Platformed

Chapter 6

6

The next morning when the door opened it wasn’t the delivery bot, but rather a man in a white doctor’s coat.

Yesterday the robot had brought a salad of fresh vegetables, including the most flavorful tomatoes she’d had in years, and a creamy risotto studded with mushrooms, and a soup that was maybe butternut squash, and crunchy, warm garlic bread. She felt immense relief that the pancakes had not been a fluke.

“Sara?” the man asked.

She sat up in bed and nodded.

“I’ll be your doctor today,” he said.

She expected to be asked to verify her birthday, to scan her thumbprint, to be told his name, but there was none of that. He just stood in the doorway waiting for her.

She stood reluctantly, leaving the comfort of her blanket bunched up with the sheets. “Dressed like this?” she asked.

He smiled, that same patronizing smile she was starting to hate. “I see we didn’t give you socks!”

She didn’t notice him do anything, but moments later the delivery bot arrived with freshly folded clothes where the food normally was.

“Um,” she said, retrieving the clothes. Warm from a dryer.

He nodded and stepped away, letting the door close. She wondered what the point of privacy even was. Of course they were watching her. But there were some things you really needed to pretend in order to feel human.

She shook out the clothes and draped them on the bed. The material was very similar—dull blue-gray and slightly stiff—but they did provide her socks and underwear and shoes that were basically slippers. The dress was slightly more substantial than the last one. And, thank God, a sweatshirt.

When she emerged into the hall to find the waiting doctor, she was in a much better mood.

He smiled, an expression that felt slightly more real than the ones before, and set off down the hall with her following. Not making any of the small talk she expected.

The hallway sloped down, enough that had she been in a wheelchair she would have rolled away. The mental image made her smile.

Were all these rooms occupied by people like her? Waiting?

She didn’t ask.

They turned left, then right, always down. How big was this place?

“Just in here, now.”

The room was small and square with a doctor’s table in the middle and many instruments she didn’t recognize mounted on the walls and ceiling. She sat dutifully.

“I hope you’re doing well, Sara,” the doctor said, rolling up on a stool.

“Sure,” she said, not knowing how else to reply.

“We’re going to start with a physical,” he said. “I have your chart here.” He tapped through screens on a tablet. “Your last physical was…three years ago?”

She shrugged. “That sounds right.”

“Great, great,” he said, still reading.

She had never heard a doctor say it was great how infrequently she got checkups.

He retrieved one of the devices hanging from the ceiling—large and sleek and metallic. With earbuds attached.

“We’ll start with a hearing test. I want you to raise your left or right hand when you hear something in that ear.”

A sequence of beeps, a sequence of raised hands. The doctor nodded.

He inclined his head for a moment as if thinking, then nodded decisively and pushed the device back up. “And your eyes now.”

The same procedure, but with goggles placed over her eyes and tiny flashes of light.

“Good news!” he said brightly. “Your eyes and ears and reaction times are all great.”

“I’m wearing glasses,” she pointed out.

He seemed unbothered by this. “We care about your corrected vision.”

The rest of the appointment involved a scale and a heart rate monitor and a stethoscope listening to her lungs, then a long silence in which he mostly just looked at her.

She thought maybe it was a staring contest, though that would be even more absurd. Obligingly, she tried not to blink.

Finally, he got to his feet and opened the door. “Thanks, Sara,” he said. “It was great to meet you.”

Apparently the appointment was over.

“Aren’t you going to walk me back?” she asked.

“Just follow the…” he started, then laughed slightly. “Of course. I’ll show you.”

She decided not to waste time trying to figure out what he had almost said and followed. How quickly she was becoming complacent.