Doomsayer

“If she spent half the time and money worrying about her husband as she did kissing up to her neighbors, maybe she wouldn’t have been the only one bringing in some cash in that house. Then maybe their subscription wouldn’t have expired,” Mikaela snarked in-between bites of her Green Lady™ salad.

I pinched the bridge of my nose before collecting myself enough to speak. Mikaela wouldn’t be able to understand. She didn’t live near Elyse and I. She didn’t know him the same. “I guess you never really know someone,” I said regardless.

“Ain’t that the truth,” she echoed as she stood up to dispose of her plate. The can let out a cheerful chime as the plastic passed through its flap. “I’m headed home for the day. Daryen isn’t working for the next week so that means I get paid vacation.”

Mikaela practically skipped on her way out, waving her fingers goodbye over her shoulder. Elyse rolled her eyes.

“Must be nice to be the chairman’s niece, huh?” 

“Must be nice to get paid vacation,” I replied.

Elyse pushed out her chair and grabbed her purse, the plethora of charms dangling off rattled with the movement. “Don’t hang around too long. Crazies have been seen out en masse again and I’m not covering for you if you’re late this time.”

I waved off her concerns. We've eaten at this cafe every day since we started at the company together. There had never been ‘crazies’ in the area as far as I had seen. A couple of unsightly folks, sure, but it was easy enough to walk past them and avoid eye contact. Such was life in the city limits.

The trash can shone a bright green smile and chimed as I deposited my empty cup on the way out the door. I squinted against the midday sun, finding the intrusion too bright after the dim interior lighting. My MyChip™ registered the oncoming headache and darkened my vision by twenty percent. Relief flooded through me as the lenses in my eyes took a moment to adjust their focus on the new environment.

The city looked the same as usual. Always dirty, but with pockets of sufferable charm. A few of the unsightly folks lingered in my periphery as I approached my car, clicking the locks open with a simple thought command. At least it hadn’t been broken into. Crime was always rife in these parts.

I was unsure about the upgrade Elyse had recommended at first, but now I found it hard to not agree with her that it was worth it. The recovery period was the worst, but soon it would be paid off and the strife would be in the past. The only thing ahead was the future.

A display of colorful medications popped up as I considered the recovery period, but I skipped the advertisement. Thankfully, the pain had long passed now. Instead, I pulled up a video feed for some background noise as I drove back to work.

The day passed as usual. My new blue-light filtering option came in handy as my eyes began to ache from the hours of screentime. It would have been much worse by now without the new lenses. I reached for the eyedrops I kept on my desk only to find them empty.

Cursing to myself, I made a mental note to buy more. My HUD chirped, displaying a check mark and order confirmation. The estimated delivery time was 7 pm. I should be able to intercept the package on the way home if traffic was amenable.

I couldn’t wait to get out of the city. All the people crowded so close together were always so suffocating and it smelled like a sewer after stewing in the sun all day. Thankfully, the air filters in my car could manage the worst of it once I climbed inside the cushy interior.

‘Watch your skipped advertisements now? 7 minutes remaining’ hovered in front of my eyes. I confirmed the prompt and let the promotions flash in the lower half of my vision. Better to have something to look at now than have my sleep interrupted again. I strolled down the street, humming along to a pill jingle that had become an earworm in the office.

Don’t be so down, bring your frown UP with one tiny pill a day.

The hands that grabbed my arms startled me out of my reverie. I yelped in surprise as I was pulled face to face with a disheveled man. His hair stuck out in every direction, greasy beyond measure. One of his eyes was bloodshot and the other completely clouded over. His untrimmed nails dug into my suit sleeves as I tried to pull away from his grasp.

“Sir! Sir, you have to listen! The disappearances… they’re coming for us all!”

I grimaced and pried the man’s hands off me. He was surprisingly strong for how frail he looked. “Get your hands off me, man. Let go!”

The clearly homeless and disturbed man fought against my defence, his nails scrambling for purchase anywhere he could touch. I winced against the scrapes and shoved him away.

“You don’t understand! It’s not just us. They’ll come for you, too! Can’t you see it?” the man screeched before doubling over into a coughing fit. Disgusting.

I straightened my suit with a frown before turning back to my car. It was just at the other end of the lot. My pace was quicker this time, matching the bpm of not only the current ad buzzing in my ears but also the pounding of my heart. That was scary. Good thing nothing worse happened.

I barely heard the slapping of feet on the asphalt before I felt a sharp pain across the back of my head as nails raked down my scalp.

“Stop ignoring me! You have to see! You have to see!”

My hand immediately went to cover the nape of my neck where my fingers became slick with beading blood. My mind was still reeling as adrenaline pumped through my veins.

Alarms and warnings rang in my ears. I faintly heard a notification but didn’t dare to look at it now. Instead, my eyes focused on the desperate man before me, his chest heaving with anger. He lunged forward again when I tried to backpedal.

A bright light suddenly shone on the man and he froze, cowering behind his hands.

“Alright, Emerys, that’s enough. We’ve been through this before.”

I turned to the new voice and immediately relaxed when I recognized the uniform he wore. The officer wasted no time in apprehending the raving man, Emerys. He screamed and spit and fought against the hold, but ultimately was cuffed and carted away.

The officer approached me as his partner handled the arrest. “Are you alright sir?”

I drew my hand away from my neck and looked down at the blood staining my skin. It wasn’t an alarming amount, but enough to cause some concern. The officer winced at the sight.

“Looks like he did a number on you. Apologies, we normally try to stop these things before they happen. Emerys is known to be disturbed. He’ll be admitted to a care home as soon as a slot opens, you can rest assured.”

I waved off his concerns. “You’ve got him off the streets? That’s all I care about. Thanks for the help.”

He smiled brightly at me, eyes crinkling above the cloth mask that covered the bottom half of his face. “It’s no problem at all. Just doing our jobs. I do need to ask you a few questions for the paperwork, however. It should be quick, I just need to verify your identity first.”

He held up a scanner to the back of my skull. A low beep sounded. The officer frowned and tried again before peering at the back of my head. I always kept my hair trimmed neatly for this exact reason. The last thing I needed was to impede an officer trying to do his job. Why wasn’t the MyChip™ registering on the scanner?

The expression on his face turned from confusion to pity as he examined my MyChip™ site. “I think your chip got damaged in the altercation, sir.”

“What?” My hand went back up to the nape of my neck, feeling around with the pads of my fingers. Sure enough, there was a scratch across the surface, rendering it useless. It was only then I realized what the notification I ignored had been about.

“I’m afraid I’ll have to issue a citation, sir.”

I frowned deeply. “A citation? What for? Clearly it’s not my fault the MyChip™ is damaged, I’ve just been attacked!”

The officer shook his head. “Unfortunately, because I cannot confirm that the MyChip™ wasn’t damaged prior to the altercation with Mr. Emerys, it is out of my hands. Protocol, you know?” The officer chuckled good naturedly, but I found it hard to laugh along.

I handed my physical ID card over to the cop, watching him fumble with the scanning device for a few moments before it chimed and he handed it back with a half-hearted smile.

“Thank you for your cooperation, Mr. Bradshaw.”

I snatched my ID card back and roughly shoved it into my pocket as I answered the officer’s questions with short, clipped responses. Eventually, he left and joined his partner in the car. Turning sharply, I stomped my way over to the driver’s side door of my own vehicle but found it would not open for me.

My thought commands were not working, either. Only a small yellow exclamation point flashed in the corner of my eye. I tugged and tugged on the handle, but it did not give way. There had to be a way to get inside without a functioning MyChip™, right? What about people who got into unfortunate accidents like myself? Surely the manufacturer thought of this.

Apparently, not. I gave up after fifteen minutes without avail. Slumping against the car, I let out a long sigh. There was no way I could walk all the way home, right? The drive was 30 minutes by car. It would take me the better part of 2 hours to get home on foot. Were there even any footpaths alongside the highways?

As it turns out, no. There are no designated sidewalks or walkways on the path to my neighborhood outside the city limits, made even worse by the trickling of rain an hour into my trek.

By the time I got home I was cold, soggy, and miserable. I couldn’t even call a cab or catch the subway because my payment information was stored on my MyChip™.

Giana caught sight of me trudging my way up the driveway from across the street. She called out to ask if I was okay when she saw the blood staining my collar, but I waved her off.

“It’s fine, Giana,” I reassured, not really wanting to be rude but also not wanting to be associated with someone who was carted away recently. “I just had a long day.”

I closed the door before she could answer.

At home, at least, I had access to a computer that would allow me to schedule a replacement for the damaged MyChip™. As I was still in the process of paying off my last surgery, it would cut into my income quite a bit more than I was expecting this month. Such is life these days, I suppose.

It was the citation fee on top of everything that really was the nail in the coffin. I did the numbers three times, but there was no denying it: I’d be short this month, especially with the day of work I’d have to miss for the procedure. However, if I went down a subscription level, I’d just be able to make ends meet.

It was harder than expected to cancel the Premium MyChip™ subscription on their website. Three levels of security verification later— made much more difficult without a working chip— and I was paying a significant amount less per month now. But it would be fine. It was only for a month and then everything would be back to normal.

Sitting in the waiting room for MyChip™ services was like sitting in a doctor’s office waiting room mixed with an auto shop. People in expensive suits were sitting next to someone who looked like they hadn’t showered in the past year, and they in turn were next to the little old man who was falling asleep. Single mothers and fathers wrestled to subdue their little ones they couldn’t dump off on someone else for the day. One mother had succeeded in quieting her crying toddler by giving him more MyChip™ credits to spend on children’s entertainment. The lights flashed in his eyes as he stared ahead into the empty air, transfixed.

All the while, there was a flashing yellow and orange exclamation point in my peripherals. It was starting to give me a migraine. Thankfully, appointments seemed to be going much faster than the unfortunate walk-ins, and I was thanking my lucky stars that this might be over soon.

I paid upfront for the service and when it was my turn in the chair, I nearly fell asleep during the process. It was a relatively painless procedure, but they offered pain relief options which I gladly accepted. Better to be safe than sorry. It was a nice convenience, and if nothing else it definitely added to their customer satisfaction score.

I spent the rest of the day back at home, lounging on the couch, mindlessly scrolling through social media.

Newly Opened Venezuelan Oil Well Dismantled Overnight.

Top 10 Recipes to Try if You Hate Fish.

Check out this baby’s first words!

The Care Home Act Sparks Debate Over Human Rights Violations.

Exactly 3 minutes of the cutest animals that no longer exi—

A text from Elyse came through, pausing the video I was watching automatically. ‘Daryen isn’t happy you missed work today :( Just a heads up‘. I frowned before shooting a message back and resuming my scrolling. ‘I thought Daryen was taking the week off.’ 

Are You an Expert? Can You Tell If These Photos Are Real or—

‘He is. For some reason he just ‘decided’ to stop by the office today and check things out. Apparently Mikaela said something about you getting in trouble with the police.’

Another beep as Elyse’s incoming text interrupted my video again and I groaned out loud before switching to Do Not Disturb mode. If Mikaela was using her husband’s connection to the police to spy on her coworkers, it was annoying but not particularly surprising. At this point, though, I didn’t really care. I didn’t want to think about the attack or the citation anymore.

It was later than I intended when I finally fell asleep only to be jolted awake again by all the advertisements I had skipped throughout the day. I cursed at myself and rubbed my temples. I guess I forgot to make time to watch them and now I was stuck with 8 minutes of loud and bright flashing images that closing my eyes did nothing to remedy. Wonderful.

By the time I trudged into work the next day, I was practically dragging my feet underneath me. I felt awful, but— as my therapist told me— such is life. Sometimes we’ve gotta push through rough periods and just make it through to the other side where it’s greener.

Elyse scooted her chair down the aisle from her cubicle and stopped outside mine. “Hey, August. Long night?”

I rubbed away the growing headache as I started up my work computer. “More like a long week.”

“It’s only Wednesday,” Elyse teased as she propped her heels up on my desk, almost knocking over my fake succulent plant. “You honestly didn’t miss much yesterday, I don’t know why Daryen made such a fuss about you missing it, but you know how bosses are. Oh, by the way,” she continued, her energy completely undampened by the early hour, “what happened to you? Mikaela said trouble with the police but I told her that doesn’t sound right.”

Blinking my eyes to focus on my keyboard, I leaned in a bit closer to type in my password with a squint. “It was some trouble. If you ask me, I shouldn’t have been at fault for anything that wasn’t, you know, my fault. Some crazy attacked me and damaged my chip so the officer that tried to take my statement couldn’t scan it. He gave me a citation. Can you believe that?”

I waved my hands animatedly as I recalled the story. It was taking me a bit too long for my eyes to adjust to the lighting in the office so I rubbed the sleep out of them and blinked hard again.

“That’s sooo annoying. Hey, are you alright?”

“Yeah, I’m fine it’s just— I think those lenses you suggested are acting up. I can’t see anything!”

Elyse pouted as she leaned in to examine my eyes. “Hm. They shouldn’t be. They’re a good and reliable model, which you know how rare that is. You’ve got your subscription on autopay, right? You didn’t forget to pay it?”

“Damn it. I downgraded my subscription for the month. I didn’t realize my lenses weren’t covered in the Basic plan.” Frowning, I tried not to think about what Elyse’s face must have looked like as she stared at me in silence. Her expression was muddied by the blurriness of everything around me.

“You’re not going to need, like, glasses or something are you? ‘Cause that would look bad.”

Ignoring her, I squinted again and tried to read my emails. One was marked as important at the top. I couldn’t read what it said but it was definitely from Daryen. I let out a long sigh. “He wants to have a meeting, doesn’t he?”

The hummed confirmation from Elyse worsened my headache. Great. I pushed up from the squeaky desk chair and sidled past the woman who seemed far more comfortable in my cubicle than her own. The trip to Daryen’s office was just down the dizzyingly narrow aisle between crammed gray cubicles.

I knocked at his door before letting myself in. Daryen had his feet propped up on his desk and he cursed as I entered. A brief flicker of a light going out near his face signalled that he had been on a call, one that I interrupted.

“Damn it, August, wait for an answer before you just come barging in like that. That’s what I get for telling Mikaela to take the week off, too.” He stood up and adjusted his suit jacket. “You know I hate coming in when I’m supposed to be taking time off.”

“I’m sorry to cause trouble, sir, but I can explain.”

Daryen held up his palm to silence me. “I, frankly, don’t want to hear it. You missed a day of work without prior authorization. That’s a strike on your record, easy enough to sweep under the rug and move on but a police citation? Christ, August, we’re not running a lawless insurance scam here. It’s a perfectly lawful one.”

My frown deepened and I blinked to try and keep focus on my boss’s face. “Of course, sir, but if I could just—”

“You may not,” he snapped. “I’m going to look the other way for now, but if it gets out that I have a criminal working for me, you know how that’s going to reflect on the company.”

I bit my tongue and nodded. There was no way he was going to listen to reason here, that much was clear.

“Now, I expect twice the number of denials with your signature on them by the end of the day today. Capisce?” Daryen pointed sharply at me as if it would really bring home how serious he was.

The reality of being unable to read suddenly crashed down on me like ice water, or a hallucinating vagabond. Well, this was going to be a much less fun conversation to have, and the first half had been going so well, too. “Actually, sir, that might not be possible.”

Daryen, who had turned back to his desk, froze in his pacing and slowly turned to glare at me. At least, I assumed he was glaring. It was hard to tell what expression his wrinkled face wore. “What?”

“I’m having some trouble with my new lenses— I had to cancel my Premium subscription, you see— and I can’t actually read anything right now.” The quiet made me even more nervous as I rushed to amend what I could. “I mean, Elyse is more than willing to help me read what I need to and she can—”

Daryen slammed his palm down on the desk between us. “Absolutely not. You think I’m going to waste the time of one of my employees like that? You’re deranged, August. You don’t need to read to click a red button. Use the automated response like everyone else.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but quickly snapped it shut, just barely catching myself before making a grave error. I nodded, silently, and turned to leave at the dismissive handwave from Daryen who resumed his call as soon as I stepped out, his muffled voice ranting through the composite door.

I forgot to watch my advertisements again that day, getting startled awake at midnight once more. The day had been rough. Not being able to read requests as they came in was hard enough, but the ‘Approve’ and ‘Deny’ buttons were green and red respectively. Without my Premium MyChip™ subscription, my colorblindness wasn’t corrected, leaving me guessing which was which when unable to read the text. Thankfully, I had enough muscle memory to figure it out, but I really doubted my memory for a second there.

Letting out a long, weary sigh, I draped an arm over my eyes in a futile attempt to block out the overstimulating array of color and sound getting beamed straight into my nervous system. The Basic plan had 20 minutes of required ad viewing, in contrast to the 8 minutes Premium subscribers were gifted.

My mind drifted to the fantasy of the highest tier: the Platinum Pass. To live an ad-free life, as much as one could avoid the billboards in the city and alongside the highway, sounded like pure bliss right now. Mikaela must be living a life of such luxury. I could only hope to get there one day. That’s what working my ass off this week would be for: I could get through this rough patch and start working my way up again. Then, everything would be perfect.

The next morning I dug through my house, trying to find the ancient apparatus, or what felt like it was ancient now, of my eyeglasses. The case had a thick layer of dust over it, but the plastic squares rested inside like a day hadn’t passed between putting them away and now. I gave them a good wipe-down to clean the lenses and placed them on my face. It felt foreign, despite spending most of my youth in these ridiculous things.

Technology really has come such a long way so quickly, I thought to myself. The mirror proved how stupid I looked. Good thing I wouldn’t need them the whole day, I told myself. I would only keep them on for driving and then in my pocket in case I needed to read something. The prescription was old, and didn’t fix my difficulty with reds and greens, but it was better than nothing.

And they did stay in my pocket for most of the day. I only retrieved them once to squint at an angry email from a client trying to overturn her claim denial. Elyse had walked by and snorted when she read the email over my shoulder before making a face at the glasses across my nose bridge. She left without another word and hadn’t been responding to the videos I sent to her after work.

She must have been as busy as I felt. I barely had any time to decompress after work with my increased workload from Daryen, especially when there was a knock at my door. I groaned, debating ignoring whoever it was, but the second more insistent knock brought me to my feet.

Swinging the door open revealed two figures in scrubs. The one in front smiled widely at me, though the expression didn’t meet her eyes. The one behind her remained stoney-faced as if bored or assessing me like an algorithm.

“We greatly apologize for the disturbance, Mr. Bradshaw. I understand it is late, but we didn’t want to cause a scene with your neighbors.”

I blinked dumbly at the two women in front of me. “I’m sorry, what? What is this about?”

I wasn’t stupid. I recognized those uniforms, but it made no sense for them to be here.

The smiling woman kept her grin. “We’re from the Department of Health, sir. Given the recent kerfuffle with your neighbor, we wanted to avoid any negative associations to the neighborhood by doing this quietly.”

“Doing this quietly?” I thought of Naethan, being wheeled away in his chair as Giana cried and screamed on the front porch. “Surely there’s been some mistake here.” I tried to keep a good-natured smile on my face but felt it faltering in my disbelief. “I’m fully employed. I don’t have any health issues or concerns. You don’t take people like me. You take crazies, burdens! I’m a productive member of society!”

The smile turned saccharine, and too toothy almost as if she were baring her gums. “But that’s not entirely trust, now is it, sir?” The stony-faced nurse held out a TouchPad™ so I could see. “Our records indicate you have a vision abnormality without an active correction. That qualifies.”

“Since when?”

“Since it was signed into law earlier this week, Mr. Bradshaw.”

I sputtered in an attempt to find my voice. This was ridiculous! Insanity! “But my correction comes with the Premium plan. I’m only temporarily on Basic!”

“I’m afraid you’re going to have to come with us, sir.” The smiley nurse stepped to the side, leaving space for me to exit the doorway. The stoney-faced nurse remained in place and I only now noticed the handcuffs she was carrying.

“No.” I took a step back. “I’m not going. This is madness!”

“Sir, please, we really would prefer this to be quick and easy for all of us. Nice and quiet. You wouldn’t want to alert your neighbors, would you? Imagine the embarrassment.”

Alert my neighbors? Yes, that’s exactly what I should do, I realized! They’ll see this is a huge overstep, a mistake. They will come to my defense! Elyse certainly will. She only lived two doors down!

“I will not go quietly!” I declared.

The first nurse’s smile disappeared to match her companion’s expression. “Cuff him.”

They grabbed my arms and dragged me out of the house, wrestling my wrists into the metal cuffs. I screamed and yelled at the ludicrousness of the situation, trying to draw attention to what was happening as they fought to drag me to their transport van, the same kind that took away Naethan.

I dug my heels into the concrete of my driveway, making their attempt at a quick and quiet getaway fail miserably. “Help!” I called. “Please! This is wrong!”

Doors opened to investigate the disturbance and I watched as my neighbors stuck their heads outside or pushed their curtains aside to peek. Elyse’s face was illuminated from the light that spilled through her doorway. She wrapped her cardigan around herself to guard from the night’s chill. She looked distraught.

“Elyse! Please, you know me! Tell them they have it wrong! I’m a good man! I work! I pay my taxes!” She did not move. In fact, my calling of her name seemed to make her shrink back into the long shadows of the night. “Please!”

The door shut behind her retreating form. A part of my heart was cut off with it. The fight that burned through me suddenly felt cold. No, she had to help. She had to. Right?

The nurses took advantage of my sudden quiet and wrestled me into the transport van, slamming the door and shutting me off from everything I knew. Everything I thought I knew.

“Buckle up, Mr. Bradshaw,” the driving nurse called to me through the plastic barrier between us. “I’m sure you’ll find your new home very comfortable, but it is a long drive.”