Chapter Two
“You’re late Jones! Again!” shouted my PrimaTech supervisor, Raj, as I hurried through the back doors of the Denver PrimaTech Hospital franchise and scanned my widget at the security checkpoint.
“Sorry. I know!” I gasped. “The bus broke down, and the driver said it would be two hours to send a replacement. I ran over a mile to get here. I’m only twelve minutes late.”
“You know the drill.” Raj didn’t even straighten from his slouched position; feet up on the desk, a stim stick vaping between his lips. “Every minute you’re late adds ten to the end of your shift. You just added a buck-twenty to your night. We’ve got some VPs from corporate coming through in the morning, so I want this place glowing by then. Get upstairs and get to work!”
Raj had even more people waiting for his job than were waiting for mine. Clearly Employee Satisfaction wasn’t a measured metric on his performance eval.
“Your widget will get you into all the Labs on six tonight. Make sure they’re spotless!” Raj shouted as I retrieved my cart and started shoving it down the hall towards the elevators.
The labs on six? Generally the day crew cleaned those with the omnipresent PrimaTech Security watching their every move. The extra space to clean would easily add three hours onto my shift, but Raj would no doubt screw me out of any overtime I might have coming. Labor cost was definitely a metric on his performance eval.
You’d think by the year 2052 they would have invented a robot that could clean and polish hospital floors and of course they had. But why buy a robot that would require maintenance when you can essentially “buy” a human that can merely be replaced if it breaks down? Dad was always talking about “labor laws” and other crap his “organizers” would reinstitute. I knew the Megas would never release the stranglehold they had on our economy or government.
Just ask any budding Mega-Corp junior executive. According to them, Megas were our saviors. Who else had had the money and resources to rebuild after the complete economic collapse and repeated natural disasters like the Mud Bowl? All the coastal cities flooded by the mid-thirties and storms like Thomas and Veronica had sealed the deal that Harvey and Maria had started back in the teens. In fact, they were running out of names for the monster hurricanes that regularly lashed the southern third of the country in a storm season that never seemed to end. Never mind the repeated volcanic eruptions triggered by shifting polar ice, the endless wildfires out west, or the pandemic super viruses.
We’d been in the Denver area for three years now, since I was sixteen. We probably would have already moved on if Mom hadn’t gotten cancer a year ago. She was just too sick to move, and we were too poor to afford the treatments she’d need to get better. As it was, we could barely afford the hospice equipment that was keeping her in a state she only loosely termed as comfortable and drawing out what was left of her life.
It was nearing the end of my normal shift by the time I finally reached the sixth floor. Normally, I just mopped up the halls and wiped down the walls. I started there, because it was the easiest and most routine. When that was done, I used my widget to buzz myself into the nearest lab. As promised, the door chimed and slid open. I went to work, avoiding any of the expensive-looking equipment. The phrase “you break it, you buy it” flashed through my head.
In the second to last lab, my entire world came to a sudden screeching halt. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I had to be imagining what I’d found. A mental image of Admiral Akbar played in my head shouting “It’s a trap!” But all the same, I couldn’t move on.
Sitting out, on one of the work tables, was an injection module clearly labeled PrimaTech Nano-Therapy. I’d seen pictures of the device when researching Mom’s cancer online, but I’d never envisioned I would see one in real life. This thing was the magic bullet in cancer treatment.
Treatment was the wrong word. It was a cure. But it might as well have had an eighty-foot neon sign attached to it screaming FOR MEGA EXECS ONLY, it was that expensive. Even if I’d cashed in my Voting Franchise, and sold off any pretense I had of participating in our hollowed-out husk of a “democracy,” I couldn’t have come close to affording these meds.
One injection, and microscopic robots would flow through the patient’s body. They’d devour cancer cells, not only sparing healthy cells, but knitting together damaged tissues in their wake. Supposedly, so simple to administer that it didn’t even need a doctor or nurse. Just a shit load of crypts.
Boom. No more cancer.
I found myself standing in the middle of the lab, mop in hand, staring at the injection module. I thought maybe it had already been used, that’s why it had been left out. It was trash. Fit for a janitor. But then noticed the blinking green LED labeled READY.
Then I became painfully aware of the multiple sensors and cameras focused on me, following my every move. The PrimaTech security synthetic intelligence would already be wondering about my frozen position, calculating my line of sight, seeing the immensely valuable medication on the table and raising the alarm. Or, maybe, it wasn’t so smart. Maybe it was a coffee break. I didn’t know! All I did know was the stormtroopers weren’t rushing in on me. Just cause I hadn’t actually done anything wrong didn’t mean anything. An SI’s calculated probability that I was even considering a crime was enough for them to not only shit-can me, but to rough me up on the way out the door for good measure.
In a flash, I made my decision and something resembling a plan took shape. I started vigorously wiping down the stainless-steel counters and tables like I hadn’t seen the miracle sitting there. Then I “accidentally” knocked it to the floor and it went skittering under another table. I kept on scrubbing like I hadn’t noticed. Just another clumsy and incompetent corporate drone. My heart was pounding. While I continued to work, I held my breath expecting alarms to blare any second.
Shaking with adrenaline, I finished the counters and began to slosh my mop across the floor, as if, maybe, I was behind schedule and trying to catch up, which had the benefit of being true. I made sure to do a thorough job, working my mop well under each of the stainless-steel tables. Nothing to see here, just doing my mindless menial job.
When I reached the module, I knelt low, feigning for the monitoring SI getting my mop wrapped around a table leg. In actuality, I swept the little miracle towards me. The thing was so small it fit in the palm of my hand. I cradled the priceless device and slid it into one of the oversized pockets on my overalls.
I finished my remaining lab on the sixth floor in record time, my heart threatening to pound out of my chest the whole way. It felt like an eternity. My mouth was dry with anxiety and sweat was streaming down my forehead when I finally pushed my cart into the elevator and pressed the button to return to the basement.
As expected, Raj harangued me about the extra time it had taken and before I even asked, he refused to authorize the overtime. Maybe I should have tried to be more outraged, but instead, I just hurried out the door, then started running the moment I tasted “fresh” air. I started coughing almost immediately. I’d left my filter mask hanging from my cart. No way in hell I was going back for it. I was never going back there. Ever.
Sirens filled the early morning air as I exited the hospital and in my mind, they were all coming for me. I ran harder. I ducked down side streets and doubled back, doing whatever I could to throw off the pursuers I knew must be hunting me. I wasn’t a real criminal, so I had no idea how this stuff was done. The shows we all lived on told me I had no chance at all, but as I ran and ducked, and crouched behind dumpsters, the sirens weren’t getting any closer. It was possible they’d just been ambulances headed to the ER.
About a quarter-mile into my “escape,” I stopped to catch my breath, coughing and gasping for air in turns.
“Al, get me an auto-cab home.” I wheezed, hands on my knees.
Al blipped onto my widget screen. “Are you sure Zee? There’s surge pricing for the morning commute. It’ll be a pricey ride.”
“Just fucking do it, Al,” I snapped. The morning shift of lab workers would be arriving at any moment and would soon realize what was missing. Once they did, it wouldn’t take long for the security SI to track me down and send a squad of Mega-Goons after me.
“You got it, boss,” Al answered, his tone simulating reluctance and wounded feelings. Al blipped off the screen and a second later a map appeared, showing my approaching computer-driven taxi.
There had never really been a thought in my mind that I might actually get away with this. Not long term. I guessed there was a greater than zero chance of the missing nano-therapy going unnoticed, but the odds were deep in the decimals. My only objective was to get the tech home and into Mom before anyone could stop me. I figured the odds of that were maybe a little better than a coin toss? After that, I didn’t really care what happened.
The self-driven cab arrived, and I climbed in. It took off as soon as I clipped in the seat belt. When presented with the option on my widget to pay for Premium Lane access, I accepted. Anxious energy hummed through my whole body as I zipped through morning traffic. Compared to my usual bus route, this was light speed. My left leg kept bouncing with agitation. When we finally pulled up to the curb outside our apartment building, I rocketed out and up the stairs.
“Zack? What’s wrong?” Dad asked as I barged into our grubby flat. He was just taking his “breakfast” out of the fridge. A long-neck and a piece of cold pizza.
“Wait right there! Don’t move!” I commanded, knowing that the “security system” that inhabited every square inch of – well – everywhere, would be scoured by OzCo’s prosecutors. I couldn’t have my father implicated in any way. He was better than nothing when it came to helping Mom.
I thundered past him and down the narrow hall to the bedroom. I felt like I was going to throw up. Shaking, I pulled the injector out of my pocket. It was a three-inch tube with an injection patch on one end and a big red button on the other. From what I had read, it didn’t really matter what type of cancer it was, the little robots would adapt as needed once they were in her bloodstream.
I heard my dad coming down the hall. “Zee. What’s going on? Is everything all right?”
Mom began to stir at the commotion, her dark brown eyes fluttered open, glazed with pain meds. Before I could stop myself, before Dad could enter the room, before Mom could stop me for my own sake, I pressed the injection patch to her forearm and hit the red button. A sharp hiss followed, along with an inhuman electronic voice saying, “dose dispensed.”
About an hour later, we were sitting in our tiny living room, I in the only chair, my folks sitting on the broken-down sofa. I had laid out everything that had happened to my parents. I figured, if anything, my full and thorough explanation, and their honest in the moment reactions would only serve to exonerate them when the various recordings made by my widget and our smart TV were reviewed.
“I really still can’t believe it worked.” I said.
“Oh Zee. What did you do?” Mom’s face had regained color as I had explained. Her breathing was strong and steady, and her eyes were clear of drugs and pain. But now, she wore an expression of mingled shock and terror.
“Fuck yeah. Way to stick it to those Mega-Fucks.” Dad looked proud?
“Jeremy!” Mom scolded. “Your son is going to jail.”
“We’ll get him a lawyer! We’ll stage a protest! This is still America damnit!”
Just then there was a thunderous banging at the door.
“Zachary Jones. This is OzCo Security. We have a warrant for your arrest. Open up!” came a man’s booming voice from the other side.
Dad began to stand up, and I could see he was already building up a belligerent head of steam. His youth as a community organizer and activist was about to burst forth at the worst possible moment. I leaned forward and grabbed both of my parents’ hands.
“Mom. Dad. Look at me.” The door rattled in its frame again, and I waited until both of them turned their gazes back to me. “We can’t fight this. There’s no point. We’d just rack up a mountain of debt trying, and it would only get tacked onto my sentence.”
“That’s bullshit!”
“That’s just reality Dad. This isn’t the America you grew up in. Not anymore. The Megas own my ass now. Hell, they owned my ass before this, this won't be all that different.”
Dad opened his mouth to continue the argument, then Mom spoke up, her voice firm and commanding. “He’s right Jerry.”
“Beth —”
Then the door exploded inward. Seriously? A breaching charge? Heavily-armed and armored Mega-Goons pounded into the room, screaming at us not to move. I was thrown to the floor and an armored knee was shoved into my back as my wrists were ziptied.
One of the greatest sights of my life was seeing - out of the corner of my eye, I was still eating carpet - my mom stand up under her own power, and without falter walk towards the door. She was stronger and more coherent than I had seen her in months.
“Zachary William Jones, you’re under arrest for grand larceny. A judge has reviewed the security files of your theft and escape and has found you guilty. If you would like to question this verdict you may hire an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney any expenses you incur in your defense will be added to your restitutions once you are convicted.”
