Andy Hawthorne

In this grand epoch year of 2025 it occurred to me that my life would be infinitely improved if I could acquire a drinking receptacle that kept my beverages warm for longer than a Earth minute, a thermos mug would do the job. 

So, I pointed my ageing web browser at that big shop in the clouds, the evil and twisted mega-corporation known for their misappropriation of a rain forest, who also run some decent deals on Black Friday. 

And it was at that point my bio-complex humanoid system got a mental workout it did not require or request. I met with the sinister little AI Bot that called itself ‘Rufus’. Its behaviour was certainly akin to an annoying pet dog from the time when humans had such things, and being a pop-up window, my browser kept trying to hide it, my browser being from a time when such sentient digital beings were but a twinkle in a MegaCorp engineers breakfast cereal. 

I asked Rufus to direct me to a product listing of warm drink receptacles. It sent me to a page containing listings for products that must have contained thermonuclear reactors, judging by the price of them.

Rufus told me the Warmathon GR3000 was on ‘special’ for 59.99. Indeed, that was special, specially and specifically a galactic timezone away from what I wanted to pay. I typed my response. And I’m sure I heard Rufus sigh. 

Next, it offered me a page of thermos flasks made my Bots on the back streets of the grey zone in the capital metropolis, known to me as: the East End. 

Sure, they cheap. But they looked like they’d be good containers for my ink dispensing prose sticks (pens, if you are old like me) and the quaint old things we used to be able to erase after writing, pencils, I remember they were called. 

I told Rufus. It sighed again, and turned up a page that were more like it. I clicked the ‘Buy Now’ button feeling confident that I was approaching the end this astronomical voyage of discovery into the realm of the rain forest scamming mega-corporation. 

It wasn’t over. I was then bombarded with a bewildering array of delivery options. Including the option to have it sent to me via a time-vacuum tube, or a Drone Bot. I opted for the ‘human in a van’ option and paid my money using actual money, not the MegaCorp tokens they kept pushing me to use. 

Rufus thanked me for shopping and would I like to continue shopping for a host of other beverage-related items and bizarrely, thermal socks. 

I declined. And looked forward to having a warm beverage that stayed warm for longer. 

The next day, the “human in a van” option was predictably two hours late. But when the package arrived, it contained no mug. Instead, nested in ten pounds of unnecessary biodegradable (and yet somehow sticky) packing foam, lay a single, highly polished data chip. 

I was informed via an instant neural flash (which gave me a slight headache) that the mug was “out of stock,” but the price had been transferred to a new app called ‘Thermo-Focus.’ This app, the message explained, didn’t keep your drink warm; it used augmented reality to display a holographic projection of a warm, steamy beverage over your actual cold mug. And the worst part? The visual interface was in Comic Sans.

Rufus had not lied, not technically. The thermal focus had indeed been taken to a whole new level. A monumentally, disgustingly bad level. I sighed. At least I still had my analogue camera.