(UPDATE: I spent of most of Thursday thinking today was Friday. Still on Iraq time, I guess.)
As always, more flash fiction here. Enjoy.
The trip to the doctor's office is long.
It takes the patient almost an hour from her cube in north Puget City to her provider's office in the center; she is alone on the tube. Most folks think traveling an hour for anything is outrageous.
The patient is okay with that; she takes the tube all the way down and spends most of the time on her phone. She talks to her friends about her surgery: most are supportive; most have had it done; and most don't understand why she hasn't done it already.
"Amy," says one,"girl you're out there all alone, by yourself, with no help. Just your phone? Girl, what if something happens?"
Amy nodded into the view screen.
"And Sound Health is sent you a coupon? Amy, stop whining and do it!"
Amy nodded again.
"Amy...hold on. Oh, I got a pollster on the other line. I got to take this hunh; I'll call you back."
Amy signs off. She'd answered her poll questions that morning and didn't expect anything else the rest of the day; the Machine that ran Puget City wasn't as annoying as some of her friends made out; you just needed to know the Machine was doing the best it could for Puget City and needed all of citizens to do their part.
Amy understands that.
The surgery. She'd put it off for years, ever since moving to Puget City. As a client of Sound Health, she'd been eligible, but she'd still hesitated. Mainly because of her parents; they were Sovereign Homesteaders with a place down by Yakima. Heathens who did not approve of the surgery. Amy didn't tell them she'd made the decision; she'd tell them after it was done.
The tube stops in front of the doctor's office. Amy walks towards the open tube door, and before she steps out she uses her phone to rate the tube highly for the nice ride; the tubes shimmers a bit in dim happiness.
Amy walks directly to the doctors office and enters; it's a cold and rainy day in Puget City, and her onesize can only hold back so much of the chill. She stops in the entryway and tabs the button at her neck. Her onesize drops away and she puts it in the recycler: by afternoon, it would be out of style anyways and she would just get a new one out of the vendy. If she still needed it then.
Amy looks at her nude self in the mirror. She sees that she's almost at the tipping point, where exercise and healthy living would begin to lose out to genetics and age.
Amy sighs and walks over to the receptionists.
"Amy to see the Doctor," she says.
"Hi, Amy," the woodland sprite responds." The Doctor is expecting you. Please go right on in."
The Doctor is standing by her machine. The Doctor looks like a Czech model who'd fallen off the fashion runways of Milan City and into medical school. She is also nude, but her nudity is subdued by her body-makeup. A scene out of history--Amy thinks-- plays itself across her nude form. Every so often, eighteenth century soldiers maneuver across her thighs and arms to capture a fairyland castle, just under her left breast, where a princess--Amy assumes she is a princess-- reposes. Amy approves of the art and secretly hopes she'll learn such control.
After the surgery.
"On behalf of Sound Health, and the Puget City Machine, welcome Amy," says the Doctor, smiling brightly. "Are you ready?"
Amy hesitated, and the Doctor's smile flickered.
"Darling," the Doctored sighed.
"Lights," the Doctor said. As the lights faded, the tapestry of her body faded to a normal skin tone; the little soldiers went away and the princess disappeared to await her eternal rescue. Beneath the Doctors skin glowed small purplish nodules; they covered her body from head to toe.
"The surgery to install the Safety Harness is not difficult, my dear. You will sleep through most of it. Let me explain: I will place the Safety Harness just below your skin. Skin is easy and we can grow it by the yard. In fact, everything is easy: new lungs, kidneys, heart or whatever you need is available to you with your Sound Health Prime coverage. But, love, all those organs are, ultimately, just a bucket of parts. We can keep slapping them on, as you age, but how much of the real you remains? The Safety Harness records and, more importantly, retains the actual you. With the controls we will teach you, you will be able to maintain yourself."
Amy nodded.
"Honey, I am just trying to put myself out of business," said the Doctor.
Amy nodded again.
"Why risk it?" said the Doctor, closing the deal.
'Shit happens,' said her parents in Amy's head; she pushed the voices away.
"I'm ready," Amy said.
"Perfect," said the Doctor. "Let us get started, love."
Nice piece. The setting is great, although you imply that Seattle will be able to get its mass transit situation fixed by the year 2XXX. Which I think is questionable.
I do think the reader needs to know a bit more clarity of what the safety harness is though.
Posted by: Greg | October 24, 2008 at 03:00 PM
Greg,
Thanks for the comments.
I freely admit I'm climbing up the softer side of science fiction. I do a kind of "here's this thing" and it does something to the characters. I deeply admire a Charles Stross who can write "here's this thing and included are the blueprints" now watch it do something to the characters.
That said, I think I'm sketching out a more organic future: the tube I write about is less light rail + and more a circulatory system within these future cities. An "inner life of the cell" scaled up ( video:http://multimedia.mcb.harvard.edu/).
The Safety Harness? You are absolutely right; I don't have a clue what it is at this point. But I do know what I want it to do. Spookytechnology (link to .pdf: http://arxiv.org/pdf/0710.2537)?
Research, research.
Again, thanks for stopping buy. You comments are appreciated.
Posted by: phred | October 24, 2008 at 11:18 PM