UV

It was a sweltering summer’s evening and the streets of the Capital were almost deserted.  Some of the city’s younger citizens were taking respite from the heat in the cool subterranean network of tunnels, hanging out on the air-conditioned trains, but Trey easily found a seat on the Metro.  All around him glowing digital information screens indicated that exterior UV levels were high.  Trey had ignored the warning text alerts and left his head uncovered, though he had slipped into a stylish white UV Suit; his hi-pigment skin was less vulnerable to burning, he reasoned, plus he’d recently styled his hair.  He’d decided to risk just a slick of neon sun block for this special occasion.

Stations passed in a blur of brushed steel and concrete; animated billboards advertising the latest virtual reality musicals or announcing Ministry safety warnings; passengers boarding and alighting.  Trey rarely looked up from the bulletins he was reading on his i-Life phone’s screen to observe the people around him, but when he did so, he saw a couple opposite sharing music, their heads close together and lips moving in unison, miming the songs’ lyrics in a silent karaoke.  Further along the carriage, a group of teenagers shared snacks, pausing from texting to pass the bag of spicy soy chips between them.  One shoveled handfuls into his mouth open-palmed, as he continued to thumb the keypad with his other hand, his eyes glazed, mouth working in lazy circles.

Trey had chosen a restaurant in Zone 2 for his date with Suzan, as he didn’t want to pay extra for a centre permit.  The Capital’s central district was enclosed in a protective glass biodome, which blocked out the sun’s harmful rays, but this meant that everything there was at a premium.  It would only be a journey of two zones from the apartment where he lived with his parents.  Suzan lived in Zone 4 too, in a flat share north of the river.  He would sometimes tease her about being a “northerner” when they interacted at work; which he thought had a nostalgic ring to it and made him sound more interesting.

In the days building up to asking Suzan out, Trey had studied maps of the transport system, trying to choose a location equidistant between their homes.  He had considered somewhere close to their office, but Suzan was always complaining about her commute; having to change trains and travelling part of the way on a line without Life-i.  The schematic map looked like an onion sliced in cross-section, Trey thought, which made it difficult to estimate how far away Suzan lived from their office.  So he selected a line that he knew was fully modernised and mentally intersected it at the halfway point – Stepney Green.

Trey was grateful that his parents could afford to live inside the Red Ring, which would be like the skin of the onion, if you were to take the analogy further.  He tried to remember what lay beyond this outer cordon, but his parents said it was best not to talk about it – what was gone, was gone. Though he sometimes had a vision of an expanse of green and neat fields spreading out to the horizon, hemmed in by a biodiversity of trees he didn’t recognise, which he supposed must be a childhood memory or perhaps something he’d seen in a movie.  In any case, such fields were unnecessary now, as all their nutri-needs were provided by the city’s LabFarms, like Vitro-Meat™, the corporation which employed Trey and Suzan in their marketing division.

Trey felt a little nervous as he stepped onto the gleaming metallic platform at Stepney Green.   He’d never been here before, but the words put him in mind of his waking dream of fields and trees, which he took as a good omen.  They had arranged to meet outside the V-EAT, which, according to its website, was a fully modernised noodle bar serving Asian Vitro-Meat™ cuisine.  They were both experts with chopsticks, so there would be no awkwardness.   Vitro-Meat™ was owned by a Chinese corporation, which only served noodles in their staff canteens.  The company had calculated that they were quicker to eat than sandwiches, if you adopted the correct technique – slurped up from a bowl held just below the chin – and so all new employees were trained in this time saving method.

As Trey strolled along White Horse Way, he observed restaurant diners behind the smoked plate glass windows lining the pavement, their mouths opening automatically as they absent-mindedly inserted food from forks or chopsticks.  He passed a burger bar, which advertised their Vitro-Meat™ steaks with a slogan he had created: “Vitro-Steak - the beefy slab that’s grown in a lab” and felt a glow of pride.  Inside, the clientele chomped on the cultured meat burgers and chargrilled Vitro-Steak™ sandwiches with obvious relish, mouths gaping wide and jaws gyrating, as they dabbed at greasy lips with paper napkins.  He made a mental note to consider this place for a second date with Suzan; it was fully modernised, with docking stations, so that they could watch a movie together while they were eating.  Most of the diners had i-Life screens in front of them, sitting side-by-side, their faces illuminated electric blue within the darkened interior.

Suzan was early, he noted happily; that must mean that she was keen.  She was standing outside the restaurant dressed in a silver UV-Suit, engrossed in her i-Life screen; thumbs working quickly on the keypad, head bent forward at the neck, so that her body formed a question mark.  Was she texting or gaming, he wondered, but then felt a familiar vibration in his trouser pocket.  A message from Suzan:

“IHWAU?  Question-face emoji.”

He texted back a “look up” symbol, timed to arrive just as he did.  She smiled and lifted her visor for him to kiss her cheek and her i-Life phone vibrated again.  Trey’s puckered lips met Susan’s soft, oily, neon skin, and at the exact same moment, the screen in her hand glowed with a heart-eyed kiss-face emoji.

(This is another product of the writing course and I had to include certain elements, such as eating and a kiss).