Short Stories
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THE
MEDICAL BRACELET
by Robert Howling
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Sam’s
medbrace squeezed his wrist gently. He looked at the small
readout. Instead of the usual display for blood pressure,
temperature, pulse and relative skin temp/moisture (relative
to the humidity and temperature of his location) plus some
other icons he was not sure of, there was a message to call
the universal health care clinic.
He was annoyed at the intrusion. Not that he knew what he’d
do differently in his life with less nannying. Well, he shouldn’t
complain. Just being against something without and alternative
solution seemed to be on the path to nihilism, so forget it.
“Sam 62842-1321?”
“Yes.” Apparently there a lot of Sams some of whom
might also have been born on 6-28-2042 so the time of birth
was included in everyone’s ID.
“The uralizer in your toilet indicates an anomaly in
your urine. Did you notice the UR icon on your medbrace?”
“So whadda I do?” He ignored the question because
he had no idea what the UR icon looked like.
“Come to the clinic. Tomorrow 10am.”
Whatever government AI program was doing the medbrace analytics
was pretty thorough. For example, if Sam were talking to someone
of the female persuasion and something was said or done which
made Sam blush, the medbrace’s skin temp/moisture alert
would be dismissed because the AI program tracked everyone
and knew in whose presence Sam was at the time and, oh well,
it was in the male/female context so …... But since the
program knew that only Sam had been tracked at the toilet,
it was his pee only and even given Sam’s hydration levels
which could be accounted for in the analysis, the anomaly
was enough to warrant a visit.
In the meantime, Sam decided to watch some shows before the
mandated viewing time. Watching programs was easy. The display
on the medbrace was the source of all viewing. Voice activated
commands brought up a hologram and sound so any program was
in 3D right in front of you.
For mandatory viewing time the program automatically popped
out of the medbrace. Sam thought it would be less annoying
watching the nonsurgical frontal lobotomy shows with neighbors.
He noticed one or two out of roughly two dozen neighbors being
jerked up by the medbraces when sleep waves in their brains
showed up as they began to zone out. Maybe the Freedom of
Speech concept should be reconfigured to Freedom of Listening.
More neighbors were being sleep prodded. This made him madder.
The hologram was going on about new rules. The brainwashing
was getting ridiculous. In fact, he scoffed at it. A couple
sneering chuckles escaped him. He looked around to make sure
nobody saw or heard him do that. They would be rewarded for
reporting such disrespect and everyone needed rewards to supplement
the meager universal basic income they were provided.
Several of those unknown icons on Sam’s medbrace lit
up when he scoffed.
Sam made it to the clinic next morning. He never made it back.
The neighbors noticed a government van emptying out his apartment.
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