Because no one had a window, they could really pack people into these buildings. Each terrafoam dorm building had a four-acre foot print. It was a perfect 417 foot by 417 foot by 417 foot solid brown cube. Each cube originally held exactly 76,800 people. Doubling this to 153,600 people in each building was unthinkable, but they were doing it anyway. On the other hand, you had to marvel at the efficiency. At that density, they could house every welfare recipient in the entire country in less than 1,500 of these buildings. By spacing the buildings 100 feet apart, they could house 200,000,000 people in a space of less than 20 square miles if they had wanted to. At that density, they could put everyone in the country without a job into a space less than five miles square in size, put a fence around it and forget about us. If they accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb or two on us, we would all be gone and they wouldn’t have to worry about us anymore.
America was no different from a third world nation. With the arrival of robots, tens of millions of people lost their minimum wage jobs and the wealth concentrated so quickly. The rich controlled America’s bureaucracy, military, businesses and natural resources, and the unemployed masses lived in terrafoam, cut off from any opportunity to change their situation. There was the facade of “free elections,” but only candidates supported by the rich could ever get on the ballot. The government was completely controlled by the rich, as were the robotic security forces, the military and the intelligence organizations. American democracy had morphed into a third world dictatorship ruled by the wealthy elite.
Ultimately, you would expect that there would be riots across America. But the people could not riot. The terrorist scares at the beginning of the century had caused a number of important changes. Eventually, there were video security cameras and microphones covering and recording nearly every square inch of public space in America. There were taps on all phone conversations and Internet messages sniffing for terrorist clues. If anyone thought about starting a protest rally or a riot, or discussed any form of civil disobedience with anyone else, he was branded a terrorist and preemptively put in jail. Combine that with robotic security forces, and riots are impossible.
The only solution for most people, as they became unemployed, was government handouts. Terrafoam housing was what the government handed out.
My situation was atypical really, because I was able to stay out of Terrafoam much longer than most people. I had been lucky enough to be a teacher, and I made the transition to administrator. That allowed me to hang on a good long time. But as the department of education became more and more robotic, I was squeezed out.
It was a funny experience. Manna informed me on Friday afternoon that I was to be fired. But the Manna network also knew that my bank account was close to zero and there was no way I would be able to make the next rent payment. The Manna network also knew that there were no job prospects for me, since it knew the employment status of everyone. Like most people, nearly everything I owned was leased. I wouldn’t be able to make the payments on any of that either. I was unmarried and all of my relatives were in Terrafoam already. Manna knew that. No one I knew in the city had offered to take me on as a guest, so that was out and Manna knew it.
So Manna put it all together and took the liberty to unplug me. As I finished the dismissal interview and left the building, I had two robotic escorts. The robot on my right addressed me as a robotic bus pulled up. The bus looked to be about half full.
“Jacob Lewis105, you are now unemployed. Do you have other means of employment?”
Of course it knew the answer, but this formality could not be avoided. “No.”
“Do you have guest status with any resident?” The robot asked.
“No.”
“Do you have means of support unknown to me?”
I suppose I could have stashed a cache of gold under my mattress, and this question allowed me to declare it. Such a cache would, of course, be grounds for arrest, so I was screwed either way. “No.” I was without any means of support.
“In accordance with ordinance 605.12b, you have been assigned room 140352 in building 16, resident quant C. This assignment provides you with suitable housing and nourishment to sustain your life. Please board the bus.”
That was how you ended up in Terrafoam. The system knew you had no means of support, so it “gave” you one. You could leave terrafoam once you regained a means of support, but there really was no way to do that unless Manna gave it to you.
Was it prison? Yes. But there were no walls. The food was good. The robots were as nice and respectful as they could be. You could walk outside wherever and whenever you wanted to. But there was an invisible edge. When you walked too far away from your building and approached that edge, two robots would approach you. I had tried it many times.
“Time to turn around Jacob Lewis105. There is construction in the next zone and, for your safety, we cannot allow you to proceed.” There were a hundred reasons the robots gave for making you turn around. Construction, blasting, contamination, flash flooding, train derailments, possible thunder storms, animal migrations and so on. They could be quite creative in their reasons. It was all part of their politeness. If you turned around you were fine. If you made any move in any direction other than the one suggested, you were immediately injected and woke up back in your room. I had only tried it twice.
It was a nice day. The sun was shining and the temperature was mild, so a lot of people were out milling around. Burt and I had decided to walk down along the river as far as the robots would let us. I was wearing the same coverall everyone else was, and I unbuttoned the top two buttons because the sun made it warm.
“Today’s your one year anniversary in terrafoam. How’s it feel?” Burt asked.
“I’m thinking that there has to be a way out of here.” I said.
“I know what you are saying. I try not to think about it. But it’s not that unusual. Over the course of history, billions of people have lived this way. Think back to when you were living in suburbia. Your parents had a 3,000 square foot house and the pool at the turn of the century. You were living it up. Unfortunately, at that moment in history, there were billions of people around the world living in poverty — they were living off a dollar or two per day. Meanwhile, your family had 300 dollars a day. Did you do anything about it? Billions and Billions of people living in third-world countries, squatting together in the dirt, crapping in ditches. They would walk down by the river just like we are doing right now and say to each other, ‘There must be a way out.’ They could see that they were lost — totally wasted human potential trapped in a terrible situation. Their kids and their kids’ kids forever would live like this because there was absolutely no way out. Did anyone stop to help them? Did you stop to help them? No. You were too busy splashing in the pool. Those billions of people lived and died in incredible poverty and no one cared.”
Burt could really get on your nerves like that. This was not the first time I had heard this soliloquy. It was depressing, and true, but after the third or fourth time it got old. Of course, he had been in terrafoam a lot longer than I had. I guess he’d had a lot more time to stew about it.
And he was right. No one helped the billions of people living in poverty at the turn of the century. And no one would help us now. The world simply did not work that way. If you are living a comfortable life in a comfortable neighborhood with a swimming pool in the backyard, what do you care about anyone else? You are immune to their problems, so you keep on splashing and swimming. It never occurs to you to help them, because it is so abstract.
“There has to be a way out of here,” I repeated.
“Are you insane? You can’t redesign society. No one can.” Burt laughed out loud as he said it. “Let’s see, if I’m a rich person living in a gorgeous, walled city in incredible luxury, let’s see, would I want to change things???? Hmmm. Hmmmm. This is a tough question. That’s why you are insane. You are never going to change anything. We will live and die here. The rich have no need for us anymore, and they certainly are not going to spread their wealth around to us. Hell, why didn’t you give your swimming pool up at the turn of the century to help the people starving and dying in Africa? Or even other Americans living in poverty?” Burt was enjoying his cynicism.
“It wouldn’t have helped anything. One swimming pool would not have helped anyone in Africa. That was the problem — even if you, as a person, wanted to help, there was no way to help. That’s why we need to redesign society. Society should not allow one little group of people to live like royalty while 80% of the people on the planet are starving to death or living on welfare. Why would we create a society like that? What good is it to have people with billions of dollars, while the majority of people starve?” I asked.
“Society has always been like that. You lived like that when you were a kid. Did you care?” Burt asked
