Humans First

June 2043.

Just outside Central London.

Elizabeth still felt a weird tinge of awe whenever the train got close enough to let her see the London skyline. “There it is,” she said to nobody in particular, as the Shard caught the sun. A few of the folks around her chuckled, one shot her a half-smile, but nobody looked out the window. Elizabeth always looked. “Same as it ever was.” It felt odd, in that the city still looked essentially the same from a distance. And really it looked the same at ground level as it did when she was a child. It was eerie to her how different it felt, though. All the films, books, telly that imagined a post-apocalyptic London always showed it desolated or half-destroyed. Jackbooted thugs, or ruined buildings, explosions, toppled skyscrapers. Or there was the pandemic fiction of creepy, empty streets with the occasional corpse.

The reality had been so much worse, because of how normal it all looked and felt. Even as the fall was just as sudden as the fiction predicted.

And like so many fictional pandemics, terrorist attacks, dirty bombs, zombie outbreaks, the Government had stepped in. Swiftly, forcefully. The Prime Minister in a primetime address to the nation, to calm the people who’d lost their life savings in the markets, or worse, who’d lost their pensions. Emergency aid, emergency funding. The Chancellor doing everything short of holding up a huge novelty cheque made out to the people of Great Britain. We’d see the back of this crisis by autumn, she told the public. Action would be taken, payments made, evictions frozen. All the right things. And we’d ensure it could never happen again.

Six months later, unemployment had reached 25%. Two years later, it had doubled. And now, well, now Elizabeth would daydream about the past as her train pulled into London Bridge station.

“We’re here, dude, you with us?” Siobhan patted her shoulder. She was maybe half Elizabeth’s age, and Elizabeth found it charming that apparently things like ‘dude’ and ‘rad’ were back in fashion. Or maybe Siobhan just watched too many old films.

“I’m with you, sorry. I always sort of space out when I see the city again.” Her voice was thin, distant. Siobhan snorted.

“Let it go mate, it let us go. Besides, we need you focused. They’re all coming to see you, after all.” She picked up her duffle bag and stood, and Elizabeth followed her off the train.

Siobhan bounded over to a group of similarly dressed folks, which is to say, they were all wearing the distinctive bright green hoodies of Humans First UK. They were a young new political party desperate to make waves but thus far making a ripple or two at best. Even in what they saw as a cataclysmic, humanity-ending crisis, people really just had room in their head for about three political parties. Elizabeth preferred her usual, a smart tailored blue suit jacket, white shirt, slacks and heels. It wasn’t that she wanted to feel separate, of course. She had found a look that worked for her in her early 30s, and here she was two decades later, still making it work. Siobhan said it worked “for your age,” though it made the rest of them “feel like groupies.”

Even here, looking around the platform, it all just seemed so normal. The tannoy announcing a departing train. A couple with rolling bags, excited for their holiday. A small, whisper-quiet robot gliding by, hoovering up an empty crisp packet. The station was spotless, she noticed. It looked better now than it did in her memories.

She was doing it again, though. Just looking around, taking in the London-ness of it all. She so badly wanted to be back there, two decades ago. But since she couldn’t, she could at least take a moment and feel this connection. Until, of course, Siobhan started shouting her name and waving. So off she went to join the group.

“I’m here, I’m present. Shall we get coffee and a scone before our little band of misfits march on the halls of power?” She put on a wry smile. One of the assembled group, an older man, probably in his late 50s, looked up animatedly from his phone.

“You’re Elizabeth Marsh! You were my MP. I voted for you. Met you once, years ago, at a surgery. Really excited to be part of this, ma’am. Came all the way from Trawsfynydd today. Happy to see you back in politics.”

Elizabeth demurred immediately. “It’s my honour. What’s your name?”

He smiled. “It’s Arthur, ma’am.”

“What brought you to my surgery?”

“Was a problem with my universal credit, ma’am.”

“Did we get you sorted?”

“Your staff did their best, ma’am.”

She furrowed her brow and nodded, understanding what that meant.

“Well Arthur, let’s see if we can go get people fired up to throw away their vote on us.” There was a big laugh among the group, who’d circled around them and listened intently to the quick back-and-forth. “It’s good to hear you all in such good spirits,” she added. “It helps me believe this might actually be worth it.”

Someone had picked out a café to serve as their base of operations for the morning, so they walked there at a brisk pace, with the more enthusiastic volunteers handing out flyers for the rally every time they saw anyone. Takers were few and far between. There was a real feeling of defeat in everyone they met. Some would take the flyer, read it, drop it and walk on. Most politely refused. And nobody else recognised Elizabeth. She tried to tell herself this was a mercy, but really it also gave her a twinge in the pit of her stomach. Humans First UK certainly wasn’t her idea, and she’d never dream of trying to take credit for it, or even to declare herself “the face of it.” But they’d found her and gotten in touch, and before she could talk herself out of it, here she was on the way to her third rally for them in a month. She felt the weight of it a bit. She didn’t want to let these people down. She never wanted to let anybody down again.

She forced herself to be present as Siobhan went through the sequence of events for the day, standing at the head of their packed table in an otherwise quiet VQ, attentive faces above a sea of neon green. “You’ve all heard the news, of course, that the Modern Health Efficiency Act is getting a second reading tomorrow, just as news leaks that Magenta Health is aiming to acquire six NHS trusts the moment they become available. Six! That’s thousands of nurses, consultants, admin staff, all automated away overnight. We’re talking private hospitals with almost no human staff. No doctors physically present. Nurses replaced with virtual agents. Algorithmic triaging of patients. We’ve seen it in America.”

As Siobhan spoke, her voice rose, got more forceful. One volunteer pounded the table angrily along with her every sentence. “They’re making it legal to just sell off our birth right, put everyone out of work, and let algorithms decide whether you live or die!” By the end, she was shouting, her 2000s throwback slang gone, her soft lilt giving way to a full-throated rage. “We don’t have to choose to let society be this way! We don’t have to turn everything over to machines run by one company! We can choose to put humans first! Put humans first!” The volunteers were all pounding the table now. One of them raised a fist and shouted “PUT HUMANS FIRST!,” and a chant broke out, a dozen green-hoodie’d men and women all chanting in unison.

Elizabeth looked around the otherwise empty café. No staff whatsoever. Just machines. Lucky that — if it weren’t the case they would’ve gotten themselves ejected. Siobhan ran up behind her, playfully batting her back and forth by the shoulders. “Miss Marsh! Elizabeth Marsh! Let’s get that energy up! We’ve got to go inspire!” Elizabeth leaned her head back, looking up at Siobhan’s now beat-red face. She nodded.

The rally itself was at ground zero for London protests since time immemorial, Trafalgar Square. The beating heart of fringe democratic movements. It felt easier than ever to get a police permit to stage an event there. Cynically, it was a pressure release valve for the Government. Let them have their peaceful marches so things don’t get violent. But optimistically, she hoped the Metropolitan Police had a few good eggs who believed in these things and were happy to permit as many as possible.

The walk from the cafe to Trafalgar Square was uneventful. More hustling of flyers from the groupies, more not being recognised, more vague anxiety that nobody would actually turn up for the rally in the first place. As they got closer, Elizabeth could feel herself listening for the signs of crowds. But it was deceptive, as large pockets of Central London had now been cordoned off for encampments. It was the most visible evidence of the government’s complete failure to contain the situation, and to deliver some sort of help for these people, who had stuck it out until they could no longer afford to leave, if they could’ve ever to begin with. This is what governments were for. At least, it’s what they could be for.

Still, the local organisers had decided to take them on a rather circuitous route, to avoid having to walk directly through any of them. It made Elizabeth feel like a massive hypocrite. But she was secretly relieved, because she wasn’t sure how she would react at being confronted with the fruits of her labour all those years ago.

Memories were inescapable here for her, which is probably why she now lived in Cambridge. She ran from her problems these days. She ran from government, she ran from her ex-husband, she ran from her friends, and now she was hiding from even more people she failed, while on her way to give a speech about why those very same people should join her shiny new political movement. None of this was lost on her, but she really wished it was.

“We’re just gonna pop in here yeah? Me and you, one last run through the speech and some coffees.” Siobhan was suddenly pulling her arm and gesturing to a coffee shop in the lobby of The Grand Hotel. Elizabeth saw it and her heart sank. She forced a smile.

“Of course, whatever you need Siobhan. I’m here for you.”

Siobhan laughed. “Dude, you’re here for them. Come on.”

So Elizabeth followed close behind as Siobhan led her into the hotel where, fifteen years ago, she’d unwittingly destroyed her career, her marriage, a friendship, and the entire country in one fell swoop.