RoboNomics

Chapter 4

The sounds of recess play fade as I walk away from the school. My teaching career is over, but the life of the school goes on without me. I don't know if I'll ever have a working lunch with Henri in my classroom again. I don't know how my class will fare now that I've left them with her -- with that thing. And who knows what's in store for Henri after his confrontation with Goodman. But I know I can't stay. I leave before morning recess has ended. It is my small, silent human protest against this tectonic change. I take a last look at the long, flat pile of ruddy brickwork that has been my second home. But that's over now. I know I can't go back. Not unless they get rid of the I.I.U.

The morning rain has stopped and the clouds have broken up. There are drops left on leaves in their first flush of autumn and puddles being burnt away by the September sun. Mid-morning sleepiness has descended on the rambling, faux Tudor mansions and stately Georgian-style homes around the school. There is the sound of traffic, that ever-present hum of the city. I hear it just beyond the old oaks that cocoon Rosedale, this affluent uptown neighborhood. But it's not loud enough to overwhelm the song of the sparrows that flit from box hedge to drooping electric lines.

In this insulated suburb, I can imagine that it never happened. I pretend that I'm out for a Sunday stroll, admiring the landscaped yards and brick gates surrounding me as I did when I first began teaching here. I let the sights distract me from thinking about the machine that took my job.

Instead, I think about my days in teacher's college as I walk up towards Bloor Street. In those days I would often wander up Bloor towards Yorkville. This was upper crust Toronto. Here I could glance past the security guards standing at the entrances of haute couture boutiques and study the tableau of beautiful people inside. I could watch as limos filled with movie stars in town for the film festival slipped past. I could imagine what my life could have been like if I were someone else: someone who was not about to be a teacher. It is here, at the apex of Toronto's higher class enclaves, where many of the city's homeless set up for the day. One of them always sits sprawled in a bright green lawn chair at a massive curbed corner. His lids droop in his red, puffed face.

Today as I reach the wide avenue with its sidewalks crowded with pedestrians, I notice the difference that nearly a decade has wrought on the city. Bloor is still a narrow valley between sheer cliffs of concrete and glossy blue windows. But now there are robots everywhere I look: RoboNomics' Domestic Support Units with their white plastic bubble bottoms that walk dogs. Automated trucks laden with groceries rumble down the street, destined for home delivery. They have been called by smart refrigerators to the neighborhoods of the city. But there aren't any machines that look like the I.I.U. that replaced me. These bots, idiotic machines with cartoon faces or intelligent computers built into the familiar shape of a truck, have been trotting down the high street for years. But none of them make my stomach flip like she did.

Bloor echoes with shouts and laughter and the bleating of horns and noisy automobile engines. And there are other sounds: the motorized whir of robotic messenger carts. The beeps of automated city bus and automated garbage truck. Their sounds pop the bubble in my consciousness and I have to face it: I am unemployed. The statement of it echoes in my mind and I begin to feel panic swelling up from my belly into my chest as I meld into the crowd. We humans move like a school of fish, up and down the boulevard as a mass. The machines between avoid us smoothly; they are programmed to adapt to our social world. I can see many of them display the orange circle emblem of RoboNomics or the blue and white crest of iTronics: the two largest and most prominent automation companies in the world today. I glare at them as I try to breathe slowly and calm myself.

He darts out from among the crowd and walks straight toward me. The movement shocks me out of my anxious stupor. I gaze at the deep tan and sunspots of his complexion veiled in a scraggly beard. I forget that unwritten city rule: do not make eye contact.

"Spare a dollar?" He asks me. I don't slow my pace as he approaches.

"Sorry, no," I mutter and quickly lower my eyes. I scuttle to get around him. Out of the corner of my eye, I see him step in front of me. He looks me over with glazed incredulity.

"Come on," he insists as I take a step to get away. "I need something." He follows me close. "It's not like I want to ask. I lost my job to a machine."

I look into his clouded brown eyes. "Well, sorry." I squeeze past him. "I don't have a job anymore either. Because of a machine." He fades back into the crowd as I walk on.

I weave through the crowd as fast as I can manage. I pass under the museum's addition that emerges from the classic stone façade like a skyscraper growing out of the ground. The streetscape changes. It feels less windy, less like a steep canyon and more like home. The low rises of the old city, filled with restaurants and pawn shops, hug the avenue. I pass the old Honest Ed's building. The massive discount store has long since been condemned. Its windows have been boarded up and one of its signs is missing. The other has lost most of the bulbs that used to light it up and flash in gaudy patterns. It looks like a huge face peering at me with empty eye sockets.

On the corner of my street is a ratty old convenience store with a Korean sign. The short building is sprouting strut work from its roof: another new high rise as this part of Bloor is gentrified. Beside it is a stop sign. There is graffiti scrawled in green letters on its backside. But there is something else: a piece of paper that someone has tried to tear away. Never mind that I haven't seen paper since I was in high school. It's the words that catch my attention:

The United Workers Protest Group

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