“So how do you feel?” he asked, looking up from whatever he was doing. “Please, come in.”
“No, I’m fine. I mean, I just want to get going. This was supposed to be under an hour, I’ve got things to do,” I complained. “So just tell me quick, what do I need to know?”
He paused.
“You have a very powerful new tool at your disposal, just be careful with it, and don’t activate any of the distributed consciousness features yet.”
“Distributed consciousness,” I snorted, looking back towards the nurse who’d positioned herself behind me in the hallway. I bet she had no idea what we were talking about. “Where do they get these ideas?”
“If you want to talk with me,” continued the doctor, and I looked back towards him, “just say my name and you will be instantly patched through to me, anytime of the day or night.”
With some effort, I managed to disengage my disgust from the sweaty reflection off his head.
“Great,” I replied impatiently. “Got it.”
“When you get home today and feel ready, just say ‘pssi instructions’ and you will get all the information you need from your new proxxi.”
“Perfect.” I felt almost cheerful, sensing an imminent exit. “I’ll be in touch.”
With the tiniest of waves I bid him goodbye, and marched off down the hallway and out the door, purposely ignoring the nurse who was watching me all the way out.
The air outside was crisp and fresh, and for the first time in ages I felt a surge of optimism. I decided to walk myself home from the clinic. I could use a breath of fresh air.
I stopped to light up a cigarette.
I’d decided that I hadn’t made a mistake with Alex. I really needed my space, to be alone for a while. He never supported or defended me anyway. In fact, my whole life it had always been up to me to defend my own place. Nobody ever helped me with anything.
Fall was in fully now, and the leaves on the trees lining the streets were turning beautiful shades of crimson and yellow. The air had a refreshing edge. I strode energetically along the sidewalks, enjoying myself, looking at everything around me.
I didn’t feel any different, and part of me doubted that whatever they had done would work as well as it was billed, despite that I was personally marketing it all. The crowds on the Upper East Side were dense but navigable, and billboards and holograms cluttered the view, but it still made for a nice walk. Eventually, I made my way home to the personal oasis of my brownstone walk-up.
Mr. Tweedles sprang at me as I entered, and began purring loudly as he rubbed himself against my pant leg while I closed the door and arranged my things. The cat had been my friend Mary’s idea, to provide some companionship. I’d grown fond of him, but the thing was just so needy. I shooed him away, hating the thought of all the hair he was depositing on me with each purring caress.
I immediately made for the bottle of wine on my kitchen counter that I’d opened yesterday and poured myself a glass. Collapsing onto my couch, I luxuriated in the taste of the earthy Tempranillo.
Sighing, I realized I had to review the installation instructions for my new toy. I might as well get it over with, but I had no patience for dealing with anything technical.
Rummaging around in my purse, I found a cigarette. I’d already gone through another pack. With all the technological wizardry you’d think they could invent an endless cigarette. I shook my head and crumpled up the empty cardboard packaging and threw it onto the table.
“Pssi instructions,” I called out, lighting up my smoke.
“System activated,” I heard from a voice that seemed to be inside my head. “I will now appear on the chair beside you. Please do not be alarmed.”
With that, something materialized sitting beside me on my matching armchair, something that looked sort of like me. In fact, it looked exactly like me.
“I am your new poly-synthetic sensory interface, or pssi, proxxi,” it said. “I will now explain the system features to you. You can stop me at any time.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” I objected, waving my glass of wine in front of me, “hold on a sec.”
I wanted to get Kenny, my techie and personal assistant from work, in on this. I fumbled around in my purse for my mobile.
“You don’t need your mobile anymore,” helpfully suggested my new proxxi, seeming to know what I was thinking. That stopped me in my tracks.
“Kenny?” I called out tentatively, and his projection instantly appeared floating in the middle of my living room.
“Yes boss?” he asked. “Whoa, you got some kind of fancy lens display system going on?”
I’d tripped his geek-chic alarm.
“Yeah, Kenny, great, just get over it okay? Please listen to what, this, ah, woman is saying,” I said pointing towards my new proxxi. “Pssi interface, or proxxi, or whatever, please continue.”
Kenny’s eyes grew wide as the proxxi began speaking and describing the system controls. I just sat back and let my eyes glaze over, enjoying my wine. Presently, the proxxi faded away and I turned to Kenny to finish up.
“Kenny, I hate dealing with all this technical stuff,” I complained, “can I give you root access to my system and you handle the settings and dealing with this proxxi? I don’t want to have anything to do with it, and quite frankly I find it, or her or whatever, disturbing.”
“Not sure boss,” he replied skeptically, “let me look into it. From what I understood, you can’t hand off all the root functions, but give me a day or two to research it.”
His geek love was sparking hard.
“Just don’t waste too much time on it, right?” He’d just use this as an excuse to duck out of other work, the little weasel.
He nodded. “Okay.”
“Any problem I have, I just call your name and you pop up, right?”
“Exactly,” he agreed, “anytime, anywhere. Still, were you paying attention to the safety? If you need to reset the system there is this hardwired gesture recognition…”
He began motioning in the air, reaching towards his chest and twisting and pulling. It looked ridiculous.
“Look Kenny, I’ve got you, right? Or Dr. Simmons, or failing that I just call this proxxi thing, right?”
“Yes, absolutely.” He smiled and shrugged, stopping what he was doing.
“I really don’t like dealing with this AI and synthetic stuff,” I sighed.
“But you were listening to all that, right?” he asked, furrowing his brow in feigned concern. “This system is very powerful.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yes Kenny, I was listening, but just take care of it for me, okay?”
“Right boss,” he replied with a shrug.
“Now, please set it so it removes all advertising as my doctor prescribed.”
There was a short pause while he spoke to my new proxxi on his end.
“All done,” he replied quickly. He smiled and raised his eyebrows.
That was fast.
I had to admit I liked the way I didn’t need the mobile bud anymore, and the technology looked pretty amazing, even from just the proxxi session.
Waving Kenny away, I settled back into the couch. Mr. Tweedles made an attempt to come up for some affection, and I shoved him away. Not on my new authentic leather couch. What the hell was he thinking?
It was time for bed. I picked my reading tablet up from the coffee table and walked off towards my bedroom. Quickly, I undressed and slipped under the covers, opening up the tablet to get back into reading a trashy romance novel I had been trying to finish, set in some ridiculous corner of the multiverse.
The pages of text quickly began to fade and blur as I tried to read them, and I fell peacefully off to sleep amid dreams of peaceful order and solitude.