The Ghost of NFC Future (2012)
The Ghost of NFC Future - gueldner - Medium
Within minutes of sitting down at the counter of the Butterbell Grill, Colin noticed something strange about the family seated in the far booth by the bathroom.Colin liked the Butterbell. It was his favorite lunch spot near the river. He was there with his co-worker Kenny, on their lunch break from working a Saturday remodel of an office around the corner. He liked the Butterbell because it was the perfect neighborhood mix: older couples, young families, teenagers, and working guys like him. Lots of opportunity for good people watching.Right now he was watching the two parents with their teenage son in the booth across the dining room. There was definitely something going on there. It wasn’t just that they were stewing in deliberate silence, or that the father was staring daggers at the son. It was the way that everyone else in the restaurant was reacting to them.He saw a 60-something woman walk past the booth, then quickly stop, distracted by the sudden vibration of the phone in her hand. Reflexively, she looked down at the screen, read it for a second, then looked over at the teenage boy in the booth. She wagged her finger and shook her head, hissing out a clearly audible “Tsk Tsk!”Bingo. Now Colin could practically see the NFC storm cloud hanging over this kid’s head. He reached up and touched the button on his earpiece.“Ray!” he whispered loudly. “Ray, you hear me? You working today? Okay, where are you right now? Kenny and I are wiring that office by the river, and we’re having lunch at the Butterbell. Are you close by? Good, you gotta come down, we got a Shamer here. Okay, hurry!” Colin tapped his ear again.“What’s up with Ray?” asked Colin’s partner Kenny, from the next stool over.“He’s on a job uptown. But he’s coming over here right now. He loves to mess with Shamers.”Taking a bite of his BLT, Kenny cocked his head at Colin. “With the whats?”“Shamers. You don’t know Shamers? Oh man, you’ve gotta get into it,” said Colin. He turned his attention back across the restaurant. In an adjacent booth, a man in a polo shirt looked down at the phone in his lap, whispered to the girl next to him, and then they both snuck a peek at the teenage boy behind them.“They call them ‘Shamers,’ after ‘iShame.’ Well, technically, it’s called ‘Court Appointed Location and Identification of Offenders,’ the CALIO program. Part of The Mandatory Near Field Protection Act of 2014. I read a big series of tweets about it last month. But no one ever calls it CALIO. Everyone calls it iShame.”“What is it?” asked Kenny.Colin continued. “Remember a few years back, when they used to make kids stand in the street, holding those big signs telling everyone how they were caught selling weed in front of 7-11, or breaking into cars?”“Yeah. Like that drywaller’s nephew.”“Well, they took that shit digital. Stroll on over to the bathroom.”Colin watched Kenny get up and walk across the restaurant. Just as he was passing the family, he stopped and pulled his vibrating phone out of the front of his coveralls. He stared at it for a second, looked over at the teenager, and started laughing._________________________“Can we please go. Please?”“No,” answered the boy’s mother, stabbing her fork at the salad. “It’s Saturday afternoon, and we are going to start having our Saturday lunches again. After the month that we’ve had, and what I’ve put up with, I think I deserve a nice lunch.”“This is horrible,” grumbled the teenager, as he wrapped his napkin around his phone, then bundled it in his sweatshirt and sat on it. Anything to try to muffle the signal. “Everyone is looking.”The father spoke for the first time since they were seated. “That’s the god damned point!” he hissed. “They’re looking at the dumbass, and as an added bonus, they get to see the dumbass who raised the dumbass.”The father turned his attention to the the beer bottle he was spinning in his hands. “I mean, what kind of idiot breaks into his own high school? And waves at the camera while he’s doing it? But congratulations, you were the front page of DronePix two days straight. You’re famous! Do you have any idea how much a reputation restore and name scrub is going to cost me?”“It was such NOT a big deal. And it wasn't even my idea, plus we gave all the stuff back. I can’t go to school on Monday,” whined the boy. “It’s going to be a nightmare. Can I just leave my phone at home?”The Dad spit out a “Ha!”“Of course you can’t,” said the mom. “They’ll know if the phone is sitting there for too long. They’ll see if your offender tag doesn’t bump anyone else’s phone. And that’ll be a violation. Don’t leave it in your locker either.”“Well, can you just keep it in your purse? When you go buy groceries and stuff?”The dad looked straight at the boy. “Do you honestly think that the court tracker is going to believe that a 15 year-old boy spent 7 straight hours with his mother? On a school day, running errands and getting his hair done? You don’t think they’ll see that both your GPS’s are in perfect sync? No way pal, a single violation turns one month into three. You should have thought of all this before. You are going to live with this, and you are going to learn from it. Now let’s go, we’re done here.”“I have to go the bathroom,” growled the boy.“Fine. Meet us at the car.”_________________________The dad and mom stood up and walked out the double doors just as the burly, flanneled contractor Ray walked in.“Bathroom,” pointed Colin. “Coming out.”Ray took a seat face out at the counter next to his co-workers, and waited for the boy to walk by. Despite his intimidating presence, Ray was a genuine sweetheart. He also had a deep nostalgia for “back in the day,” and felt it was his obligation, as an older and somewhat wiser male, to keep the younger men in line, just like in high school. On a job site, on a baseball diamond, or at the camp, he never missed the opportunity to teach a dumb kid a goodhearted, but humiliating lesson. He relished his duty as everyone’s big brother.When the teenage boy was almost to the door, Ray felt the anticipated vibration in his pocket. He pulled out his phone, and looked into the lit-up glass.“Well, what do you know,” he drawled. The boy stopped just shy of the door, but didn't turn his head. He could see his parents, way down the street.Ray’s lock screen was filled with a bright red alert. It popped up automatically; there were no settings for it. There was no turning it on, and no turning it off. The top banner read “LAWBREAKER.” Underneath was the boy’s mug shot.“Looks like we got ourselves a bad boy here. Hello, ‘Jeremy.’ Let’s see…” Ray flicked his thumb and scrolled down the page.“It says here you had the bright idea to break into your school last month. Tagged a smart board, huh? That’s great. You know, I install those. 5 grand a pop, my taxpayer money. Oh, and you boosted a few tablets. 3 of them, for you and your jerk-off buddies? Didn't think they could track those, Einstein? So at about 300 a piece…I figure you owe the school around 6K. Without labor.”The waitress behind the counter looked up from her order pad and snickered.After 9 seconds, the alert disappeared from the screen. The ACLU had got it down from the original 10. Ray slipped his phone back into his pocket, folded his arms, and stared at the side of the boy’s head. “So Jeremy, do you happen to have that six thousand dollars on you, the money you took from all these hard working people here in this restaurant, so I can give it back to your school?”“No.” The boy had turned pale.Ray uncrossed his arms, put his hands on his knees, and leaned forward, casting a shadow over the teenager.“You know what’s great about today’s age, Jeremy? This glorious future? Before, when I passed you on the street, I would have thought you were just another goof in a stupid sideways baseball cap. But now, thanks to this little guy,” Ray patted the outline of his phone in his pocket. “We all know everything, just walking by each other. Now I know who you really are, and I know what you’re up to. And I don’t like it, and I don’t think I like you. You’re the kind of person that’s keeping us from living in a nice place.”The boy was staring at the ground. He felt the entire restaurant staring at his quivering lip.“I’m sorry,” he whispered.“Speak up?”“I’m sorry.”“You should be. The next guy might not be as nice as me. Now get out of here. Your parents are waiting for you.”As the boy rushed out of the restaurant, everyone's screens went back to normal.Walking towards his parents, phones buzzing as he walked down the sidewalk, the boy wondered how he was going to get through his immediate future.