The author acknowledges the invaluable pre-publication copy-editing performed by Chris Bellamy.

Day 1 — Friday 25th June 2060

My allotted name is Billy Williams. Today is Friday the 25th of June 2060. It is 22:00 hours and this is the beginning of my journal. My parents are unknown to me, and if they are still alive, I am unknown to them. The old-fashioned concept of the family is a mystery to me and to those of my generation. I live on my own here in Woodhouse Block, which is located in a place that I understand was once called England.

The official instructions — and there are many — are very clear and precise when it comes to indoors and outdoors. They say “Stay indoors. The Outdoors is dangerous. You can only stay safe indoors, where we can protect you.”

For those of us who, like me, are under thirty, this is all we have ever known. We have never been outdoors, so can’t really imagine what a big thing it had been to our older neighbours and friends. Even after thirty years, they still go on about how they miss the sun on their skin, the fresh air, the invigoration of a breeze. They even miss walking in the rain. Sometimes they use words like snow, hail, ice, blizzard, that we don’t recognise and have to look up in the electronic dictionary in the archive. Those things don’t sound very pleasant, but the old ones sometimes wax lyrical about them. Old George, for instance, once told me that, as a kid, when they still had winter, they used to build snowmen and throw snowballs at each other. I’ve seen the old videos from the archives. They did seem to have fun back then, but it looks rather dangerous.

We live in apartment blocks, nine-tenths of which are below the surface. My investigations in the archives have taught me that this is an attribute they share with the now-extinct icebergs. The privileged people live in the flats above ground, protected from the outside by the thick, tinted windows. Only they have permanent access to what passes for natural light these days, but even they can’t see the outside world beyond the high wall that surrounds the block. Those of us without privileges only get natural light when we are in the communal areas of the apartment blocks, which are above ground.

There are people who go outside, but they are maintenance workers and they stay inside the wall. When they venture out they have to be sealed inside special clothing. We are told this protects them from the climate and the pathogens. I sometimes spy them in their orange suits when I look out the windows, which I do whenever I have the opportunity. Amongst my own age group, I seem to be the only one who is fascinated by it. My peers are definitely uninterested. Some of them have a definite phobia about the outdoors. When these poor souls are above ground, they keep well away from the outer rooms that have windows. I have been worrying for some time about where the next generation of maintenance workers will come from. The work would have to be handed over entirely to the robots, who probably wouldn’t need protective suits. At that point we would become totally dependent on the robots and AI. I believe we are dangerously reliant already, but what choice is there, if we are to remain safe?

I have said, and it is true, that nobody else in my generation seems interested in anything other than their day-to-day activities, all prescribed by the Block management AI. So why am I writing this journal? Well, surely there must be somebody else like me somewhere? Possibly in one of the other Blocks? I will start talking to the older inhabitants and digging through the archives for what I can find, and I will write it down here. I need to find out what is outside those walls. It’s been thirty years since the blocks were built and filled. It is possible that conditions outside have improved.

These reasons may be enough, but there is another one. My neighbour in the adjoining apartment seems to have disappeared without trace. Nobody is talking about it and his place has reportedly been taken by a new tenant straight from the Block school.

Everything we do and say is recorded by the cameras and microphones and all we do on the computers is also recorded over the network and stored by the AI. Old George has given me a ‘Pukka Pad’. That is the name printed on its cover. It is a thick pad of lined sheets of paper gummed together at one end. He has also given me some pencils to write with. I shall write my journal in the evenings, positioned so the cameras cannot see me and I will hide the journal away.

Tomorrow, I shall talk to Old George again in the library.

Continued here