Fate

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Fate

Published by KC Riley on Smashwords

Copyright 2012 by KC Riley

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Chapter 1

He stood in line waiting for the cashier to finish scanning the grocery items from the person’s cart in front of him. He nervously fiddled with the permit card in his hand eyeing his basket with the Cherry Garcia ice cream and thinking of the party guests enjoying his desert choice. Maggie would be there and he knew if he served ice cream she would probably agree to anything he proposed later after the guests left for their own homes. That would be worth all the trouble to get the permit he thought as the cashier finished ringing up the person in front of him.

He placed his basket down on the shelf for the cashier to start scanning items. She spied the ice cream and stopped mid movement and said in a mundane tone without looking up, do you have a permit for the ice cream? He could tell she asked that question a lot and expected to not ring up the ice cream. Yes, he said, right here, and he handed her the permit card. She scanned it and a red light blinked on the register. She waited for the authorization to come through. You know there is a tax on ice cream in addition to the normal price? She asked in the same mundane tone of expecting things to not move or function as expected. Yes, I know. He answered. Since the beginning of the year the new law on Food Authorization Taxation Enforcement or FATE was in full effect. No food with a fat percentage of 6% could be purchased without a permit. The law included ‘unhealthy’ foods to get at non-fat and low fat products. Cookies and crackers took the biggest hit and movie popcorn and candy were simply lost. Permits were issued based on your current weight/height BMI and that number could not be higher than 26 to get the permit. You could not purchase foods with a high fat percentage more than two times in a 30 day period. You went to a permit station to be processed and once you had a permit you were subject to additional monitoring of your activities, which you had to agree to in order to get the permit. Anyone caught selling their permits or authorized food would be fined up to $5,000 and possibly jailed up to one year. This was the latest government strategy to reduce healthcare costs and boost the economy.

The permits allowed the creation of new agencies that installed permit centers that connected your weight, height, fat percentage, and age to the shopping you did as all food purchases were tracked to monitor the diet. There was no reliance on pay-for-service and credit was only permitted for specific services. Food purchase was strictly pre-paid accounts at stores and you were ‘authorized’ to purchase and deducted from the pre-paid account. The controls over food expanded past fat and calorie counts to volume and frequency. Food hoarding was stopped because your account was only authorized based on what an individual needed. The needed amount was generated by the physical you were required to have. Doctors were regulated to authorize food allowances based on studies performed by Insurance agencies.

The manufacturers of high fat foods left the USA for Canada, Mexico, and Europe. The result was global nations buoyed out of debt and found new funds in the black market shipping high fat product back to the USA. A new term ‘HFF’ was coined, HFF being high fat food. Industries rose overnight to address the loss of coping mechanisms related to HFF. The shift in the social psyche of personal control began with individuals not managing their purchases and resulted in changes for marking celebrations. Weddings no longer had cake to identify the occasion; food at the reception was not expected. Without the traditions of cake and other key identifiers in the wedding ceremony the transformation from single identities into a bonded identity was affected. The loss of the tradition meant the loss of the transformation. It wasn’t just food at an event, it was a symbol, a belief, a rite of passage. Needless to say, his ice cream meant he was gonna get laid tonight. It was worth it for that alone. Having a permit meant many good perks from his friends and new influence when he needed it. None of his friends passed the permit weight test. He knew he was in a position of power since his friends would use him for specific food bargaining. Favors were a good thing.

The blinking light turned green and the cashier picked up the ice cream and scanned it across the counter. Noises rang out and she said, put your hand on the monitor and hold still. He did as told and his palm was scanned and the floor beeped. He realized he was just weighed. Nice check in case someone was masquerading as myself, he thought. He looked at the cashier in surprise. First time? She asked with a sneer. He nodded and asked, what the heck was that? It’s the latest, real-time monitoring to see if you kept in shape, else you can’t get the ice cream. She spoke without any feeling. She finished ringing up the basket items and he took the receipt. Since his palm was scanned his account was deducted, he picked up his food bags and walked out of the store, smiling. Tonight was going to be fantastic!

Chapter 2

Maggie stood in line at the power station. She was always running out of power. She had started to save for the Fuel Efficiency Manager or FEM as everyone called it. With a FEM everything is managed by a single computer. FEM would turn off lights in rooms without occupants, and turn them on when someone walked in. FEM would adjust the power use based on your budget, so if you couldn’t afford to heat the whole house you let FEM know what rooms would get heat and for how long. FEM was also supposed to help with everything that required power, like her hair dryer. Older equipment did not work well with FEM since it typically drew too much fuel. Fuel was such an old term, like gasoline or electricity, but it was invented when those fuels were the only fuels used. Of course in her old apartment those fuels were used until the building owner retrofitted them with the new fuel source Kinetic Energy Manager KEM. KEM was plugged into a grid on the flooring to capture every movement into an energy reserve. KEM was also plugged into the walls, doors, and in theory the air. Some brainiac discovered that each unit of energy a person generated could be retained for at least an hour for output. So between FEM and KEM a person could save money and possibly eat. Until they were both installed though, she had to pre-pay for power to feed KEM since she was never home long enough to get hot water, the stove working or her hair dry. Once, she tried to just get her hair dry by workingout first, only by the time she showered the KEM output was nearly depleted and the hair dryer would not create enough KEMs to finish the job. Some brainiac’s idea that women’s hair care was not important.

After an hour she was next to buy power. She approached the wall, input her KEM card, placed her palm on the wall and watched as the wall created a green line that moved down her palm and numbers scrolled across the surface. She watched as her name, address, place of employment, bank account balance, food score, and a list of what she was eligible and not eligible for, including HFF. Maggie swore the weight machines were rigged so you never passed the BMI test. Even her doctor said she was a normal healthy woman, but according to the permit stations she was a BMI 27. She did her own calculations and came up with a BMI of 24. No margin of error for the tax maniacs. She also figured that the scan of her bank account made the permit impossible anyway, she could never afford the tax on a HFF anyway, what was it lately 30%? That was probably it, more than a BMI score. KEMs were pricey too and she was struggling to save for the FEM which regulated the KEM and created a better method of power management. Her apartment was rigged for a FEM that tapped into the solar panels on the roof and building sides and captured stair energy as well, so she would benefit from everyone running about. She wondered if she should babysit for some extra KEM energy until the FEM was a reality.

The wall beeped three times with a pleasant note and she knew she was all set. She turned and walked past the long line. She was not alone in struggling to find consistent power on a budget. As she walked back to her apartment she thought about dinner at Jerry’s. He was a great cook, well he could be since he had a FEM so when he cooked his oven stayed heated long enough! She and Jerry had been an item for more than a month now and she was beginning to wonder if the relationship was going anywhere. She kept avoiding getting closer to him because she wants to make it on her own. Though lately she was feeling like that’s just not possible and either she moves in with Jerry, finds a roommate, or she settles for less. Jerry was the better of her choices. Her thoughts wondered to how she would approach him on a merger. She began to smile. Tonight was going to be productive!

Chapter 3

Rodolfo sat looking out the window. It was a cold, blustering day and the clouds were doomed to pour out rain at any moment. He seemed transfixed on the scene out the window. A teenage boy on a bike was pulling wagon tied to the seat. The wagon was piled high with used power packs. The teenager was stopping at each house on the street and digging through the garbage looking for used power packs. Rodolfo was