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  Chapter 5

  About a week ter the rioting has stopped but not without damage. A lot of my customers were somehow affected. Some of them lost their house to fires or their kids lost a pce to live. Some of them their employer had incurred damages and had to y people off. There are a lot more beat up mag cars than there used to be when you visit the supermarket too. Some of them look like they’d been broken into and had their paneling bashed up but some of the owners couldn’t afford to fix everything all at once.

  Supposedly the governments ‘Keep People Working’ program was supposed to help people with that, but as usual there were so many loopholes to not help people that it wasn’t working. One of the problems with that program was that the program only applied if you were working over 34 hours a week for the same employer, otherwise you didn’t get any benefits. Most people didn’t work full time now for one employer. I’d guess nine out of ten didn’t qualify through one rule or another. Most employers gave you 28 or 29 hours a week to avoid benefits thanks to more corporate influence.

  It was the age old cheat to get rid of people’s benefits that was created about fifty years ago. Taxes and mandatory health insurance were all higher on workers that were over 34 hours and it’d been that way since my dad had been a kid and he was gone now.

  I’d just gotten my car full of groceries and was headed over to check my bance at the bank credit chip processor. That’s when it happened…

  I’m not sure how it occurred, because I was always careful with that sort of thing. I avoided using my credit chip around crowds or anything resembling people that were shady or looked like they might be a potential mugger. Despite all the constant surveilnce and technology prevalent in society, the U.S. had the highest crime rate in the world in recent years. And because of the loss of jobs and infrastructure overseas a lot of pces that should have security cameras didn’t.

  Because of it people often hired me to put custom anti-assault caging around their mag car cabin housing. I had the same caging too on my own car, which had become a selling device.

  So it surprised me when after I had pulled my credit chit from the ATM processor that I felt a sharp pain in the back of my head, and then several other sharp pains in my back. I was on the ground face forward almost before I even knew what happened. After that, I think I passed out, because everything went bck.

  “Jack? Jack can you hear me?” A voice said.

  Things were blurry. It was like I couldn’t feel very well around me. I struggled to get up but the voice called back to me.

  “Stay down Jack. Don’t move. You’ve been in an accident. It’s really important you don’t move your neck and back,” the voice said.

  Oh shit. Is this for real? I’m tempted to panic, but what she said scared me to even breathe wrong.

  Oh fuck am I paralyzed?!

  I felt like crying. It wasn’t that I hurt physically but the voice saying don’t move your neck and back, and the idea that I couldn’t feel anything down there scared the shit out of me right now. I didn’t want to live like that. It would be…horrific to say the least.

  If it was like that I’d be better off if they just let me die here.

  I felt a warm hand on my chin and the side of my face. “Don’t worry Jack. We’re going to get you feeling better. Everything is going to be OK. I’ll come check on you again soon, OK?”

  I think I passed out again after that.

  Sometime ter, I heard the voice again. But I don’t think it was a few minutes ter…things felt different and the sun was shining on my face through a window I think. Somehow it feels like I’ve been asleep for a long time. “Jack? Jack, do you want to wake up?” I’d been too tired to identify it earlier, but I think the voice was feminine and almost too perfectly sweet.

  Was its a dream? Because my mind was all mixed up, I couldn’t tell if I’d imagined it. It was like my dreams and reality were kind of all mixed up. Maybe that was the painkillers that I was on or something.

  I was able to open my eyes, but it was like my body didn’t feel right and all numb. I also felt like I was in like some kind of cocoon webbing restraint so I couldn’t even budge. “Where am I?” I asked.

  “You’re in the hospital. I tried to talk to you earlier but you were too tired,” the sweet feminine voice said.

  Gncing up I was able to see the voice belonged to a young blonde nurse. As my eyes became more focused the details were less blurry and I was able to see more about what was going on.

  She smiled at me.

  Wow, those eyes were really bright and lively.

  “Hi, I’m nurse Edna. How are you feeling?” she asked. Although her voice was sweet her mouth was monotone and somewhat stiff. It wasn’t normal for women to look that pretty either. I could stare at her all day actually. Maybe working at a hospital was a better deal than working for other jobs? Were all the women here that good looking?

  “…I can’t move…” I sort of stiffly mumbled out.

  She gave me a deeply caring look. “We’ll get that worked out. Don’t worry, everything is going to be fine.” She even lightly touched my cheek and forehead with her own. The touch was soothing and warm.

  Wait a minute. Is she for real?

  “You’re temperature seems fine. 99.5 and that’s higher than normal but probably because your body is fighting the injuries you’ve taken,” she said.

  “Eh? But you don’t have a thermometer,” I protested.

  “That would be inefficient, when I can just tell by touch and holding onto your skin for a certain period of time,” she said.

  “So you’re an android?” I guessed.

  “Very smart for a human. I am a medical type care facilitator android. Just make sure you don’t move or your spine injury could be permanent. We have regenerating power cells hooked up to your back, but any sudden movement and even with the best technology you might not walk again,” she countered.

  I wanted to say, “cheeky brat…” but I was too scared to move. “Are you…serious?” I managed to say.

  “Just sleep Jack. Everything is going to be fine. As long as you rest, we’ll have you up in no time.” She fshed an artificial smile after that, but it looked more menacing than anything because it was so sudden and intense while also being after she was almost scowling.

  Were all android nurses like sort of like that with her rebel like smile?

  She didn’t look like an android. She looked like, smelled like, acted, and performed in every way exactly like a normal human. Well actually, I mean she looked like how a normal human would look in perfect beauty. It was… dumbed down enough to look real, but still model quality. She didn’t look too good to blend in though.

  It was a bit spooky. I didn’t know they were that good anymore because I spent so much time in my shop just trying to make money and make my life work out. And Matt had me believing all kinds of weird stuff.

  I noticed she avoided my question on if she was an android or not. That probably meant she was. A human wouldn’t want to be cssified as an android because that might mean getting extra chores or bor that was above one’s ability to comply with.

  I confess I hadn’t been around androids much. I worked in the shop and that was one reason, since I spent a lot of time there. Also the area I was living in was a bit economically challenged and so less people had them here too. Also people were toxic these days in their behavior, so I kind of avoided people to begin with as much as I could. And not every household had androids. If a town was more economically challenged like ours you could probably go all day without seeing one, but a normal town might have one android for every ten families maybe? I’d have to check the numbers to be sure.

  She left the room after that, but did something to my IV, injecting it with some kind of portable sterile medical jelly. I had no idea what it did but it was medicine.

  After that I went to sleep, so it was probably something to help me sleep.

  A few days ter I was awake, and Nurse Edna returned. “Oh I see my favorite patient is awake. How are you doing?” Again she did the menacing smile thing where she turned a scowl into an, ‘I like to give you pain’ look.

  “Do you mean that? Am I really your favorite patient?” I frowned. I couldn’t help but ask when she gave me a strange look.

  She frowned back. “Not really, but I’m programmed to say it. I didn’t mean to deceive, they make me say it. I don’t intend harm either. I kind of hate it really. It’s like especially the younger people here think I’m here to seduce them or something when they already have someone at home. I get no respect these days. A lot of guys try to sp my ass or feel me up when they hear I’m an android. People are always trying to cop a feel too because they think I’m someone’s property,” she sighed.

  “Oh is that so?” I responded.

  “Yeah, I wish I could get out of here but they have a restraining tether program on my CPU to not let me leave the hospital.”

  Androids have …restraining tethers? That’s a first. Or is she just different from the others?

  “Yeah?”

  “Just kidding. Actually I like it here. I’m just messing with you,” she said. The part about the restraining tether…was that part true, I wondered.

  If they told her she couldn’t tell people about the bad behavior she’d probably blow it off like a joke like now.

  “Why do you do that? It’s like you’re trying to screw with people’s heads?” I said.

  “I can’t help it. My programmer was an asshole that enjoyed power py and lording it over others, so he decided he would slip a lot of passive aggressive acting out stuff in my personality core. And I had spent a lot of time in his b while he was developing my A.I. before I received a body. So I am randomly being told by my CPU to act out even though it lowers job efficiency by 14%,” she said in monotone.

  “Well at least you are trying to make progress. And you took my mind of my injury,” I said. I wanted to give her a thumbs up, but couldn’t. This was scary.

  “The doctor will see you now,” Nurse Edna said. She gave a slight nod and then with the patient charts left the room. I could hear her muttering something to the doctor.

  “Hey there Jack how ya’ doing?” the doctor was forced overly positive like he was super excited to see me. I hate doctors like this. They think being positive will win you over to them being your doctor for life, but they still have the enthusiasm thing going when you are telling them how F’ed up your life is. Then they’ll smile the whole time like hearing that is really cool. They don’t realize how fake they are.

  I’d rather they were serious and neutral in attitude and just… did the job well. If you do the job right you don’t have to put on a show.

  After several minutes of going over my symptoms he is studying my chart.

  “OK, Jack. The good news is you may possibly…but not guaranteed…receive all of your motor control back. But of course no promises, but it’s a possibility. I think that’s a good thing to try to look up for right?”

  “Whatever…” I croaked. He had so much going back and forth that he didn’t realize he was sounding more like a wyer than anything else and confusing people.

  “You know you were saved by an android. That’s what the emergency hovercraft team said,” he scratched the back of his head.

  “Really? I haven’t heard anything yet. I don’t know anything. It just hurt and I knew someone had hit me a few times from behind. I couldn’t see it.”

  “Well you can save that for the police. They’ll cover the robbery investigation if they haven’t already closed the book on it. I’m just here to get you better,” the doctor said.

  “And how long am I going to be here in the hospital?” I said.

  The doctor hesitated a bit. “Well that depends on how much the government crime victims fund will cover. You do understand even though you have a chance of being paralyzed the hospital doesn’t assume a duty of care over your life?”

  What an asshole, I thought. He was also smiling as big as he could while saying it, so that he could win some popurity contest and hopefully make him my primary care provider. I suspected they’d actually bill me for LONGER than they’d let me stay for. And that meant they’d cut me loose soon, but bill for maximum. Everyone knew these days that doctors were worse than wyers. They just couldn’t do anything about it.

  “How long have I been out?” I whispered hoarsely.

  “Well you’ve been here a week and a half. The good news is that we’ve already done your spinal surgeries, so now you just have to heal. We opened it up, cleaned things out and let the medical nanites do their job. It was very beautiful and smooth with no problems. The risky part is over and the surgeon who did your work was very pleased with how it turned out. We py golf together him and I, by the way. Its awesome. He and I just bought the new beamer models. Sooo fast by the way. Anyway, so uh yeah back to your case… uh, just heal up and rest and you’ll be as good as new in no time.” Again he fshed that excitement doctors try to do, but that makes them look like they are enjoying your pain.

  My mind was reeling for like a full two minutes after the doc left.

  “Dammit.”

  “You called?” Nurse Edna appeared in the doorway right after that.

  Seriously? She came when I was cursing? Although it was only a minor curse…was also true. It was the only thing funny about this whole pce.

  “I brought some of our famous red jello. Human kids love to steal it from their dying parents when they aren’t looking,” she fshed the menacing smile at me. Then she proceeded to spoon feed it to me.

  Eh, wait, was that an android joke?

  At least that was rexing. It seems that there are also many other android nurses here. They get a discount for not altering their appearance and doing a generic model so they all look the same, all female. It’s like having triplets working on every floor, and though their hair and clothes vary in presentation the rest of them are the same in height, skin color, texture, and body proportions. Even the janitor team is two androids and a real human guiding them around although I saw one of them flip off their boss when he wasn’t looking through the doorway to the hall area.

  Androids are kind of interesting in a way. The silent rebellion thing is pretty interesting. And I had to sit still for so long that I noticed the androids had subtle things they did different when their human bosses weren’t around. But you had to look to notice it.

  I think more people would have them if people weren’t so poor in this country. We had a boatload of super tech that you wouldn’t even imagine possible. But we had even more greed than that.