, Dr Death.’ A youth’s voice emerged from amidst the group, weakly trying to impress, and was followed by a high pitched exclamation as his mother dealt him a blow. Harriet was used to it, and the patients filtered into the waiting room.

Mrs Arbuthnot was not the only patient requiring Harriet’s minor op skills that afternoon. A large abscess, causing a fever, had needed lancing in the armpit of someone who had had a right hand biomechanical enhancement, now removed, but still leaving enough microwiring to remain a focus for infection. But most were facial disfigurements, the cavities having been fashioned as housings for the machinery to turn a human into a superhuman, but were now empty shells. It went so wrong, so quickly. Harriet was having to deal with the psychological cost to her patients as well. From being high fliers, they were now despised even by those they had joined in the Hundreds.

‘We can try a different chemical approach.’ Harriet had made a positive statement, as Mrs Arbuthnot wept from her left eye.

‘It’s ok, doctor. I know I’ve just got to come to terms with what’s happened. I know there’s no going back to what I had before.’

‘You could try applying for those roles where your screen time is as an avatar.’

‘I’m afraid it's just impossible here. I could stitch together the technology, but the connection is not reliable. They wouldn’t employ someone who risks dropping out at any time.’

‘Well shall we go back to the sero-dopa’s? I know it’s pretty old fashioned, but it has a fairly reliable history.’

‘I think I’ll leave it, doctor. I know there are a few more microfilaments to come out. Shall I see you next week?’

Big Alex lived above the shop. Or bank as he liked to call it. He saw himself as a latter day banker. He made decisions on who deserved credit, who should be denied credit, who to invest in and who to divest of their possessions, however few they may be. The power for all this came from his position as the nominated receiver of the weekly delivery of food to the Hundred.

Harriet ascended the steps by the side of the shop. She could see in through the bars reinforcing the locked glass door. Trusted workers were putting tins onto shelves and unloading boxes into freezers. You had to book a time with Alex if you wanted to visit.

‘Hello doctor. Excuse me if I don’t get up.’ Bits of Alex were spreading over the sides of his reclining armchair. It was positioned in the middle of the lounge, a large island surrounded by an archipelago of children’s toys, pacifiers, scattered clothes, all on a sea of sticky blue carpet. The odd infant cruised around in the ocean. Harriet picked her way over.

‘Would you have a listen to my chest, please doc?’ Alex made a feeble cough. ‘Some bastard has given this to me. If I wasn’t so good to them, they wouldn’t come.’

Harriet moved her electrosteth over Alex’s back as he hoisted his clothes up.

‘Sounds all clear to me.’

‘So you won’t be giving me any of your special mixture, then?’ He smiled, in a sinister fashion. Harriet didn’t know what he meant, but she did understand that everything is transactional with Alex.

‘Well, probably no.’ She wasn’t sure if this allowed her enough wriggle room if she needed it.

The lights flickered, then faded completely. The room went dark, but Harriet could see a candle being lit in the kitchen. One of Alex’s consorts brought it in on a saucer and put it next to his chair.

‘Fucking Tuncs!’ Alex’s jowls were shaking. ‘They’ve done this everyday this week. You know what it is? Their fucking block chain transactions take so much energy they cut the Hunnies off. They could do it during the day, but no, they wait til it’s dark. For maximum impact. The bastards!’ Harriet shifted her footing, not quite sure what was behind her.

‘Anyway.’ Alex continued, taking a slightly calmer tone. ‘What I was gonna tell you was that your spending too much time treating those Dreds. Just remember this is a Hundred for the Hunnies. We’ve been here a long time, and your duty has to be to us first. I suppose it’s because your mum is a Dred? It’s common knowledge, you know.’ He looked at her questioningly.

Harriet stepped back in the semi-darkness and her heel caught one of the crawling infants who immediately started bawling. She reached down to pick it up.

‘Oi, Chards, look at the doc holding the nipper.’ Alex’s partner Chardonnay poked her head through the door and grinned. The baby was dangling by its arms a foot away from Harriet’s body.

‘Ah, I suppose you want one of your own.’ Alex said. ‘I know it’s difficult to find a man of yer own class. There aren’t many. How about one of me sons? We’ve got plenty here. Or maybe you’d like some of Big Daddy's baby gravy?’ With a grunt and some effort he managed to raise his hips lewdly an inch from the seat.