Influencer

This, with the piece New Consensus, were meant as the first and last of a series of short stories that built a speculative fiction tale with a less dystopian flavour than most.

Look down on the city now.

The city, under a toxic smudge, poison clouds of polluted air, yet thinly gleaming in afternoon sun. The river swings through, glittering between mud banks, lined with glinting stubs of new towers, second homes for the new rich, like crocodile teeth in the jaws of controlling concrete embankments. And all around the bustle, the hum, the noise, the smells of the great city, built layer on layer over two thousand years of crisis, death, fire, plague, joy, rapture, fear, hate, success, money, squalor: stretching out, out to the surrounding low hills seen dimly through the haze.

Look closely now. See the seething streets, the shuttling trains, the jammed vehicles, the streaming crowds. See the people, method in their madness, intent on a myriad journeys, a myriad goals. Eight million souls, eight million thought streams, their dreams, their plans, their lives, all intermingled, tangled, a vast web of complexity, of intermingling, interchange, interface. All dependent on the city, interdependent of each other, yet scarcely aware of the others as they press past, jostle, push through the obstructing masses that thwart them. Blaring their horns, cursing those in their way. Somehow it all works.

Look closer. Frustrated faces, irritated expressions, annoyed glances. Yes – but here and there still you find joy, still you find rapture. In the parks, groups gather, move together under a beating sun. In the packed theatres, the matinee crowds share a laugh, a fear, a sadness. Outside bars, in their shorts and summer hats, they giggle and jostle, they bond as they drink their warming drinks.

On those concrete embankments, this summer Friday, they throng, they pass, they watch the river. The water churns: the tide is turning, the streams disturbed, whirling about the bridge piers: the banks start to disappear as a new, fresh force from an unseen sea disturbs the muddy flows. They watch and do not yet know that it is the day when everything changes.

            Look closer. Down there in the square, by the pinnacled towers, a huge mass is coalescing together. Along all the streets groups are coming to swell the crowd, brightly dressed, shouting, singing, with banners and balloons. More and more coming in good spirits, in optimism. And in the square, they flow from point to point, here a thinning, there a denser patch of bodies. Two in particular. This will be the start of it all.

Zoom in. Closer. Here they surround an old man and a tent and a crouching girl. And there a boy with strange hair with a phone on a selfie stick, which he swings around as this crowd watch. They are pressing all around these two groups, dodging, weaving, trying to see the action. Who is it? What's going on?

Two girls are trying to push through. All they can see is the selfie stick and a flash of blue hair. But that's enough.

'It's Spensa.'

'No way.'

'In person. He said he'd be here today. Didn't you catch his last vlog?'

'O my god!'

The boy is holding court, drinking in the approbation.

'Hey kiddies! It's Spensa Influença live streaming from Parliament Square. Yes, here I am in the heart of the big city checking out the school strike for my peoples. This is slammin.' He swings around with the selfie stick to show the crowds behind him, then he calls out to them 'Say hey for the peoples!'

Those closest to him whoop and scream and cheer to order, and then like a wave the people behind who can almost see what's going on cheer and then those that can't see at all cheer because they think something cool is going on and out and out it spreads until the people in the other knot hear the cheers and think it's in their knot and so they cheer and then the people at the front of that knot cheer too.

Fatima stands up and wonders why they are cheering. 'Well demos are defo funner on a school day', she shouts above the noise. She speaks to her own phone and selfie stick. 'So get down here and join us – we need to show the plonkers we mean business. I'm here today to march and also to interview a very special person.'

And the people whoop and cheer again and send another wave back across the square. She turns back to the old man and his tent. 'So here he is: John Battista.' He looks up at her, a rather wan smile, unsure of the crowds and the attention. 'You've been here for, what? Three months now?'

'Four almost', he says with a little shrug.

'So cool that you feel so strong about the climate emergency. How ya feel about the school strikes?'

'It's what I've been hoping for,' he says. The future is with you young people. My generation – ' He seems to struggle for words.

'What about your generation? The baby boomers?'

'My generation, the most entitled, the luckiest, the least caring.'

The crowd around cheers. Fatima allows the noise to drop off before responding.

'Well not all. You've sacrificed everything, you've sat here in all weathers, to shame our politicians. We look on you as a role model, John.'

'Well, I'm flattered. But it has to come from you – you guys are the future. And it's your future. The climate emergency. Destruction of our ecosystems. The rich getting richer while the poor starve. Starvation in this day and age: millions without running water.' He pauses and smiles: he was starting to go into his spiel. 'But you know all that. I'm preaching to the converted.' They cheer and some cry out his name, calling for a speech. He pulls himself to his feet, pauses again and then gives off a mischievous grin. 'Don't you call us gammons?' he smiles and looked up at Fatima. 'Middle aged, meat-faced white men who hate everything and have no respect, no interest in the future.'

'Well some people might say that, but not me,' she says. 'I'm Muslim!'

Laughter and cheers, which travel all the way back to Spensa.

For a second he looks knocked off beam. He's thinking: Could there be someone who is getting more attention than me?

'So yea, my peoples! So the school strikes are getting the right-on kids well pumped up and, like, YAY! Let's all save the planet. Cos there's no Planet B right? But if you thought I was just gonna bunk off and just like hang with a bunch of rank hippies all day, do not be afeard, kiddies! So I'm up in the city and not gonna drop by my favoritest fast fashion outlets? Are you kidding? Are you catching the shirt already? Spensa is out there, doing it for you! So in a few I'm gonna be unboxing some new goodies exclusive to Spensa Influença!'

            Another great cheer from the other big group and Spensa looks annoyed. This was meant to be about him! He chucks his phone to one of his entourage, who continues to film him. He clicks his fingers at another, who starts to lay down a boombox beat as Spensa goes into his rap, to cheers and chanting from his fans: 'Wanna be goin' mental / Cos you're first with wot is trendin? / I gotta be at the centre / of the look that you're presentin!' He starts to push forward towards the other mob. The waves part as the fans enthusiatically follow. 'Then u gotta catch up with Spensa / I'm your crucial Influença!'

Fatima is now standing on a small platform next to John's tent and she's pulled him up with her. 'This man,' she's saying, 'is showing us the way. Sitting here, day after day, he's shaming us all into saving our planet. Please speak to us John.'

He seems reluctant, but the crowd shushes and looks on expectantly. He starts hesitantly, unused to the attention, unused to making speeches. 'It's great to see you all here,' he says. 'You are the future. The politicians over there can't see beyond the next five years –'

'– the next five weeks!' shouted someone in the crowd.

John laughed. 'You're right! Can't see beyond Brexit and their own petty squabbles. Brexit is an irrelevance.'

A huge cheer.

'This is war. The whole world needs to be on a war footing. Not fighting each other – fighting together, fighting for our life. Our lives. The lives of everyone on this planet and the lives of those generations to come. Your children and your children's children. We need to fight together, to build a sustainable world. Fight for a common cause.'

Another cheer and a commotion at the back of the crowd.

'Sitting here week by week, I'm just a voice crying in the wilderness. But you can do this. YOU!' He points all around the crowd taking in everyone as Fatima films him.

'Yea, all together, old man!' the crowd turns as Spensa's voice yells out. 'Yea, save the planet, ditch the plastic, let's get manic, let's all panic. And most of all, buy the tshirt!' He turns to his vid-man and displays his tshirt with its picture of a turtle deformed by a plastic band and the message: Plastic Kills. '£4 just in at boohoo.com, my pretties! Focus in bro.' The vid-man moves in.

Fatima comes out from behind John and sees who it is. 'You!'

'O my god, it's Fatima! My sister from another mother.' Said with his usual sneer.

'What are you doing here, you heartless, materialist bottom feeder?'

            'Woooo! I heard on the clothesline that you was here, sweetest. Isn't she adorbs! Would you believe we was at the Peckham Fashion Academy together, 'til she flunked. Now she's the goddess of catastrophe porn. O you think you're so deck, Fatima with your scuffed trainers and your torn jeans. So last year!' He pointed to his feet: the cameraman followed. 'And speaking of footwear: how about these, peoples? LQD-Cell Origin Drone – part of Puma's brand new training shoe range. Awesome kicks yea?'

'Really? You're using the climate strike for product placement? How much you getting for that? And I did not crap out. I left when I saw what damage the fashion industry was doing. That tshirt – '

'O come on, loveliness. Hey, check out the shoes at puma.com, peoples. And hey, this tshirt is made in the UK – not by little brown slaveboys in Bangla Desh, so –'

'You know, cos we talked about this. The fashion industry creates 1.2bn tonnes of CO₂ a year, more than planes and shipping combined; and a third of microplastics found in the ocean come from synthetic clothing.'

'So' he says, pointing to the message on the tshirt, 'there's your message right there. And this is pure cotton.'

'Growing cotton consumes vast amounts of water: whole lakes have disappeared. You just don't get it, do you?'

Growing mutterings in the crowd turn to applause and some whoops for Fatima.

'Hey, how about a vlog-off, honey child? And uh –' He smirked. '– my following is bigger than yours.'

Somebody called out: 'Size queen!'

'O, you wanna try it for size then, bro?' He expected wild laughter but the crowd is starting to jeer. This is new for him.

John intervenes: 'Together. You all need to come together and fight the politicians, the short-termers. This is the War for the World!'

Applause and the cry is taken up: 'War for the World! War for the World!' It starts to ripple out across the square. Spensa suddenly looks non-plussed. It wasn't meant to be like this.

'Do you know how many followers I have, Fatima? How many you got, huh? How many likes you get a day?'

'You haven't been looking at the stats, then, Frank? More than you now.'

His beatboxer nudged him: 'Bro, have you seen your feed? This is not going down good.' He showed him the feed. Spensa the Influença was losing it.

Someone close up called out, 'Who's Frank?'

            'O yea, sorry, Frank. I let that slip, didn't I? His real name isn't Spensa. We were pretty close at school, weren't we? You were gonna drop out with me and build a vlog with me until you realised there was more money in unboxing and you left me to it. Frank the Influença doesn't really hack it.'

Booing now aimed at Spensa, growing. His feed is going crazy.

Someone calls out: 'Influença – isn't that a disease?'

Quick as a flash, Fatima comes back: 'Yea, and it's an epidemic all around the world that's killing people.'

Cheers, but Spensa is still focused on his feed: for once he can't think of anything to say, the stuffing knocked out of him. His real name was his deepest secret. One false move in the social networking world and … His brain is whirring away, thinking, thinking.

Fatima knows him well enough to know he will take the main chance. 'Together, Frank. Listen to what John is saying. It's time to move on from 'stuff' and fight for what really matters. The War for the World.'

When he looked up again, there were tears in his eyes. 'Collabs?'

'Think what we could do together, Frank. Us here – and all over the world there are people, young people, who understand. India, Brazil, China, Africa. It's our future.'

'We could start a – like a world-wide thing?'

'You know it in your heart, Spensa.'

'My heart? I thought I was heartless.' He turned to his vlog feed. 'You heard it first here, kiddies. Spensa has a heart.'

And he was thinking, thinking. The War for the World.

And all across the city the same people, the same seething, shuttling, streaming crowds, now starting to be lost to view as a giant sun sets behind the poison clouds. The lights blink on along the river, as always. But something has changed today. One day those poison clouds will be gone.