The Future: Beach City - Amanda Beguerie (red queen free ebook TXT) 📗

The Future: Beach City

By Amanda Beguerie

 According to a very reliable source, (in my case, my e-bot) about 1,000 years ago, in 2020 A.D., the government decided to convert all roads and sides of roads in the entire world to “beachwalks” (A beachwalk is like a sidewalk, but with sand and waves instead of cement).  All the sandhouses in my province were along beachwalks, and we had to move from sandhouse to empty lot, each month, because every 32 days, a representative from each province would come and bang on your walls, and your house would fall down. (It would prevent the sandhouse from crumpling on people before they moved out.) This would create an empty lot for new people to my province, Beach City, so they could build a sandhouse out of the sand ruins left by the rep. All our stuff had to be out of our sandhouses when he came. We would find a new lot to build a sandhouse on. Since we have had to move over 150 times, it only takes us about 1 hour to build our house. My brother and I are up to that task each time. I am 13 years old, and my brother is 16. My parents work 80 hours a week, so my brother Michael and I have to split our working hours. I started working when I was 12 for the daycare company in Beach City. Michael worked for a sandhouse blueprint company so people new to Beach City would know how to build their own sandhouse.

            One day, as I was talking to my e-bot, I asked it a question. It froze up and said, “Let me calculate…let me calculate… let me calculate…” Hmmm. This had never happened before. The whole point of an e-bot was to tell me answers to questions that I asked. And this question, what my parents’ jobs were, was top-secret information. I thought I could get away with asking my e-bot. After all, it wasn’t really a human. What would be wrong with asking it?

            Little did I know, my parents held control over it. Every question I asked, my parents would electronically answer. That was their job, and I had no idea. That was why they worked so much. That was why they walked past the town each day to get to work. (It was top-secret, and only their colleagues new what they did.) That was why I barely ever saw them. That explained it all. If only I had known this 4 years before. That would have straightened out all my confusion.

            One day, as I had just turned 16 and Michael was 19, he told me he was going out to work. I acknowledged him, and then went back to my clothes-washing duties. I tried to appear busy, so he wouldn’t lecture me about how important it is to stay busy at all times. (Oh, MY WORD Michael!) I smiled (more like smirked) at him as he walked out the door, and then ran to get my rubber anti-sand absorbent clogs from my bed chest. Mom and dad had just left right before Michael did, and so I planned to follow them. I had always wanted to see where they went, but my brother had always been there when they left. I ran to see where they were going, and I wasn’t afraid that Michael would see me because he was headed in the other direction. I saw my parents in the distance; apparently, they were very fast, because they were already about ¾ of a mile ahead of me. I decided to keep a long distance away (about ¼ of a mile away) so they wouldn’t see me. Since the sun was behind me, if they looked behind them, all they would see was the glory of the sun. It had just risen, and the rain had cleared up from yesterday’s monthly rain. (That was another reason we moved every month. The rain would ruin our sandhouses.) I saw them go into a giant building in the shape of a diamond.

I ran up to the building, and saw that the building was locked. I knocked on the door as hard as I could, and the door swung open. “Apparently,” I joked to myself, “this door has no hinges”.

            I saw an elderly woman (she looked to be about 75.9 years old) sitting in a chair behind a desk at the front entrance. She appeared to be the secretary. She had an uncomfortable presence about her, and reminded me of someone. I put that thought at the back of my mind, and let her speak. “Who are you here for?” she asked sternly. “Deanna and Matthew Smithonson” I replied. Those were my parents’ names. “They sent for me” I lied. “I don’t know them very well, and they told me to ask you for a tour”. Evidently, she seemed to believe my story, and even though I felt a twinge of guilt, I was so curious that I didn’t care. I followed her joyfully as she showed me around. The first place she showed me was all around her office. Then I followed her down a long corridor and she showed me a prison cell. She pushed me into it and locked the door. She turned around to face me and took off her mask. It was my own mother. I shook the bars and screamed as loud as I could. The last thing she said as she was walking away was, “That’s what you get for lying. Farewell, my guilty child.” I realized how wrong I was and cried for hours.

 I saw a figure moving toward me. It was Michael. “What are you doing here, you Goosebump?” I tearfully explained to him and he completely understood. “I did that when I was your age,” he told me, “and now I have worked here ever since. You are the only one that didn’t know until now. But now you can never go back. So let’s help you get out of here so you can get to work. But first you need to apologize to Mom. She tried to protect you from the world.” Michael led me down a long hall to the heart of the factory where there were giant touch-screen computers on the floor, walls, ceiling, and in every corner of the room. There were questions coming in like crazy. I walked to a screen and was about to touch it when I felt a tug on my tee-shirt. It was Mom. “Is there something you need to tell me?” she asked with crossed arms. “Um…I…um…sorry for disobeying you when you tried to protect me.” I said. She nodded and forgave me. She led me into one of the corners of the room with two touch-screens next to each other. They were next to Michael’s screens. “Your brother will teach you how to do the job right. I’ll see you later,” She told me. “I guess we should get started, Goosebump,” he said with a grin. I was about to call him a crabcake, but then I stopped. If I wanted to win his favor and trust, I had to obey. And in my heart, I knew it was the right thing to do.

This job was answering questions that kids asked their e-bots. Using a touch-screen. Nice job, huh. And that was it. So for sixteen hours straight, we had to type. And research. And type and research some more. In the beginning, I thought the job was cool because of the technology. But now I wanted to be a farmer. No cell phones, no touch-screens. No typing. No technology whatsoever. But then I remembered what my mom told me when I was younger; “be satisfied with what you have,” and then, maybe, just maybe, I was.

THE END

Publication Date: 06-24-2013

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