The Entry-Ant whirred and beckoned the impatient queue forward. Jeri frosted her eye-clips to black for the scan-scorch procedure.
“Jeri Ego.”
The Ant’s spark-beam flickered green as she spoke. Jeri wasn’t sure why Med\Core felt they needed to give her a burner name. She was only here because her in-line health probe had been malfunctioning — was kaput, in fact — and her credit rating was close to zero as a result. But arguing with an Ant was never advisable.
The scanner turned dark blue. “Negative ID,” the Ant hummed. Jeri’s throat tingled. The gate compressed. The Ant’s voice tone shifted to a faintly accented, faintly female chirp. “Please contact your local provider for reassessment of scan access.”
The gate decompressed for a moment. Some kind of malfunction; Med\Core weren’t known for investment in maintenance. Jeri wriggled through before the Ant could protest.
No one followed her. Med\Core really were slipping. She found her way to the reset labs unimpeded. Once she’d made it clear to the senior tech that she wasn’t going to leave without being seen she was shown to a tiny, semi-private cubicle and provided with a trainee consultant by the name of Larel^6, who looked so like Jeri’s teenage niece she wondered if they’d been clone-enhanced from the same template.
Thirty minutes later Larel was shaking her head. “I don’t want to hear it,” Jeri said. “I need a refit. This probe is faulty to its core.”
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“Yah, like, you could straddle onto Central?”
“Tried it. Made things worse. You know how many times a day I have to find a workaround?”
“I fathom that, Mz — er …” Larel defocused her eyes. “You’re not showing up on my clips, reason unascertained.”
“And what might that reason be? Shall we guess?” Jeri needed, in fact demanded, a refit. Intern or no, Larel^6 would accomplish the procedure. Somehow.
The younger woman bit her lip. “Like … there might be a solution?”
“A cheap one?”
“Free ride, so long as …” Larel took a quick, furtive look around and cast an aural temp-shroud over them. “Should give us about three minutes. So, there’s a mecha to piggyback this.”
“Yeah?” It sounded too easy. “Onto who?”
“Onto me.” Jeri waited for her to continue. “So, like, I’ve got something you want, yah? Cause your probe is fried out. Absolute nada. Like, sabbed.”
“I get it. So what have I got that you want?”
Larel hesitated, only for a second. “Credit.”
“Are you serious? That’s the last thing I have.”
“You repaid your scholarships, including nursery school? Earned ten years’ residence vouchers? Clean socials? Then you got credit.” Larel tapped into the assessor terminal. Jeri’s face fractalized onto the d-screen. “Some citizens can’t parallel with the probes. Figure you’re fundamentally incompatible. What diagnosis did it give you?”
“Everything you could imagine,” Jeri said. “All inaccurate. Cancers, neural degeneration, heat-dome mania for starters. Even smallpox.”
Larel whistled. “Bitter. So we can go simpatico. Two years’ yoking then we sever.”
Jeri didn’t know whether to believe her or not. A second opinion might help. But they lived in a world where your only realistic option was to submit to the threading surgery, turning your body into a mobile data-hub that allowed your wellness provider to devise ever more subtle ways to extract your surplus income. If you demurred, your credit rating would never rise above zero.
Therefore, she said, “What ’ware are you planning to use?”
“The good shit.”
“Which is what?” Larel punched at the assessor, ignoring her. “Contra?”
Larel dilated her eye-clips. “Yah, pirate. Functional. Only needs to last short-term though. So we’re on?”
“We’ll have to live together?”
Larel shrugged. “Guess. You’re nexxed?”
“Huh?”
“Like, nexus. Conjoined. Married.”
“God, no. I don’t even have an apat.”
“Cube walker? Grippy. So if we go symbiotic we can lease perma. How about the East Elevens? Plentiful apat bounty north of the river.”
“Woah, woah.” Jeri held up her hands. “Did I agree yet?”
Larel bared her wrist. Light fluctuated from salmon pink to indigo beneath the skin. “Yoke or die, yah? For mutual blessings. I don’t want to live with you either. Pure transactional, then we null. Or I find someone else.” Med\Core’s senior tech drifted past, giving them a sidelong look. “I only get limited shroud-minutes. Decide now.”
She clip-scrolled while waiting for Jeri’s answer, her face a vacant mask with twin orbs of purest black for eyes. Jeri imagined living with her and tried not to scream. Lab sounds drifted in. The shroud was diffusing. She had seconds to make the most important decision of her life.
Maybe, she told herself, it wouldn’t be so bad. And the credit she’d earn would eventually let her upgrade to modded probes, ones that wouldn’t malfunction. Hopefully.
She said, “Fine.”
Larel defrosted. The senior tech appeared out of nowhere, looming over them. “Very well, Mz Ego,” Larel intoned. Her contact details flickered into Jeri’s clips. “I’ll inform you of the next available appointment. Good day.”
Jeri headed for the door before the tech said anything. Out in the city the heat warning placards flashed double red. Her tramway carriage’s air-vents were fritzing. Much more of this and her false diagnoses would become a reality. For a moment she considered having the probes removed, living off-grid without worrying about credit or status or upgrades.
And, most probably, reducing her life expectancy to about a decade. The temperature ratcheted up a notch as she hit downtown. Sweat pooling in the small of her back, she cast her idle dreams of freedom aside, allowing herself a sneaky glance at the Eastern Communes as they rolled past, her clips frosting to indicate yet another erroneous diagnosis.