Extract from 'Second Millennium' (from Banfield Tales):

Leo Banks works for iCloud Systems, one of the corporations that ordinary people have not heard of, but they are involved in the lives of every one of us. Everything about us is stored in the ‘cloud’, a collection of data on every conceivable topic - health records, savings, mortgage, employment history, criminal convictions – for every registered person on the planet. The year 2039 has seen an increase in ‘non-registered persons’ and the authorities do everything in their power to pull them back into the system. People who do not use a computer or are not connected to the internet think they are immune, but they are wrong. We all have a number, we are being monitored, and we are all stored on the cloud. Since the early part of the 21st Century, more and more computer programs and personal data have been uploaded to the Cloud. Some people continue to use the old technology hard disks (possibly just for backups) but most of us have become more confident and trusting in the cloud-based storage of our data.

The Cloud itself is run by a number of corporations, subsidised by the five major world nations - USA, The Russian Federation, China, Africa and the European Union. Britain has long been subsumed by the EU, and is now one of the main bases for the physical location of the cloud servers. The servers themselves are essentially storage systems for vast amounts of data. Back in 2015, when Leo was still at school, everyone still used hard disks and USB memory sticks. Things have changed. Personal data is accessed through a device worn on your wrist which also encompasses a watch and communication device. The data is simultaneously stored in the Cloud.

Saturday 31st December 2039. Thirty-four years old, Leo has recently been appointed as Senior Analyst at iCloud Systems. Today is his big test...

'Banfield Tales' (collection of short stories) available at amazon.co.uk