Unhelping Hand

Day after day, the students kept cleaning the streets alongside some janitors who were still working in that occupation. The units and groups changed weekly. Every time Reef was in a group without his friends - he didn’t say anything to anyone. Any time a friend was with him - they made sure to group up so he won’t stay alone.

His friends really care for him. They didn’t want to leave him alone as long as they have a say in it.

Year: 2300. Two months after the beginning of the school year. Reef is heading towards a cleaning spot after class. This week, none of his friends are in his unit, and therefore they cannot group up.

Reef arrives at the site.

Sophie: “Hey Reef! You’re Angelica’s friend right? Good morning. I’ll start by cleaning with you guys, and later on I’ll join up with the other groups. We do have some area to cover here so how about I go with Anna, then I’ll help Margie and as long as you’re good, I’ll try to go quickly to the others?”

Sophie tried to seem nice and show leadership as the weekly unit’s leader. Reef, however, is unimpressed already, as they are classmates and Sophie remembered him as Angelica’s friend. He tends to overthink even the smallest of things. He is of course very proud of being her friend, but they are sharing their main classroom with him and their leader didn’t bother much about remembering him, not to mention, he knows they study art with her and Angelica doesn't get along with the other illustration artists. Maybe some are okay, maybe some are worse than others. The leader, however, seems to get along with the other two. He therefore associates them as “suspicious of being Angelica’s enemies”, and “possibly sharing the sentiment of not caring about me”.

He realizes he may be over projecting, but his tendencies are to try and survive this jungle people call ‘school’.

“You can join that janitor over there.” She points at an old man far behind him, suddenly spotting him herself.

Reef looks behind his shoulder and sees Mr. Blue. His mood changes drastically for the better. He just goes to him without interacting with the girls at all.

-“What’s his problem?” -“Couldn’t care less.” The girls say as they move on to start cleaning.

-“Oh! If it isn’t Reef! You run pretty fast, but soon I’ll show you I haven't lost my edge yet even after all these years.” Mr. Blue says with a grandpa-like smile.

-“I know your secret Mr. Blue.” Reef says, smiling back at him.

-“You do?” He asks, seemingly a bit worried.

-“Yes! You are around 20 years younger than you look! Around the same age as my parents. 50 is not that old...”

-“Ohh, yes, certainly! I forgot I told you my age ahahaha.” He laughs, seemingly as if not worried anymore.

In the last two months, Reef had plenty of opportunities to speak with Mr. Blue. He became like a mentor to Reef, or even a spiritual parent of sorts. For the first time he has the chance to clean with Mr. Blue but without his friends. Despite not showing much enthusiasm when his friends are around, he actually misses them a lot when they aren’t present. Seeing his ‘janitor-senpai’ - completely shifts out his dooming energy to a happy teenager. He feels so much like himself again when Mr. Blue is there.

-“The other day the robot almost gave us a ticket, thinking we were the one littering...” Reef tells him.

-“Hahaha those metal brains. Some of them are smarter than others. Different versions, different usages.” Mr. Blue answers. “These types are actually of the smarter ones.”

-“You seem to know your robotics.” Reef says.

-“Oh, well, you know.” He answers, seemingly humble. “Looks like we finished around here. Are you going back to school?”

-“Yes, I got one more class. I’ll see you next time!” Reef says as he goes back.

-“Yes. Next time...” Mr. Blue says quietly to himself, as if he knows something.

Reef walks towards the school and he sees the three girls from before sitting in a cafe. Sophie, the leader, spots him and calls out to him: “Reef, you finished? Can you deliver those papers to our teacher? It’s important.” She says while getting up and hands him the papers.

He is mildly annoyed by that, but he doesn’t really want to start a fight with them. He knows they may try and cause problems for Angelica later.

“Our teacher went to the city council, just go there to deliver the papers.”

-“Fine.” He says as he grabs the papers swiftly.

He keeps going and changes his direction slightly to a not so far away city council building.

Tokyo feels relatively small in this new age in a way that reminds of the past. To tourists, Japan of the past was mostly observable through attractive locations. Country side and villages were not as attractive. Today, as Japan became a futuristic vacation island for tourists, even within the city there are places that are not as attractive and are known for factories that are crystalite related while some of them are for different technologies. Only a few places attract hardcore tourism and those happen to offer public services, and are within rural areas. Tokyo, the big city, feels like a small over-crowded place, consisting of groups of high-tech villages - that are the attraction spots.

Reef reaches a big building with a big sign on the front: ‘Tokyo City Council’.

He enters the building and tries to find his way. Quickly enough a robot reaches him. The robot seems like a combination of a teacher robot A.I (that looks almost identical to a person) and the penalty-bot with the screen as a head. He has a screen that offers options to tap and navigate based on your needs. As he explains his touch-screen features: “Please choose the service you are looking for...” in a soft male sounding voice, he uses hand gestures that seem very alive.

To someone growing up with this technology, a person-like robot with a screen for a head is not all that creepy. Compared to a penalty-bot, this one triggers feeling of familiarity for Reef despite the lack of a normal head. As A.I robots are so integrated in this lifestyle, the more humane a robot is - the less it will be perceived as a robot to the public. On the other hand, getting accustomed to those arbitrary values suggests no clarity about whether those robots are human-like and posses feelings. Most people do not posses the ability to measure that objectively and resort to the arbitrary means.

-“Health... Cleaning Office.” Reef says out loud as he taps the options.

-“Very well. Please go to the 3rd floor and follow the signs.” The robot answers.

Reef goes to the elevator. “To the 3rd floor please!” He says out loud, used to automated services. The elevator door closes and a bunch of blue dot-shaped lights creating the number 3 appear on the wall.

The elevator arrives. He exits the elevator and enters the floor. He starts looking for a “Cleaning Office” sign while saying it repeatedly as he walks by different rooms. He hears voices of people talking. As he keeps walking - they get louder. He then reaches a closed door with the “Cleaning office” sign he was looking for, hearing the discussion is being held right behind that door. He recognizes the female voice of his teacher. Then another voice saying: “I agree. It has been very successful. We will lay off the janitors slowly and practice this all around Japan. This saves more money to the council and makes Tokyo slowly globalize Japan in the right direction.” Then another male voice joins in: “We will make contact with the other schools. Thank you for your participation in this experiment, we knew we could count on ‘Artisan’ to lead by example.”

While this conversation may sound normal to most, Reef couldn’t shake his head off of one sentence: ‘Lay off the janitors’.

His mind goes to a blank. He panics. He truly believed they helped the janitors at the very least. He hears the door opening and his teacher saying to the people inside: “Thank you too, it means so much to us...” as he drops the papers and starts running. The teacher goes out and sees the papers flying and picks them up. Reef can vaguely hear her saying “Oh, here are the papers I asked for, what are they...” while he exists by stairs quickly, leaving the building.