Experiment With Destiny by Stephen Carr Page B

inner city ‘televillage’. He remembered reading about it months ago in the Echo. The story, not one of his, only caught his eye because the address was familiar. The thought of living opposite some high security commune of paranoid cyber geeks made him shudder…or was it the cold.
                  He wrapped himself in the quilt from his bed before moving into the lounge/dining and kitchen area of his modest flat. His hair was dishevelled, like a blond Brillo pad, and his chin bristled with three days’ growth. He padded quickly across the icy floor tiles, wishing he had invested more effort trying to find his slippers, toward the electric kettle. Flicking it on, he scooped a generous spoonful of instant Earl Grey, ready sweetened with added milk granules, into a relatively clean mug. Its motif was ‘Facts times importance equals news’, a quote from some 20th century television satire on the media that had been completely lost on Jerry.
                  “Well, no. It’s people,” Jerry had painstakingly explained. “People equals new, not facts, however important.” Jerry didn’t have much of a grasp of satire. Humour for the old warhorse of a news editor revolved around life’s sick ironies. Health freaks dropping dead of heart attacks while jogging would make Jerry laugh, or paranoid cyber geeks with state-of-the-art security getting fried to death by their own computers. That was a real newsman’s humour.
                  Steven felt his eyelids sliding closed again as the sound of the kettle lulled him towards sleep. He searched the nearest armchair for the remote and flicked on the TV in a bid to wake up. There was a moment of electronic humming before brutal power chords ripped over a rabid drum machine’s beat, accompanied by the sight of some masked freak bellowing guttural noises into the microphone. It was too early on Saturday for MTV. He quickly flicked through the programmes until he found INB. The screen told him it was 09:21 and the local news infill was just minutes away. Great, he thought.
    “Some fall victim to bankruptcy after losing their jobs or businesses, others fall foul of the draconian Eurostate correctional system. But many end up there through mental health problems, emotional or psychological traumas. They slip through the safety net…or are even dumped there by members of their own families!” It took a moment to realise the bearded charity worker with an intense holier-than-thou stare was talking about non citizens. Steven’s interest pricked up. “I’ve even come across cases where unwanted children, often born with deformities or physical disabilities or learning difficulties, are dumped there by their parents. And what about the innocent children who are born out there?” The camera switched to the anchorman.
                  “We’ve been hearing these arguments since the so-called Exiles Act was passed by the Eurostate six years ago and the latest official figures show that ninety-eight per cent of those stripped of their citizenship are hardened criminals who repeatedly flout the laws of our society. Only two per cent are economic exiles, bankrupts or the terminally unemployed who refuse to take up re-training schemes, military service or places on Eurostate employment programmes.”
                  “You’re talking about official government figures again. They don’t paint the full picture! We do not accept that there should be any criminal or economic exiles, legitimate or otherwise, never mind thousands who live in our industrial wastelands simply because the system…our society…has failed them. It’s…”
                  “Surely the point, Mr Benson, surely the point this morning is how many of your colleagues at Justice for Exiles and volunteer workers with other such groups must die before the Eurostate Parliament has to pass legislation banning you from accessing these