Street Life Scene in a Dystopian Sci-Fi Megacity № 5

Titled “Screen Time”

Back in the city core, those residents with funds enough to patronize the several shopping districts are constantly swamped by noise and light, as video screens high and low key into their identities via the ubiquitous, ever-present facial recognition systems. Each, in turn, tries desperately to cram its preprogrammed messaging down shoppers throats before they have the time to pass by, resulting in a discordant symphony of staccato syllables assaulting each shopper’s sensory cortices.

Pity the consumer who is wealthy enough for a skulljack - the screens detect suitably receptive antennae and intrusively beam their messaging directly into the jack’s audiovisual buffers, and thence into the bearer’s hijacked consciousness, willingly or not. While earplugs are a must for the unaugmented, somewhat mitigating the cacophony, there is neither solution nor salve for the skulljacked!