The Donut Detectives (5 minute read)

Reginald watched the ants scurry up and down the line of seedlings, tending the little plants with their appendages. Every so often, one would pause and shake its little blocky head, looking this way and that, waggling its antenna as it received an update or new instructions.

“I don’t know about you Reg, but I think I’m going to call it a day.”

Suzy peered over her gogz at Reg, obviously waiting for a reply.

Reg kept watching until one of the ants stopped for a longer period. He walked over to the bot and flicked open its access cover. Just as he suspected, it was shutting down for its evening update cycle. Reg waved his hands about, throwing shapes for the gogz to interpret as data. He signed off with a flurry of fingers and turned to Suzy.

She had already headed for the locker room.

They met again outside the farm cube near the lifts. Both of them were fresh from the shower and ready for an evening of relaxation or excitement or whatever was on offer that night in the Shard.

Reg looked up and down the atrium, from the shadowed floor many levels below, to the still bright top many hundreds of meters above. The walls were ringed with mezzanines like the one they were on. Farm cubes, or autofacs or medi-cubes or rec-floors. Every one of them was warm and inviting, created with flowing golden lines and covered liberally with vibrant foliage.

As the sun went down, the lower areas were lighting up. Millions of twinkling stars pricking the growing gloom as it reached higher and higher up the Shard.

“What’s up Suz? Are you going dancing, or dinner first?”

Suzy pushed her gogz up on to her hair and rubbed her eyes.

“Sorry Reg, you guys are going to have to party without me tonight. I haven’t got the donut for it.”

He wasn’t that surprised, Suzy had been avoiding the farm a lot recently. You couldn’t grow your donut if you didn’t put in any hours. And she liked to burn the ‘nut more than anyone he knew.

“Maybe I could lend you some? Just for tonight.”

“That’s sweet Reg, but I know you’re saving for a gondola ride up north. I couldn’t accept...”

She left it hanging, looking at him in that way she always did. He knew that if he pushed her, she would accept.

But actually, he suddenly didn’t feel like partying.

He felt a little queasy.

Because he had done something he never did.

He had looked at Suzy’s donut.

And it was dark.

Reg decided not to take the lift home. It was only a couple of levels up to the hab-cube he shared with his mum, and the walk would do him good. It would also add some blue to his donut.

As he walked up the spiral stair case he looked down at his ‘nut where he wore it on his wrist. Without the gogz it would just be an old fashioned watch with a black dial. Around the outside was a ring of colored LEDS. It was still showing the blue segments from his 4 hour shift at the farm. Every step on the stairs pulsed the current LED blue then black then blue then black.

When it hit a thousand or so, it would stay blue and the next segment would become active.

If he took the lift, or bought a beer, or some lux-goods from a store, the red segments on the other side of the circle would do likewise.

Before he got home he stopped off at a food dispensary and ordered a meal. As he sat and ate the food, he watched the green lights blinking. Counter to the red lights, they showed when he met his basic needs.

It looked like everything was working fine. No problem with the donut, and no problem with the gogz.

So why had Suzy’s ‘nut been dark?

“Mum, I’m home.”

He swiped open the door to their hab with his ‘nut and walked in. His mother came out of a back room drying her hair with a towel. She dropped the towel in the ‘cyc unit and stopped in front of the hab’s main screen to do her makeup. The screen switched to mirror mode at her command and she finally noticed Reg.

“Oh, hi baby, how was work?”

“No problem Mum. The new ants are even better than the old design. I hardly need to do anything at all, just keep an eye on them and try not to get too bored.”

His mother tilted her head and looked at him in the mirror reflection of the screen. She smiled.

“That’s nice, baby.”

He wondered if she had heard what he’d said. The latest youth treatments kept her looking like a 35 year old, but there was still nothing they could do about the hearing loss for some reason. The little hairs in the inner ear just wouldn’t regenerate.

Reg looked at her donut. He could see the red, green and blue lights from across the room. More red than green, but plenty of blue. She worked hard and enjoyed the youth treatments, but she didn’t take care of herself.

Reg set the extra food he had brought on the table and dug out some utensils.

“Here you go mum. I brought some food back from the dispensary.”

“OH, you’re a honey, honey.“

She laughed at her own joke and sat at the table.

“Mum... you work on the donut council right? Have you ever seen a dark donunt?”

“No dear, have you? That would be quite serious. They were developed to help us balance our needs and our consumption. If someone was messing with the system, things could get out of whack.”

“Ummm... let’s just pretend that my friend knows someone, who-“

“Reg dear, don’t worry! You can check out anyone’s donut score on the gogz. It’s all public info. That’s part of how it works. We can all see who is working hard, and who isn’t. We can keep an eye on those who are letting their health suffer and stop people from working themselves to death.”

Reg tugged at his collar, uncomfortable at the idea of spying on Suzy.

“That’s just for Sysad though right? They have to know what’s going on, to keep everything balanced.”

His mother pointed her fork at him and talked around a mouthful of currywurst.

“Don’t be naïve, baby. The donut is a tool, and Sysad is just the boys and girls who look after the guts of it. It’s always up to everyone to keep society running. You can’t abdicate responsibility to someone else for something so important.”

Reg sighed and tapped his gogz down over his eyes.

“Well. That's what you've always told me, but I just feel strange keeping tabs on other people. Let’s just have a look and see what’s what.”

They sat at the table with their gogz on, scrolling through public data.

“Who are we looking for? Rick from your college course? I knew he was a bad apple.”

“No mum. Not Rick. Anyway, he finished college the same time I did, 10 years ago. I haven’t seen him in ages”

She smiled and rested her hands on her chin.

“Oh my little boy! You’ve grown up so fast.”

“It’s Suzy from the farm.”

“What!?”

She jerked upright and nearly knocked her gogz off her face.

“The girl you brought over for dinner that time? I liked her! I don’t think she could be up to anything naughty.”

Reg remembered how Suz and his mother had gotten on like a house on fire. Unlike Reg, they were both rebellious souls. Come to think of it, his own mother had probably had more than her fair share of trouble over the years. No wonder the two women had clicked.

“Well, here it is. Looks fine to me.”

Reg flashed up the record. There was Suzy’s life for all to see. A little ring of green, red and blue.

But there was more green and blue than he expected. And none of the segments were flashing.

“Do you think she’s asleep?”

Reg wanted to believe it, but it seemed unlikely. Even if she went straight home, she’d be doing something. The slow blue pulse of studying. The red ticking of a beer or de-lux-meal. The soft glowing rhythm of relaxing after work.

Something wasn’t right.

His mother waved her hands in circles, conjuring up data from the nether regions of Sysad. She was a systems administrator herself at one point, or knew someone who was, and it seemed she still had some access.

Reg watched her dip down in to the deeper layers of donut data. How the red was made up of different threads of excess, resources consumed, energy used and so on. The green was made up of layers of health and psych data. Everything that made up a good foundation for life.

It all looked kosher.

“Let’s run the clock back a bit.“

Nothing happened.

She brought up their own rings to compare.

There was the history of their afternoon written in rapidly flashing RGB.

But Suzy’s donut stayed the same. Not flashing, not changing at all.

“Hmm... mum, can you try going forward?”

Now the rings pulsed double and triple time as the data ran through the evening.

He saw his shift end. He saw the blue lights added on as he walked up the stairs.

He saw his green lights pulsing as he ate his meal. Then his mother’s did the same with a slight delay. Suddenly they reached the present moment and the pulse slowed to normal speed.

Suzy’s donut still looked the same.

Reg scratched his chin and thought.

“It’s still not definitive proof of misconduct though is it?”
“It looks very fishy though... could her ‘nut have dropped out of connection? There could be a transmission fault.”

Reg snapped his fingers, a thought suddenly occurring to him.

“Mum, can you jump forward 20 minutes?”

“What? Ah, I get you!”

The record flashed until it showed the current time plus 20 minutes.

Their own donuts were dark. No data existed.

Suzy’s still showed the same red, green and blue lights.

Frozen the same as they always would be.

A frown creased Reg’s brow. He squared his hands on the edge of the table.

“It’s a faked record isn’t it? If it’s not just a mistake or a technical glitch then we’ve just caught the Shard’s first criminal in a hundred years. A genuine donut thief!”

His mother sighed and took off her gogz.

“Such a shame. I liked that girl.”

Part Two >>>