Unreversible. Emil Akhundov
yet the future was far worse than they could have imagined: black, dirty, without sunshine or hope that things would ever get better.
The sun had long since been obscured by the thick black smog that emanated from the countless automated factories that only produced industrial robots for a variety of purposes. These factories were everywhere, even school and hospital buildings became manufacturing facilities, where 24 hours a day, nonstop, some robots made others. Most people didn’t even know that there was a sun, that it continued to shine as it did a few hundred years ago. The smog was so thick that it showered people with dust that resembled cooled ash, like snow, which slowly killed every living thing on the planet.
The birds were the first to suffer. This “black snow,” as it was popularly dubbed, clogged the lungs of birds during flight, and they suffocated right in the air. Scientists were never able to say whether the birds died from suffocation or from falling from great heights and crashing to the ground. I might add that a couple of months ago I saw a whole flock of dead pigeons, and the sight clearly showed me my future, which I was definitely not happy about. I admittedly panicked, but there was nothing I could do.
Immediately after the birds, the amphibians began to die when this dust began to clog their skin pores. This species adapts very quickly to the changing environment, but even it could not adapt to such aggressive conditions. And soon all the animals that lived and fed outside began to die. They simply had nothing to eat. There were more and more homeless animals – keeping them was getting harder every day. Back then I could still see green leaves on the trees, they were as rare as emeralds on a mountain trail, but soon those were gone too, and the world was finally plunged into darkness.
The seas and oceans, too, were changing their color to black, and any body of water that had once been inhabited by life now emitted the sickening smell of dead fish. We quickly realized that if we did nothing, we would simply wipe ourselves off the face of the earth. By this point, we had not yet had time to master space, so we had to somehow fix the situation on our planet. So the Green City Rocha Corporation appeared in this world, and it was they who designed the world’s first eco-city that was not subject to industrial catharsis, but could also withstand it. A perfectly integrated city in a certain place and with a complete infrastructure capable of autonomously maintaining the entire life-support system was designed, as if nothing bad had ever happened.
In the beginning we were promised that such cities would appear all over the world and that our species, humanity, would be saved by these projects, but it soon turned out that this salvation would be very selective – based on the availability of money and power. Such a city was initially an expensive project with high operating costs. You bet, because it was an artificial ecosystem that dispersed smog and provided sun, nature, and clean, oxygen-rich air – it simply could not have been cheap! In its own way, it was a kind of life raft for the wealthiest people. A total of 78 cities of this type were built, and together they accommodated only about six million people. It became obvious to everyone that most of our species was left behind the fence and could only wonder how well they lived in such cities.
I was lucky: when they built such a city in St. Petersburg, I was able to buy a house there for myself and my daughters. A few decades earlier I had come to work for AGV Solutions INC, which produced various kinds of industrial vehicles, though that was not the name of the company at the time; I had no idea what it would all lead to! It was in that company that I met Boris, who not only looked up the new AMR product from the Western military, but also figured out how to use it for civilian purposes. This was the starting point for the hopeless future, only we did not know about it at the time – we were too busy counting the profits.
I’ve already talked about the endlessly manufactured robots everywhere. Like anything new, these robots were received with a lot of skepticism at first, but very soon they were able to prove their usefulness and quickly became a necessary part of life. We launched this product in the late fall of 2019 in test mode, but already in the spring we had about 40 different robots that performed various household functions – we started with robotic snow blowers, then robotic sweepers, and so on. The point was that we launched them very timely, just before the snowy winter, when the city seemed to be drowning in snow, our robots helped utilities, and then it was off: government contracts, hundreds of private appeals and thousands of corporate appeals – we hit the jackpot. At the time, everyone was already mentally prepared for this kind of technology, so it was not something out of the ordinary, but rather the opposite – these robots literally became part of life. Everyone had an automatic coffee machine or a robot vacuum cleaner at home, and once our hardware proved its reliability, it immediately became the most desirable purchase for everyone. Boris was right again.
AMR robots were faster, more accurate, and cheaper than any human – no wonder there were queues for them in the automation era, when such a robot cost as much as a mid-level manager’s annual salary!
One thing we didn’t take into account was that with every release of a new robot, dozens of people were losing their jobs, and we were releasing them by the thousands, endlessly celebrating our success. Starting with the simplest functionality, we constantly evolved, and soon we had robots for every profession, including doctors. Completely unknowingly, we destroyed entire social classes on which the world and society rested. People were losing their jobs, their incomes, and just the meaning of their lives – no one needed them at all. This is where the biggest problem of humanity came to light. Because at all times we use other people’s labor and do not think about our dependence on them, so of course we underestimate what other people contribute to our lives. It began a long time ago, and every year this trend gained momentum, and at some point we simply lost the boundaries of decency and morality and drowned completely in the depths of our own selfishness.
I met Boris when he was already a dollar millionaire and did not need a paycheck, but after our acquaintance and further events, he simply became golden. I have already told you about Boris’s completely strange attitude toward money; nevertheless, he always repeated that work should be paid regardless of the circumstances, and he conducted his business on the basis of profit sharing among all whose labor resulted in those profits. I, too, as a rank-and-file employee in his department, was entitled to enormous payments, which I set aside for a rainy day, except that I didn’t think the phrase would ever be taken terribly literally. The days would indeed become rainy days.
By the way, we had no money left by then, only “coins,” which were a kind of digital currency. It wasn’t tied to anything of value, it was just some points that could be issued in any quantity as needed. It was more convenient for the corporations that came to power around the world after the budgets of all countries had become so scarce that states lacked the funds to even declare default, and social policy had gone into oblivion altogether. All those corporations that were the first to enter the robotics race could no longer traditionally compete with each other and still support the entire population, they had only one option – to consolidate resources and costs.
This is how the “Council” came into being, an organization that has been given power over the world, and I’m willing to bet that the people at the “global” table did not intend for this to happen. You can ask any businessman about how government works, and the answer will go something like this: “It’s as much a business enterprise as anyone else, only with huge social obligations.” And frankly, that’s a pretty good definition; stick to it, and everything in this state will be fine.
That’s how it was in the beginning: we had urban farms built where fruits and vegetables were produced and sold at throwaway prices, just like other necessary products. People who didn’t make it to the eden began to receive living allowances and were even able to eat a full meal of freeze-dried food from a tube. Slowly, our life began to resemble that of a developing country of the century before last, but even this was a great cause for joy. There were still many problems – expensive medicine, lack of sunshine – but we