The Nanny State

WRITTEN FOR:

FORUM

Other Worlds Contest  (18+) Science Fiction Short Story Contest. Closed #2078460 by A E Willcox

Word Count: 4024
Prompt 3. Concept – Artificial Intelligence




Abdul Hussein peered at the sagging, timber-framed building ahead, and his pulse raced. Up until now it had all been tall talk, but actually entering a speakeasy inside the Dead Zone required courage. In spite of the cracked windows and rubbish-strewn street, the other citizens milling around didn't appear any different to those found in more respectable areas of London. They wore the same grey shalwar kameez and hajib scarves or skullcaps, not needing a coat on this warm summer evening, and didn't walk in the shadows looking guilty about their illegal activities. Strangely, there wasn't a single Anglo in sight.

Before proceeding any further, he halted in the doorway of a boarded-up retail property and closed his eyes. The E-guide menu appeared in his virtual vision, and Abdul selected Wi-Fi signal strength. The familiar bar chart appeared. Zero bars. It was true. The omnipresent Wi-Fi did have a blind spot in this rundown area of mainly derelict buildings deep in the slums of the Anglo Quarter.

It wasn't that Abdul was opposed to Nanny's governance or her many decrees for public health and safety. Far from it. But something at the back of his mind silently screamed that man wasn't created to behave in an entirely safe and sane manner. Something primal deep within his psyche demanded freedom: the free will to say whatever he wanted and act however he pleased — at least for some of the time. It was selfish, he knew, and yet natural, he believed.

He released a breath he hadn't realised he held and marched over to the notorious Saracen's Head. Outside, he glanced at the ominous sign swinging overhead: a severed head wearing a turban. According to local legend, a thousand years ago the detached head of one of the faithful had hung here — a souvenir carried from the Holy Land by an ancient Anglo warrior. How ironic that Anglia itself was eventually conquered by the Saracens; not by the sword but by the much more peaceful process of higher birthrates. Abdul braced himself and entered the speakeasy.

The noise was deafening, and the cavernous interior stank of the pungent smoke that polluted the stale air, an aromatic odour he couldn't place. Whatever it was, Abdul suspected it endangered the health of the smoker and of anyone else nearby, including himself. This was true decadence. Groups of men and women sat around crowded tables. Together! He suspected the glasses in front of them contained alcohol. He grinned. This was everything the guys in his class at university had claimed and more. He approached the bar.

Though the patrons all came from the ranks of the faithful, behind the counter a balding Anglo rubbed a glass with a rag that looked dirtier than the floor. This place really stretched the limits of health and safety!

The man glanced at Abdul and raised an eyebrow. 'You over eighteen?'

He sighed. His baby face and diminutive stature often misled strangers into assuming he was much younger than he really was. His mum assured him he looked cute as a result, but then she would say that. 'Yeah. I'm twenty, actually. Want to see some identification?'

The Anglo shrugged. 'Not really.' He put down the glass he'd been cleaning and produced an old-fashioned book: the kind made from paper and usually only seen in museums. 'Name?' He slouched over the book with some primitive form of stylus.

'Er… Mohammed Khan.'

The man raised an eyebrow. 'I've already got three Mohammed Khans. Want to make up something else?'

Abdul's cheeks warmed. The name of someone in his class came to mind. 'Imran Smith?'

'Yeah, that'll do.' The Anglo scribbled his fake name at the base of a list in his book. 'You can call me John. So, whatcha got for me, Imran?'

Abdul shrugged off the straps of his backpack, unfastened it and pulled out the barter goods. He'd asked around his friends for advice and hoped he'd brought the right kinds of things. Along the counter top, he arranged a dozen packets of ibuprofen, a Snickers multi-pack and a catering size tin of Nescafé Gold Blend.

John made them disappear. 'Good selection. If you come again, we could do with more tea. Tetley, preferably, though PG would work fine.'

Abdul nodded.

John scrawled a figure next to 'Imran Smith' in his book. 'You've twenty five quid to your name.'

'What's that in E-riyals?'

John shrugged. 'No idea. We never use electronic cash. It's not as if we can explain what we sell to the authorities.' He gestured around him at the unfamiliar equipment. 'One pint of ale or a single shot of Scotch is a quid.' He turned to the bewildering array of colourful bottles lined along oak shelves behind him. 'Or if you're a connoisseur, we have a wide selection of wines and spirits.'

Abdul felt all at sea. They didn't exactly teach alcohol appreciation in the maths department at UCL, and he didn't know what 'Scotch' and 'ale' were or what 'pint' and 'shot' meant. In fact, he'd never tried anything haram.

'So, what'd you want?' asked John.

His friends had recommended he try something called beer first because it burned the throat less than whisky, whatever that was. Unfortunately, John hadn't mentioned either of those.

'First time, hey?' said John. 'Go with the ale.'

'Is that better tasting?'

'It's a matter of personal taste, but you're more likely to leave here on your own two feet if you drink ale rather than Scotch.'

Was John threatening him? Abdul examined the Anglo's face. No, John was simply stating something he believed to be a fact. Perhaps the Scotch was out of date and had caused some customers to become ill. 'Okay, I'd like to try some ale, please.'

John picked up the glass he'd polished earlier and placed it underneath a nozzle. He tugged on a wooden handle above that three times. An amber coloured liquid flowed into the glass.

'Here's your pint.' John placed the glass in front of Abdul and marked it into his book.

Abdul tentatively lifted the ale and sniffed. The smell was unpleasant — somewhat reminiscent of urine — and a frothy scum had gathered at the top of the glass. Was John trying to trick him because he was new to this place? He glanced around and saw similar glasses of scum-topped liquid standing on most of the tables.

'Thank you.' Abdul gripped cool glass, careful not to slosh the foul smelling drink on his sleeve, and walked over to an unoccupied table in a relatively quiet, shadowy corner.

After sitting and taking a breath, he took his first ever sip of alcohol. The stuff tasted like it smelled: bitter and repellent. He resisted an urge to spit it out. Was this really the 'wonderful' drink his friends had raved about? Coming to the Saracen's Head was a huge mistake.

A shadow crossed his table accompanied by the distinctive sweet scent of summer roses. He turned and gaped. A lady his own age stood beside him wearing traditional grey shalwar kameez, but she'd removed her black hijab scarf, and silky black hair cascaded across her shoulders and back. How… decadent!

Her unnaturally glossy, red lips curled up, and she gestured to an empty chair beside him. 'May I join you?'

He swallowed. 'Er… yeah. Of course.' As an afterthought, he stood and pulled the chair back for her to sit.

'How gentlemanly,' she breathed.

A bead of sweat trickled down his forehead. He hadn't sat alone with any females his own age since kindergarten, and even then their hair had been properly secured and hidden away.

'Don't you recognise me, Abdul?'

His head shot up. He examined her dark hazel eyes, pale skin and Roman nose. 'Ayesha?'

'So you do sometimes take notice in class.'

Though seating in the lecture halls and tutor groups was divided by sex, there were both males and females in every class. Over the past year he'd heard every girl in his class give oral presentations. Ayesha had stood out from the others not only because of her confident posture and voice but also the enviable high quality of her academic work. At university, she was a model of neatness and propriety, and everyone believed she'd be a maths professor some day. He simply hadn't recognised her in this setting because it was so alien to the mental image he'd developed of Ayesha Sharif.

She touched her glass to her lips. Unlike his tall, broad glass, hers was rounded, with the container separated from a separate base by a thin column of glass. Her alcohol was pale yellow, almost translucent, and very effervescent.

'Never see Champagne before?' she asked.

'Does it taste as bad as ale?'

'Try some.' She leaned closer and offered him her glass.

She wanted him to drink from the same receptacle as her? What a health risk! He'd never shared any food or drink container with another person before, never mind a female. It was… intimate.

She grinned. 'Don't be scared. I promise I haven't got the dreaded lurgy.' She pressed her glass to his lips.

He allowed her to trickle a little of the cool liquid into his mouth, then smiled. It was much more pleasant tasting than the ale, even a little sweet. 'That's good.'

'It's very special. Comes from over the Channel.'

'From the Caliphate of France?'

She nodded.

He'd not realised the heathens were so organised that the Franks in the Caliphate traded with the Anglians here. Obviously, such a haram drink couldn't have been imported via any legal means.

'Tell me,' she said. 'How did you hear about this place?'

He leaned closer and whispered, 'Shouldn't we keep quiet about that?'

She barked a laugh, took another gulp of her Champagne, then gestured around. 'Dead Zone, remember?'

'Oh.' He nodded. That was the whole point of coming to a speakeasy — a place where you could eat and drink haram things and say whatever came into your mind without fear of repercussions.

'But, never mind,' she said, reaching over to give his hand a gentle squeeze. 'I wouldn't ask you to betray any confidences.'

He took another sip of his ale. It didn't taste so bad now he'd grown more accustomed to it, but it wasn't as nice as her Champagne.

Ayesha finished her glass in one quick swallow and stood. 'You coming?'

He looked at her in confusion. 'What do you mean?'

'People don't just come here for the drink and conversation, you know.' She winked and smirked. 'We can do anything we want in the Dead Zone.' She offered him her hand.

His heart pounding, he abandoned his ale and accepted her hand, her soft skin somehow communicating dark promises that stirred something deep within his soul, as well as something not so deep dangling between his legs. 'W-where are we going?'

She nodded towards the back of the room. A staircase hugged the wall and disappeared up into the darkness. 'They have rooms upstairs for more private conversations.' She blushed. 'Have you never wondered what girls look like underneath their shalwar kameez?'

She let him upstairs and into a squalid room where mildew coated the peeling wallpaper and cracks marred the filthy window panes, but the silky bedsheets on the king-size bed were freshly laundered and emitted a pleasant lavender aroma. Time lost all sense of meaning as he drowned himself in Ayesha and pleasure.

A few hours later, he felt he'd learned more in the course of this evening than all the knowledge he'd amassed in the preceding twenty years of life. The mysteries of the Universe had been revealed to him. He'd downed his first haram drink, experienced his first conversation free from the constant surveillance of Nanny, seen a naked female and lost his innocence. The expert way Ayesha made love to him made him suspect this was far from her first venture into forbidden territory.

After easing out of her for the last time, he collapsed back onto the mattress, glowing with pleasure and completely sated. He couldn't imagine how he could return to an ordinary mundane life as a university student after this sublime experience.

Laying beside him, Ayesha skimmed her fingertips across the downy hair of his forearm, raising sparks along the way. A slight stir down below made him wonder if he actually could do it a fourth time, but then little Abdul sagged back in surrender, and he realised he was done for the night.

Ayesha pouted. 'S not fair. I could go at it all night, but most guys can only do it once or twice before they throw in the towel.'

He grinned like a lunatic. 'Once or twice, huh?'

She plucked up a pillow and whacked his head. 'Don't be so smug.' Replacing the pillow, she rested her head on it. 'But, there's always next week…'

He shuffled up the mattress until he was sitting upright. 'Next week?' Hope surged in his chest. 'You'd like to make this a regular event?'

Ayesha trailed her hand across his clavicle, down his chest, over his navel and then rested it upon his happy trail. 'Would you?'

Best not to sound too desperate. 'Suppose I wouldn't mind too much if we did this again sometime.'

She laughed and swatted him playfully on the thigh.

He glanced out the window and noticed that the moon had risen high in the sky. Closing his eyes to check his E-guide, Abdul was shocked to discovered it was already past ten. The boys dormitories were locked at midnight, and he'd have to explain where he'd been if he wasn't logged in to the Wi-Fi there before curfew.

'We have to go.' He leaned over the side of his bed and scanned the bare wooden floorboards for his underwear.

She groaned and flopped down onto the mattress. 'Why? You might recover soon, and we can have another go.'

He glanced back at her. 'We'll get into trouble.'

Ayesha narrowed her eyes. 'Didn't you register yourself as out at a relatives' before coming here tonight?'

'I didn't think I'd stay so long.'

'You certainly have staying power — I'll give you that.'

He tugged on his yellow Y-fronts then perched on the edge of the bed to pull on his socks. 'Guess you're more experienced than me, though. You seem to know all about what fits where.'

She chortled.

'So,' he asked, 'how long have you been coming here?'

'Only the past six months or so.'

He stood and grabbed his shalwar kameez bottoms from the floor. 'Who brought you?'

'Brought myself. I'm a big girl now.'

'So I've noticed.'

She batted her eyelids.

'But who first told you about the place?' he pressed. 'Doubt you just wandered in here by accident.'

'You know Fatima?'

He halted with his arm halfway into his sleeve. 'Not Fatima Thomas?'

'Yup!'

'Don't believe it!'

'S true.'

'But… she wears a burqa and never raises her eyes from her desk. Not even when she has to give a presentation.'

Ayesha's eyes took on a faraway look. 'If you think I'm good in the sack, you should give her a tumble.'

'How would you know?'

She looked directly at him and winked.

'No!'

She nodded and bit her lip.

Just then, Little Abdul stirred back to life, but he knew there wasn't really time. He really would be hard pressed to explain his whereabouts this evening. 'So… next Saturday same time?'

'That would be great.' She shuffled to the edge of the mattress and peered under the bed.

Spotting her knickers before she did, he bent down and scooped them up. The white cotton smelled deliciously of Ayesha and roses, and Abdul was sad to surrender them to her. He'd have liked to pocket them as a souvenir, but the security staff at his dormitory would likely find anything he took back in one of their regular searches, and if he tried to hide them somewhere while concealing what he held, the surveillance cameras would note his activity as unusual.

As she slid her knickers on, Ayesha offered him a wry smile. 'So, spill the beans.'

'Er… I wasn't really going to steal your knickers.'

She playfully punched his arm. 'Yeah, right. But, actually, I meant how did you hear about this place?'

'Oh. Asif and Hammed told me.'

'Asif Cooper and Hammed Patel?'

'The same.'

She shook her head and laughed. 'That's so funny. Neither looks like they'd brush their teeth in the morning without the Imam's permission.'

Abdul watched as she rolled her socks over her smooth, slender ankles. Ayesha looked hot wearing nothing but kickers and socks — even more erotic than when she was completely naked.

She glanced up and gave him a coy smile. 'Know what I think?'

'What?' he asked, glancing away as if he hadn't just been openly admiring her most private parts.

'It's ridiculous how we scamper in the shadows for fear of what Nanny thinks, like mice terrified of an owl. The citizens should all band together and just switch the bitch off.'

He took a step backward, automatically mumbling the shahada: 'There is no government but Nanny, and the wifi is her messenger.'

Ayesha threw a shoe at him. 'Aw, shove it. Nanny's just a stupid computer. It's not right that a machine should have mastery over mankind.'

'No She's not,' he insisted. Though he'd broken more sacred rules tonight than the whole rest of his life put together, he still hadn't lost his core faith in Nanny and Her system. 'She's an AI — the most sophisticated AI ever designed. Without Her, Anglia would collapse into chaos, and we'd return to the Dark Days.'

'Chill. I just want you to understand that Nanny was made for the citizens, not the citizens for Nanny. Lately, it's clear She's been interfering with people's lives a lot more than the original programmer's intended. Don't you feel the time's come for us to rein Her in a little… strip Her back to Her original parameters.'

He slumped onto the side of the bed, shaking. He couldn't believe she'd blasphemed like that — it was beyond his experience and comprehension. 'You're crazy. You sound just like Hammad.'

She shuffled closer and draped an arm around his shoulder. 'Hey, calm down. I'm just joking.'

He looked into her eyes. 'Really?'

She smiled, and seeing her rueful expression he understood she was telling the truth. 'Oh Allah, I thought you were serious. You really had me going.'

She giggled. 'You should have seen your face. For a second, I thought you'd throw up.'

'So did I.'

She stroked his thigh. 'Of course I don't believe we should reprogram Nanny. Just the thought of it is heresy.'

He relaxed, relief flooding through his mind.

'So,' she said, 'Hammed's a real nutter?'

'Oh, yeah. He's always going on about how Nanny should just be switched off.'

She shivered. 'I can't imagine. That would spell the end of civilization as we know it.'

'He really thinks Anglia would be better off without Her.' Abdul checked the shuttle timetable on his E-guide. 'It's half ten. If I don't hurry, I won't be able to get back in time.'

She shrugged. 'Actually, I'm meeting my cousin downstairs in half-an-hour. I've registered as staying at hers tonight.'

'Oh, okay.' He leaned over and kissed her on the lips. 'I had a wonderful time.'

'Me too.' She beamed. 'The best ever. Absolutely fabulous.'

'Next Saturday?'

'Wouldn't miss it for the world.' She stood and took his hand. 'But, on Monday, please don't glance over at me too often in class or try to signal me. We mustn't give anybody any clues about what we're up to, otherwise we'll both be in huge trouble.'

'Of course. I'm not stupid.'

'Especially, don't tell Hammad or Asif,' she stressed. 'Guys who aren't afraid to blaspheme won't think twice before laying out our secrets for the world to condemn us.'

A cold shiver skittered down his spine. 'You're absolutely right.'

She paused with her hand on the door knob. 'One last kiss.'

He closed his eyes, and her soft lips meshed with his in a perfectly choreographed dance as if they'd practised together every day of their lives. She tasted of the sweetest strawberry jam blended with that unique flavour that was all Ayesha. Her hand sneaked down to his groin, and she stroked him through the thin cotton until his penis was as firm as the knob she grasped in her other hand.

He gasped. 'I must go now, or I'll never make it.'

She sighed. 'I know. Go then. Dream of me until next week.'

***

Ayesha stood in the window and watched as Abdul ran down the dark street and disappeared into the shadows. She hoped he made it back in time; she really wouldn't want him to get into trouble.

Turning away from the window, she smiled as she pulled on her shalwar kameez top, thinking of how good he'd felt inside her. He was so much better than Fatima had been last week, not to mention Asif yesterday. In fact, he was almost as skilled as Abdullah, and might even prove better after some more practise, but Abdul was so much sweeter than anybody else she'd fucked.

As she thought about it, running through every position they'd tried, and the small talk they'd engaged in, and not to forget his gentle caresses, she had to admit to herself that he was the sweetest out of all the three thousand she'd had. Afterwards, she'd been thrilled to discover he was one of the faithful rather than a filthy infidel whom she might be one day tasked with erasing.

She slid open the hidden door, stepped inside the cubicle behind, and sat on the stool there. After removing her power cable from its special clip on the wall, she inserted its pointy end deep into her left ear and twisted it into place in her input socket to initiate her weekly battery charging cycle.

It was testimony to the sublime skill of Nanny's cyborg programming sub-routines that Ayesha could genuinely feel pleasure and love for an inferior sentient being — a mere biological accident of flesh and bones.

If she had the choice, she'd dump the other five humans she was currently sleeping with and just stay with Abdul as if they were a married couple. For a moment, she imagined a perfect world where she could just pair off with him forever and never sleep with another man. But, of course, that was selfish. Nanny had designed and built her for a specific purpose, and that wasn't to seek her own pleasure.

Time to download. She leaned her face against the moulded panel on the wall beside the charger, an exact negative of her face. Laser beams flashed from her eyes into the fibre optic receivers, communicating everything she'd learned today in binary code that took mere seconds to transmit along an underground line to Nanny's local AI substation.

It was a huge shame Hammed had never come to the Saracen's Head. If he'd actually come here voluntarily, disposing of him would be so much easier for Ayesha. She suspected he was all mouth and no action, but she couldn't take that risk. Three people now had informed her he was spreading heresy, and no telling how many others he'd polluted whom she hadn't come into contact with in an intimate way. Hammed would have to have an accident soon. People who voiced disruptive and threatening opinions must be culled from the population for the continued well-being of the moral majority.

Not for the first time, she pondered how many other cyborgs like her there might be wandering around Anglia's cities, towns and villages. Like her, the others must live secretly alongside human citizens, observing their actions, protecting the umma from unclean thoughts and opinions, from blasphemy and heresy, upholding the Sacred Commandments of Nanny as transmitted by the Holy Wi-Fi. She opened her mouth and recited aloud:

'There is no government but Nanny, and the wifi is her messenger.'