Connie Trash

November 2043.

Southwark, South East London.

Mike laid on the floor of his flat, where he’d been for the better part of three days. Across from him on the floor was an envelope. Time had run out for him. And so had the money. His bank account was drained, his rent was due, and he had to pause his Jobsworth search because he simply couldn’t afford it anymore.

It had hit him rather hard. He’d been meant to see Kathryn again, which he surprised himself by agreeing to, but when the day came he was in no mental state to actually leave the flat. Not that he could’ve afforded it. He wondered whether she might cover it, but was far too proud to ask. And he definitely didn’t have the strength to take any more insults about his age or general lack of social awareness.

He’d ignored the first envelope, tossing it straight into the bin when it arrived. He knew that was a no-no, but it wouldn’t matter, because he’d have another job soon enough. The second one was essentially the same as the first, and he’d hung onto it, but didn’t bother opening it. Part of him wondered if they somehow knew he’d binned the first one, and he didn’t want to chance it. But still. The job would come. It didn’t matter.

The third envelope was the final chance. It was red. And it was hand-delivered. “We want to ensure you have a full understanding of the contents of this letter, the opportunity you’re being afforded, and the consequences of ignoring it.” That’s what the man had said. A police officer at his side, a stoic look on her face. Really dialled things up to 11, that.

So there he laid, on the floor near the door, the envelope unopened mere inches away. They’d really wanted to open it for him, to read it to him, to ask him to confirm he understood. He whimpered and simpered and whined his way out of it. In hindsight, it was a pathetic, sad little display. He regretted having done it in front of the female police officer. She was cute, if extremely intimidating. It was probably the latter that had done it for him. A historical weakness of his.

He pictured her coming back later, knocking on the door, letting herself in. “I was worried about you,” she’d say. “You looked in a bit of a bad way. And I know how tough you must be having it, to be getting one of these.” She’d hang up her various belts, radios, stab vests, hi-vis, head to the couch and beckon him over. He’d lay his head in her lap, she’d run her fingers through his hair, and let him know it was going to be fine. She’d look after him now, until he was back on his feet. And then they could look after each other.

He drifted in and out of sleep, unsure what time it was, not even having a vague sense. The curtains were drawn. A faint glow came from the bathroom nearby, where he’d left the light on at some point. It bounced off the red envelope, ensuring he could still see it, and only it, on an ocean of dark grey tile.

It wasn’t going away. Nobody was coming to save him. He’d failed. And his stomach was so empty, he felt like it was eating itself. He slid his hand forward toward the envelope. He rolled over onto his back, picked it up and held it above him. HM Works, Office of the Secretary of State. Final warning. To be hand delivered to the named recipient. He slid his finger under the lip and popped it open.

“You are ordered to present yourself at the HM Works head office for immediate placement,” it read. “Failure to respond will lead to arrest and may result in a fixed penalty notice, incarceration or loss of citizenship.”

He’d never done anything wrong in his life, he told himself. He stared at the paper in his hand. “I’ve never done anything wrong in my life! Fuck you! Fuck you!” He screamed at it. It stared back unimpressed. “Fuck!” He slammed his head down against the tile repeatedly. Tremendously painful. Tears welled in his eyes. He instinctively rubbed the back of his head, feeling for a cut or a bruise. The back of the paper, as expected, had one final placement offer for him to accept voluntarily. He’d been avoiding looking. But there was no point in it now. No ignoring it. The new normal had failed him, or he had failed it.

ASSIGNMENT OFFER:

PROMPT ENGINEER (0830-1700)

MAGENTA UK LTD.

LONDON, GREATER LONDON, E14

NO HOUSING / 2X MEALS

PAY GRADE 3

He lifted his head and stared at the card. This seemed almost... good. Was this good? It certainly wasn’t breaking rocks in a quarry somewhere, or fitting solar panels to new builds. He fumbled around for his phone and raced to search. Pay grade 3? That was roughly 2,000 credits per month. Was that good? Chatter on various threads on Understairs seemed to indicate it was pretty good, although there was tremendous disagreement as to how many pay grades there even are. Several people were also quick to note that a grade 3 doesn’t receive a housing benefit in London for some reason, which they felt was a huge scam and was setting you up to fail. But it seemed fine by Mike. He already had a flat, and he could easily budget. Presumably these people just didn’t quite “get” London.

Maybe it wasn’t going to be so bad after all. He really wanted to tell someone, but wasn’t sure who. He knew Kathryn’s thoughts on “connies,” though maybe she’d see it differently if she knew he’d actually be based in London, with a living wage. He never had managed to get back in touch with Elizabeth. Although he could think of any number of awful things she’d say to him about it, and she’d just start ranting about the government no matter what. Just then, a notification appeared on his phone.

‘NEW VIDEO ON CHANNEL – LYNDSEYHELPS’

Oh! He tapped on it right away, and Lyndsey appeared. He laid back down on the floor, holding the phone above his face. Today she was talking about some of the best DIY tools to have around the home. She’d been fixing her house up a bit, since it had gotten into disrepair, her late husband having typically done all the maintenance. It was always quite soothing to see Lyndsey there in her sewing room, to hear her warm Cornish accent. Most of Mike’s time on the floor had been spent watching her entire back catalogue, gathering little tidbits of the story of her life which she’d pepper into each video. Occasionally he’d leave a comment, something generic or supportive. “Good to see you doing well, Lyndsey!” Or maybe “Really appreciate the advice on this!” And she’d always take the time to reply back.

“You’re so sweet to say that!” she’d written in response to one. “Life’s a bit less lonely thanks to the connections I make on here!” came another.

He popped open the comments on this new video, which were still mostly empty. Filled with a fresh sense of optimism, with hope, he thought he’d take a little chance. “Found out I’ve got a new job as of today, Lynds! Not a bad one, at that. I’ll have to come take you out for a couple of Rhubarb gimlets soon!”

He hit send and immediately felt a bit of regret. Was he being a creeper? She’d mentioned Rhubarb gimlets were a favourite of hers a few times in a video about cocktail delivery services. And he hadn’t wanted to come across as down, but she’d really been helping him get through some hard times. And she always seemed to be so lonely, and, well, what was the harm in trying? He felt a real connection to Lyndsey. He could even conceive of being friends with her, or maybe even more. They were in similar situations, after all. Both without someone. Both lost someone. Both trying to find their place in this world.

For now though, he’d put it out of his mind. He needed to pull himself together. He was starting his new job tomorrow.

The next morning, intake was a bit of a whirlwind. He had the initial embarrassment of turning up at Magenta’s headquarters in Canary Wharf, just walking straight through the main door into reception. The receptionist cheerfully informed him that this building was for current, full employees, and that their intake facility for works programme staff was in Wapping. So not only was he twisting himself into a knot apologising, he was also late.

Take two, he thought, as he jumped off the bus. A low-slung brick building, backed up to the Thames, windowless, with a metal door facing out to the pavement. A far cry from the glittering glass tower he’d just come from, but work was work. A sign on the door let him know he was in the right place: WORKS PROGRAMME ATTENDEES ENTRANCE. Someone had spray-painted “CONNIE TRASH” in white under the sign. Probably Kathryn, thought Mike.

The process, built up in his mind to presumably be humiliating, degrading, miserable, was actually fine. It was no better or worse than any other job he’d started, except maybe a tad better, because there was no paperwork. Everything was automated and digital. He walked in, approached the desk, and the camera took his photo. “Michael Fernsby,” it said. About five seconds later, a bright red badge was ejected from a machine on the desk with his photo, name and some numbers printed on both sides. On the screen, a large smiley face appeared. “Please clip this badge somewhere visible on your person, and display it at all times.” He took a clip from the jar and did so. He still hadn’t seen anyone.

On the far end of the room was another door with a small metal plate next to it. He approached and the plate lit up, the door sliding open soon after. A vast room full of cubicles was spread out ahead of him, a low din of chatter throughout. It really did seem endless. He hadn’t seen something like this since his call centre days, when he’d put in around six months doing telephone support for British Telecom, explaining to people why their internet didn’t work. It seemed like several lifetimes ago.

Now though, he just stood, looking around, slouched a bit in his wrinkled shirt and slacks that were a bit too tight at the waist. Was he meant to have gotten more direction? Maybe he left the last room too soon?

“Mike, holy shit, is it you?” A familiar voice?! He turned just in time to get a backslap from Jason, his old colleague from HumanTouch. “Shit, it is you! Mate, this is proper mental. Look at us. Back together at long last. Eh, oh.” Jason’s eyes scanned down to Mike’s badge.

“Jason, hey.” Mike was taken aback, in a bit of a daze. He suddenly had to think of how to explain why he’d never responded to any texts, never gotten back in touch. “Really great to see you, man.”

“Yeah! Sorry about the circumstances.” Jason sounded quite down all the sudden, a tone Mike had never heard him take before. “I suppose we can make the best of it.”

“Circumstances?”

“Your, you know.” Jason flicked Mike’s badge, his eyes darting away nervously. “Mate, it’s all good. I shouldn’t say anything.”

Mike was confused. He looked up and down Jason’s person, and then spotted it: Jason’s badge was a pleasing shade of blue, rather than the aggressive red. He nodded. “Right, so, what’s that then? I’m on probation or something? I just started today. I just got here, actually.”

Jason rubbed the back of his neck. He looked so uncomfortable. “No, so. Blue badge means I’m, you know. Employee. And red is.”

“Red is…”

“Connie.”

“Oh. So you actually.” Mike felt tiny. Again.

“You know what? It’s not a problem, mate. Not a problem. So, hey, I can show you where you’re sitting actually, cause it looks like?” He reached down and tapped his Ring against Mike’s badge, then opened his hand, looking at something Mike couldn’t see. “Yeah, you’re on a 7-day rotation, so you can actually get your own desk! I can get away with just assigning you one. No sharing! A night shifter might use it, but I mean, you’ll have the same one every day. That’s cool, yeah?”

“Yeah.” Mike got the impression that Jason didn’t really think any of this was cool. Nevertheless, he followed behind as they walked the length of the facility. Dozens and dozens of people, of every race, gender, age, all sat at identical desks, headsets on, muttering away. They finally arrived at a section that was mostly empty. Jason gestured into an open cubicle.

“This is you, my man. You’re late, but I can put that down to extenuating circumstances. I know they put the wrong postcode on the cards for this gig.” He seemed to be slipping into “manager, but we’re cool” mode. This would never be comfortable. But hopefully we could keep it in this gear.

“So what do I do?”

“Oh, no worries there, you’ll be a pro at it. You’re just prompting the automations, that’s all. So on the screen here, you’ll get a sort-of high level task, like uh, well, let’s do one. Have a seat.” Mike sat down and put the headset on. Jason hopped up and sat on the desk next to him. The display flickered to life and displayed both Mike and Jason’s names and photos. Jason leaned forward and tapped Mike’s photo, then grabbed Mike’s badge and tapped it to a small plate on the desk. “So that’s you logged in, you just do that every day when you get in.”

“Got it.”

“Then you wait. And…” A queue of tasks appeared on the screen. “So these tasks come in, and anyone can grab them. It doesn’t just hammer you with work, you pick one and start it. Then do another. So you’re free to go get a coffee, use the bathroom, whatever you want. You just need to hit quotas, but it’s easy, you’ll hit them.”

“Okay.”

“So here’s one. These are wicked, you want these.” Jason tapped one with a little drama masks icon, and it opened full screen. He quickly tapped “Accept,” and Mike’s name filled in for “Assignee.” “So we’ll do this one.”

Mike quickly read through the screen:

WORK ORDER

CLIENT: BBC

CATEGORY: DRAMA COMMISSIONING

PROMPT: ‘Produce the next episode of EastEnders and prepare it for air’

PROMPTER: p.riggs

What a funny thing to see. Jason side-eyed him and grinned. “Pretty cool, right? Okay, so these can take a while. But it’s fun. You basically just gotta pull up the previous episode and see what’s going on, and then sorta work out what happens next. And a few other things. There’s a whole checklist, yeah?” He tapped the screen, pointing at a box labelled “Action Points.” It had a long checklist of items, like “Review previously commissioned episode,” “Prompt for plot,” “Prompt for scenes,” “Quality check,” “Prompt for character production” and so many more that seemed to scroll off the screen.

“So, wait…” Mike stared at it, his mind reeling. “I honestly, Jason, I honestly assumed this was a bit more automated than this. Can’t the AI just take this task list and do it itself?”

Jason laughed. “Mate, I know. I thought the same thing. Here, we should knock out a few of these quickly though.” He picked up the headset and ran through a few of the first few action points, pulling up the previous episode and asking the AI to summarise it. He then asked it to extrapolate what each character would do next, and to turn that into a bulleted list. One by one, he asked it to write each scene. Mike watched in amusement, but was also increasingly confused.

Finally, Jason took off the headset. “So yeah,” he said with a smile. “It’s basically that. Anything that’s not bang intuitive, you’ll get some notes on the screen that sort of explain what to do.”

Mike shook his head. “I don’t understand. This is all automated. What am I doing?”

“So,” Jason leaned down, whispering. “Honestly mate, what you see there, is what the user prompted it with. So in this case, P. Riggs, probably some producer at the BBC, sat at his desk. And that comes to us, and we break it down into more manageable prompts, and handle those. It’s all seamless to P. Riggs. They just see the result. So it is automated, it’s just also sometimes there’s a few people in the mix that nudge it in the right direction.”

“Surely it could just read itself the list of prompts.”

Jason laughed again, a little more nervousness creeping in. “Sure mate yeah, and sometimes I think it does. But you know, there’s occasionally capacity concerns, or power concerns or something. I honestly don’t know fully, way above my pay grade. I’m new here too, remember. But we’re here to just help it out and make sure P. Riggs doesn’t get told to try again later.”

“Right, okay.” Something about this wasn’t sitting right with Mike at all. It made no sense. These AI models were already so sophisticated. Why were humans in the loop at all? And why had he never heard of this? Given the whispering, he guessed it was something they didn’t exactly brag about.

“Make sense? It gets really cool on these, you get to prompt it to shoot the virtual characters on the different sets, it synthesises all the voices, it’s absolutely wicked mate. You get to basically make an episode of EastEnders right here at your desk.” Jason seemed so into this. It must kill him that he basically just supervises others and doesn’t get to do it himself.

“Sounds cool, mate. I could’ve done a lot worse, assignment wise.”

“Right? Yeah, that’s the spirit. You get it. Cool, cool.”

“So,” Mike tossed in, trying to be “fun.” “When I get a prompt, and I’m giving other prompts to fulfil it, those aren’t just going to someone else in this room, right?”

Jason smiled wide and gave him the two-finger point. “Oh, this guy, look out. Mate honestly, you’re gonna love it here. Come find me if you need anything, my office is right by the door.”

Mike finished up the rest of the day as he’d been shown, and it actually wasn’t too bad. It did feel invasive. There were the corporate requests, like the one for the BBC. Some others to prepare shipping manifests, paperwork for bringing goods into the EU. Some random admin for a florist. Tax forms. The usual things you’d expect to see automated. Crucially, no designs, as that might’ve sent Mike spiralling. But there was also the odd personal request. Write an apology to my wife. Plan my wedding, including venue bookings. Does this scan show signs of cancer? It was bizarre. Mike was mostly just spooling this all off to the AI agents, but a few of them he had to tackle himself. Fully manual. The person requesting this would have no idea any actual humans were involved at all. How would they feel if they knew?

At any rate, the day ended, and Mike went home satisfied. He had a new job, with a boss he knew, a boss he liked, a boss he was pretty sure liked him. So that part of his life was sorted now. Thank goodness.

It would be another few weeks before he understood the extent of his dilemma.

---

“I’m not quite sure what you’re asking.” Jason put on quite a front. He had to know this was coming. Surely it was common. “As a works programme attendee, your salary isn’t in pounds.”

Mike shook his head. “I don’t understand. How can you pay me, but it’s not in pounds?”

“The paperwork should’ve made clear it’s in credits, mate. This isn’t something I’ve made up.”

“Right, I mean I did see that. I did. But I guess I just didn’t understand. I assumed credits and pounds were the same. Or that I could change my credits for pounds.”

“You can mate, you can. Has no-one shown you how to do that?”

“Yes, I’ve seen it,” Mike snapped back. He’d only just. The exchange rate was abysmal. Ridiculous, one might say. An entire month of his wages couldn’t cover a single month of rent on his flat. And he’d been continuing to spend, going pub for the occasional, seeing Kathryn again, which meant a pricey tube journey, buying himself a few new sets of work clothes. His savings were nearly gone.

“Mate, I honestly don’t know what to tell you.” Jason’s veneer was quite thin now. “You’re not a real employee here. I have very limited options. I can’t bonus you, I can’t enter into any sort of salary discussion. You’re essentially a ward of the state. You’re staffed here through them.”

Mike rubbed his face. This was fucking unbelievable. It was goddamn absurd. He was a highly qualified, eminently experienced professional. Jason used to be his peer, not that long ago, at the same company. Really, his junior, if they went by tenure. It was frankly unacceptable the position he now found himself in. “If something can’t change,” he finally said, “I’m afraid I won’t be able to continue here.”

Jason cleared his throat. He stood up and walked around his desk, past Mike sat in the chair across from it, to the door. He kicked the doorstopper with one swift motion and the door slammed shut as if it were spring-loaded. “Mike. Mate, I dreaded this conversation the moment I saw your badge. I knew it was coming.” He sat on the edge of his desk, next to Mike, looking down at him. “We’ve spent a lot of time together. That makes this hard.”

Mike felt his stomach drop. He’d never come close to seeing Jason like this. Had he ever seen Jason actually doing his job? Or had it only been in the kitchen? Or the pub after? Definitely once at a wedding.

“Mate, I’m supposed to keep my comments strictly limited to our engagement here.” He stood up and looked behind him. In the corner of the office was another chair. He picked it up, spun it round and sat down eye-level with Mike. “You obviously are struggling. I’m not blind to it. I’ve seen your productivity dip over the past week or so, and I’ve seen you linger outside my door a couple times. But there’s honestly nothing I can do. And if it doesn’t work out here.” He put his hand on Mike’s shoulder and leaned in. “Mate, they’ll just reassign you. It won’t be a desk job.”

Mike nodded. He’d lost the capacity for speech. It was unbelievable what he was going through right now. He’d never imagined it. All he could do was nod. Nod. Nod. And look down.

“I hope it’s somewhat easier to hear coming from me. I hope we can get ahead of it. I really do.”

Finally, he looked up, met Jason’s eyeline. His stomach turned again. He parted his bone-dry lips, a frog in his throat. “Can... can I ...” he stammered. He remembered what he’d read on Understairs. “Can I get a housing benefit?”

Jason stared for a moment, then let out a loud sigh. “Mike. There’s no housing benefits in London right now. I’d absolutely fight for it for you. I absolutely would. Even when I started we had some, for like a month. But they stopped. I have no mechanism to even ask.”

Mike’s lip quivered. He ran his hands back and forth across his trouser legs, feeling the smoothness, the weird texture of the synthetic material. His eyes darted around almost involuntarily.

“I really am sorry, mate. I don’t want to have to say all this. I was crushed when I saw the colour of your badge. I was crushed.” His voice did waver a bit. He might actually feel bad.

Mike nodded and stood up, determined to save a bit of face. “Yeah thanks, yeah. I’ll sort it. Sorry to bother, I will sort it.”

“It’s honestly no bother.”

“Thanks, mate. I’ll get out of here.” Mike nodded hard, again. He slipped out the door without a look back.

He burst through the door of his flat many, many hours later. Fresh from the pub. Stinking, drunk, stinking drunk. No fucks given about his bank balance. His prospects. His future. His past. None of it mattered. Fucking Jason, he thought. He kept thinking, all night. Fucking goddamn Jason. This was his fault. He didn’t take their job seriously at HumanTouch, and he doesn’t take his job seriously now. His not taking the job seriously probably tanked the business in the first place. It would tank Magenta, too. The way they could just ignore his talent, totally immune to his struggle, when they could snap a finger and solve all his problems. And free him up to perform for them. To tackle harder and harder prompts. To solve whatever problem was causing them to need so many people in the first place. Nobody gave a shit.

He pictured Kathryn, her gleeful over-the-top reactions to the most mundane things, and smiled. He grabbed his phone, knowing she’d find this interesting. “Unbelievable bullshit today at my work. Working at Magenta now. you wouldn’t believe if I told you. so dysfunctional.” He waited a second, to see if she came online and read it. Nothing. What time was it? Around 11pm. Fuck her, anyway. Probably out, with some other guy, probably multiple guys. She’s fickle, that’s what the badger-faced man had said.

“Crazy developments today in my life, funnily enough.” He tapped out a comment on Lyndsey’s most recent video. “Starting to feel so lost in all this. You’re my anchor keeping me from drifting out to sea.” And, send. It was true, too. Lyndsey was there, consistently, always. Everything had slipped away. All of it. His job, HumanTouch. People can tell! Yeah, fuck it, they don’t even care. The whole company, gone. Elizabeth? Elizabeth. Fate brought them back together. And of course Elizabeth, oh, Elizabeth. Who else but her would ignore fate. Reject fate. Dispute it. So that was over and done with now, too.

He stumbled to his kitchen, banging his head hard against the dividing wall. A sharp corner there, going from the living room to the kitchen. “Fuck!” He slid down, deciding to sit on the floor instead. Didn’t need water. He ran his hands across the tile. So cold and smooth. Everything was bullshit. All of this was bullshit.

He knew what he had to do. It had all become clear after a brief nap on the floor. He grabbed his phone. Straight to BritRail, straight to the journey planner. He’d go to Cornwall. He’d go, and he’d find Lyndsey. Because she’d understand. They’d basically been through the same things. The same problems. He knew she was near Penzance, so he’d just go there. He’d go and ask around and it would be fine. Tap tap tap, and he was booking it.

“It appears you are currently on a works programme allocation.” The message from BritRail was blunt. “Please confirm that you have requested the appropriate dispensation.” He tapped rapidly on the screen. Another message briefly appeared, something about not being able to confirm. Tap tap tap, and it was gone. And, booked.

He nodded, looking at the screen. In the morning, he’d go. One day away was fine. Seven day rotations were something mostly for the new grads, the less experienced. People who didn’t know the boss. His head hit the tile, his arm tucked under.

It would be fine.