RoboNomics

Chapter 27

The thought 'debt' flashes across my mind and my eyes snap open. I prop myself up in bed and peer over at Austin's sleeping body. The red LEDs of the alarm clock glow in the half-light: 5:53 a.m. Still too early. I sink back down onto my pillow and pull our comforter back up to my chin.

I stare wide-eyed at the ceiling. The first thing I did when I got my first credit card was play the lottery, I think. That was my first mistake. I recall walking with my grandfather to the corner store every Saturday morning. He would play the lottery and spoil me with sweets. I remember the summer days of heat before the store had an air conditioning unit. The smell of industrial cleaner and mothballs rose from the dirty linoleum tile of the store. That scent is mixed up, in my memory, with the taste of the white lemon popsicles.

"Don't let your grandmother see," he would say -- the dilemma of being a grandfather and adopted father warring within him. He and my maternal grandmother raised me. My grandfather always hugged me goodbye before school with tears in his eyes. He was not the disciplinarian of the couple.

I don't remember much about my mother. I do remember she had brown hair that was like a mist hovering around her head. I don't recall what her face looked like, even though my grandparents -- her parents – never tired of telling me I looked like her.

I do remember that before she passed away, my mother also bought lottery tickets. No one in the family would indulge in a daily or even weekly cup of take-out coffee. But they always bought lottery tickets. They were forever buying them and never winning anything. It was as much a part of our family routine as making the bed each morning. So when I hit eighteen, I started buying them too. I thought of it as a just-in-case investment in my future.

I trace a crack in the ceiling with my eyes. A morning doze eludes me. My jaw is tight with worry and my mind is spinning. The thought of debt comes on at times with the violence of a hurricane. Other times, it threatens like a distant thunderstorm. The possibility of losing everything woke me up. It won't let me go back to sleep.

I leap from bed. I need to solve or at least temporarily lessen my troubles. I tear through our house, looking around frantically.

Maybe I could sell some stuff, I think. But who would buy what I have to sell? I have a closet stuffed to the brim with old clothes. They represent a major reason why I'm indebted in the first place. They add to other expenses like the student loans, the car leases, the mortgage, the vacations, and the dinners out. Would we trade all that now? I ask myself. Making memories, spoiling ourselves with our affluence? Austin made a large salary and I hadn't done so bad myself. But we didn't save any of it. After buying a house, it hardly seemed worth it to save beyond our pensions. Especially since the money always seemed to just keep coming. We'd amassed a home full of beautiful, useless things. I didn't save a penny. Instead, I bought lottery tickets.

I have books. I'd had some success selling those when I was at the university. Whenever I needed a quick twenty bucks for food or booze. There are also electronics. I have one of those old tablet computers, aging and obsolete, laying on a shelf somewhere. I can go without a computer since I don't have a job, I think. I could use Austin's computer if I need one.

I enter the living room and look around. The television: the massive screen that melts into the white walls as if it's not there. The accompanying state of the art sound system that is audible not but visible. Those I could sell for something to make sure we can at least feed ourselves. But I banish the thought as it occurs. I can't take Austin's favorite stuff. Not with everything he's gone through lately.

I head for the basement with its stale scent and its wood paneled walls. We were going to replace those walls this year. We'd made plans to renovating the basement rec room when I was still a teacher. Now I don't know what will happen.

At the end of the room is a pair of wooden doors that fold back to open. They hide the back storage room. I open them and reveal a wall of cardboard boxes collapsing into each other. I lift one out. I grab another and another and place them one by one down along the hardwood floor of the rec room until they are lined in rows from my feet to the grey corduroy couch along the far wall. Then I set to work.

When Austin finally comes downstairs, I am sitting surrounded by piles of old books and dishes, wires and bits of clothing. I've thrown a stuffed bear with a purple bow around its neck to the base of the stairs. He stoops to pick it up.

"Andrea?" He calls gently. He blinks sleepily. "Whatcha doing?"

I have stacks of books on my left or right side. I peruse the contents of each the one on my lap before I deposit it into one of the piles.I sit cross-legged on the cool of the light hardwood. I slowly pull my eyes from the page to look at him.

"Hmm..?"

"What's going on?" Austin perches on the arm of our beat-up corduroy love seat. The fabric is so worn, it's shiny in some places. "Why is all this stuff everywhere?"

"I'm sorting." My eyes fall again to reading.

"Okay," Austin says patiently. "But why now? It's seven in the morning. Have you had breakfast?"

"Breakfast? No, I don't need breakfast. Anyways, I have to get going. I have to get this done so I can sell them."

"What are you talking about?" asks Austin. "What are you selling? Books? Why do you have to get going?"

I let out theatrical sigh. "Can't you see? I've lost my job, Austin. I've even lost my backup job and my shitty tutoring job. What else can I do? We have all this crap in the basement, we might as well try to put it to good use. I don't know what else I can do." I shoot my speech out at a breakneck speed, trying not to cry.

"Wait a second." He sits down beside me, moving one of the piles of books. "Andrea, it hasn't been that long since I lost my job. I'll get another one. And you will too. I know you will." He places a hand on my back and begins to rub it.

"But what if we don't?" I ask. He tries to reassure me with "we will," but I charge on. "Then it'll be another month without income. And another and then another and we'll have collection agencies knocking on the door. I can't pay the bills, Austin. And now neither can you. We won't have any money. We need money. We have to do anything we can for that," I conclude with a sob.

"Andrea." He pulls me to him. My head lands on his shoulder. "We're going to be fine. I'm going to take care of you. Haven't I always told you that?"

"How? How are you going to take care of me?"

"We have lots of money," he begins.

"For now," I cut in. "But what about later? I just have to do this so I don't feel so hopeless."

"There's no reason for you to feel that way."

But there is a reason and we both know it. Its name is the Leonardo V, a monstrosity that can perform surgeries without any human interference. It was introduced to the hospital a year ago, the fifth generation of its kind. It has eight mechanical arms, each with a different implement attached. Austin once explained that a couple of the arms had hands attached. But they are not human hands. There are made of rubber pneumatics: bladders that squeeze air in and out with precision. The process imitates human muscle and skeletal movements, and improves on nature in performing surgeries. It eliminates the tremors and slips that imperfect human doctors are bound to commit.

At first, the artificial intelligence equipped giant had been thought of as a helpful tool. But it had steadily gained ground as it increasingly eliminated death from human error and hospital-bound infections. Physicians began to take supervisory roles when it performed surgeries. But eventually the administrative board had bought more and more of the machines until the bot reached the Neurosurgery Ward. By that time, human surgeons were no longer required if the robot was in operation.

I sit up. "And what about when you can't find another job because of that contraption, Austin? What will we do then? What happens when we run out of money?"