25/7 (EN version)

Welcome to Kalasatama district, our city’s Living Lab. Here, smart devices and services are designed to smooth away all the bumps and hurdles of daily life. Our streamlining has been so successful that we are now gifting residents an extra hour per day. That’s right, 25/7. Just think what you could do with all that time!

Your extra hour will be dispensed by a device inserted just below your navel, in a 20-minute pain-free procedure done in the comfort of your own home.

Participation in the 6-month pilot scheme is only open to official Kalasatama residents and is subject to a physical assessment. Contact your local government office to confirm your eligibility or inquire about a residence permit. Restrictions apply.

Non-resident workers or visitors to Kalasatama, please be aware that you will interact with persons on 25/7 time. Minor blurring or muffling may occur.

Katja: So what have you been doing with your extra hour?

Tim: Well, I’ve been trying to do nothing!

Katja: [Laughing] ok!

Tim: No but it’s true! And it’s really hard actually!

Katja: [Still laughing] Seriously?

Tim: It is! I started simple and I indulged in an extra hour in bed each morning, which was so luxurious. But at the same time, I felt like I’d wasted it, I felt guilty! I mean it was healthy to fix my sleep deficit but after that I just couldn’t justify it. Exercise is fine though; it’s worth spending the time because you really get the benefits, across every area of life, you know what I mean? Other things are more of a trade-off for me. Walks, seeing friends,

Katja: [Interrupting] Come on!

Tim: No, I’m sorry, that sounded terrible! I don’t mean it like that. Just… I don’t think that I know how to do free time anymore! Like I’ve got 5 minutes, then I’ve got 5 jobs to fill it with. Trust me, I’m not complaining though!

Tero: How has it been with your new implant? I can’t get my head around it. Was it an instant wrenching shift when they turned it on? Or is it meant to build up gradually? Do you actually feel it, I mean physically?

Shubhangi: Well it’s not sore at all – my belly was tender for a couple of days after they inserted it, but that’s fixed now. It’s just taking me some time to acclimatise, you know? Major jet lag, I suppose! They said it does take a week or so for our circadian rhythms to adjust, ‘til sleeping and waking syncs up with 25-hour days. But no, life is passing by at the same speed it always has done, at least from my point of view.

Tero: Can you see it at all, any trace of it, when you’re with people without implants, still on 24/7? I’m trying to imagine what it’ll be like when I come over! You’re sped up compared to me, right? Will you be blurry?!

Shubhangi: Motion blur? No! But I do get some - what do you call it - background visuals. Visual effects? Occasional flashes or faint flickers. And at the edge of my vision, I can sometimes see what looks like smoke from a campfire. I don’t know if it’ll stay or if it’ll fade with time.

Helen: Hey, I’m off work, just walking home now.

Katja: Hey! How was it?

Helen: Oh fine, you know. The usual. Sorry, I didn’t have time to drop by. It was a rush at the end of the shift. I could see you at the weekend instead?

Katja: [Sighs] For sure, yeah, I get it. It’s ok.

Helen: Really? You don’t sound it.

Katja: It is! I just… I just wish you were here. Living here. I meant what I said about moving in.

Helen: I know love. I’m just not sure if I have..

Katja: All you need is your residence permit! We’d both be 25s, and we wouldn’t be split like this, missing out on time together.

Helen: Well, the same sun sets, and the same sun rises.

Katja: Well if you’re insisting on poetic cliché, the shadows it casts don’t quite line up.

Helen: Come on! It’s a tiny slippage. Honestly, I was expecting it to be far worse, that we’d be out of sync like a laggy video. That you’d spend all our chats waiting for me to catch up. And anyway, they patched the phones.

Katja: It feels different. I can’t really explain it. We’re a little further apart every day, as if the gap is widening.

Helen: That’s not how it— [sighs heavily]. The difference is always the same, and the calendar days line up.

Katja: I know that’s not how it works! But that’s how it feels.

Helen: I’ve just been exhausted lately, that’s all it is. Not the time difference. When I’ve got a bit more energy, I’ll start applying for the permit.

Shubhangi: I don’t quite know how to ask this, but I’m curious. Is your implant working fine? I know we’re not supposed to see any difference, but do you think it’s possible it wouldn’t work properly in some people?

Tim: I mean, I guess you could say it is a foreign body, it’s kind of like an organ transplant or a graft. It could react. But I don’t know if it could reject.

Shubhangi: Wait, is the foreign body the implant, or the extra time?

Tim: [laughs] I’m really not sure. I feel like I’m tying myself in knots here! But the glitches – yeah, I’ve been having some. Are we talking about the same thing though? Tell me yours.

Shubhangi: Well we’re out of sync, right, that’s the basic setup here: they’re on 24 and we’re on 25. But I’ve been getting these moments where it slips a little further. It’s bursts or surges of time. Not speed – or from the outside it must look like it. I don’t feel faster. But I get these moments, no, these pockets of time, where for example 5 minutes can last for 15. I’m not in slow motion either. It’s more like, uh, like a breather! Aside from trippy visuals when it opens, it’s actually totally normal.

Tim: Well I’m glad it’s not just me! It’s a good thing, that it’s you as well, I mean it feels like a good thing! Mine is similar to yours but it’s not exactly the same. For me it’s less of a sudden burst and more of a swell. It’s kind of gradual and it lasts longer, even if it’s not as large a dilation. It’s like waves and eddies of extra time throughout the day.

Shubhangi: Yours doesn’t stick to a schedule either?

Tim: No, at least not an obvious one. But I’m getting the idea it’s responding to me.

Shubhangi: Responding to you? Do you mean you can control it?

Tim: No! Well not yet! I’ll try. But I meant that it responds to my internal state. It reads me, somehow?

Julia: I’m just—

Nadiye: Yeah, but it’s—

Julia: Oh sorry, I didn’t mean to—

Nadiye: Oh god now we’re talking over each other. Hang on. Let’s start again.

Julia: ok! I was going to say, despite the time slips, I reckon I’m starting to control it. How about you?

Nadiye: Yeah! Or I can a bit. Some days it’s just lined up with whatever’s going on inside my gut, to be honest. If I’m really sick it kinda reacts to me, keeps me in a bit of a bubble. It helps. But days when I’ve got energy, I’ve been playing with it. What’s your control like? Can you activate it at will?

Julia: A couple of times!

Nadiye: I haven’t hacked it yet.

Julia: It’s a bit trial and error; I still need to pin down exactly what I did when it worked. It’s incredible when it does. I’ve been using it to discharge the pressure when it builds up too much.

Nadiye: You mean like, quieten the noise?

Julia: Yeah. Spotting when the rift forms is key. It’s strong enough for me to see clearly now. An elongated raindrop, with two clusters of light in the stretched out top and eight suspended at the bottom.

Nadiye: Mine is a little different, more nebulous.

Julia: Did you try gently pressing on your implant? It helps trigger it.

Nadiye: Really? You can feel it under your skin?

Julia: If I press down with my fingertips midway between my belly button and my pubes. There’s this firmness. A resistance where it should be soft. Can you feel it? Or a tightness? Do you feel anything?

Fen: Can you see hazy brown dust lanes? I can hardly see them, but I can taste it. Every time when it’s about to start. Dusty silicates and sooty chemical molecules coating the inside of your mouth and hitting the back of your throat.

[Grainy musical textures that resemble sand particles and wind. The sounds have a strong sense of movement, and are paired with more metallic long tones, creating a slightly eerie and contemplative atmosphere.]

Artor: They know about the malfunctions now.

Juuli: Yeah, I saw the company has increased the monitoring of the trial. How many people are doing the surveys, do you think? Answering those daily prompts?

Artor: Not me, I love the malfunctions! I’m getting used to it and can control it a bit.

Juuli: Do you think we’re part of the problem? Not only the malfunction, but how we’ve actively misusing it, how we’re pushing the dilations further?

Artor: I’m not sure. I don’t think they know it’s us, specifically. The demographics. But they’re already trying to patch it. Did you pass one of the recalibration pulses yet? They’re rigged up to the metal gates.

Juuli: Yeah I did! It gave a sharp tug in my chest, really disconcerting. Like a massive pacemaker, to get me back on tempo.

Artor: Did it work though? Is your clock reset?

Juuli: Not in the slightest! My anxiety skyrocketed. I got these red clumpy streaks in my vision, and all down my arms countless individual hearts were fluttering. Then I just… winked out of clock time until I’d calmed down.

Artor: Oh shit! I’ve been slipping so far past 25 it’s not even funny.

Manuela: [unclear]

Fen: What?

Manuela: There’s an, uh, like a mass effect? I don’t even know if that’s the right word, but if a few people do it together. People with malfunctioning implants.

Fen: Huh. Interesting. I’d actually noticed I’ve got a bit more access to it when I’m with my partner. But I didn’t try more than two people yet. She’s got a surgery coming up so we’ve been shielding.

Manuela: Oh, of course. Well, we had a few people round for Vivian’s birthday and they stayed over. Next morning we were all squashed on the sofa or in blankets on the floor, you know. Well, I was still half asleep. And I saw these tenuous bridges of stars and gas, like tiny knots of gas…

Juuli: No no no, you’re not telling it right! Give me the phone! [muffled speech] Put me on speaker then!

Juuli: No, arms! It was arms! These delicate, semi-transparent arms drifting off the top, curling over. And whenever we came close, there was this faint upside-down U-shaped blue glow and a shimmy. The spiral arms unwound, and gas and dust were pulled in all directions, like it was releasing confetti.

Fen: It reacts to physical contact?

Manuela: We weren’t even all touching. Just close.

Fen: OK not contact, but you were in a group. This field, or dilation, or whatever we’re generating, it must extend a little distance beyond our own bodies. And it sounds like it’s combining?

Juuli: I think you’re right. That morning, I set up a swell of time far faster than I’ve been able to do before. It was more stable, too; it lasted longer. It wasn’t so quick to collapse and slip through my fingers.

Denisa: Hey, I heard you’re in the park. I’m heading back to the apartments to check it’s running smoothly.

Julia: I just got here. Nadiye said I’d just missed you.

Denisa: Yeah, I’m at the building already. Just waiting for the elevator.

Julia: How many people are you supporting there now?

Denisa: 17 right now, in 5 apartments on the same floor. So it’s close to capacity. We can only take people when they’re at their worst. But it’s a quick turnover, from an outsider’s point of view.

Julia: It’s different in the high rises isn’t it. Not just your apartment but all the blocks.

Denisa: Well, I guess so, yeah. It’s the population density. In the park or in Redi you’ve got a mix of people, but in the blocks it’s mostly residents, which means majority 25s and of those, a lot of us are gonna be 25plus.

Julia: So the dilation is stronger.

Denisa: Stronger and steadier.

Julia: Your floor must be borderline outside of time with that many in the apartments!

Denisa: [laughing] Yeah well, the elevators have never been the same, I’ll say that! I almost feel sorry for the building management. Hold on a sec, I’m just letting myself in to the apartment.

[door/key noise]

Erika: You’ll see yellow-white and green fluffy ridges in loop-like structures as you enter. Then it’s a translucent, milky material, with a bright white dot at the very centre.

Denisa: Hey, I’m putting you on speaker, it’s going to be a bit…

Julia: ok!

[hellos from a few people in the apartment]

Denisa: What was I saying?

Julia: Doesn’t the crowd effect work on all 25s? I mean everyone is getting weird interference when they pass the gates.

Denisa: No, that’s just an interaction with the implant tech. A standard dilation thing. They’re still on a steady 25/7.

Katja: Standard dilation!

Katja: What are we then? If that’s 25s.

Fen: Mutated standard time?

Erika: Rate your mutating time dilation on a scale of 1 to 10, based on your ability to perform daily activities!

Denisa: But here, once you’re on the inside, it’s… hmm… expansively slow. But not still, not at all. You just need to be at the right scale. There’s enough of us here that we can push this bubble out to days at a time. We’ll be cresting weeks soon. At our own pace, our own focus. Recuperating. Or just stepping out of the timeline for a bit.

Katja: Come, if you need us.

[This Echo is accessed via steps, but it can also be heard on street level at the base of the steps. Watch out for road traffic!]

Julia: How many more people can you take in? Are there other communes?

Erika: You can tell the areas with high numbers of new users by the mottled filaments and wisps of various hues. It’s the light, reflecting off their still-forming bodies. Our team found 1,001 pinpoint sources of light, many of them youngsters still embedded in their dusty cocoons.

[Metallic, static layers of sound are accompanied by abrupt fragments of speech.]