"Bad Connection" by Adrian H. Wood

Bad Connection


The year is 2052. The world is covered by an extensive network of wireless telecommunications. The Centranet reaches every corner of the globe linking 3 billion connection ports with 8 billion users. Government and industry forecast a 1:1 ratio for the next 20 years. It’s Buenos Aires, rush hour. The walkways are littered with throngs of hotshot investment bankers, self-titled executives and aspiring actresses, and the streets bustle with fuming vehicles. Queues snake from the mobile Centranet booths that rise above the mass of suits like pillars on every crossing. Meet Andrew Klein - moderately successful stockbroker, two times divorced, passionate golf-player. Andrew is making his way home through the crowds to his two kids and girlfriend from work, the only thing on his mind right now is dinner. Halfway between Gadison and 34th South our friend realizes he better make sure its ready by the time he gets back and decides to find a free booth to connect to the family computer. Little does he know that he is about to go online for the last time…


          Andy pressed the button on his Swatch dichron. The neon digits appeared and hovered in the air: 17:16:03. If he hurried he might catch the half five express and then be back before six. Certainly a pleasant change. A thin smile forced itself across the corners of his mouth as the day’s troubles faded from his mind. First things first though, he had to get in touch with Kathryn and let her know he’d be home early. Perhaps she could fix dinner by the time he reached the house. He was starving already and the thought of egg casserole made his stomach rumble and his mouth water. Out of habit he tucked his left hand back into his suit trouser pocket and laboriously drew in a lungful of hot air.
          It wasn’t quite rush hour, but scourges of pedestrians were hurrying alongside him, brushing and bumping into one another indifferently. Hovercars were honking and humming menacingly from the roads, causing nauseating ripples and waves like little dancing mirages from their exhausts. Briefcases and handbags dug into Andy’s sides as he battled through the masses down the bursting sidewalk. Irritated, he loosened his tie and undid his top button with his free hand, swearing silently. It was hard enough to breathe out on the streets as it was. The sticky tropical heat dampened his shirt and the noise and smells all around him were suffocating, squeezing little pebbles of perspiration from his forehead. He craned his neck above the sea of people to try and spot one of the ugly Centranet booths, finding only two un-lit occupied ones in the near distance. No bright pink lights to signal a free terminal anywhere.
          With an angry frown Andy rolled back onto the sole of his feet from his toes, as a satisfying thought suddenly struck him: Surely he could find a booth down the back of one of the alleys? There’d definitely be one around the old residential blocks, most likely unoccupied, and he wouldn’t have to spend his precious time in a queue by one of the high street ones!
          With determination he slid between the pacing figures and reached the outer walls of one of the towering enterprise buildings. Hugging the sides he struggled forwards, passing bank after bank, until he came to a slim gap between two of the monstrous clone edifices. The lane was dim and empty, the disgusting sewage and garbage smells were near unbearable, so he passed through hastily as it gradually led out into the wider back passages. Rickety fire landings and broken and barred windows lined the old residential blocks that hid behind the main streets and commercial districts down this end. Not a person was in sight, only a stray cat trudged between the piles of rubbish, but all that was of little relevance. In the center of the dirty, open space stood a single Centranet booth.
          Andy smiled and paced over to the pink-glowing cubicle. It was shoddy to say the least; the Perspex was cracked in various places and the white plastic shell was muddied and scarred all over. More importantly in any case, it looked to be in order. Cautiously he released the bolt on the entrance and the door slid open with a squeaky jolt. He stepped through and the entrance sealed shut behind him, as the interior display hummed to life and the familiar computerized female voice greeted him.
          “Welcome. Please insert your -”
          Impatiently Andy swiped his I.D. card through the slit on the console.
          “Thank you. Please wait.”
          He looked up briefly, passing his gaze across the tops of the buildings through the booth’s windows. This was certainly not a pleasant neighborhood. Nobody lived here anyways though, so what did it matter?
          “Please state your name”
          “Andrew Klein.”
          “Thank you.” There was a second delay before the annoyingly serene voice continued, “Welcome Andrew. You currently have three dollars and sixty two cents of credit on your card. If you would like to top-up now please -”
          Andy pressed the number ‘6’ button submissively and tapped his fingers as the terminal searched for an external line. The ‘success’ message flickered on the monitor and he speedily keyed in the number of the home computer, clearing his throat while the connection loaded. The sour tone of his ex-wife made him cringe as it crackled from the speakers. “Klein residence, port 74706074. Please leave a message after the tone, thank you… *beep*”
          She was so bossy, so snappy, all too irritating! He had meant to change the greeting a long time ago but somehow it had always managed to slip his mind. This evening perhaps. “Kathryn, it’s Andy. Can you pick up please?”
          Almost instantaneously his girlfriend’s face appeared on the display, beaming from ear to ear with her luscious lipstick red lips. Her bleach blonde hair was hanging loosely over her shoulders, eyes large and round, she looked sexy. “Hi honey! Oh, it’s so good to see you! You’re finished with work already?”
          “Yeah, I got off early today. The GEM router crashed so the rest of the day’s trading was suspended,” he replied, knowing full-well that she wouldn’t have any idea of what he was talking about.
          “Oh, that’s good. So you’re coming home now?”
          “Yes. Actually babes, I was going to ask you if you could fix dinner for when I get back. If I get the next service I should be home by six.”
          “Of course honey, I’m already cooking. See?” She shifted what was obviously the kitchen camera to point at a trey on the mesa, before focusing it back on herself. “I’m making fish fingers, unless you want something else?”
          “Well actually, I was thinking we could have -”
          In that very instant the display went fuzzy and the colors faded, choking his words. Kathryn’s face was stretched and pulled by invisible lines until it wholly disintegrated into a mass of black, white and grey particles. “Kathryn? Can you hear me?” There was a muffled noise coming from the speakers, tangled with an electric crackle. “Hello?” No answer. “Kathryn? …Hello?” Andy banged his fist on the console, pressing all the keys together and one after the other, but the flickering grains on the screen and the distorted wail of the speakers only intensified. Briefly, a sound something like a man laughing echoed through the cubicle but vanished just as fast as it had appeared. Someone else’s line obviously.
          Andy kicked the side of the booth in annoyance. “Useless machine!” Nothing ever worked when he needed it to! He tried to convince himself that he couldn’t care less though. Why should he get so frustrated when he could always go and find another booth to finish his conversation after all? “Don’t let it get to you Andy, just a computer.” Shaking his head he leaned against the booth’s entrance door with a tensing shoulder, keen to get out and back into the open again quickly. He wrapped his fingers around the bolt and yanked the metal sideways. It didn’t budge. He tried again, this time with more force. It wouldn’t move! With an exasperated sigh, Andy took his second hand from out of his pocket and pulled at the steel bolt with all his strength, but it was useless. The damn thing was blocked.
          “Oh hell no!” He punched the clear plastic glass, half in frustration, and half in hope of someone hearing, though the alley was just as enclosed and empty as ever. “Great. Just great. Friggin’ brilliant.” What to do now? He looked down at his sore palms and the yellowed outlines of the bolt’s edges. Obviously force didn’t always get you somewhere. Andy shoved his left hand back into his pocket and scratched the back of his head with the other. Maybe the booth had some kind of distress signal, an alarm bell or something, like an elevator?
          He turned around slowly, scanning the narrow space from side to side and top to bottom. Indeed, there! Just next to the display was a small, round, green button labeled ‘Emergency’. He barely stifled a short, relieved chortle of laughter and pushed the knob. The return of the Centranet woman was music to his ears: “You have activated the emergency distress signal. Please wait and we will deal with your situation immediately.”
          With restrained nervousness he shifted his weight from foot to foot, until finally a second, unfamiliar but all too welcoming voice grabbed his attention. “Mobile Centranet operations East,” it said flatly. It was a man’s voice.
          “Hi! This is Andrew Klein speaking. I’ve been trapped in a booth and the door’s locked tight… I think the damn bolt got jammed or something and I can’t get out. I’m in a back alley on…” Andy considered his location briefly, “between Gadison and 34th South.” He waited patiently for a response.
          “Yes, I know.”
          “You know? Oh…” Tracking systems obviously. He did his best to hide his confusion behind a stern and sarcastic tone. “Ok, could you please come and help me? It would be supremely appreciated! How long do you think it will take?”
          Again, the man on the other end took a while to answer. “We will be there in 3 minutes. Please wait.”
          And with that the connection shut. Please wait? Please wait! Ha! It was not like he really had much choice. That man had some nerve. People these days… At least he was going to get out of this damn sardine box soon. Somewhat comforted, Andy slid down to the floor and sat cross-legged, lost in thought. “3 minutes? Oh well, 3’s your lucky number old boy. Guess we won’t be making the train though, eh?” He chuckled and pulled his hand out of his pocket, staring down at the dichron on his wrist. He pressed the button and the digits appeared: 17:23:57. Time was such a precious thing. Only when you didn’t have enough of it, mind.
          Seconds seemed to turn into minutes, and minutes into ages as he sat, waiting. At 17:29:01 exactly then, his rescuers finally arrived. A large orange truck reversed into the alley with blinking lights and a fanfare of beeps, until it was just meters away from the booth. Andy got up off the floor and watched as a man, dressed in a bright orange uniform, jumped out of the truck and paced over to him. He waved his hand and Andy gleefully returned the gesture, smiling broadly. The man, an imposing figure, face concealed behind a thick beard and a broad cap, shouted: “Just stay there please sir and remain calm. We’ll take you to the centre and get you out of there in no time.”
          “Yeah.” The centre? Couldn’t they just get him out now? He felt like saying something but was lost for words, perhaps in embarrassment of his own ridiculous situation. The man operated a series of buttons on the side of the truck, as the back slowly came down and flattened out into a loading stand. He waved his arm again, this time at what was obviously his accomplice at the steering wheel, and the truck rolled backwards once more, clamping the Centranet booth with two massive mechanical arms that retracted from the truck’s inside while scooping it with the platform.
          Andy looked on with some degree of apprehension as the man that had greeted him clambered back into the front with a mocking expression that from a distance sounded something like ‘another one’, and his cubicle was sucked into the interior of the truck with uneasy jolts that caused his knees to wobble. Was this all really necessary? What a bloody screwed up day!
          The shaking abruptly stopped as the mechanical arms locked the booth into place and the loading platform shut, trapping Andy in complete darkness. He cursed loudly and dropped to the floor again, smoldering. Of all the days… The truck set in motion very gradually, straight, then right, right again, then left. There was no noise of traffic coming from outside so clearly they were driving all the way through the run-down residential areas, but Andy had lost all sense of direction anyways. His thoughts were spinning.
          It must have been at least half an hour by the time the truck slowed down again. There was a metallic screech and the sound of someone shouting. Alarmed, Andy shot straight up and fell over his own feet, banging his head against the hard Perspex. He cradled it in his palm, seeing bright lights swirling in front of his closed lids. With a start, the back of the truck came down again as he straightened his neck, revealing… nothing. He rubbed his eyes, but the outside of the truck was just as dark as the inside. “Hello?”
          The mechanical arms set in motion, sending a shiver down his back as they shoved the cubicle outwards and onto the ground with a thump. Andy toppled backwards, shouting. He turned - the truck was rolling away. Its lights were off, he couldn’t see it. “Hey! Hey what the hell man!” He tripped over his own words as they came out, “Get me out of this damn thing!”
          A man, the same man who had talked to him earlier, shouted from an opening window: “We’ll be right back man. Just stay right where you are.” He chuckled, as though there was something amusing about this situation. “Screw you,” Andy mumbled, shaking profusely now. The noise of the truck faded into the distance, until it was ultimately shut out by the loud bang of a closing gate. Fekking A. “Fekking A!” He was quaking. How dare they just leave him like this! They better hurry the hell up! He waved his fingers in front of his face, but even they were indecipherable in the black.
          Like a flash a notion hit him - the neon digits of his dichron might spare enough light to have a look around at least! He was such an idiot! Quickly he tore his left hand out of his pocket and pressed the little button with some relief. The time - 17:33:33! What was the odds of tha-
          Andy choked as he looked up from his watch. The neon light just about illuminated the faint outlines of another Centranet cubicle next to his. And… another one beside that. And another! He spun his head around wildly - what was going on? He was surrounded by booth after booth, hundreds of them. No, thousands of them… stood in this gigantic… warehouse! And inside all of them-
          Andy’s pulse froze. An invisible hand wrapped itself around his neck. Propped against the cracked glass of the cubicles all around him… were the rotten, skeletal figures of people.
          And the man in his head laughed.