The ReLife Project Collection

Chapter 3-2

The UCN was an incredible communications system developed a decade earlier by a corporation in Zone 3. It was also an incredibly efficient system to track the movement of every human on the planet Earth and the three colony planets. And the World Council did exactly that. If a citizen wore a piece of government-issued, free clothing he was tracked regardless of when and where he went. If he wore non-issued government clothing, the injected kidney microdevice tracked his movements.

Monitoring citizens through the UCN plus the health injection program kept close tabs on nearly everyone. It also identified radicals and dissidents before they had a chance to be a disruptive force on society.

Wearing non-issued government clothing without embedded micromics was tolerated but not encouraged. Very few people outside the zones were wealthy enough to buy more than one set of non-mic clothes on the black market. Wearing "scrubbed" clothes was frowned upon by the government. It made those people stand out from their fellow citizens and appear to be special. It didn"t matter if scrubbed clothes were better made and more attractive. What mattered was that no one citizen appeared to be superior to his fellow citizens.

Violations of the Standards of Living Codes could result in a penalty phase lasting up to two years. Wearing non-issued government clothing often or exceeding travel restrictions were considered violations. During a penalty period, the violator did not receive his full monthly allotment of world credits. This forced him to come up with other ways to get food, shelter, and the necessities of life. Many violators died during a penalty term, especially if they couldn"t find a friend willing to share food and shelter.

A medical emergency during the penalty phase was a death sentence. Hospitals were barred from treating patients who were serving time for violation of the Living Codes. It was not unusual for many of the hospitals in larger cities to find human corpses outside their entrance doors each morning.

Rollie owned quite a few scrubbed items of clothing but didn"t think much about where and when to wear them. He didn"t buy them to avoid the government"s tracking system but rather for his own vanity. Scrubbed clothes were always more fashionable than clothes with embedded micromics.

Rollie watched Claude from a third-floor window close to his office. The corporate office had environment windows that produced radiant heat in the winter and cooling during warm days. This environmental feature made the windows one-way and prohibited anyone from seeing into the office building.

For being such a brilliant scientist, Rollie couldn"t get over how mentally clumsy Claude was in his normal life. As he watched Claude below, he couldn"t help wondering why the fool didn"t walk another fifty feet and duck behind another building. At least he would be out of sight from prying eyes at the Phoenvartis building.

Claude was talking wildly to whoever he had connected with on the UCN system. Rollie didn"t know for sure but he suspected that the other person was his uncle, Klaus Ekstrom.

He could just imagine their conversation about the cloned mouse. He was sure Claude was also whining about almost being caught in a lie about the CR47 visual recording. He knew Klaus wouldn"t have one bit of sympathy or offer to help Claude if he got caught lying about the recording. Rollie was sure Klaus couldn"t stand his brother"s kid. The only reason he befriended him was to have another pawn and informant.

Claude headed back to the corporate office building forgetting he should be walking in the other direction toward a fictitious doctor"s office. Rollie could see he was no longer talking into his UCN system. If the person on the other end of Claude"s call was his uncle, then Rollie could expect a call from the boss within the next couple of minutes.

Almost as soon as this thought left his mind, Rollie"s shirt micromic hummed, indicating he had an incoming communication. God, he hated the humming sound. For some reason, it irritated the hell out of him. His grandmother once said that it reminded her of scratching fingernails on a chalk blackboard. He agreed with her even though he didn"t know what a blackboard was. He made a vow to find a way to change the activation sound of his micromic units.

"Rollie, Klaus here. What are you doing?

"Hello, Mr. Ekstrom. I"m reviewing some communiques in my office and …"

That"s all Klaus needed to hear before interrupting with, "Rollie, I need you up here in the next ten minutes. We have some important topics to cover."

Rollie took advantage of the situation and had some fun by asking, "Anything, in particular, sir?"

"No, I mean, yes. I"ll explain when you get here. See you in ten."

Rollie slipped into his office to look at messages. He asked his assistant to complete a couple of tasks that he knew would be critical to the ReLife program. He could foresee where the project was headed. He might as well be out front of the illogical and outrageous demands his boss would soon be asking for and expecting.

As they discussed the assignments for the rest of the day, Rollie looked up just in time to see a woman walk by his office windows. The tight-fitting blouse and skirt caught his eye first. But when she turned and smiled at him, her piercing eyes grabbed his attention enough to make him stop talking in mid-sentence to his assistant. "Who was that, Ingrid?"

"Oh, that"s the new girl who took over the Archives Department. She"s only been here a week or so. I ate lunch with her the other day. She"s very nice."

Rollie didn"t respond or go on to explain the assignments. He stood there thinking about the woman who walked by his office at a rather hurried pace.

Ingrid took the silence as an opportunity to poke a little fun at her boss. "Why do you ask? Do you think she"s attractive?"

The tongue-in-cheek questions broke his concentration enough, so he looked again at Ingrid and responded.

"I know that woman from somewhere. I"ve seen those eyes before."