The Age of Consent

Anton Smith stepped out of the communal hallway of his block of flats in St. Dunstan’s Road and headed down towards the corner with Margravine Road where he hoped he wouldn’t have long to wait for a cab. Although the air quality alert was only level three he had deliberately chosen to wear a full nose and mouth filter mask. With that and a fitted cap pulled low over his brow he was fairly confident he wouldn’t be recognised by anyone he knew whom he might bump into.

He guessed he might attract a little more attention by wearing a full mask on a day like today but only as one of those hygiene freaks who never trusted the official alert levels. That he could cope with, it was more important that no-one knew who he was as he made his way to Fulham.

Just as he turned the corner on to Margravine Road a cab was pulling out of Claybrook Road heading in his direction. Anton raised his arm and the cabbie acknowledged this with a quick nod and started to head over to him.

The cab drew to a gradual stop in front of Anton, the water slapping against its side as the rope fender bumped against the quay. Anton stepped down into the open back under the roof awning and settled down into the red foam-cushion seats.

“Yes, guv,” said the cabbie, turning round to face him.

“Shorrold’s Road, Fullham. Off Dawes Road,” replied Anton.

The cabbie looked at him with his eyes screwed up and raised a hand to his right ear. Anton realised the cabbie couldn’t understand him with the face mask on. He pressed a small stud near the throat that opened the filter valves.

“Sorry, Shorrold’s Road, Fullham. Off Dawes Road,” he said again then released the stud and heard the filters click back into place.

“Right you are. It’ll be peddle power today. Not enough sun to charge up yet.”

The cabbie tapped the black solar panels that ran the full length of the roof awning.

“That ok?”

Anton nodded and the cabbie pulled hard on the joystick between his legs and began pedalling slowly as he turned the cab round to go back down towards Claybrook Road. Once on the open water of Hospital Lake the cabbie pulled a lever at the side of his seat and as it slid back the drive train rose up and forward so he could pedal in a more efficient recumbent position.

It was early in the cabbie’s shift so with his muscular thighs pumping a steady cadence it took a little over 35 minutes before the cab turned the corner of Dawes road and, navigating carefully round the tops of two ancient street lights, the cabbie pulled up along side the broken concrete edging that passed for a quay here on Shorrold’s Road.

“That’ll be nine seventy-five, please” said the cabbie turning round to face Anton once more, a loop scanner in his hand.

Anton pushed up sleeve of his sweat shirt on his right arm and laid it forearm uppermost on the top of the cabbies seat. The cabbie ran the loop scanner over Anton’s arm and the console display flashed a series of numbers briefly and then up came the prompt “Amount?”

The cabbie looked at Anton expectantly.

Pausing momentarily to push the throat stud of his mask Anton said,

“Make it a thousand.”

“Thanks very much,” said the cabbie punching in the digits on a keypad underneath the display. He detached the keypad and handed it to Anton who quickly keyed in his PIN and handed it back.

Anton got up and, timing his move to the gentle rise and dip of the cab, stepped up onto the cracked, uneven tarmac of Shorrold Road. As the cabbie pulled away towards Dawes Road Anton adjusted his cap a little and looked at his surroundings. It was a fairly typical Fullham residential street, standard Antediluvian terrace of what were probably once three story town houses. Now there just a single story showing above a rough made tarmac road that led down the water’s edge. Anton was looking for Flat 5, No. 47.
The cab had dropped him by number 35 so it was only a short walk to the red brick block of number 47 that rose above the other houses.

He looked carefully about him as he headed down the street. There was only one old lady struggling with a large wicker shopping basked heading away from him, a mangy looking dog trotting expectantly behind her. Apart from that the street was empty. In fact a few of the properties looked abandoned. Maybe the waters were already rising round the backs thought Anton as he reached the front door of No. 47.

To the side of the steel clad door was a panel of push buttons for the flats with flaking labels along side. All were hand-written apart from the one for number five which was neatly printed with the word “Dee”. Taking a deep breath, Anton pushed the button for number 5.

*

A speaker above the intercom panel emitted a long loud beep and after a couple of seconds a metallic voice issued from it.

“Yes, who is it please?”

“It’s Peter Schneider,” replied Anton making an awkward move to lean in to the speaker whilst pressing the throat stud. He was glad he had remembered to use the the agreed false name without pause. It had seemed a bit cloak and dagger at first thought to Anton but then again what he was about to do was highly illegal and so it made perfect sense for everyone to take appropriate precautions.

“Ah Mr. Schneider. Do come in, top of the stairs, turn right. Last door,” crackled the speaker and then there was a buzz and loud click from the door.

Anton pulled open the front door and stepped into the dimly lit entrance hall. He clanged up the metal stairway his steps echoing loudly off the walls. Not much chance of a quiet entrance he thought as he reached the landing. Turning right he walked past flats three and four, both with identical, plain plywood doors. The door to number five however had a sturdy looking metal grille covering it and another intercom, this time with a single push button.

Anton took off his face mask and pushed the button. He was expecting the door to click open straight away, instead there was another metallic voice, slightly clearer, more human sounding this time.

“Yes, who is it please?”

“Err, Peter Schneider. You just buzzed me in downstairs.”

The door opened inwards leaving the metal grille in place and there in front of Anton stood a short man in his early forties dressed in a modern business jacket over a short green tunic.

“Come in, please Mr Schneider,” said the man pressing a button in the wall.There was another loud click and Anton pulled the grille open.

“I’m Doctor Dee, do go on through,” the man said making an expansive gesture with his arm sweeping down the hallway. Anton turned to move past Dr. Dee who stood looking out across the landing checking if anyone else was there.

Anton heard the grille and the door click shut behind him as he walked down the hallway which gave on to a set of fairly typical open plan living quarters. The kitchen ran along the the far wall, a small single ring hob and oven in the corner. The rest of the room was taken up by two large comfy looking two-seater sofas angled in to face the TV Wall to the right. To the left was a door that presumably led to the bedroom.

“Take a seat, Mr Schneider,” said Dr Dee joining Anton in the lounge area, “drink?”

“Coffee please, black no sugar,” replied Anton taking a seat on the sofa furthest from the TV wall.

“Won’t be a moment.” Dr Dee went to the hob, pumped the handle to the gas cylinder at the side a few times until the pale blue flame leapt round the ring and then placed the kettle on top.

Anton looked around the room while the Doctor busied himself with mugs and coffee. He noticed now that, although it had a standard layout, the quality of the furniture and fittings was significantly better quality than in his own flat.

“Now we are at this stage I don’t see the need for small talk really,” said the doctor after a few minutes of awkward silence interrupted only by the boiling kettle.

He carried two steaming mugs of coffee over and, handing one to Anton he sat down on the sofa opposite. Putting the mug down on the floor by his feet the doctor reached over the side of the sofa and pulled out a small, gun metal case. He laid it on his lap and released the catches. Lifting the lid all the way back to rest horizontal on his knees the doctor pulled out a standard loop scanner identical to the one the cabbie had used on Anton a few minutes earlier.

Instinctively Anton rolled up his right sleeve and leaned forward offering his arm to the doctor, as he did so he could see that the rest of the case was taken up with a keyboard and track-pad. Doctor Dee ran the scanner over his arm and the TV wall suddenly flashed into life showing all of Anton’s details in glowing white letters several centimetres high. In the top right hand corner was a picture of Anton taken at this last grading assessment only two weeks ago. To his slight embarrassment he was even wearing the same top.

Doctor Dee’s eyes scanned the wall quickly:

Anton Johannes Smith

D.O.B: 27/11/57

ID No.: 15979-76562-6589-715

Profile: 16/27/45/67/12/43/45/09/08/44/33/56

Expires: 15/02/91

“So Mister…..Smith. You’d like me to change your profile? Yes?”

Anton was shocked at the casual manner in which Dr. Dee had mentioned the illegal act he had come here for. It was both alarming in its lack of tact and somehow re-assuring that to the doctor this was all routine.

“Yes please, doctor. I’d like to improve it.”

The doctor smiled and let out a short little chuckle.

“No one ever comes to me to make it worse, Mister Smith.”

Anton smiled back realising the foolishness of what he had said. He felt his palms start to sweat and realised he was still holding his arm out the doctor. He withdrew it and rested it on his knee.

The doctor pressed a few keys on his terminal and then sat back and looked Anton straight in the eyes.

“Experience has taught me it’s important to know the reasons you want to improve your profile. What you are trying to achieve. That way we can agree a set of values that won’t, shall we say, attract attention whilst still having the desired effect.”

Anton opened his mouth to speak but the doctor hadn’t finished his little speech.

“So what is it to be? Uncensored TV channels, better job grade? Family permit perhaps? They are the most common but of course almost anything is possible.”

The doctor gave the side of the case on his lap a knowing pat.

“Well job grade yes, maybe two grades higher…” said Anton pausing briefly to swallow hard though his mouth felt dry, “and I’d like to be able to vote.”

The doctor smiled briefly and then taking on a serious expression he intoned in an official sounding voice,

“Mister Smith, it is your right and indeed duty as a citizen to vote.”

“Not in the General Election, “ Anton snapped back aware he was being teased, “I want to vote in the weeklies.”

“Ah a real politico eh, Mr Smith? Well if you really want to get involved why not go for the dailies?”

Anton blinked at the prospect.

“Do you think I could do that?” he asked expectantly? The doctor chuckled again and shook his head.

“Mister Smith, are you aware of the number of people outside of Birmingham who are allowed to vote in the dailies? They probably all know each other by sight. You suddenly popping up in their midst would take some explaining. You’re thirty and your last grading was..,” the doctor glanced back the wall “two weeks ago. Forgive me for teasing you, Mister Smith, but you see why I talk these things through with my clients? Profile boosting is an art as well as a science.”

Anton knew Doctor Dee was right of course. Three years of citizenship education classes and moral instruction and at his last grading his profile had barely improved at all. At age thirty he was probably as high as he was going to get and some factors, like his manual dexterity would only worsen as the years went by.

“Hmmm, let’s see,” said the doctor studying the wall again, “intelligence is ok, communication skills good, empathy a little low perhaps, ah social responsibility and judgement, those two really let you down.”

“It’s not my fault. I’m just..”

“…not good at taking tests,” chanted the doctor at exactly the same time as Anton. Again the knowing smile and the chuckle.

“I hear it all the time. Don’t worry Mister Smith, I’m not making any moral judgements of you. My judgement score is excellent, but then of course it would be.”

The doctor grinned broadly and tapped the side of his terminal again. Anton couldn’t help but laugh.

“So shall we go through to the operating room,” said the doctor snapping the case shut, rising from the sofa and heading to the door Anton had previously assumed led to the bedroom.

Anton got up to follow, slightly concerned at the use of the term “operating room” but he assumed this was just Doctor Dee keeping up the whole medical theme. He was quite wrong however.

*

The room they entered did indeed look like a place where operations took place. In the middle was a long black couch and beside it was a steel trolley with an array of scalpels, tweezers and syringes laid out on a white cloth. To the side of that was a small monitor on a stand and above it all was a set of strong lights coming down from the ceiling on an adjustable arm.

Anton stopped in the doorway looking confused. What was going on? What had he let himself in for?

“What’s all this? What are you going to do? I thought you just had like a special scanner, like they have at the assessment centres.”

The doctor went round to the stand by the monitor .

“Mr Smith, those scanners draw huge amounts of power and induce current pulses in your chip in a specific sequence thousands of times a second. Even if I could get the machine and a means to power it, one wrong step and you’d be blanked.”

Anton felt the word strike into him like a blow to the stomach. Blanked. Destined to live a life on the fringes of society, scratching a living from ancient landfills or diving the back streets. Constantly on the look out for police patrols making routine sweeps to fill the “re-education” centres. He’d heard stories of people who deliberately got themselves blanked. The ultimate protest against the Consent Act, an underground movement of agitators who wanted a return to a single factor to access to any product or service: your biological age. It must be an urban myth thought Anton. Who would willingly get themselves blanked? And for such a ridiculous cause too.

Anton realised the Doctor was still speaking and came back from his momentary reveries.

“……But with this, all I need is to implant it in your arm and attach a couple of electrodes on your skin to upload the new profile.”

The doctor was holding up a clear glass phial filled with a pale blue fluid in the middle of which floated a small golden cylinder about four millimetres long.

“So let me go over the procedure. Some local anaesthetic and then I’ll make a small incision and remove your current chip. I’ll place your new chip in the same spot and there’ll be a couple of stitches. Then I can upload your new profile.”

The doctor turned the monitor to face Anton.

Anton Johannes Smith

D.O.B: 27/11/57

ID No.: 15979-76562-6589-715

Profile: 24/27/45/67/12/43/45/69/58/44/56/56

Expires: 28/02/91

Anton scanned the numbers eagerly. Although they weren’t in the top range they were far more than he could ever imagine achieving through classes and another assessment in three years’ time. This removed any doubts he had and he got up on to the couch, laid back and rolling up his right sleeve, placed his arm on the rest.

The doctor sprayed his arm with some anti-sceptic gel and then injected some local anaesthetic that stung at first and then started to make Anton’s whole forearm feel cold.

“Right while we wait for that to take effect there are couple of things you need to bear in mind. You’ll have a scar on your arm in just the ‘wrong’ place so to avoid attracting attention I’ll give you some liquid skin spray to use every day until the stitches dissolve and the wound heals. About a month or so. Of course the chip is only one half of the story but I can only change your entry in the database when other changes for people of your grade are going through at your local assessment centre. That will be in two week’s time, so until then don’t use your chip anywhere with an uplink. The off licence, cabs, cinema they’re fine but no government or local services. Any questions?”

Anton thought through how he would manage for a couple of weeks and it didn’t seem too arduous, just a bit of an inconvenience.

“What about payment?” he asked, “will you take that through the new chip or the old one?”

“Mr Smith I took payment from your account when I first scanned your profile in the waiting room.”

“But how can you? I never entered my PIN on anything.”

“In two week’s time I’ll be hacking into the ID Database and amending your profile, Mr Smith. Do you really think I need a PIN to access your bank account?”

Anton realised just how sophisticated the service was that Doctor Dee offered. This prompted another question.

“How do you do all this? Where do you get the chips from and the database access?”

“Let’s just say I’m close to the source,” replied the doctor with another of his knowing smiles.

“But how do you get away with it? Aren’t you afraid someone will start asking questions?”

“Thankfully so far there isn’t a reliable measure of ones capacity for dishonesty. Though believe me the government are working hard to find one. And now I think we are ready to begin.”

The procedure to replace the chip took only a few of minutes and Anton watched fascinated and completely without feeling anything. It was like it was someone else’s arm being operating on. Doctor Dee tied off the final stitch and snipped the ends with a pair of scissors.

“There we go. Now to upload the profile”.

The doctor placed two electrodes on Anton’s forearm just at either end of the freshly stitched wound. Thin cables ran from the electrodes into a terminal beneath the monitor. Though he knew he wouldn’t feel anything Anton braced himself to receive his new profile, his new life arrayed in numbers on the screen to his right.

“I think just one or two amendments are required.”

The doctor pressed a couple of keys on the terminal and Anton watched in horror as the profile line on the monitor changed to all zeroes before the words upload complete flashed briefly below it.

“No! what have you done?” screamed Anton leaping from the couch to lunge at the doctor, but the doctor had already stepped well back and at that moment the door burst open and in came two men dressed in standard dark-black police combat gear.

“Anton Smith, you are under arrest for attempting to illegally amend your profile. Arm’s up. Stand Still!” shouted the first police officer pointing a taser at Anton’s chest.

Anton froze in terror, his eyes fixed on Doctor Dee, incredulous, as he slowly raised his arms. The other police officer moved forward and started to frisk him.

“Anything to know about this one, Doc?” asked the first officer, his taser still trained on Anton.

“Mister Smith is a political so he’s probably got contacts worth knowing the names of. After a little persuasion.”

The officer had finished his search of Anton and cuffing his arms behind his back started to lead him from the operating room.

Anton looked back over his shoulder at the doctor.

“Why? How could you? ” Asked Anton tears streaming down his face.

“Like I said Mister Smith, so far there isn’t a reliable measure of ones capacity for dishonesty.”