Lost Places, page 12
“What are you laughing at?” Kat called to me.
I just laughed and laughed, treading water. When we came back the next week, Otis jumped for the first time. Since then we’ve come out here at least once a week if the weather is at all conducive. It’s not a decision on anyone’s part. It’s what we do. I’m happy to be part of this small “we” as well as the larger “we” that I think my brother was talking about, the “we” of everyone who has ever jumped or considered jumping.
I’ve added a few of my own ideas to my brother’s list, speaking only for myself. I jump because I don’t understand. I jump because something that is impossible shouldn’t also be something that is true. I jump because Ms. Remlinger taught us about conservation of mass and conservation of energy, and a brother is not something that can become nothing.
Some people say when somebody’s taken they’re spat out somewhere else, clean and naked and ready to live a different life. Some people think they’re reborn as babies elsewhere. I don’t find either idea all that appealing.
I don’t imagine the people who are taken die or are reborn. I think they’re transformed, but I don’t know into what. Rainbow trout, black snake, water molecules. Is that different than dying? To become part of this beautiful pond, to receive the waterfall, to be surrounded always by rock and pine and birch and sky? A quick change. Quicker than my brother’s room turning to dust, or the Buick becoming forest. People can change much faster than things can, if they’re given the chance.
“Are you done?” Otis calls to me. He’s standing over Kat, dripping on her. She scoots away with mock annoyance.
“One more jump,” I say.
They both give me a look. I return my bravest grin.
I say “I love you” as I jackknife, not loud enough for either of them to hear me. Break the glassy surface. I’m not a fish or a snake or a baby on the other side of the world. The sky is impossibly blue, and the water is impossibly black. There have never been any rules.
Escape from Caring Seasons
The doctor was a nice young man, and Zora hated him. Hated the way he settled in the second chair beside Anya’s bed like a friend. Hated that he didn’t pull the privacy curtain between Anya’s bed and nosy Eleanor Grimm’s, when Eleanor was only pretending to sleep. Hated the way he directed everything he said toward Zora, the person in the chair, instead of Anya, the person he was talking about.
“Just because she can’t talk right now doesn’t mean she can’t understand you,” Zora told him. “She hears you fine.”
“. . . where was I?” He reoriented, but didn’t apologize.
“You were telling us you weren’t ready to let Anya leave yet.”
He nodded. “Right.”
“Even though her vital signs are all stable, and she’s been meeting her rehab goals, other than speech. You’re not making sense.”
He smiled, which added to his patronizing impression. This was no time to smile. “I’m sorry if you think it doesn’t make sense. The algorithm is quite accurate. If it says the risk of your wife leaving the hospital is too great, then I’m powerless to do anything.”
Anya grunted, an angry sound, and Zora squeezed her hand. “But you’re a doctor. Can’t you override an algorithm if you disagree? We’ll be fine with a hospital bed and a home health aide. This community’s purpose is to keep people in their homes.”
“I can override if I’m prepared to defend my action before our medical board, but what if your wife has another stroke after I release her against DOC findings? I’m not willing to take that risk.”
Zora’s wrist chip pulsed a blood pressure warning. The chip was supposed to cue her to take calming breaths, but this time she slapped at it; she was upset for good reason, and willing to lose a few Keep Your Cool points. “But what if somebody entered something wrong, so your program is interpreting inaccurate data? What about the psychology of healing at home?”
“I can look over the data one more time to make sure nothing looks wrong, but most evaluative tools report directly in order to cut user error risk.” He held up placating hands. “Lives have been saved by the DOC program. It takes everything into account. If it says Ms. Stein should stay in the hospital another month—”
“You said week.”
“Either way. If it says she’d be better off under observation, I’d advise you to pay attention.”
“Can she go home against your wishes?”
“Sure, but you won’t get your hospital bed or your home health aide, and you’d be billed for any complications that occur while she’s under your care. I strongly advise you not to do that.” It was the first time he sounded sincere.
A tear ran down Anya’s cheek. She wiped it away with the back of her better hand.
“I’m sorry this upsets you,” the doctor said in non-apology.
“She’s not sad,” Zora said. “She’s angry. We moved to this community to be together as long as possible. Medical can get to us in minutes. It’s not right to keep her in the hospital when she’d probably recover faster in our home, which I can see out the window, by the way.”
He was the one human in the command chain, and he wasn’t wired to listen. He repeated his spiel as if she hadn’t spoken. She wanted him chastened, distraught, willing to fight the system on their behalf, but he didn’t look at all diminished.
“I’m sorry, love,” Zora said when he left.
Anya picked up the tablet on her lap and painstakingly spelled: GET ME OUT. She tapped each word for emphasis, her pale face flushing. Anger made her look healthier than she had in weeks.
“I will, love.”
The nurse’s station was unoccupied, but Zora passed room after room with names and charts on the door: Amelia Setzer, Wilf Ringgold, Bonnie Sola, their friends and neighbors. Were they all here out of necessity, or because an algorithm decided they had to stay? Maybe the next time she returned she’d do a survey. For now, she had a mission. “GET ME OUT.”
She tried knocking on the hospital ombudsman’s door, but nobody answered. The rest of the hospital administrative system worked remotely, so she resorted to leaving messages.
When nobody on the hospital floors would listen, she tried the new complex administrator. Zora had known all the administrators before the complex’s sale overseas; odd now to walk through the offices and not recognize names on the doors. New activity coordinator, new facilities director, new librarian.
The business offices were all on the first floor, so Zora was surprised when the new receptionist directed her back up to the eighth for the administrator, Mrs. Ilyin. Sadie Ng rode the elevator with her.
“Gotta get those reps in.” Sadie pressed the button for the gym on ten. “If I do two more days in a row I get the Iron Warrior badge. I’m working on getting enough points for a new bathing suit.”
“I’m not familiar with that badge.”
“Part of the new batch introduced last month. Anya’s been in hospital, right? You must’ve missed it.”
Zora nodded. “Good luck.”
Their phones both chimed at once, but neither bothered to look. Social Butterfly points were easy to come by.
The door to Suite 805 opened as she approached. Inside, nobody. The faint odor of paint. A large walnut desk, three leather chairs, a screen on one dark blue wall, another all window. Zora looked out over the community garden and beyond to the stream, the woods, the wall hidden beneath the trees. An administrator working from this room could forget this place was about people.
“How can I help you, Ms. Stein?”
Zora turned to find the wall screen had activated. Wherever Mrs. Ilyin worked, it wasn’t here. Her image was enormous. Meant to intimidate, perhaps, but Zora wasn’t easily intimidated.
“The whole point of integrating hospital and supplemented home living is to keep people in their homes,” Zora said. “And to get people back into their homes as soon as possible.”
“We’re trying to do that, Ms. Stein.” Mrs. Ilyin’s giant face smiled, like the infuriating doctor.
“You’re not. Something is wrong with this system if I can’t take Anya home right now. She’d be fine at home.”
“Are you a doctor?”
“No, but she’s not on any monitors, it’s been a month since her stroke, and we live five hundred feet from the hospital. She’ll be more rested sleeping in her own bed, looking out her own window, eating my food.”
Mrs. Ilyin’s expression didn’t change. “I’m sure you think so, Ms. Stein, but the algorithm wouldn’t demand she stay without reason.”
“That may be, but there’s something wrong if no human can explain why it’s making this decision.”
Zora’s wrist buzzed another blood pressure warning, and she slapped it again in frustration. She wasn’t getting anywhere regarding Anya. “This room isn’t supposed to be an office. It’s designed to be a yoga studio. This view isn’t meant to be yours.”
Mrs. Ilyin’s smile wavered for the first time. “Why do you say that?”
“Because I was on the team that designed Caring Seasons, back when we called it Brighter Futures. This should be a community view, not a personal one. How did you end up in here?”
“When we bought your development, we repurposed the space. Uses change. Now if that’s all?”
It was, Zora supposed. Nothing had gone as planned. She’d been so excited about Caring Seasons—as designed—that they’d taken spots on the waiting list as part of her consultation fee. When they’d moved in, it had still felt like the right decision. It was only in the last year, since the sale, that things had started to fray. Little changes at first: increased automation, new bureaucracy; nothing that had raised alarms. Now a remote administrator stealing a yoga studio. Now an algorithm keeping Anya from coming home.
“It’s not often I’m at a loss for what to do,” she told Anya.
“I KNOW,” Anya wrote.
“I can’t tell whether nobody will listen because we’re wrong, or nobody will listen because we’re old.”
“Old,” said Eleanor Grimm from the next bed. “I’ve been asking to go home for days but they’re afraid I’ll fall again.”
Zora didn’t like when Eleanor butted in, but she agreed this time. So did Anya.
“OLD,” Anya wrote. “KEEP TRYING.”
Zora reached out to their lawyer next, their old friend Norman Lloyd, but the call wouldn’t connect. Neither would a call to their daughter, Jordan. She tried a pizza place back in Boston whose number she still had memorized, then hung up when it went through.
“Your stress levels are higher than usual,” said their house AI from the speaker embedded in the kitchen counter. “May I brew you some herbal tea?”
“Of course they are, and yes,” said Zora.
The hot water dispenser gurgled and spat into a cup. “Congratulations. You’ve earned another point toward your Healthy Decisions badge!”
“Go away, Mrs. Landingham.” They’d named their AI after an old TV character. It was useful, but Anya had always hated the feeling somebody else lived with them, and now Zora understood why. She missed Anya’s voice and wanted her home; anyone else was an intrusion.
“Mrs. L, why are my phone calls not going through?”
“You recently completed a call to Pizza Wow,” said the AI.
“And the calls before that?”
“I have no information on that subject.”
Zora collected her mug and stepped outside. Nick Castro waved from his porch next door, and she walked over to sit beside him. “Have you been having any trouble making phone calls?”
They’d been neighbors for ten years now, so she didn’t feel bad asking a question without preface.
“No, sorry. Why?”
“May I use your phone?”
He spoke to the porch. “Jeeves, call—?”
Zora showed him Norman’s number, and Nick repeated it aloud.
His AI responded. “I’m sorry, that call cannot be completed at this time.”
Nick cocked his head. “What’s going on?”
“Try this one.” She recited Jordan’s number.
Nothing. A moment later her phone buzzed and she grabbed for it, hoping Jordan had called back, but it was only a Being Neighborly point coming through.
“What’s going on?” Nick asked again.
She opened her mouth to explain, and then shut it again. If she said she thought the phone wasn’t letting her complete outside calls, she’d sound paranoid. Worse, the AI would hear. Who knew what it would do if it decided she was delusional.
“I’ll explain later,” she said, getting up to leave.
Her front door opened at a flick of her wrist. She sat at the kitchen counter and composed a message to Jordan, but after sending it, had the uneasy realization she had no way of knowing whether it had been delivered. Jordan lived in Portland and visited twice a year, but they didn’t talk on a schedule. How long until she noticed she hadn’t heard from her mothers?
“Mrs. L, is there any reason you’d prevent me from completing a phone call?”
“If it was bad for your health.”
Damn. What were they thinking? That hadn’t been part of the plan. “Mrs. L, Is there any way for me to override that protocol?”
“I’m afraid I don’t have an answer to that question.”
Once upon a time, she’d had access to the code underpinning the development’s tech; coding hadn’t been her specialty, but the language they’d used wasn’t foreign to her. Or hadn’t been. She had to give up after a couple of attempts; her login no longer worked.
“Mrs. L, call the police,” Zora said.
There was a brief silence, then a human voice. “Caring Seasons Emergency Services. Is this a police or medical emergency?”
“Just testing. Mrs. L, hang up.” Maybe she was paranoid, or maybe the system didn’t want her complaining. Either way, she was more determined than ever to get Anya back.
21:30
Patient: A. Stein
Location: Hospital #743
Status: NREM Stage 3
HR: 105 bpm
Patient: Z. Stein
Location: Cottage #114 BR 1
Status: NREM Stage 1
HR: 128 bpm
22:00
Patient: A. Stein
Location: Hospital #743
Status: NREM Stage 2
HR: 110 bpm
Patient: Z. Stein
Location: Bathroom
Status: Awake/sitting.
HR: 130 bpm
Toilet activated.
Analysis:
Achieved Urine Good Health badge!
22:30
Patient: A. Stein
Location: Hospital #743
Status: REM Sleep
HR: 110 bpm
Patient: Z. Stein
Location: Cottage 114 BR 1
Status: NREM Stage 1
HR: 128 bpm
23:00
Patient: A. Stein
Location: Hospital #743
Status: NREM Stage 2
HR: 111 bpm
Patient: Z. Stein
Location: Cottage 114 BR 1
Status: NREM Stage 1
HR: 131 bpm
ALERT
23:11
Patient: Z. Stein
Location: Bathroom
Status: Awake/standing
HR: 140 bpm
ALERT
ALERT
23:12
Patient: Z. Stein
Location: Bathroom
Status: Awake/standing
HR: 149 bpm
ALERT
ALERT
23:13
Patient: Z. Stein
Location: Bathroom
Status: Awake/standing
HR: 157 bpm
ALERT
ALERT
23:14
Patient: Z. Stein
Location: Bathroom
Status: Awake/standing
HR: 170 bpm
ALERT
ALERT
23:15
Patient: Z. Stein
Location: Bathroom
Status: Error
Status: ProneError
HR: Error
ALERT
Zora cut the spy out of her wrist. The cutting wasn’t the hard part: her arthritis pain-blockers took the edge off. Scraping the chip out wasn’t any worse than that one spot during her egret tattoo where the artist had crossed bone.
No, the harder part was keeping her hand from shaking as she went at her own wrist with their sharpest paring knife, sterilized as best she could. There were no cameras in the bathroom, out of respect for their privacy, but the mics and chip snooped as well as any eye.
She knew she only had a few minutes. The alert would start when the trauma spiked her blood pressure, and continue as she wadded the spy in tissue and buried it in the wastebasket so it could no longer read her. A thought flitted past: what would happen to all her points and badges? Who cared. Medical would arrive in minutes. Get out; ask silly questions later.
“Ms. Stein, do you need medical assistance? Please say yes or no.”
“No, I’m fine.” She kept her voice controlled.
The bathroom mirror was the most condescending of the appliances. Okay, maybe not, but she resented it more than the others, with its rewards for proper tooth brushing and moisturizing, like she was a child. They’d overstepped with the mirror; that hadn’t been in her design.
“Ms. Stein, your chip is giving anomalous readings. Medical is on its way. Estimated arrival 23:21. Don’t move if you’re injured.”
I just laughed and laughed, treading water. When we came back the next week, Otis jumped for the first time. Since then we’ve come out here at least once a week if the weather is at all conducive. It’s not a decision on anyone’s part. It’s what we do. I’m happy to be part of this small “we” as well as the larger “we” that I think my brother was talking about, the “we” of everyone who has ever jumped or considered jumping.
I’ve added a few of my own ideas to my brother’s list, speaking only for myself. I jump because I don’t understand. I jump because something that is impossible shouldn’t also be something that is true. I jump because Ms. Remlinger taught us about conservation of mass and conservation of energy, and a brother is not something that can become nothing.
Some people say when somebody’s taken they’re spat out somewhere else, clean and naked and ready to live a different life. Some people think they’re reborn as babies elsewhere. I don’t find either idea all that appealing.
I don’t imagine the people who are taken die or are reborn. I think they’re transformed, but I don’t know into what. Rainbow trout, black snake, water molecules. Is that different than dying? To become part of this beautiful pond, to receive the waterfall, to be surrounded always by rock and pine and birch and sky? A quick change. Quicker than my brother’s room turning to dust, or the Buick becoming forest. People can change much faster than things can, if they’re given the chance.
“Are you done?” Otis calls to me. He’s standing over Kat, dripping on her. She scoots away with mock annoyance.
“One more jump,” I say.
They both give me a look. I return my bravest grin.
I say “I love you” as I jackknife, not loud enough for either of them to hear me. Break the glassy surface. I’m not a fish or a snake or a baby on the other side of the world. The sky is impossibly blue, and the water is impossibly black. There have never been any rules.
Escape from Caring Seasons
The doctor was a nice young man, and Zora hated him. Hated the way he settled in the second chair beside Anya’s bed like a friend. Hated that he didn’t pull the privacy curtain between Anya’s bed and nosy Eleanor Grimm’s, when Eleanor was only pretending to sleep. Hated the way he directed everything he said toward Zora, the person in the chair, instead of Anya, the person he was talking about.
“Just because she can’t talk right now doesn’t mean she can’t understand you,” Zora told him. “She hears you fine.”
“. . . where was I?” He reoriented, but didn’t apologize.
“You were telling us you weren’t ready to let Anya leave yet.”
He nodded. “Right.”
“Even though her vital signs are all stable, and she’s been meeting her rehab goals, other than speech. You’re not making sense.”
He smiled, which added to his patronizing impression. This was no time to smile. “I’m sorry if you think it doesn’t make sense. The algorithm is quite accurate. If it says the risk of your wife leaving the hospital is too great, then I’m powerless to do anything.”
Anya grunted, an angry sound, and Zora squeezed her hand. “But you’re a doctor. Can’t you override an algorithm if you disagree? We’ll be fine with a hospital bed and a home health aide. This community’s purpose is to keep people in their homes.”
“I can override if I’m prepared to defend my action before our medical board, but what if your wife has another stroke after I release her against DOC findings? I’m not willing to take that risk.”
Zora’s wrist chip pulsed a blood pressure warning. The chip was supposed to cue her to take calming breaths, but this time she slapped at it; she was upset for good reason, and willing to lose a few Keep Your Cool points. “But what if somebody entered something wrong, so your program is interpreting inaccurate data? What about the psychology of healing at home?”
“I can look over the data one more time to make sure nothing looks wrong, but most evaluative tools report directly in order to cut user error risk.” He held up placating hands. “Lives have been saved by the DOC program. It takes everything into account. If it says Ms. Stein should stay in the hospital another month—”
“You said week.”
“Either way. If it says she’d be better off under observation, I’d advise you to pay attention.”
“Can she go home against your wishes?”
“Sure, but you won’t get your hospital bed or your home health aide, and you’d be billed for any complications that occur while she’s under your care. I strongly advise you not to do that.” It was the first time he sounded sincere.
A tear ran down Anya’s cheek. She wiped it away with the back of her better hand.
“I’m sorry this upsets you,” the doctor said in non-apology.
“She’s not sad,” Zora said. “She’s angry. We moved to this community to be together as long as possible. Medical can get to us in minutes. It’s not right to keep her in the hospital when she’d probably recover faster in our home, which I can see out the window, by the way.”
He was the one human in the command chain, and he wasn’t wired to listen. He repeated his spiel as if she hadn’t spoken. She wanted him chastened, distraught, willing to fight the system on their behalf, but he didn’t look at all diminished.
“I’m sorry, love,” Zora said when he left.
Anya picked up the tablet on her lap and painstakingly spelled: GET ME OUT. She tapped each word for emphasis, her pale face flushing. Anger made her look healthier than she had in weeks.
“I will, love.”
The nurse’s station was unoccupied, but Zora passed room after room with names and charts on the door: Amelia Setzer, Wilf Ringgold, Bonnie Sola, their friends and neighbors. Were they all here out of necessity, or because an algorithm decided they had to stay? Maybe the next time she returned she’d do a survey. For now, she had a mission. “GET ME OUT.”
She tried knocking on the hospital ombudsman’s door, but nobody answered. The rest of the hospital administrative system worked remotely, so she resorted to leaving messages.
When nobody on the hospital floors would listen, she tried the new complex administrator. Zora had known all the administrators before the complex’s sale overseas; odd now to walk through the offices and not recognize names on the doors. New activity coordinator, new facilities director, new librarian.
The business offices were all on the first floor, so Zora was surprised when the new receptionist directed her back up to the eighth for the administrator, Mrs. Ilyin. Sadie Ng rode the elevator with her.
“Gotta get those reps in.” Sadie pressed the button for the gym on ten. “If I do two more days in a row I get the Iron Warrior badge. I’m working on getting enough points for a new bathing suit.”
“I’m not familiar with that badge.”
“Part of the new batch introduced last month. Anya’s been in hospital, right? You must’ve missed it.”
Zora nodded. “Good luck.”
Their phones both chimed at once, but neither bothered to look. Social Butterfly points were easy to come by.
The door to Suite 805 opened as she approached. Inside, nobody. The faint odor of paint. A large walnut desk, three leather chairs, a screen on one dark blue wall, another all window. Zora looked out over the community garden and beyond to the stream, the woods, the wall hidden beneath the trees. An administrator working from this room could forget this place was about people.
“How can I help you, Ms. Stein?”
Zora turned to find the wall screen had activated. Wherever Mrs. Ilyin worked, it wasn’t here. Her image was enormous. Meant to intimidate, perhaps, but Zora wasn’t easily intimidated.
“The whole point of integrating hospital and supplemented home living is to keep people in their homes,” Zora said. “And to get people back into their homes as soon as possible.”
“We’re trying to do that, Ms. Stein.” Mrs. Ilyin’s giant face smiled, like the infuriating doctor.
“You’re not. Something is wrong with this system if I can’t take Anya home right now. She’d be fine at home.”
“Are you a doctor?”
“No, but she’s not on any monitors, it’s been a month since her stroke, and we live five hundred feet from the hospital. She’ll be more rested sleeping in her own bed, looking out her own window, eating my food.”
Mrs. Ilyin’s expression didn’t change. “I’m sure you think so, Ms. Stein, but the algorithm wouldn’t demand she stay without reason.”
“That may be, but there’s something wrong if no human can explain why it’s making this decision.”
Zora’s wrist buzzed another blood pressure warning, and she slapped it again in frustration. She wasn’t getting anywhere regarding Anya. “This room isn’t supposed to be an office. It’s designed to be a yoga studio. This view isn’t meant to be yours.”
Mrs. Ilyin’s smile wavered for the first time. “Why do you say that?”
“Because I was on the team that designed Caring Seasons, back when we called it Brighter Futures. This should be a community view, not a personal one. How did you end up in here?”
“When we bought your development, we repurposed the space. Uses change. Now if that’s all?”
It was, Zora supposed. Nothing had gone as planned. She’d been so excited about Caring Seasons—as designed—that they’d taken spots on the waiting list as part of her consultation fee. When they’d moved in, it had still felt like the right decision. It was only in the last year, since the sale, that things had started to fray. Little changes at first: increased automation, new bureaucracy; nothing that had raised alarms. Now a remote administrator stealing a yoga studio. Now an algorithm keeping Anya from coming home.
“It’s not often I’m at a loss for what to do,” she told Anya.
“I KNOW,” Anya wrote.
“I can’t tell whether nobody will listen because we’re wrong, or nobody will listen because we’re old.”
“Old,” said Eleanor Grimm from the next bed. “I’ve been asking to go home for days but they’re afraid I’ll fall again.”
Zora didn’t like when Eleanor butted in, but she agreed this time. So did Anya.
“OLD,” Anya wrote. “KEEP TRYING.”
Zora reached out to their lawyer next, their old friend Norman Lloyd, but the call wouldn’t connect. Neither would a call to their daughter, Jordan. She tried a pizza place back in Boston whose number she still had memorized, then hung up when it went through.
“Your stress levels are higher than usual,” said their house AI from the speaker embedded in the kitchen counter. “May I brew you some herbal tea?”
“Of course they are, and yes,” said Zora.
The hot water dispenser gurgled and spat into a cup. “Congratulations. You’ve earned another point toward your Healthy Decisions badge!”
“Go away, Mrs. Landingham.” They’d named their AI after an old TV character. It was useful, but Anya had always hated the feeling somebody else lived with them, and now Zora understood why. She missed Anya’s voice and wanted her home; anyone else was an intrusion.
“Mrs. L, why are my phone calls not going through?”
“You recently completed a call to Pizza Wow,” said the AI.
“And the calls before that?”
“I have no information on that subject.”
Zora collected her mug and stepped outside. Nick Castro waved from his porch next door, and she walked over to sit beside him. “Have you been having any trouble making phone calls?”
They’d been neighbors for ten years now, so she didn’t feel bad asking a question without preface.
“No, sorry. Why?”
“May I use your phone?”
He spoke to the porch. “Jeeves, call—?”
Zora showed him Norman’s number, and Nick repeated it aloud.
His AI responded. “I’m sorry, that call cannot be completed at this time.”
Nick cocked his head. “What’s going on?”
“Try this one.” She recited Jordan’s number.
Nothing. A moment later her phone buzzed and she grabbed for it, hoping Jordan had called back, but it was only a Being Neighborly point coming through.
“What’s going on?” Nick asked again.
She opened her mouth to explain, and then shut it again. If she said she thought the phone wasn’t letting her complete outside calls, she’d sound paranoid. Worse, the AI would hear. Who knew what it would do if it decided she was delusional.
“I’ll explain later,” she said, getting up to leave.
Her front door opened at a flick of her wrist. She sat at the kitchen counter and composed a message to Jordan, but after sending it, had the uneasy realization she had no way of knowing whether it had been delivered. Jordan lived in Portland and visited twice a year, but they didn’t talk on a schedule. How long until she noticed she hadn’t heard from her mothers?
“Mrs. L, is there any reason you’d prevent me from completing a phone call?”
“If it was bad for your health.”
Damn. What were they thinking? That hadn’t been part of the plan. “Mrs. L, Is there any way for me to override that protocol?”
“I’m afraid I don’t have an answer to that question.”
Once upon a time, she’d had access to the code underpinning the development’s tech; coding hadn’t been her specialty, but the language they’d used wasn’t foreign to her. Or hadn’t been. She had to give up after a couple of attempts; her login no longer worked.
“Mrs. L, call the police,” Zora said.
There was a brief silence, then a human voice. “Caring Seasons Emergency Services. Is this a police or medical emergency?”
“Just testing. Mrs. L, hang up.” Maybe she was paranoid, or maybe the system didn’t want her complaining. Either way, she was more determined than ever to get Anya back.
21:30
Patient: A. Stein
Location: Hospital #743
Status: NREM Stage 3
HR: 105 bpm
Patient: Z. Stein
Location: Cottage #114 BR 1
Status: NREM Stage 1
HR: 128 bpm
22:00
Patient: A. Stein
Location: Hospital #743
Status: NREM Stage 2
HR: 110 bpm
Patient: Z. Stein
Location: Bathroom
Status: Awake/sitting.
HR: 130 bpm
Toilet activated.
Analysis:
Achieved Urine Good Health badge!
22:30
Patient: A. Stein
Location: Hospital #743
Status: REM Sleep
HR: 110 bpm
Patient: Z. Stein
Location: Cottage 114 BR 1
Status: NREM Stage 1
HR: 128 bpm
23:00
Patient: A. Stein
Location: Hospital #743
Status: NREM Stage 2
HR: 111 bpm
Patient: Z. Stein
Location: Cottage 114 BR 1
Status: NREM Stage 1
HR: 131 bpm
ALERT
23:11
Patient: Z. Stein
Location: Bathroom
Status: Awake/standing
HR: 140 bpm
ALERT
ALERT
23:12
Patient: Z. Stein
Location: Bathroom
Status: Awake/standing
HR: 149 bpm
ALERT
ALERT
23:13
Patient: Z. Stein
Location: Bathroom
Status: Awake/standing
HR: 157 bpm
ALERT
ALERT
23:14
Patient: Z. Stein
Location: Bathroom
Status: Awake/standing
HR: 170 bpm
ALERT
ALERT
23:15
Patient: Z. Stein
Location: Bathroom
Status: Error
Status: ProneError
HR: Error
ALERT
Zora cut the spy out of her wrist. The cutting wasn’t the hard part: her arthritis pain-blockers took the edge off. Scraping the chip out wasn’t any worse than that one spot during her egret tattoo where the artist had crossed bone.
No, the harder part was keeping her hand from shaking as she went at her own wrist with their sharpest paring knife, sterilized as best she could. There were no cameras in the bathroom, out of respect for their privacy, but the mics and chip snooped as well as any eye.
She knew she only had a few minutes. The alert would start when the trauma spiked her blood pressure, and continue as she wadded the spy in tissue and buried it in the wastebasket so it could no longer read her. A thought flitted past: what would happen to all her points and badges? Who cared. Medical would arrive in minutes. Get out; ask silly questions later.
“Ms. Stein, do you need medical assistance? Please say yes or no.”
“No, I’m fine.” She kept her voice controlled.
The bathroom mirror was the most condescending of the appliances. Okay, maybe not, but she resented it more than the others, with its rewards for proper tooth brushing and moisturizing, like she was a child. They’d overstepped with the mirror; that hadn’t been in her design.
“Ms. Stein, your chip is giving anomalous readings. Medical is on its way. Estimated arrival 23:21. Don’t move if you’re injured.”
