The Graffiti Hunter

The year is 2077. An older man and a young man are stood looking at a wall (pictured) near a footbridge in the centre of Newcastle. Vehicles thunder by on a nearby road. They are dressed similarly with long heavy coats, dark trousers and heavy boots. The older man is talking and the younger one just nods responses:

“They leave messages hidden in plain sight hidden in graffiti. There are certain images ingrained in their programming that they identify with. No Geordie kid would draw a German coffee pot. No doubt a legacy of X Industries. It means they’ve hidden a power cell, usually behind the coving or lower down behind a loose brick just above the damp course.  I can read them, their tags, I know how they think. I WILL hunt them down.

You look puzzled kid. How old are you? Twenty -one? Yeh.  I better give you a history lesson. I was younger than you when the Army trained me to hunt. Forty-five years ago, before the shit hit the fan, ten year old me was spraying his own tags south of the rivers.  Yes, you may not believe it now, I was born the wrong side in the industrial wastelands, not in the gentrified luxury you see north of the rivers. It was dark times then, too many players, then we emerged from what some call ‘The Interegnum’ as we started to see sense. Prime Minister Stewart announced A.I.  would be our saviour, rejuvenate the economy and take care of our needs at pace.

To start with he was right and advances were rapid and huge. Times felt better. But A.I. was inventing A.I. at an exponential rate and no-one anticipated the androids. By the time I left school at sixteen they looked human. They called it the ‘New Industrial Revolution’ or the ‘A.I. Revolution’  largely driven by X Industries. They made 30,000 of the skin jobs here before they realised they were too human. They became sentient, but linked. Shutting them down was hard as the main frame had the personality of its creator. America had it worst, the Russians bailed them out by dropping a nuke over the main frame’s core in the Nevada desert and the EM pulse wiped it. Here in Britain we simply switched all electric off for a fortnight of chaos as it ran out of power. Then a squad went in and wrecked the mainframe.

But the skin jobs still functioned independently seeking each other. They hide amongst the homeless, the dispossessed, the flotsam and dregs of the cities. They blend in well, after-all they are our rejects.

So the Army conscripted street-wise kids like me and trained us. You’ve done your training; now, kid, you’ve got to learn. This tracker shows three skin jobs in this part of the city. Make sure you have your Magnetic Pulse Generator charged and remember it only has a range of five meters at best. Oh yes, and check your ammunition. That ponce of a quartermaster is prone to forget you need the titanium tipped bullets – the standard ones don’t stop them.

Stick with me kid, we’ll kill these skin jobs, two women and a man. Are you ready kid?”