The fault was Joel Pratt’s own, though he tried to blame his niece, Patti, and then his wife, Donna. But Patti was young and exuberant. How could he fault her? Nor could Donna be culpable. She’d left him the year before. He couldn’t blame either of them for the damage to his Nivens Patch when he let Patti use her illicit mood enhancing wand on him. The “hancer” sat now on a table next to the sofa, the short brass tube sparking every few seconds, its internal battery too run down for the wand to be of use.
Patti sprawled in an armchair across the room. It was a plain and empty space, this room. It lacked the shiny chrome and well-appointed trimmings Joel saw when his patch functioned. Without the aid of the chips, which he always pictured as small black buttons adhering to the faux skin material embedded under his scalp, the apartment looked barren. Plain stairs led to the loft bedroom, not the spiral staircase made of decorative black steel he saw with the help of his patch. No pictures on the walls, but, rather, bleak yellowing wallpaper peeling in the corners, with slap-dash farm animals – pigs and sheep and cows – faded to the point of obliteration.
Joel glared at Patti in her red underwear, her long blonde hair falling across her body like a frayed blanket. For a moment, he thought he’d resurrected the Nivens Patch, but then he remembered that his niece was beautiful and young and didn’t need dreamy enhancement.
He slapped the side of his head, as if that might stir the patch’s circuitry. He concentrated on images of push-down switches, metallic gearing, even toy pulleys with rubber band belts, but nothing woke up the patch. Named for a twentieth century writer who popularized “jacking in” before there was an internet or web or its current incarnation, the inter-web, the Nivens Patch had helped cure millions of people suffering extreme ennui. The patch made the mundane seem elaborate. It transformed ordinary into extraordinary.
“Are you awake?” Joel stood over Patti and looked at her pale flesh. Every bit of her so pale, her legs boney to the extreme and her elbows like sharp stones.
“Where’re my clothes?” Patti sat up. She didn’t suddenly hug herself. She didn’t blanch in embarrassment. She smiled and crawled on the carpet and pulled her ripped jeans from beneath the couch, then retrieved her blouse from behind a flimsy cloth chair.
Joel handed over her sandals, holding them by the thin plastic straps designed to hug her heels.
“That hancer fried my patch,” he said.
Patti shrugged. “How’s it feel? I mean, being free of that garbage.”
Joel squeezed his eyes shut. He didn’t want to look at his dismal surroundings. The patch painted a much better picture, letting him adjust the level of beauty and the degree of electronic enrichment. He always toned down the enhancements when he went outside. He didn’t want to get lost in a beautiful cityscape without real landmarks.
“Enjoy it,” Patti said. “You don’t work today.”
Joel looked to the blank flat screen on the wall. It angled out above a shelf that his patch once filled with virtual books. Now the shelf was empty. Thinking about his schedule didn’t activate the monitor. He had to use the touch screen to turn on the display and then summon his calendar.
“You’re right,” he mumbled. “I’m off today.”
Patti snickered. “Isn’t it insane? You rely on that patch so much, you don’t even know your own schedule.”
Joel shrugged. True. He went to work on the days the patch “told” him to. He took the jitney on Milwaukee Road, the Loop Tram, or a Fast-By car based on what the patch deemed necessary, its cloud-based monitoring system measuring traffic congestion against time of day. Twice a week, Joel traveled to his office cubicle and a sometimes-interesting job helping end-users cope with household appliances and other automated gadgets.
“Don’t you have to go?” Joel said to Patti. “I’ve gotta get this patch thing fixed.”
“Uncle Joe,” she said with mock alarm. She always called him by the wrong name. It was a cute affectation when she was eight. At age twenty-two, she seemed rude. “You’ve got me for a month.” She plopped onto the cushioned chair, legs under her body, her long hair streaming across her bare arms. She crooked a finger and wiggled it in a come-on motion.
“We really shouldn’t,” Joel said.
“We’re not blood relatives,” Patti said, a mischievous glint in her eyes. She’d said something similar last night when they shared a bottle of bitter tasting wine. That’s when she zapped his patch with her illegal electronic wand. They laughed together when it happened and fell asleep while watching a slapstick comedy on TV.
“You know,” Patti said, “it’s your turn.”
“But Donna’s not here.”
“I don’t need Aunt Donna to protect me,” she said softly, and paused before adding: “You’ll do just fine.”
“Don’t you think you’re too old to be relative surfing?”
She pouted. “Don’t make me grow up too fast, Uncle Joe.”
“Joel! I’m your Uncle Joel.”
“I know. But Joe is much more dignified. Uncle Joe. Sounds catchy.”
He didn’t know what she meant. She’d always been an odd child, even as an eight-year-old when Patti began moving from one relative to another following the death of her mother, a single parent, Donna’s older sister.
“Want to go out for breakfast?” she asked. “I found a cafe with old-fashioned puzzles and board games. Come on. It’ll be fun.”
Joel sighed.
“Cousin Bart took me there all the time when I stayed with him.”
Joel dreaded the idea of going outside without his patch in working order. He’d have to do it eventually. But couldn’t he put it off for as long as possible?
“It’s going to cost me a couple of thousand to get this fixed,” he said, tapping the side of his head.
Patti pursed her lips. “Sorry.”
In that moment, she looked like a remorseful schoolgirl, with a bit of fright thrown in. He couldn’t be angry with her. She’d warned him about the hancer. He knew about the effects from overhearing office gossip and watching TV and reading long articles that popped into his head when he summoned a newsfeed.
“You know any fixers?” he asked. The only ones he’d encountered in the past when his patch needed adjustment worked for Nivens Neural Systems. They charged a lot to repair damaged units. Off-grid fixers were cheaper.
Patti shook her head. “You’re making me feel bad, Uncle Joe.”
“Don’t. Come on. We’ll get breakfast.” He winced when he realized he couldn’t pull up a summary of his bank account, but had to retrieve his old cell phone, activate it – a tedious process that took several minutes — and manually tap into his financials.
#####
Embarrassed, Joel didn’t make eye contact with his fellow workers when he signed for a tablet computer at the office. With two weeks to wait for an appointment at Nivens Neural, Joel needed a physical device to do his job.
As he took a seat at an empty desk, he saw Elena Korefsky hovering at the edge of his periphery vision. He feared she’d seen him check out the computer. She’d ask him questions now, sound concerned. He shuddered when he saw the woman amble over to where he sat Tinkling brass beads dangled against her boyish chest, her short black hair brushing her shoulders when she leaned over and said, “Trouble with your patch?” Her hand gripped his shoulder.
Joel swallowed, unsure of what to say. Elena wasn’t a customer service rep like everyone else on this floor. She never took a call from a distraught user. She had a special connection in her Nivens Patch that let her monitor everyone. Elena knew who slacked off, who ignored a call, who didn’t provide the proper help, who didn’t meet their quota.
“A bit flaky,” Joel said. “I think something got fried.”
“You remember how to use that thing?” Elena pointed at the tablet on Joel’s desk.
“Like riding a bicycle,” he said.
Elena narrowed her dark eyes, a puzzled look on her long face. But the confusion didn’t last. Joel guessed she’d latched onto some cloud-based video clip that explained his offhand remark.
“Oh,” she said with an exaggerated opening of her small mouth. Joel stared at her teeth. They glistened. Bits of saliva dripped from her incisors. He wondered why those two teeth were so pointed. Possibly genetic. He missed his patch, which would have given him more information about teeth, genetic nuances, and, perhaps, some clue regarding Elena. Every employee had a profile available for perusal by every other employee. A company rule.
“I’ve got a two week wait,” Joel said. “For an appointment with Neural.”
“What happened?” Elena asked. “To your patch?”
Joel didn’t want to admit he’d had a hancer used on his brain.
“Not sure,” he lied.
Elena smiled. “Playing games with the wrong people?” she asked.
Joel nodded. Vaguely. Wilting beneath Elena’s glare.
“Bad boy,” she said. “I have a fixer-upper. A guy I know. Off-grid. Reliable. And there won’t be a two week wait for service.”
“Thanks,” Joel said, his tongue clicking against the back of his upper front teeth. He watched Elena move along the wide aisle between the wall and the backs of the cubes. He turned to his tablet when she disappeared around a corner. Other heads poked back into their cubicles when she was out of sight. Joel made eye contact with no one.
He tapped the on-switch and his tablet came to life, flashing a spinning globe against a light blue background. The words, “World Wide Help and Aid, Inc.” flashed across the top of the screen. The company president appeared in an inset, but Joel tapped past the video clip. After twelve years of working for World Wide, he didn’t need a welcome speech.
Like riding a bicycle, he said to himself, and recalled the rudiments of handling the touch screen computer. A few taps. Read the icons based on their symbols. Get into the user call-in stream. Prepare to help the poor yokels who didn’t know how to turn on their ovens without somebody’s assistance.
An email icon blinked in the corner of the screen. He tapped it with a fingertip and a short note from Elena appeared with the name and address of an off-grid fixer. Joel pulled his cell phone from his shirt pocket and zipped the message to his personal notebook. Even if Patti came up with a name of someone to see, he knew he’d probably go with Elena’s recommendation.
But what if he had to admit what he’d done?
He assumed this fixer had some ethics. If they snitched on their clients, how long could they stay in business?
#####
Dr. Stein’s unsophisticated office didn’t inspire confidence, but Joel thought he could trust Elena not to steer him wrong. Unlike a Neural Systems facility, there were no floating holograms depicting an embedded array of chips, no wall-mounted monitors showing happy people waltzing along dismal streets one moment, luxurious surroundings the next, courtesy of a patch. Instead, Dr. Stein reminded Joel of a life he thought he’d escaped. He’d grown up with backroom practitioners who provided medical services, massaging away aches and pains, fevers and coughs, tumors and deep-seated twinges. His mother and father believed in Applied Homeopathic. Now in their 80s, they happily thrived in one of the movement’s retirement centers.
Joel rebelled against their beliefs when he finished high school and left home to live in a college dorm. Medicine practiced at the school’s clinic included annual exams, once-a-year inoculations that always felt like bee stings, and doses of syrupy medicine for seasonal colds and other mild afflictions. He liked none of it, but he believed in being cured, not massaged to apathy.
The doctor, with his hands in the deep pockets of his white lab coat, looked competent enough. Tall and stately, he had the curly white hair and sagging jowls, matched his watery blue eyes and protruding large ears that inspired confidence.
“At a party,” Joel said in response to several questions the doctor asked.
“So, you lost it at a party? A zap? A hancer? What?”
“Hancer. Somebody came along. I got hanced.”
“Hope it felt good,” Stein said with an air of disdain. His sweet breath bathed Joel’s ear as he probed with a proximity instrument. The warmth from its battery felt good. Joel’s hair tingled. A few strands stood straight out from his head.
Joel fixed his gaze on a narrow orange-red stain running from the curved top of the sink, down the side and into the exposed pipes below. Various knives and pinpricking rods sat in a jar of blue solution on a shelf above the sink. A bubble-strewn bar of soap left a film of suds on a slotted holder near the hot and cold faucet handles. The scene seemed important. Joel wondered why.
He pictured tiny beams of energy bouncing against his head and then penetrating his scalp. He envisioned his patch’s dead chips holding animated conversations with tiny men in white coats.
The doctor’s probe had something to do with these strange sensation, Joel assumed.
“I’m not even getting an ack,” Stein said. “You got fried but good. A lot of times, these patches just go to sleep. I can wake them up.” He waved his probe in front of Joel’s face. “Poke them, sort of,” he added.
“What else can you try?” Joel asked in a whisper.
“You were in a bar?” Stein asked. “Someone came along and zapped you? For how long? Seconds? The damage I see here didn’t come from a quick hit. It’s too extensive.”
“What do I do?” he asked. He didn’t want to admit the truth, that he’d let Patti zap him to ecstasy over and over again.
Dr. Stein grinned. “It’s not the end of the world. Don’t look so glum. A new patch and you’re back in the bright great world that Neural Systems promises.”
Joel swallowed. “How much? Can you put it in?”
Dr. Stein waved at his surroundings. “You want me peeling back your scalp in a place like this?” He laughed. “I’m not in business to go that far. No, you need to go to Neural and sign up for a replacement.”
“But they’ll…” Joel’s voice trailed off.
“Ask annoying questions? Yes, they will.” Stein laughed. Like a man enjoying himself, Joel thought.
#####
The technician hovered, poking at Joel’s scalp, pushing aside the tiny hairs above his ears, creating an image of the damaged patch that appeared on a small monitor on a swinging mount extending from the plain white wall. Unlike Dr. Stein, the tech didn’t dress in a white lab coat. Like Joel, he wore a gray shirt not tucked into the waistband of his tight-fitting pants, the collar narrow and pointed, the front buttoned to the neck.
“What kind of work do you do?” the tech asked in a raspy voice, as though he’d been made hoarse by too many daily questions. Joel guessed he was the umpteenthed patient today. It was late, close to four in the afternoon.
“I’m a helper,” Joel said, not really wanting to talk about work. He’d spent the past two weeks struggling to keep up with his colleagues, logging half as many customer service calls as usual each day. His sub-par performance earned him an additional half-day per week shift, an early morning one tacked onto the usual six hours he spent in a cubicle every Monday. Without the additional three hours, he would’ve suffered a pay level downgrade. Which he couldn’t afford. Patti ate a lot. Drank a lot. Ran up the entertainment bill with incessant TV watching. And insisted on running from bar to bar two or three nights a week, making Joel tag along on escort duty.
“You guys do a good job,” the tech said in an offhand tone-of-voice. The monitor showed Joel’s skull-wrapping patch, the tiny chips in blue and the mounting material under his scalp in gray-white. “My fridge stopped sending me alerts. Got a helper on the line and no problems. Just needed a software jolt.”
Joel shrugged.
“I’ll tell you,” the tech said as his hands danced across Joel’s scalp, his probes digging softly under the skin, “when you’ve got nothing, no activity at all, not even a blue sky on a cloudy day, so to speak, it’s more or less certain you got a dead one under that head of hair.”
“How much?” Joel croaked. “To fix it. How much?”
“One hundred and fifty thousand.” The tech continued his examination. “That’s an estimate.”
Joel calculated how long it would take him to pay back the loan he’d need to take out, possibly from a bank or from Neural System’s credit bureau, or from the retirement fund he’d built up over the years. He’d paid for the initial patch using the government issued Starter Fund granted after six years of post-high school education.
He had options, Joel thought. He wasn’t as adrift as he felt. Just as he had started to learn – relearn – to use a tablet computer at work, he’d grown use to the sight of his apartment and its dirty brick surroundings, block after block of look-alike buildings. The garbage in the streets no longer bothered him. Nor did the heat of an early summer in late March. He’d grown use to his cell phone, using it for casual communications and information gathering, charging it when necessary. He didn’t mind that every interface, whether at work or at home, was manual now. He had to touch things and press buttons. Things that his Nivens Patch handled intuitively required physical intervention now.
“Yeah,” the tech said, drawing out the sound of the word. His young face betrayed nothing of what he might be feeling. Remorse for giving out bad news or glee about the commission he’d earn. Joel couldn’t tell. He searched the long white face, the freckles across the bridge of the boy’s nose, and the set of those thin lips. He wondered, who kissed this young man?
Joel shook his head. Too many odd questions invaded his mind lately. He blamed the damaged patch.
“You should at least have it removed,” the technician said, thumping the air with the blunt end of a silvery instrument. “I detect some leakage. Not poisonous. At least, not fatal. But that stuff can make you sick, maybe some auditory hallucinations. Maybe bad dreams. It various from patient to patient.”
“What’s that cost?” Joel asked.
The tech smiled. “Bet you missed the old days when you’d think a question and get an instant answer.”
Joel glared at the boy. So sure of himself, secure in his job, his life. “Aren’t you patched?”
“Of course. So I’ve got the answer. Thing is, you’ll have to get more specific about what happened to you.”
“I drank too much.”
The tech nodded, but his lively blue eyes said, he didn’t believe Joel’s story. “Didn’t your patch send you a warning about losing control?”
It had, Joel recalled. He’d ignored the prompts. He’d been having too much fun with Patti, a woman half his age who represented a forbidden land he longed to visit.
“How can you be twice my age?” she had asked, hands on her hips. “You mean, when I was ten you were twenty?”
“No. It doesn’t work that way. But you’re 22 and I’m 44. When you were ten, I was 32.”
“That’s not twice my age,” she said. “Here. Here’s some more of this.” She’d raised her hancer to his forehead.
The memory of that night made Joel shake. The chair that encased him rattled on its pedestal. The tech stood by a desk, a computer screen displaying a transcription of the notes he made into Joel’s file, the words jumping from his brain to the database with no key presses in between.
The memory of that first great night with Patti slowly evaporated from the front of Joel’s mind, replaced by the reality of living with the wild 22-year-old for nearly three weeks. She’d move on soon, onto the next friend or relative willing to take her in.
“Sometimes,” the tech said, “they need to know which bar. Maybe to investigate further. Maybe to run a sting operation. So, if you have friends engaging in this sort of zapping behavior, well…” The tech waved his hands in the air. He looked sad, as though he regretted not having that kind of fun himself. He wasn’t as frivolous as someone like Patti.
“I’d have to turn .. “Joel stopped himself from saying, “turn her in.” That was a giveaway. “Turn in the bar? What if I can’t remember which one?”
“That’s not up to me. I mean, I don’t make the decisions about these things. If they investigate and don’t believe what you tell them, you may wind up living with that decaying patch for the rest of your life. Who knows what kind of dreams you’ll have. Awake or asleep. Who knows.”
“And if I tell them everything?”
“I hear they give bonuses for cooperation. Maybe enough to afford a new patch.”
“Maybe,” Joel said in a whisper. Perhaps it would help Patti straighten out her life, put her on a better course. She’d be sent to a workhouse as punishment. But then she’d get out and sent to school and given purpose to her life. No more couch surfing. No more electronic stimulations. No more patch-destroying behavior.
And, Joel realized, no more being Patti Jarvis, the mischievous imp with the long blonde hair and frilly red underwear who delighted in making people take notice.
“I’m not going to remember anything,” Joel said, and hopped out of the chair.
“You may not like what that damaged patch does to your brain. You’re certainly headed for a life that’s a lot more difficult than – “
“Stop!” Joel raised his hand. “I know all that. Thanks for the warning.” He pictured Patti mouthing, “Thank you, Uncle Joe,” her lips puckering for an avuncular kiss.
He left the office. Out of the building. Onto the street. Patti would be with him for another week of games and fun and meals. His damaged patch and the dreams it might cause when he slept, along with the need to handle a tablet computer to do his job would be with him forever.
He’d get used to it. So long as he’d have Patti for a month each year.
END.
by David Castlewitz
After a long and successful career as a software developer and technical architect, David has turned to a first love: SF, fantasy, magical realism, and fiction in general. He’s published stories in Phase 2, Farther Stars Than These, SciFan,Martian Wave, Flash Fiction Press and other online as well as print magazines. Visit his web site: http://www.davidsjournal.com to learn more and for links to his Kindle books on Amazon.