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  I fell in love with Africa during our week there. I enjoyed the excitement of wondering what we might see as we climbed into our electric jeeps before dawn; soft grey in the light of the Moon. All the animals and birds were busy in the cool of early dawn. I loved the booming ground hornbills, the skimmers flying along the surface of a slumbering lake with their fiery beaks catching the water. We watched a leopard cub, sleek in his spotted coat, prowling a waterhole while impala nonchalantly continued to drink. Then the great red orb of the sun would appear. As it transformed through yellow to searing white, every living creature retreated in search of cool and shade; we returned to our camp.

  The wardens taught us to track animals with the tiniest of clues as we went on a walking safari protected by their guns. They pointed out the strangely white droppings of hyenas that had been crunching animal bones.

  One night, we were driven silently through the bush with a lion pride stalking behind us, using our lights to confuse and dazzle their prey. I found it gruesome as we watched them attack and start to eat a waterbuck while its legs were still kicking; with its sharp horns rendered useless by the lion’s jaws crushing its windpipe, it slowly suffocated. After breakfast the next morning, I watched ugly marabou storks and blood-soaked vultures fighting over the scraps.

  I asked the wardens why there was an electric fence on the far bank of the Luangwa.

  “The other side of the fence is a Christian reserve. They live in a fertile land approximately the size of the UK.”

  I saw a man hoeing beyond the fence. I felt sorry for him as he was baking in the scorching midday sun. It made me grateful that we didn’t have to labour in the fields back home.

  All too soon, we were back in the sleeping pod of our hyperloop, speeding silently under Africa on our way home.

  -----

  Mum was best mates with my girlfriend’s mother, Dylis. They were going to Oxford for a gastronomic holiday; cultural stuff by day and eating gourmet food with fine wines in the evening. I couldn’t believe they would waste two whole holiday credits having a boring week like that! Anyway, the good news was Rhiannon, her boyfriend Glyn (the boy Mum had saved), Sian and I were going camping in the Brecon Beacons while they were away.

  I overheard Nana say to Grandad, “I bet they’re having sex already.”

  “I’m sure you’re right, but the girls can’t get pregnant and there aren’t any STDs any longer, so does it really matter? You’re probably just jealous, my love!”

  Of course, we were enjoying frequent sex and were madly in love.

  We were dropped by drone at the campsite just beneath the peak of Pen y Fan in the Brecon Beacons. Grandad wouldn’t call this camping as we were staying in insulated wooden pods with a triple-glazed panoramic window. We were grateful for the warmth as it was May and at this altitude, it was freezing at night. We woke to bright blue cloudless skies. We walked the famous horseshoe with crystal clear views of the mountains to the north. This trek exhausted Rhiannon and Sian, and they opted to sunbathe by the lake the following day.

  Glyn and I had become good friends. We’d both been through a lot recently. He’d developed PTSD after his near-death experience and had also been cured with Petratherapy. This helped us bond as we’d both lost friends while we were ill.

  We thought it would be fun to break into the Central Wales Wilderness Reserve, which began a few kilometres north of the Beacons. We’d often experienced the park on VR where we’d mingled with aurochs and mammoths grazing contentedly. We thought it would be exciting to experience this for real. We set off as the day warmed up and within a couple of hours we came up against a three-metre electric fence that marked the boundary of the park. We found a big oak that had branches extending over the fence. The first branch was too far up the sheer trunk to reach from the ground. I found a rock which we were able to roll into place. Glyn was frankly scrawny, which was useful in this instance. He stood on the rock and gave me a leg-up. I could then easily pull myself up onto the branch. I then leant down and grabbed his right wrist and hauled him up to join me. Feeling pleased with ourselves, we walked along a branch that overhung the fence until it started to bend. We then hung underneath it until we only had a short distance to fall. We landed safely and the branch sprung back out of reach.

  “That was pretty dumb, Ewan! I thought you were meant to have brains!”

  I did feel stupid, but fortunately I couldn’t hear any animals and hurriedly looked for a way back over the fence. We soon found another oak just inside the fence which fortunately had some dead side branches that started low enough for footholds in case we needed to get out in a hurry. We left a trail of sticks so we could find our way back. Underneath the oaks was a carpet of fading bluebells. There were loads of birds, red squirrels and an occasional deer that would cough in alarm and then disappear into the forest. We noticed that many trees had been felled while they were still young. A small pond with a mound of twigs in the middle gave us the answer to the lumberjack conundrum. After about an hour, I spotted some large hoof prints and guessed we were on the trail of a small family of auroch. Gradually, the dung pats grew warmer until they were positively steaming. We started to be careful about not treading on twigs, hoping to get as close to them as possible. We froze in awe as a terrifying bellow broke the silence. I felt a tingle of fear shoot down my spine. We weren’t to be deterred and a few minutes later we heard tails swishing and grass being ripped by rough tongues. Then six black heads with a pale patch between their horns turned to gaze at us. We watched in silence as a calf restarted suckling its mother. We became apprehensive when a massive bull emerged from the woods to check what his cows were watching. He stomped towards us, looking increasingly annoyed. We prepared to flee and then suddenly he turned his head to confront something he’d heard. At the base of a distant oak, we saw a grey wolf’s head. We guessed there might be more and fled!

  The bull must’ve kept the wolf pack pinned down as we’d almost reached our chosen oak when we heard them panting behind us. One final burst and I shoved Glyn up the tree and then climbed up myself, kicking and breaking off the dead branches as I went. Panting on the branch, we watched, fascinated by the snarling wolves, close enough to smell their stinking breath, thankful for the safety of the tree. They weren’t going away; and once we’d caught our breath, we walked along a thick branch that spanned the electric fence, planning to get down from the tree as we’d done on the way into the reserve. Glyn went first. Just as he set off, one of the wolves started howling. He turned to look, lost his footing and fell sideways, landing on his back three metres below. He screamed with pain. By the time I reached him, he looked very pale, lying absolutely still. I felt sick as I saw he’d landed with his back over a ridged rock. I jumped down and joined him.

  “Are you badly injured?”

  “I don’t think so, but my back hurts like hell.”

  “Any pain anywhere else?”

  “Nothing, I’m sure I’ll be fine. Give us a hand.”

  I grabbed his arms and pulled him into a sitting position.

  “Shit! I can’t feel my legs. I can see them but they feel like they belong to someone else.”

  “Can you move them?”

  He was obviously trying but to no avail.

  “Okay, let’s lie you back down. I’m going to press the emergency button on my X-talk.”

  “How can we help you? You seem to be on the edge of the National Park.”

  “Correct, my friend has fallen; I fear he’s badly damaged his back.”

  “Don’t move him; we’ll be with you in ten minutes.”

  Those minutes seemed to last forever. I felt sorry for Glyn and was concerned that I’d damaged him when I’d tried to help him up. I also feared that we would be in trouble for breaking into the park. The wolves continued to prowl just the other side of the fence. What a bloody disaster; how I wished we’d stayed with the girls!


  The paramedics were brilliant. Glyn was soon safely cocooned in a rigid back brace on his way to a specialist centre in London, where his mother would meet him. I collected the girls and confessed to Nana and Grandad what had happened. They decided to tell Mum, who returned in an absolute fury; whether because of our stupidity or because of messing up her special holiday I was never sure. I was marched off to the Mayor as Mum thought he should know before my misdeeds were common knowledge.

  “Well, Ewan, you seem to be making a habit of being brought before me. I’m pleased to hear from your mother that the Petratherapy has cured your anger. This incident is clearly unrelated. You knew that the Park was out of bounds, and sadly your friend has suffered for this. I know you’ve learnt your lesson, but poor Glyn’s mother must know that you’ve been punished for agreeing to this foolhardy enterprise. You’ll spend four hours a week for a year talking to the old people at the nursing home that overlooks Dale Harbour.”

  I wondered if he’d known that I had fond memories of that place. Certainly, I felt I should be punished, and this was really no great hardship, although it would mean four hours less with Sian. I was lucky compared to Glyn, who we now knew was paraplegic and was undergoing surgery to his back. (This apparently would involve nano-surgery and stem cell injections. They reckoned he would regain his sexual function within a few months, but he wouldn’t be able to control his feet for about two years.)

  Poor Rhiannon was heartbroken, and Grandad offered to travel with both of us to see Glyn in London. I’d been to the central part of London before when I’d come to watch an international hoverboard-polo match. During that visit, we’d stayed for a week looking at old tourist sites, art galleries and museums. The old roads and car parks had been ripped up and planted as green spaces with cycle and running tracks. There were the usual hyperloops and hoverways. In addition, new electric air-conditioned trains used the old underground network. Pavements had been replaced by covered travellators. London had become an amazing place to live.

  Some of the less pleasant areas were now being rebuilt, and I suspected that Grandad (who had been an architect) was secretly more interested in the new construction methods than coming with us to see Glyn.

  Twenty-five minutes on the hyperloop from Bridetown and we were in Hackney, being whisked along a travellator between beautiful parks and high-rise glass buildings. We left Rhiannon with Glyn and went to a nearby building site. Grandad told me how tall cranes were used for construction when he was working. As we spoke, a drone was delivering some glass walls that robots manoeuvred to the bottom of a new tower block. I looked up and already ten floors were suspended near the top of the building.

  “How do they do that?” I asked.

  “I’ve never seen it before, but I think the outer steel tubes are elevated by some sort of hydraulic mechanism. Each prefab floor is then shunted to the top of these tubes and held in place by steel girders until the whole building is complete. Each floor is then allowed to settle by gravity working against hydraulic valves which slowly lower it into place. It’s then bolted down by robots. I gather it takes forty-eight hours to build a twenty-storey tower.”

  We chose a restaurant that had a balcony overlooking a park with a lily pond. As we waited to be served, Grandad looked unusually serious and I wondered what was coming. “Ewan, have you thought about a career? You’re a clever guy; in the old days, you might have been a boffin inventor and made a fat killing.”

  “Grandad, there’s no point in even trying to invent anything these days. The Research Commissioners have direct access to Xanasa’s brain and are light years ahead of us mortals. I know you’d like me to be an architect, but I’m much more interested in animals. I’d really like to be a game warden in Africa. I fell in love with that place when Mum took me to the Luangwa Game Park.”

  “I knew you’d had a great holiday, but I didn’t know you wanted to work there.”

  “Would I be allowed to live there?”

  “I’m not sure, but I know that women are allowed to go to Africa if they want to give birth naturally, so it’s worth a try. I’ll ask the Mayor to look into it.”

  On returning to the hospital, we saw moisture in Glyn’s eyes and Rhiannon was crying openly as they parted. He was going to have to stay in that hospital for another month.

  We disembarked at Swindon as Grandad wanted to show us the Avebury standing stones. Soon after our drone took off from Swindon station, we saw a line of buildings and a railway that stretched past the horizon. Grandad reminisced, “This used to be a noisy motorway full of cars spewing toxic fumes. What you’re looking at are robotic factories for clothes, sports kit, droids, drones, house parts; and virtually everything you need is made down there. That railway takes those goods around the country.”

  -----

  Two years later, I was enjoying life at Carmarthen University. The city was much more exciting than living in the country. There were no children and few old people. The atmosphere became electric on Friday nights, when we were allowed a designer drug called rush. Everyone became very friendly and would dance the night away in a frenzy of noise and sexual adventure.

  I was studying zoology and tourism before transferring to Nairobi to learn more about African wildlife. Sian and I grew bored of each other’s company and we split up at the end of our first year. I wasn’t too bothered as all students were allocated a droid who did our cooking and house-keeping. These droids would double up as sex dolls if required.

  I’d become sceptical about society and suspected that we were all living under secret surveillance. I tried to discern whether any other students had similar suspicions. I couldn’t just ask my friends as I was sure my X-talk was listening to my conversations. Was I being paranoid? Gradually, I developed a gut feeling that two of my friends, Owen and Glenys, might share my disquiet. I discreetly passed them a message suggesting we all meet in my flat the coming Saturday. I’d created a box with sound insulation and three holes of ten cm diameter. I greeted them, “Hi, great you could make it. Have a drink! Party time!” I poured some drinks, manoeuvred them into my bedroom and indicated we should each insert our wrists with our ‘X-talks’ into the holes with one of them set to play music. I blocked the gaps around our wrists with spare shirts.

  “Sorry for all this rigmarole. We can talk freely now.”

  We spent the next half-hour voicing our concerns about how we thought we might be being monitored. None of us had any absolute evidence, but we’d all heard about students having dissident views and then disappearing for a couple of days. They would return as model citizens, refusing to talk about what had happened while they were away. We all knew about the cameras with listening devices in public places, but these ‘dissidents’ had never spoken about their views in public. I told them that I believed that the regime might be monitoring our X-talks, and hence I’d built my ‘music box’. We agreed to try to find more like-minded people and to meet from time to time.

  Our numbers slowly grew and I had to build more boxes to be safe from surveillance. We would often bring illegal alcohol to our group discussions. We met up at random times in different safe locations. We shared our annoyance with the rigid dictatorial nature of the Xantec regime, which stopped us drinking after two pints of beer. They only allowed us ‘rush’ one night of the week and kept us hungry, even though we knew they could grow far more food than we could possibly eat. Why couldn’t they let us make decisions for ourselves? We were all adults after all! Because they treated us like children, not allowing any violence or misbehaviour, life was frankly rather dull. We’d all read about the world wars and the cataclysmic events of 2060-2. They were all terrible in many ways, but the people involved had often forged strong bonds. Many great books, plays and films derived inspiration from brave people during these times. If we went back further in history, we read of people standing up against the cruelty of the slave trade. Even earlier, Owen Glyndwr was fig
hting the treacherous English. There was no obvious suffering or injustice in our society today that we could fight against. Was the only purpose of our existence to enjoy rush on a Friday night?

  We were annoyed that the Commissioners lived in fine style and never grew old like the rest of us. They’d clearly cracked senescence and were keeping this secret for themselves. We felt angry at our impotence and wanted a say in the running of our lives. Physical resistance was out of the question as we couldn’t overcome the sonic guns of their clones. We did want Xantec to appreciate how we felt. One of our group sprayed We want our views to be understood all over the main university building. He was arrested, and although he reappeared a few days later, he never came to our group again. The only way out of this tightly controlled society was to join a religious enclave. The problem was that none of us were religious and anyway couldn’t face the primitive living conditions of these enclaves which we had seen on holovision.

  The following year, Owen, one of the original three, was caught on CCTV smuggling a gallon of homemade cider in a large opaque water container on the hyperloop. He was brought before the Commissioner in his private rooms. He showed Owen video evidence of us all carrying similar containers converging on various campsites.

  “We know you are young and want to party, but if we allow people to flout the law, where will this lead? You must warn your friends, and these illegal parties must stop.”

  We met again at our favourite campsite set in the woods outside Carmarthen. Owen explained why he didn’t bring cider. He said, “I can’t stand this any longer. Some of you know that I have a sailing boat, and as the weather is set fair, I’m planning to cut off my X-talk and sail to Ibiza to join the humanist enclave there. Would any of you like to tag along?”