“Oh.” Breathed the girl as she wrote on a notepad.
“I was the first human trial and when some errors occurred in the functions of the chip, it was a lot harder to operate on the brain than at the base of the neck. My father had the money to hire surgeons to handle this but not everybody has this privilege. We want the chips to be accessible to all. Especially those that most need it.” Pride welled up inside him as he said this. Despite how messed up he was, he was doing good for humanity. He at least would make a mark on society before he dissolved into nothingness.
“Is it easy to operate, then? You don’t have to understand advanced technological systems to use the chip?” Clinton asked.
“No, of course not. It simply connects to an app on your phone or tablet. The majority of the filtering the chip does is automatic, but some mental illnesses require more training.”
“Such as?”
“Anxiety and depression are tricky. We want people to have their normal range of emotions still. Some amount of anxiety, fear, and depression is normal. The client must work in conjunction with their therapist to determine which emotions are being experienced at unnatural levels or are causing issues for the client in their daily life. However, we do have safeguards set to prevent people from numbing themselves completely. They cannot simply delete emotions of grief, depression over the ups and downs of life, or fight or flight in a truly dangerous situation.”
“What about the controversy?” The third man who had been silent up to that point piped in.
“Controversy?” Pat asked.
“When Owen Sherwood first introduced the chip, some hacked into the chip and managed to take down the safeguards. What happened with that?”
Pat ran his fingers through his fluffy hair and sighed. “Unfortunate cases, truly. Several of the perpetrators were caught and arrested. We also increased security measures on the chips so that it is highly unlikely this will ever occur again.”
“Were the victims compensated?”
“Yes,” Pat said reluctantly. “Sadly, they will not be able to come back from the state they are in. When you numb every feeling long enough, you become a vegetable.”
An oppressive silence filled the room at this pronouncement. Pat had longed to be somebody who didn’t feel anything for the majority of his life, but when his dad explained what had happened to those people, he realized that he was one of the lucky ones. Those people had been suffering for so long that they resorted to taking away all the pain to live in a numb purgatory.
“And with that…do you have any other questions for me?”
Clinton relieved the heavy silence by asking a few traditional questions about the cost of the device, installation, and packaging. When this was done, the salespeople seemed to not have any more questions.
“Thank you for coming.” Out of habit, Pat bumped elbows with each of them in a gesture of goodwill. Shaking hands was long forgotten. When Pat reached the young woman he paused.
“Thank you, Mr. Sherwood.” She bumped his elbow.
“I did not hear your name.”
“Janice May.” She flashed a bright smile.
“Lovely.” He looked down at his shoes and said nothing else.
Janice took this as her cue to leave and walked out the door. As soon as she was gone Theresa bustled in and asked how it went. Pat didn’t respond, but instead proceeded to his office. He needed to do something to distract him from thoughts of Janice.
Realizing he wasn’t going to answer her, Theresa started a new topic of conversation as she bounced down the hallway after him. “Dr. Clive Evers is currently heading up the human trials for the newest version of the chip.”
When this registered in Pat’s brain, he uttered a few choice profanities under his breath.
“He’s the best surgeon in the state and nationally recognized in the top 10.” Theresa argued.
“Rather than worshiping God, I think he believes he IS God.”
“It doesn’t matter who he is as long as he does a good job.”
Pat snorted as he opened his office door. The shelves spilled over with green leafy plants and the walls were entirely made of windows and let in a lot of natural light. He sat down on his ergonomic chair and immediately straightened up his posture. It was very noticeable because he tended to always hunch. He usually made himself smaller than others because he didn’t like all the attention on him. This was such a contradiction from how he acted at work. His self-deprecating humor and sarcasm made it seem like he was impervious to criticism or embarrassment.
“Okay. As long as I don’t have to interact with that peacock.” Pat said simply.
Theresa nodded and said, “I emailed you the list of messages you received over the weekend. When you have time, could you return those calls?”
“What if I decide to shoot myself instead?”
Theresa glared at him and he returned the glare with a jovial smile. “I’ll leave you to it.” She conceded.
“I will cry endlessly while you are away.”
She didn’t acknowledge the jab with any kind of smile. When she was gone, he started his work playlist right away and began filtering through the emails. When he had dreamed about what he wanted to do when he grew up, it never included checking emails, PR, or creating presentations. Sadly, since his father had died, nobody but Pat was able to take over the company.
“Tale as old as time…” He sighed to himself.
A good chunk of his day turned into writing emails, making calls, checking the lab, and more meetings. It was 7 pm before he left and he was ready for his comforts. The first stop was Lucky Smith’s Gastro Pub. He loved it because the backs on the booths were high and the music loud. Not only was the atmosphere perfect but the food and drinks were excellent. The hostess took him to his usual booth which was out of the way from the general traffic of the restaurant, but in view enough where he could observe the comings and goings of everybody.
As he sipped on a rum and coke, his eyes gazed over at the live band. He tried to let the notes wrap him in noisy peace. The lights were dim and autumnal. They dangled from the ceiling on long black cords. The exposed black pipes on the ceiling zigzagged every which way. The bar took up half of the restaurant with floor-to-ceiling glass shelves holding decanters of all kinds of alcohol. Shallow baskets were nailed to the walls every few feet above the tables which looked like they were poured concrete. Outside, the small trees were covered in twinkling lights that illuminated the cars pushing through. Traffic was heavy tonight and Pat was glad he had gotten here when he did.
“Mr. Sherwood! I mean…Pat.”
Pat tore his eyes from the music and saw his wife walking towards him. His heart skipped a beat and he wasn’t sure if he was still breathing. She was just as he remembered. Long red hair parted down the middle, aquamarine eyes, beautiful hourglass figure.
“Seeing you again is serendipitous!”
It wasn’t Justice. His love wasn’t here.
