The Ten Percent Thief

by Lavanya Lakshminarayan

Genres: Cyberpunk; Dystopian; Humorous sci-fi; Cultural Heritage; Sci-fi Anthologies & Collections; Authors of color

Synopsis

The paperback edition of the bold, bitingly satirical near-future 2023 mosaic novel.

Nothing has happened. Not yet, anyway. This is how all things begin.

Welcome to Apex City, formerly Bangalore, where everything is decided by the mathematically perfect Bell Curve.

With the right image, values and opinions, you can ascend to the glittering heights of the Twenty Percent – the Virtual elite – and have the world at your feet. Otherwise you risk falling to the precarious Ten Percent, and deportation to the ranks of the Analogs, with no access to electricity, running water or even humanity.

The system has no flaws. Until the elusive “Ten Percent Thief” steals a single jacaranda seed from the Virtual city and plants a revolution in the barren soil of the Analog world.

Previously published in South Asia only as Analog/Virtual, The Ten Percent Thief is a striking debut by a ferocious new talent.

Release date: March 28, 2024

Publisher: Solaris

Print pages: 384

Sample

Herein we outline the principles of a smart new world.

We seek to fulfil our human potential. We do not tolerate failure.

from the Preamble to the
Meritocratic Manifesto

THE TEN PERCENT THIEF

Nobody notices anything because nothing has happened. Not yet, anyway.

This is how all things begin.

The electric shield thrums ominously. It cuts Apex City in two, striking across the crater that was once Bangalore.

She lives on the wrong side of the Carnatic Meridian.

They call her Nāyaka, their Champion. They pledge allegiance to her.

They’re her people. The Analogs.

When Bell Corp ignored the cholera epidemic, she stole meditech from their laboratories. When Bell Corp stopped funding their water treatment, she began lifting holo-watches. She snatches hundreds each week. One solar-powered battery purifies a thousand bottles of water.

If raid-bots break into her pod-house, they’ll find the 140-square-foot space filled with paperbacks. Nothing of value, no link to her crimes.

She is discreet.

Dead drops. Paper money. Forty-one safe capsules buried underground.

I am invisible.

The Virtuals know her as the Ten Percent Thief. They have a price on her head.

I’m going to make sure I’m worth it.

She strolls towards the Meridian Gate.

Pod-houses form towering aisles; their circular windows are eye sockets in fibreglass skulls. On their eastern walls, a well-known artist directs a crowd of Analogs towards the completion of a mural. It reflects their past and celebrates their present.

Children scurry to the Institute—a cluster of pod-houses that lean in dangerously towards each other. It’s architecturally unsound, but the children don’t notice.

A small playground made of scrap metal and other Junkyard finds is laid out before it. Trash can lids form the seats of swings; a slide is cobbled together from scavenged planks of wood. A solitary child sits on a merry-go-round made from the ancient remains of a satellite dish.

Hawkers set up canvas tents along the path. They’re selling homemade sunscreen and scraps of illegally procured ClimaTech fabric.

A stab of guilt. She sourced that ClimaTech.

They’ll be arrested and sent to the vegetable farm.

She nearly intervenes.

They’ll be put down. Harvested.

She steels herself.

They’ve been instructed not to sell it this close to the Meridian. You can’t save everyone.

She chokes on a rolling cloud of dust and presses on.

She passes a structure resembling a giant tin shed. It’s made from the rusty shells of freight trains, painted in bright colours that will fade in the relentless sun. The salvaged doors of washing machines form its windows. Hundreds of Analogs line up before the entrance to the Museum of Analog History.

Nāyaka feels a twinge of pride—over seven hundred Analogs participated in its construction, and even more came forward to supply the artefacts that fill its cavernous halls.

At the edge of the Analog world, she places her palm over a holoscanner.

Her silicone gloves fit like second skin. Their tips bear a set of 3D-printed fingerprints. She’s about to impersonate an Analog gardener.

They volunteer. They trust me.

An armed patrol-drone scans her. The Carnatic Meridian sparks blue. A gap appears, electricity crackling on either side.

She passes through the Meridian Gate.

The light dims abruptly. A wave of coolth rushes over her.

The SunShield Umbrella orbits Apex City. It protects the Virtual side from ultraviolet radiation, providing climatic conditions optimised for human performance.

Her people are exposed to heat waves and dust storms.

Twenty-six towers form ranks into the heart of the city. Thousands of employees are ensconced in bio-mat and frosted-glass spirals, absorbed in HoloTech experiences. She spies a game of Hyper Reality golf—no doubt a sizeable business deal in progress.

A block of pod-houses shares a cellular phone.

The Arboretum curves on either side of her, all along the city’s borders. Thousands of trees flower in desolation.

Most Analogs have no

conception of a tree.

They rely on the memories of Virtuals who have been deported to their side of the city. They hang on to the descriptions of a handful of workers who make their way through the Meridian each day.

She makes for the teleportals. Virtuals edge away from her grubby, shabbily-dressed person.

I will not claim their holo-watches. I have a bigger prize in mind.

The port-bot’s cyber-arm vibrates in disgust when she produces paper money.

She steps into the carbon fibre capsule.

The Ten Percent Thief is molecularly reconstituted upon the estate of Sheila Prakash, a HoloTech mogul from the top one percent of society.

Don’t throw up.

The side effects of teleportation include nausea, but she’s also never seen so much open space before. A holo-sphere arcs over the property, projecting clear blue skies overhead and verdant meadows along the horizon. The illusion eliminates all trace of Apex City’s jagged skyline.

We can barely see the sky in the spaces between our pod-houses.

She’s scanned and approved by a patrol-droid. The entire transaction is witnessed by the tell-tale flash of light on a PanoptiCam lens.

Once she’s equipped with a jetpack, a sap-scanner, pruning shears and InstaBlossom compounds, her instructions are relayed.

Bring All Trees to Flower by 3.49 p.m.

Trim buds from each tree.

Analyse using sap-scanner.

Apply appropriate InstaBlossom compound.

Repeat.

She powers up her jetpack. It propels her into the canopy.

She rubs her hands over the bark, feeling ridges and knots through her gloves. She

presses leaves to her face, trailing sap and dew across her skin. She sniffs the buds that lie in her palm, prying into their scents and secrets.

Trees.

I’ve never touched one before.

They’re the exclusive right of the top one percent.

The Arboretum can only be accessed by the top twenty percent.

The seventy percent in the middle are allowed Hyper Reality gardens, the occasional houseplant.

I’m only given the right to breathe. And barely.

She is an exile, a former member of the bottom ten percent.

The threat of the vegetable farm creeps in my shadow.

Each year, more non-performers are deported across the Meridian. The ranks of the hopeless swell.

They don’t kill us; they watch us suffer.

It is immaterial that Bell Corp’s system of governance came as a welcome relief to the ruins of an erstwhile civilisation. It seemed optimal—even utopian—for a world divided along social and communal lines, faced with the threat of dwindling resources and hostile climate, to be redesigned.

Every system believes itself to be the perfect solution.

The PanoptiCam scans the grounds. She locates its blind spot—a thick ‘W’ formed by two intertwined trees.

She begins to whistle. She works her way to it, unhurriedly.

Her heart pounds an erratic rhythm.

The resistance needs a symbol. I will give them a dream.

Three buds fall into a tight space between her glove and her wrist.

An InstaBlossom sachet disappears under her wig.

She takes a deep breath.

It can’t be this easy.

She returns to the gaze of the PanoptiCam, unchanged. She finishes her assignment. Whistling.

Her palms stay damp until she’s back at the Meridian Gate.

The patrol-drone’s scanners

don’t detect the contraband on Nāyaka, covered in dirt as she is.

It is this easy.

She feigns listlessness as she enters the Analog city. She makes for a confluence of alleyways at its heart.

She tears off her gloves. Digs.

She drops a bud into the shallow pit.

She packs it with InstaBlossom, then sacrifices a bottle of water.

A sapling plunges through the earth.

Her breath catches.

It shoots upwards with a shriek, reaching for the sky.

Her eyes sting.

It bursts into flower, a whisper of jacaranda falling to the ground.

There’s a face at a grimy window. Gasps of wonder. Footsteps.

She melts into the shadows, invisible.

Tomorrow, there will be consequences.

Today, there is hope.

Bell Corp declares that civilisation is free from discrimination.

A universal system of Merit determines an individual’s worth to society.

We are a Meritocratic Technarchy.

We are the future of the human race.

from the Preamble to the

Bell Charter on Human Rights

 

MONSTERS UNDER THE BED

John has a monster. She lives under his bed. Her name is Op.He.Li.aA.

It is stencilled onto the side of her silicone and metal body. John has considered renaming her Kree, after the strangely mechanical whirring she emits each time she files down his opinions, like a dentist making repairs to his brain.

John supposes that the Opinion Homogenisation Limitation and Alignment Unit arrived in the mail; he has no other explanation for how she emerged from under his bed, that first night. It took him an entire week to understand what her purpose in his life was going to be.

She had no user manual. She seemed perfectly functional and completely sentient.

Op.He.Li.aA has worked on him with the utmost care and patience. She’s smoothed him over, teaching him the names of all the superheroes from the Vindicators franchise, educating him on the finer points of neo-Acousta, preparing him for tonight.

Tonight. Tonight is the big night.

John doesn’t know where it will end, but it all begins in the offices of the Bell Corporation.

*     *     *

Mr Morris, Vice President of Bell Corporation’s Investments Division, sits across the virtual table from John. Motivational quotes cycle across the wall behind him, holo-rayed from a device the size of a paperweight.

Productivity is Power. Passion is Priceless. Persona is Prime.

They’re at their routine monthly meeting, conducted via VirtuoPod.

John waits for Mr Morris to review his performance.

Mr Morris prompts John to discuss his views on culture.

John stutters through his opinions.

On sports. He doesn’t follow the League of Champions.

On movies. He watches documentaries about the Outsiders.

On music. He listens to anatronica.

‘John, I’m afraid we have a problem.’

‘I’m sorry, sir. I don’t understand.’

‘You make Bell Corp millions of BellCoin each month.’

‘I’m sorry, sir. I can do better. I’ve only been working twelve hours a day. I can put in fourteen hours a day, let’s say… three days a week?’

Mr Morris sighs.

‘All right, I can do fourteen

every day.’

‘John. John, John. Your Productivity isn’t an issue. I’ve looked through your reports. Your Productivity Points are through the roof.’

‘Oh.’

‘There’s no need to work longer hours.’

‘Oh. Good.’

‘However. Your opinions, John.’ Mr Morris looks at him gravely. ‘Your opinions just aren’t right.’

John frowns at this, confused.

‘They simply do not work, John. Listen to me.’ Mr Morris lowers his voice to a whisper. ‘There are rumours that you’re up for a promotion, John. A big one. One that will bump you up from the seventy percent to the twenty percent.’

John takes a deep breath. For several moments, he forgets to exhale. He cannot believe it. This is his life’s ambition.

‘You’re a strong contender to head Apex City’s Policy and Governance Division. You’re young, but your work ethic is precisely what we’re looking for. We believe that you’re the right man to get the job done.’

John fights the grin that’s threatening to replace his expression of studied blankness.

No doubt he has it made as a seventy percenter. He has the best technology he can afford, he’s been on a virtual vacation, and he’s successfully racked up enough Productivity Points to distance himself from his Analog beginnings.

With its dusty streets and pod-housing, its roadside stalls and paper-money transactions, its promiscuity in marriage, the Analog world is a lawless landscape to which he never wants to return.

And then there’s the vegetable farm…

As a twenty percenter, he’ll be so far up on the Bell Curve that he’ll be untouchable. He can forget the pains of the Analog world and never look back. He’ll possess exclusive HoloTech and Sentient Intelligence machines.

He’ll go on vacations. On-site vacations.

A real night in Premier City…

‘But.’ Mr Morris’s voice slices through his dreams like a laser sabre. ‘There is absolutely no way it can happen unless you repair your opinions. Do you understand?’

‘N-no. Not yet. I mean, how do I repair my individually formed views of the world?’

Mr Morris sighs, flicking his ruby cufflinks and fiddling with the sleeves on his silk-lined jacket.

‘I’ve made an appointment with Mrs Naidu.’

‘The counsellor?’

‘Yes, the company counsellor. Don’t worry, it’s off the record. I’m doing this as a favour. I believe in you, John.’

John exhales. He arranges his face to a mask of gratitude.

At least it’s off the record.

John is relieved that he invested in a holographic keyboard. His palms pool moisture where they meet the fabric of his trousers, blotting against the skin on his thighs.

He takes several deep breaths and surveys the counsellor’s office. He has a 360-degree view of it from within his VirtuoPod. The walls are painted white. The occasional happy kitten frolics within its mounted frame. Motivational quotes cycle across the walls to his left and right.

Persona is Prime. Conform, Don’t Question. Progress is Perfection.

He’s on edge. He wishes he’d attended this session via his unidirectional flat-screen monitor. Instead, a perfect cylinder of glass cocoons him in its curvature, the Bell Corp insignia discreetly etched onto its surface. It simulates his surroundings to a fault.

John’s invested in his set-up at home. He can transport himself to any Bell-approved location in the world and it will surround him, immersing him in high-fidelity reality.

He’s experienced sweeping Hyper Reality views from atop the Bell Towers in Crown City, its nano-fibre constructions reorienting themselves with clockwork precision. They crest and descend, swivelling to make

the most of their solar-harvesting capabilities, absorbing snatches of power from the sunlight that peeks through whips of rain lashing down from the sky.

He’s experienced a Hyper Real reconstruction of Apex City from decades ago, when it was still named Bangalore. The immensity of the azure sky left him speechless, arcing dome-like overhead and reflected in thousands of mirrored-glass buildings rising into the sky. When Bell Corp took over the city, they redesigned its architecture to eliminate all its heat islands. Now Bell Corp’s twenty-six towers mushroom over the streets, a bio-mat canopy that all but obscures the clouds. John will never forget his brief glimpse of the infinity that lies beyond the city’s skyscape.

If he makes it to the top twenty percent of society, he’ll gain admission to far more elaborate experiences; rumour has it that the apex of the Curve can access olfactory simulations.

Mrs Naidu clears her throat. John returns to the present.

She’s probably seated in a setup similar to his own.

She looks at him indifferently. ‘John Alvares, I want to get to know you.’

‘Okay.’ His throat is dry.

‘I’m going to project a series of images onto your screen. Name them.’

‘Okay.’ His throat seizes up. He isn’t expecting a test.

‘Ready?’

A sequence of cards appears on the screen. The first is open-faced and has a timer beneath it. He has ten seconds to guess who each figure on the cards is.

He stumbles through his guesses.

‘The Vindicators, that superhero group. Um. Barthöven, I dunno, all neo-Acousta composers look the same. Um, Steel Man. Er, wait, I know this one… I really do—no, let’s skip it. Um, Battle Arena champion who’s a famous VR fighter? I dunno, I really don’t follow the League of Champions. Star Masters, the sci-fi franchise, not sure what the bad guy’s name is. Ahh. Clash of Empires, the docudrama. I think this one is a start-up queen from the 2000s… the founder of FreshGoodz?

I give up.’

He falls quiet. He doesn’t recognise the next ten characters.

Mrs Naidu lets him fail. Repeatedly.

She could stop the sequence at any time, but she seems to revel in his inadequacy.

When the sequence runs out, she doesn’t say a word.

She types away soundlessly on her holographic keyboard.

‘Is that all?’ John breaks the silence.

Mrs Naidu looks up at him.

‘Hardly.’ She pauses. ‘Tell me, John, is there a specific reason you refuse to engage with the contemporary and the classical alike?’

‘What? No…’

‘Do you believe yourself superior to your peers? Or perhaps superior to the creators of all these cultural phenomena?’

‘No.’

‘Or maybe you think this makes you special? Your non-conformity?’

‘No, er,’ John stammers. ‘I mean, I guess I’m just not interested in this stuff. My interests are different.’

He cannot tell her the truth. This meeting might be off the record, but truth is more valuable than BellCoin, and his will be his undoing.

‘How did you come to possess this very specific disinterest?’ Mrs Naidu probes. ‘Is it because you have very specific interests?’

‘What? I like the things I’m into.’

‘The world around you doesn’t like the same things, so how did you come to be so special?’

‘I… I don’t know.’

‘Are you a rebel?’ she spits.

John flinches, and pushes his chair back. She is looming over him, a terrifying

presence, even though they’re only conversing through the technology of their VirtuoPods.

‘A closet punk? An Outsider activist? An Analog sympathist?’

‘What? No…’ John is horrified. Are therapists supposed to display such obvious biases?

‘What’s your position on Outsider immigration?’

‘I… er—’

‘What’s your opinion on the Analog world?’

The words scramble their way out of John, rushing out in a single breath as he rises to his defence.

‘It’s a terrible place. People don’t have access to technology. To portals. They have printed newspapers. They’re forced to talk to each other in person every single day, experience the weather without being able to control it… Many of them are used by the twenty percenters in their Pleasure Domes, and many of them are forced to serve us—the seventy percenters, ...