Hostile Environment (audio story)

An app's been launched that allows you to tag the homeless. People thinks they're doing a good thing and helping out. It does seem a remarkable success. After all, since it's launched, there are a lot less homeless people on the streets – so it must be doing some good, mustn't it?

Plot

Tyler is living on the streets, embarrassed about his situation, and Kirsty encourages him to ask for change from passersby. They pool their money together for food and a man tags Tyler as homeless with an app. An Oblation drone flies to him and asks him to choose between experimental drugs or death.

Some time later, Tyler awakes on a bench and vomits. Kirsty finds him and they are both tagged by a passing woman, again being the choice between drugs or death by a drone. They both choose drugs and are rendered unconscious. Later, Kirsty tells him what she knows about Oblation and he goes to see Aaron, who tags him. He flees from a drone and, whilst begging on the streets, is recognised by Ng, who is on a mission and unable to talk to him for long.

Tyler wakes up a few days after being drugged by a drone, having been taken to a camp by Kirsty. He finds that his money has been taken and Kirsty weakly blames the Romanians. In the rain, Tyler is offered £50 by a man to give him oral sex, but he refuses. He tries to enter a shopping centre to go to the toilet, but is prevented from doing so, instead urinating outside and receiving disgust from passersby. He is tagged and encourages those around him to watch him get drugged, but they do not. Eventually, he wakes up and meets God, who gives him tomato soup and tells him that he saved a life.

Days later, Tyler and Kirsty are reunited and get on a train, hoping to get to the valleys. They get off at Treforest where they are tagged by a woman and given a "punishment dose". Whilst begging, he meets Andy, who tags him before leaving. At Cardiff Bay, Kirsty tells Tyler that she has a lump on her breast and he tells her that she should return there if she ever needed to find him. He spots Mr Colchester, whom he is surprised to see alive, and tries to tell him about the drones, but he does not properly listen and instead gives him some change.

Tyler gives oral sex to the man that offered it before, but is given only £20 and is kicked when he says they agreed to more. He wakes up to find Kirsty looking through his coat for his money, ostensibly to buy him medicine. He goes to A&E, but is told by Oblation that the hospital is out of bounds for the homeless and that drones have been summoned. He is given another punishment dose for aggressive begging and Kirsty tells him that he should choose death next time as he seems to have given up. He buys a mobile phone with money after further prostituting himself and is told that the street is now out-of-bounds after leaving the shop.

Ng and Mr Colchester go behind the shopping centre after receiving a call about a Weevil, which Tyler tells them was him. He uses his phone to tag them both and they both choose drugs, Mr Colchester shooting it after it injected him. Tyler uses Ng's tracker to hack into the drone, tracing its signal asking for help to a housing estate in Newport. He drives there with Mr Colchester and Ng and meets Ben in his garage. After tagging him, Ben is burnt to death by a drone.

Having collapsed, Tyler wakes up in a cell in the Hub with Jack, who lets him stay there, saying that he should have told him. Tyler meets Yvonne and Norton and offers to help Torchwood. Yvonne asks him if he knows Kirsty, who is stood outside calling for him, and he says that he does. However, he does not want to see her.

Cast

References

Kirsty buys sausage rolls.
Charities used to hand out blankets.
Kirsty was once urinated on by three men and kicked in the ribs in her sleeping bag.
Aaron lives in Flat 46.
Tyler says that Aaron's doorman is homophobic.
Tyler asks Aaron for tea.
Tyler stole a laptop from Ian and sold it to Pound Converters.
Tyler and Ng agree to meet for coffee at some point.
Tyler and Kirsty share a camp with Romanians.
Tyler gets a fever.
Bobbo was a homeless man who had sex with dogs. His third one was taken off of him and rehomed whilst he was imprisoned after he was found having sex with it.
Tyler tries to go to the toilet in a shopping centre.
God gives Tyler tomato soup.
Kirsty offers Tyler some cider.
Kirsty mentions Grangetown and Troed-y-Rhiw.
The library and hostels have been closed.
Andy says that rough sleeping will be eliminated by 2020.
Tyler and Kirsty watch people queuing for a Malaysian pop-up restaurant.
Kirsty's mother died from breast cancer.
Mr Colchester mentions Penarth.
Mr Colchester mentions poisonous mould in the reservoir.
Oblation utilises 3Sol's fire drones.
Mr Colchester is called by Colin.
Tyler offers to take a passerby to a cashpoint.
Mr Colchester has a Swiss Army knife.
Mr Colchester mentions the bubonic plague and rickets.
Tyler mentions trolling.
Jack says that he engages in onanism and jigsaws instead of sleep.
Tyler calls Norton "Dick Van Dick".

Notes

to be added

Continuity

Tyler is homeless. (AUDIO: Future Pain)
Aaron mentions how Tyler was "banged stupid by a dozen strangers in a Roath bedsit". (AUDIO: Night Watch)
Tyler asks Ng if she has been murdering anyone. She previously murdered Mary Cooper (AUDIO: Aliens & Sex & Chips & Gravy) and Serena. (AUDIO: Tagged)
God mentions that she and Tyler once had a "lovely chat". (AUDIO: Future Pain)
Kirsty says "what's occurring?" Tyler previously said it, (AUDIO: Future Pain) as did Gwen. (TV: Children of Earth: Day One)
Ben talks about when 3Sol went under. (AUDIO: Future Pain)
Mr Colchester mentions dying in the smart car. (AUDIO: Herald of the Dawn)
Jack says that he does not often sleep. (TV: Ghost Mission; AUDIO: Night Watch, Flight 405)

External links

Official Hostile Environment page at bigfinish.com