The Empty Grave of Edgar Allan Poe

CHIPS

          Two City Councillors were standing in the middle of the road like the beginning of a joke. They watched the basics go about their mundane tasks; erecting the barriers, waving the gawpers back, digging the holes where the experts told them. The experts were P7s. The Councillors were P8s, although they both had plans to upgrade in the near future. All they were waiting for was an investment in some property on the other side of the City to pay off.
          “We should've taken a cut here too,” said Councillor Moran.
          “The Fraud Squad have got a new P10 working for them. Too risky. He'll be out to show his shiny, he'd nab onto us for sure,” replied Councillor Timmis.
          “What's a P10 doing working for the police?”
          “New government initiative. Won't last long. They've had to guarantee premium rate for the first two years. After that they revert to scale. The Minister was on TV last week, explaining how they hope job satisfaction will take the place of moolah. Fat chance.”
          “What channel?”
          “Five. 'Tuesday Night with Bob and Bingo', I think.”
          Councillor Moran touched the back of his neck and scratched. He was silent for a moment and then laughed.
          “Got it?” asked Councillor Timmis.
          “No. Just laughing at Bingo. Such antics.”
          “Sure you're on Tuesday?”
          “Yes. Oh he's here. Oh yes I've seen him before.” Councillor Moran stared into space and laughed at the statement from the Government Minister. “Fat chance,” he said and scratched his neck.
          “Like I said,” said Councillor Timmis. “But tricky for us nonetheless. He'll be sharpening his wires for the first six months and we don't want get stuck.”
          “Pity to let it go to waste though. If we'd coined some here too then we could've leapfrogged. We'd be able get cushy numbers in Fraud Squad.”
          “If we was P10s we wouldn't need piss about with bobbies for two years getting full whack, we could move right down London and become Air Traffic Controllers. Still,” said Councillor Timmis, in reflective mood, “nothing wrong with being a P9. Other perks.”
          “You get to go on the Bob and Bingo show for one,” agreed Councillor Moran.
          A journalist came over to interview them. She was from the local paper, no more than a P4. Councillor Moran pegged the photographer with her as a P2, just out of hospital. He kept telling them to point at things. The journalist asked them the usual questions and Councillor Timmis scratched the back of his head and found the right answers. Then a basic tripped on the kerb and sent the photographer flying, so they had a good laugh at that.
          When she'd gone and they'd given her backside admiring glances and made the necessary comments, Councillor Timmis confessed to Councillor Moran that he was considering voting 'No' in the forthcoming referendum. The question to be resolved was a tricky one. Since the number of unemployed basics was on the increase, it had been proposed that the P0 chip should not automatically be assigned to everyone. Councillor Timmis was pushing fifty, he could remember how it was before the first personal information chip was invented. It had been called the 'Great Equaliser' and had been seen as the greatest boon to mankind since the invention of sliced bread. And so it was. All the money wasted on education was released into the economy and many better uses were found for it. Children were chipped at the age of five and immediately had access to all the knowledge in the world. Everyone was equal. And then the company that designed the first chip, made a better one, the P1. And those that could afford it, upgraded. And so it continued. The P21 had just come onto the market and the fashion designers had snapped it up immediately. The advertising executives were miffed at being instantly demoted, but that was the nature of the game among the highest echelons of society. It did not really impinge on the lives of mere P8s like Councillors Timmis and Moran. But now the question had been asked and needed an answer. The company that made the chips had made a strong economic case for removing the universal right to be chipped. They were effectively giving their basic product away for free and that did not seem just or fair. Of course there would still be a need for some basics to perform the menial tasks and they would be selected either on the basis of family history, any evidence of scrounging off the state would mean disqualification, or some kind of lottery. Councillor Moran favoured the latter idea and had actually submitted a proposal to Bob of 'Bob and Bingo', describing in great detail his idea for a weekly special lottery edition of the show. Councillor Timmis on the other hand had his doubts, which he now explained to his colleague.
          “The thing is, you look at them basics over there. They know their place. They do their job. They get their pay. They spend it in the pubs and the clubs and basically, excuse the pun, they're happy. But what if we unchipped them? So they may not have jobs. So they scrounge off the state and spend our hard-earned taxpayer's money. Good luck to them. They stay at the bottom of the heap as nature ordained, or God if you're that way inclined. But if they've got a chip in the back of their heads, then they belong, they're part of the family of man, whereas if we take it out, they're outcasts. And I think that means trouble. If you've got a chip then naturally you want upgrade. You spend your life working to better yourself or your children. Chipless, you'll sit and fester and think of ways get at them as are chipped.”
          “I hear what you're saying,” said Councillor Moran, who had no such qualms, being twenty years younger than his friend and having spent his entire life offering silent thanks to the company which had made it possible to have the entire range of human knowledge and sundry other experiences available at the scratch of his neck, “but I don't think we need to worry about a few unchipped millions in the world. If they do cause trouble then we can always pack them away somewhere or even do the merciful thing and cull them. They'll be easy enough to spot. They won't shine like the rest of us.”
          “Well I think,” said Councillor Timmis, scratching the back of his neck, “that...” But he was interrupted by a basic waving them back behind the barrier and then a P7 came over and gave him a black box with a button on it. As they waited for a few basics to run for cover, Councillor Timmis almost asked the demolition expert how he intended to vote in the referendum, and then he remembered it was only open to P8s and above. A siren sounded and Councillor Timmis pressed the button. There was a dull roar, a cloud of dust and the old library collapsed in on itself and sank to the ground.
          When the dust had settled and the cheering crowd had calmed down, Councillor Timmis looked to the sky and saw a remarkable thing. A snowstorm in the middle of August. As the flakes of paper flurried around, caught in the currents of air, Councillor Timmis turned to Councillor Moran and said, “I didn't know they'd left the books in there.”
          “No reason not to. They're no use to anybody anymore.”
          Councillor Timmis scratched his neck and worked out how much money they could have saved recycling the paper.