Dak woke up early, feeling cold. He got up and went to check the Evoreg, it read 96 degrees.
"Darn it!" He said to himself. He had just bought the darn thing at the government Walstore because the last one was acting up.
On the fritz again already, apparently. From the sound it seemed to be in overcool. Dak knew he should have bought the Chinese made one, the government units were all junk. But the Chinese made ones were twice as much and Dak was low on payunits.
The soft warning tone went off behind his ear.
Dak tapped the control panel with his finger, and was rewarded with a soft hum as the gravgen kicked in and settled down. The room increased to a nice 105 degrees in seconds.
Satisfied, Dak put on his coolcup, preparing to go to work. The news floated around him in the air, he looked at the weather report and it filled the room as the other news faded aside.
It was going to be a very hot one, they said.
That was getting to be a pain in the rear, the darned government couldn't seem to do anything right.
The soft warning tone went off in his ear again, Dak let his mind soften.
Some Mexican kid had taken apart one of those old antique Ipod things, then after he put it back together it just floated away?
Well, the world had changed a lot.
It seems he had accidentally discovered how gravity works, and when his father, who was a scientist walked out and saw that...well, the rest was history. His father was a pretty good scientist, there was only that one mistake he ever made, a decimal point in the wrong place when working with the super collider.
Switzerland had been dissolved by the black hole, but somehow the officijos managed to get it stopped before it took out Europe. A few chunks of other countries had gotten messed up, too, all the way to France.
China had helped a lot there, it seems they had already swiped that technology, too. Of course they did have some self interest there since China had purchased France back in 2164.
A minor problem once that was under control, they didn't need the collider anymore once the gravity system was discovered.
The Officijos forgot all about the little Switzerland incident, they were excited about the new discovery.
Money to be made and all of that. Easily enough to pay China back for fixing the little problem in Europe.
Congress quickly passed laws letting government take over the invention, then they just banned fire in all forms to deal with the issue of global warming.
Something about there being just 16 Polar bears left, and they had all turned brown.
Dak didn't care very much about Polar Bears, to be honest.
Yep, everything could be done with gravity, it seemed.
Next they took out all the dams on the rivers, no need for hydropower any more. The Salmon runs improved so much that there was now two lottery winners every year to try and catch a fish, instead of just one.
The headlines spoke highly of the 100% gain in the fish runs, proof of their good efforts to help the environment.
Almost all oil production stopped, too. Nobody burned the stuff anymore anyway. Electrical power was just history too, besides, all the wires had been swiped and sold to China to make coolcups out of.
China was still being a bit difficult, that was the only country left that had not become a State.
Negotiations were ongoing, though.
Dak tugged at the coolcup around his testicles, then he reached for his topcap. All that was was a pad over his head and two straps with coolpads under his armpits. Once in place it kept his body temperature at a nice normal 105 degrees. He set the tempreg on low, since he knew he only had about 4 payunits left in the government credibank.
The Officijos had simply taken all money and put it in one place, passing it out to the people as they earned it.
That worked well, except for China. Part of the problem with China was they still freebred. Dak couldn't see how they could keep track of anyone or anything if they just freebred and didn't implant them into the system.
Yes, China was being difficult.
Good products, though. That entire Nation was 105 degrees both day and night.
When they were accused of swiping the gravgen technology and told to stop using it because it was patented, they just laughed.
Yep. Difficult.
Dak carefully kept his mind blank, too. One slip and it was a fine.
He didn't wear any other clothing, no one did.
Dak had read somewhere that normal used to be 98.6 degrees, he shuddered at the idea. Lord that would be miserable, his skin got goosebumps at the thought. Evolution had changed things a lot in the last half dozen generations, once normal outside temperature had reached into the 130 degree range, most people had just died. But a few could handle it for short periods, then over time their descendants had just evolved into that being normal.
Then the darned government had taken over all business, that had started way back when the liberals had taken office. Once there was enough of them they simply banned the Republican party.
Everything was nicely under control after that.
Now that President Abdul Mabbas from the 67th State of Sauduran was elected, everyone either worked delivering goods, producing goods, or tending the gravgens.
Except for the rejos. Those people were dangerous, they had escaped the implant at birth behind the ear somehow so none of them worked. They were just out there, living in the shadows. Once in awhile a lawpad came through and got some of them, but not very often.
Dak noticed all the lawpads, they were always parked at the government Waldonut shop, he saw them there every day on the way to work.
Government stores were all temperature controlled of course. That was probably why they hung out there, he thought. They saved a fortune not having to run their coolcups and coolcaps.
Dak was also grateful he didn't work in the product sector, that meant two hours of hard labor every single day.
Everyone worked except for the officijos, they moved the government to Siberia where it was a nice 105 degrees all the fucking time, then shuttled back and forth on transpads to their 100 billion payunit seashore homes in the Antarctic.
"You have been debited 100,000 payunits for thought infraction." A voice said in his head.
Dak reached up and felt the tiny bump behind his right ear. Thinking bad thoughts about goverment was illegal and could be a fine, but using profanity while thinking about government was always a fine.
Dak got fined a lot.
