The year is 2064. England is booming. Scores of people are arriving from all over the world to buy fancy goods, eat fabulous cuisine and enjoy the best in theatre, music and art. It is the only place in the world where you can arrive in luxury, check out the new retail city you recently bought shares in, buy the latest fashions and jet back home the same day.
Many choose to stay for a while in 5, 6 and 7-star hotel complexes and soak up the international culture available amongst the urban sprawl just a 5-minute limo drive from the nearest airport. While they're here, they can pick up art or sportscars and have them shipped home for when they return. The very wealthy invest in property, too. There may not be as much property available as there was in the early part of the century, but the quality and potential return is simply outstanding.
The healthcare here is also world-beating. Built on the foundations of a world-renowned health service, the best surgeons and consultants now operate in gleaming towers that are more like hotels than hospitals. Patients visit from overseas for surgery and get a facelift or tummy-tuck while they're under anaesthetic.
England in the 2060s is the place everyone in the world wants to be wealthy enough to visit.
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In large cities and motorway junction retail towns, shiftworkers change over for the third time that day. It's like the changing of the guards: solemn; perpetual. Those who have another short shift the next day gather in food courts. They can exchange their workers' credits for coffee or something to eat from Starbucks, McDonalds, Subway, Dunkin' Donuts or Taco Bell. Later, they disperse into unknown spaces; possibly unused back offices or the basement vaults where generators and air conditioning systems are housed - basically anywhere security won't move them on. They only re-emerge for food or coffee before it's time for their next shift. Those who do not have a shift the next day have set off on their journey home, exchanging credits for a bus ticket. The cost of gas-powered transport has risen again, so credits don't go as far and some shiftworkers have taken to walking the last few miles of their journey. The exercise should be good for them but pollution takes its toll on their health.
In recent months drilling has been halted at another fracking site following more surface disturbance and damage to the site structure. Though tax revenue is at an all-time low (after decades of tax reductions and breaks for private sector corporations and the poorest workers), all over England, taxpayers' money is funding the repairs to tremor-damaged foreign-owned bore sites, and for the channelling of water from higher ground to replace contaminated supplies.
The living arrangements of some shiftworkers - possibly as many as 50% - is unknown. Many people have reported co-workers living in the large closed-off spaces underneath road junctions that were once retail developments, warehouses and offices. 'Home' for those who do have a registered address is often just a room in a private tenement in 'ranges' up to 50 miles away from work. Some of these ranges have old schools nearby, kept open by charities since the end of the state system. Shiftworkers who have any credits left at the end of the month pay to keep them open, so it's more like very cheap private education. Food banks, 1 credit stores ('Everything 1WCR!'), bookmakers, pawnbrokers, launderettes and coffee and takeaway food chains occupy the ground floors of the tenement buildings by the bus stops. They all accept workers' credits. Some pawnbrokers keep cash and a little is always in circulation amongst the shiftworkers: credits run out, particularly when they need medication.
Most ranges have a health centre where basic treatments are available in exchange for credits. There are some care centres run by charities for anyone whose credits don't stretch as far as the operation they need but the waiting lists are long and the quality of the treatment varies greatly. Some charity care centres are in old state hospitals which are in desperate need of repair.
England in the 2060s is the place everyone in the world wants to be wealthy enough to visit.
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