Karma On Pause

Yrid was escorted down the long white corridor by a lovely blonde-haired man. His features looked even more perfect when she tried to put her own face next to his in her mind’s eye – the aligned symmetry, the enhanced colours of the irises, the glow of the smoothest skin she’d ever seen. Not that she was very much surprised – every publicity material about Karma Inc. mentioned the high clinic standards, not only when it came to R&D and equipment, but the whole aesthetics. It was known that the employees received procedures as part of their job offer package, together with a free week of holidays in Karma’s paradise resort, to recharge. Rumours had it even janitors received bonuses. You did level up your karma when you got employment here.

She thought of how smoothly everything ran back at the reception. Yrid didn’t even need to fill in myriads of health forms, like she thought she would. The small scanning box simply pricked her finger, went through a neon rainbow of colour before settling on green. They didn’t even ask her date of birth. Now, Yrid knew that the citizen files were connected to her DNA, and the medical and emergency services had access to them. Still, the easiness felt weird. They had asked for more authorisation last time she needed to charge her capsule rover.

The walls were pristine – lacking the expected posters on the procedures the clinic offered or with smiling faces and customer feedback in a bubble. And yet the wall albedo gave Yrid an almost out-of-body experience – like she was the photoreceptors on that wall, of that wall, a thread of neurons connected to its RAM, connected to something bigger. Yrid shook her head quickly and narrowed her gaze to the path just in front of her. Right foot, left foot, one tile, second tile… It all had to be nerves. Simple as the hibernation mod sounded in the clinic videos and brochures, it was going to be her first augmentation. She was terribly late to the party – past the cute, old-fashioned ‘virginity’, already in the category of sheer lunatics, cut off from some amenities and real society by their own choice.

Was she afraid? She’d seen a video on the net – watched it the primitive way, on the screen – of a therapist talking about transference of ancient self-preservation instincts in the modern society. For most it resulted in the installation of as many implants and mods as possible. But there were a few who toppled the pyramid and protected their consciousness before their body – they were scared of tech-viruses, intrusions, blurring… Yrid couldn’t remember all the terms the therapist had used. The gist of it was that those people believed even the tiniest alteration established a connection to a bigger entity through tech support and maintenance, software updates etc., and it chipped away at who they were.

For Yrid it sounded like never driving your capsule rover outside the dome, or wishing to meet other people, or try a new job. As her eyes followed the tile pattern her feet took, she tried to think of her own reasons. She did go outside the dome a few times (a dusty yet picturesque experience), and she worked with other people (on occasion). She wasn’t a true hermit, she actually found many of the augmentations fancy – she just… Her head was suddenly filled with cotton that pressed itself between her thoughts driving them away from each other into incoherent tatters. In addition to that, a throbbing pain started behind her right eye, promising to push the ball out of the socket.

“Everything alright?” her escorting man paused a step ahead and half-turned to face her. His features had changed for a moment – it was like a few very similar faces were overlaid.

“Yes,” Yrid mumbled. The sensation was abating, and she resumed her walk, wondering why the hell they put no posters on the walls – they advertised themselves everywhere.

They took the turn right and appeared in front of a lift shaft. With a silent smile, the man pressed the button. They went just one floor up – it was almost a disappointment: in the huge, fourteen-storey building, they had to remain so low. Yrid didn’t so much as have time to even her breath.

She stepped out into an even brighter lit space. There was an oval area with sofas and a table with the familiar brochures; the curved receptionist desk rose to her left, framing the window; two narrow fridges with water sachets stood alongside the opposite walls. Finally, it looked like the clinic was supposed to. It must have been this eventual conjunction of what she’d seen in the ads before and what was in front of her right now that gave her a sliding sense of déjà vu.

“Dr Myrt,” her escort raised his hand as Yrid tried to blink the déjà vu off.

A shadow fell over her – she looked up to see a tall man with a rectangular face, edgy cheekbones, all of that framed with short, grizzled hair. Unlike her escort’s, the doctor’s looks were irregular, but the irises had definitely been worked upon – they seemed to be filled with crushed sapphires, even pertaining the miniscule angles the pulverised gem would have. Yrid could only wonder what advantage it gave the man, apart from being good at seduction.

Her escort passed the doctor a black button, about an inch in diameter. Yrid remembered that he received it from the receptionist after they pricked her finger. Dr Myrt took the device without looking and almost hid it in the pocket of his white robes when he remembered to slide his thumb over its top surface. His smile was somewhat apologetic.

“Thank you, Aidte. I’ll take it from here,” he nodded to the younger man, who smiled and stepped back into the lift. “Are you ready to go, Y…” the doctor had to clear his throat, “Yrid… Or would you like perhaps a water sachet first?”

He didn’t wait for her answer and walked briskly to the fridges, operated the button on the side and waited for the mechanism to push one of the sachets off the rack. He collected it at the bottom and returned to her. Yrid was thinking how Dr Myrt had used her first name. The button he received from her escort contained her biocard, and it must have been the clinic’s policy to use the first names, for a friendlier and more supportive atmosphere. In Karma you’ll feel like home.

She shivered as his fingers brushed the back of her palm and his other hand slid in the sachet into it, wrapping her fingers around the container. The chilled surface of the composite, flexile material didn’t even register straight away, stolen away by the warm, rough skin of his fingertips. She thought she could distinguish the friction ridges and their pattern. And now that she looked into those crushed sapphire eyes, she could bet she knew them. Where from?

Automatically she raised her hand to her mouth, smacking her lips around the top dotted side of the sachet. It began to perforate and Yrid pressed the bottom to rush the silky liquid up. They had the purest water here, and the absence of aftertaste or gritty particles had a surprisingly calming effect on her. She’d spent so many hours on Karma’s website, reading into the procedures, the downtime and the personnel, it all must be imprinted in her mind now, like she’d been here many times before. And now it was going to happen for real – her first mod.

“Now, that’s better, isn’t it?” Dr Myrt smiled, taking the sachet out of her fingers gently and sticking it in the same pocket as her biocard button. “Shall we proceed then?”

Yrid followed him, noticing that the doctor tried to shorten his step so that she wouldn’t lag behind. As a result, they marched in cadence. Perhaps, that was another upgrade the clinic gave its stuff – an ability to adjust to your patients, to mirror them of sorts.

The corridor they entered had doors unlike the one on the floor below. The silver paint glimmered in the bright lights at regular interval, but to Yrid’s surprise the numbers were all wrong, inconsequential. A weird feature for a respectable clinic. She thought of the analogue laundry she went to – there was a washing machine in the middle of the top row, which was numbered 19, situating between 12 and 14. But the owner explained it to her once, when she met the woman, – they had to number the devices according to their registry. They had space for fifteen machines only, but somehow only that one in the middle of the top row always broke down. They had already substituted it with 16, and then 17, and then 18, and every time it went out of order. It looked like you could exchange the number, but not the thirteenth place. The lockers in her gym didn’t follow the proper numbering as well, but that was because everybody could programme their own number the moment they got the membership key. The only restriction was the gym’s algorithm that wouldn’t allow the numbers to repeat. But most of all it reminded her of Ceph’s new quarters, which the exploration agency assigned to him while he was preparing for the outer space mission. The units in the building lacked any individualistic features and were pretty small; the nomenclature was peculiar too – at first you thought it was ordered by letter combinations, but then the sequence went awry at one point as if they’d changed the alphabet; however, the numbers continuity that substituted it relied on some mathematical principles she was clearly unaware of.

Yrid chuckled inwardly as she recollected the strictly functional lodging, tech-sophisticated, capable of reshuffling itself. It wasn’t its looks that made it funny, but the fact that she’d been to it only once, on special permission. Ceph moved out, and she remained in the old unit. Someone had even asked her if it meant they separated. And yet, here she was, in the clinic, about to install her first mod because of him.

They stopped in front of the door with number 2A, and that was in the middle of the corridor. Dr Myrt scanned his card on the side panel; he waited till Yrid would proceed inside, then followed her.

“I bet you’ve read about what awaits you today, but let me give you a quick summary, just in case. Hibernation mod is the basic of subdermals.” He indicated a spheroid chair in the middle of the room, inviting Yrid.

As she approached it on stiff legs, she tried to get a proper look of the room. It had cut corners, which almost made it into a circle. The computers and panels were in-built, humming and buzzing already as if they never stopped. The tiles under her feet had a reflective surface, creating a kaleidoscope of images as she turned her head. By the time she climbed inside the spheroid, the flaky sensation of the déjà vu was back, and this time Yrid found it hard to explain it.

Her limbs immediately sunk in the soft, cushion material – in a blink of an eye all the unpleasant sensations in her muscles, the prickles and tingling and tension, were gone. Dr Myrt smiled to her, as if he knew what she’d been going through and how the chair would counteract it. Were his patients always nervous? She had read many a blog entry, and people were euphoric about the augmentations and the procedure itself. Was it just another self-hype?

“There would be barely any foreign agents introduced into your body.” He came closer and began to press the buttons on the side panel. “Don’t worry – there’ll be no restrains for the procedure, but the chair configuration will change throughout so that the injection doesn’t go into the wrong place. See what I mean?”

The material around her shoulders, wrists, knees and ankles went almost rigid. It was still soft to touch, but now it was keeping Yrid firmly in place.

“The chair wouldn’t impair the blood circulation or cause you any pain. We are going to implant small teardrop-like pads with the medication. Their membrane is programmed to decay after the catalyst is released. As far as I understand, you have an agreement with your,” he cleared his throat, yet again, “husband that both of you can induce or reverse the hibernation, is that correct?” Dr Myrt moved away from the chair to consult one of the computer screens at the back of the room.

“Yes,” Yrid tried to sit a bit higher, but the chair was holding her.

“It’s okay, I can hear you perfectly well,” said the doctor, even though he wasn’t even looking in her direction. Perhaps, he had some vid-feed from the apparatus there on the screen.

“Yes, Ceph, my husband, is going to take part in the Exploration Agency mission,” it was as if a bubble had punctured inside her, the words rushing out, urgent and important, the record for history, just in case. “He’ll be away for quite some time, also hibernating for periods. But they are not strictly scheduled – everything depends on what they encounter, when his expertise is needed. So, we’ve decided it would be easier for us both to have control over my hibernation patterns – in case, he doesn’t have time to warn me. You know the signal won’t be reaching us immediately, I mean, his message that he’s going into hibernation, but these med pads they have this entanglement algorithm. It’s enough for him to start his hibernation process for mine to come along.” Yrid cut off shortly, finishing the last sentence at incomprehensible speed, as she realised that Dr Myrt didn’t need all that information – he was the specialist here.

She stared at where her knees melted into the chair’s material, her shins invisible in its depths. When she looked up, the doctor was back by her side. He didn’t seem exasperated, perhaps only slightly concerned.

“I just want to stress it – that this is no form of control over you on the part of your,” he sighed, “husband. He will be capable to induce your hibernation, but you can always come back to this clinic and extract the hibernation pouches. Life keeps going on and the new implant isn’t a way to restrain you from further possibilities.” His crushed sapphire eyes narrowed and somehow occupied her whole range of vision – there was nothing more, like in a comic strip, just those eyes. And she knew the distribution of colour in them, the meanings they were conveying.

“We talked it all through,” Yrid said, blinking off the hypnotising gaze of the doctor. “Do I need to sign a clause? An agreement?” She instinctively tried to extract her hands from the chair.

Dr Myrt smiled again. “It’s enough that you state the intention loudly and clearly. The cameras are going to register it and store in the contract section.”

“I, Yrid Arkonis, give my full consent to the implantation of hibernation mods with entanglement capability. I name my husband Ceph…” she swallowed and felt a trickle of perspiration. How could it be that her husband’s surname eluded her at this very moment. She squinted her face. Stupid nerves – why did she have to be so nervous all the time? Perhaps, if she hadn’t, Ceph would be able to convince the Agency to include her in the project too. She didn’t have any aspirations to go to space, or perhaps the right qualifications, but she would want to be with him on this journey, support him and not from afar. But hibernation it was to be.

“It’s all right, we have your DNA signature and the database can extract all the necessary details about your marital status. We can simply proceed now.” There was something wistful in his voice, but when Yrid turned her gaze to him, Dr Myrt wasn’t even looking at her – he was rolling up his sleeve and activating the surgery mod. The raised patch of artificial skin that ran from the elbow to the wrist came apart, like somebody loosened the seam – thin spidery instruments rose and whirred. It was one of the latest models, the one that allowed you to keep your own hands for sensation purposes. Ceph had something very similar, no identical, Implanted into him for his future research.

“Now, relax, Yrid, it’s going to take me a moment.”

Yrid couldn’t take her eyes off the moving instruments, even though she never looked when they took her blood tests in the past. Before Dr Myrt would make any incisions, he administered a drug. The sharpness of perception was momentarily blurred, a fog settled in her mind, but it didn’t worry her – on the contrary it took the edge off her anxiety. She expected the doctor to start the procedure, but he was waiting for something.

Suddenly the effect of the drug changed. The fog in her head began to clump into amoeba shapes, then the clusters started to get a structure. The recent memories and the general knowledge were arranging themselves into a lattice, but it had many more points unoccupied.

“Dr Myrt…?” her tongue was thick and she couldn’t deliver the words to ask him about those gaps and the overall effect. It should not be happening; it wasn’t even any side effect she had read about.

“Calm, Yrid, everything is like it… should be,” his voice was the same, but somehow it sounded like Ceph’s voice. Was it because he was stroking her hair with his other hand, like Ceph always did when he was lulling her. Did he do it to all his patients?

She couldn’t pull away, because the chair was holding her in place, even though they didn’t proceed with the injection. She wanted to stop the procedure and demand an explanation, but it looked like all her ‘operational power’ was occupied with filling the gaps in the lattice. Slowly, like small screens, other memories emerged, other knowledges. She knew how this chair operated and what it translated onto the screen, including the specifications you wouldn’t find in the net; she knew precisely the components of the patented hibernation drug, Karma Inc. wouldn’t release into the public domain; she knew precisely the date when Dr Myrt changed the composition and colour of his eyes in order to have faceted, recording mode vision; she remembered the mosaic wedding pictures they got in the end when he used those eyes, refusing to hire a proper photographer. She even remembered his joke that she was doing the right thing keeping her maiden name, so that when they got the Galactic Nobel Prizes, they would never be confused and associated with the wrong discovery.

The lattice was becoming overwhelming, threatening to burn her natural circuits. Now that Yrid had more and more of the lattice dots revealed, she could also see extracted configurations where her old modifications used to be. It was like a different person was transpiring through… erasing the current person. But which of them was real?

“Why…?” she breathed out automatically. Was it her own decision to cripple herself by extracting those mods, erasing those memories? She looked up at Dr Ceph Myrt.

“I wish I could make it permanent, love, but this drug cannot be used on a daily basis. And even if it could, it would do you no good. It would have made you addicted. It would have changed you, not bring your back…”

“But why…?” Yrid’s voice was a rasp as she struggled to reach for the relevant memories. Surprisingly enough she couldn’t remember or perceive her whole self all at once. It was easier to ask Ceph.

“No one really knows what happened to you on that free-floating rogue planet. You could never tell us. You could barely trust us, as you were forgetting, not that’s the wrong meaning – re-assigning the faces. I wasn’t who I was for you, and all your augments were making things worse. They were driving fits, building-up anger, your body started to reject some of them after decades of use. I am sorry I had to cripple you that way, but I didn’t know what else to do. I still don’t. I can’t even come home…”

“But I remember you there, only… wait – a week ago?”

“Time doesn’t go linearly for you anymore, just as well-known faces turn into different people. My hypothesis you turned yourself into a different person. For what? To guard the secrets of that rogue planet? Even with this experimental drug I created, I can’t reach that information – you can’t. Well, I’ll do it differently now. They gave the permission, the funding. I have the transport, all the state-of-the-art mods, a robot-technician for assistant, capable of performing the surgery and extracting the implants if needed.”

“You’re going,” Yrid jerked, but the spheroid was holding her fast.

“Of course I am, love. One way or another I will be with you. But it just means that you need to sleep for a bit while I am away.” He stroked her hair once again and planted a soft kiss on her forehead. “I promise when I am back, you’ll get a proper waking-up kiss.”

As Ceph’s voice trailed away, a myriad of needles pierced her body, reaching for energy dots and lymphatic nods. The sides of the chair stretched upwards, completing the sphere with a transparent lid. Just as meds streamed into her system, a different liquid began to slosh around her knees and shoulder.

Yrid remembered among the specifications that this particular Karmapod^TM chair could be used as a hibernation capsule. She jerked her head sideways to catch one last look of her husband. However, the chair was applying pressure on her shoulders and neck, making her turn her face towards the oxygen mask, which had sprung out of the side compartment.

“You want feel my absence, love, I promise.”

Yrid didn’t know whether he meant she’d be asleep all this time, or that her brain would alter the reality the moment Ceph’s experimental drug was washed out of her system. She wanted to tell him she loved him. But unbidden Dr Myrt’s words came to mind – Life keeps going on and the new implant isn’t a way to restrain you from further possibilities. Was it a sweet escape? After all that time of caring and compassion? Or smuggling her out? Yrid was furious for her inability to reach for the rogue planet memories, for the essence of it all, for him.

The world was already dissipating, the old and the new; the lights in the room seemed to shift spectre and her husband’s figure was like an ultraviolet ghost, soon to flicker off and annihilate himself from her memory. Perhaps, it would be a sweet escape, for both of them.