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Chapter 1: Exception!-1

1

Exception!

20XX-03-02T12:34:00+00:00 EXCEPTION: SIGABRT 686381KAA418

20XX-03-02T12:58:18+00:00 686381KAA418 RESOURCE REDIRECT: CLINIC 14

7:34 and there it was, a message that one of Brian Agarwal’s staff, 686381KAA418, had been involved in an exception. Brian looked at the message. An exception? Brian loved these concise explanations. SIGABRT simply meant that the programming inside the unit stopped. “Exception” usually meant something messy. Hopefully it was something fixable like a broken bone, cut or sprain; but since it was offline, probably not.

Brian turned to his computer, logged into the Popular Insurance Company’s website. A few clicks—clear away a popup or two about some fantastic deal he didn’t want—the site said there was a pending case under review, but it didn’t have any details. The case had been opened this morning by the billing department at clinic 14. It annoyed him that he’d have to go down to the clinic and see what this particular exception was about, but he didn’t have much else to do today. Quietly, Brian got up from his desk, stepped into the hallway and locked the door behind him.

Walking away from his office, he sighed. Well, this is more interesting than sitting around playing solitaire all day. But it bugged him, the lost wages. He wished he’d noticed the message sooner, before he’d made it to the office. Hopefully no one would notice if his staff didn’t pick up the garbage today. He really did need the money.

It was the first time I had ever been, for real, punched. Like all good punches, I didn’t see it coming. It took me by surprise, and I don’t remember—my face, bones being crushed, flesh tearing. Why had I been punched? I’d never been punched. What did it mean and was it going to happen again?

I was talking to my friends. We were going to meet up at Dr. Pong’s that night and hang out. Why had I been punched, though? It didn’t make sense! How could it happen? It’s true, someone could punch my avatar, but not me directly. My head hurt and the world was going dark. Couldn’t keep my eyes open. And I really should be going to work.

Things had started to go fuzzy; images became chunky. My friend—what’s his name, with the soul patch, I just can’t think right now—his mouth stuck open, but he was still talking. His jaw snapped shut, he didn’t seem to be in sync with his words. Everything froze, mid-syllable. I felt a tremendous crack from the left side, and something seemed to go snap in my shoulder. A wall collapsed into me, breaking bones, left ear melting, warm waves of color washing over me. The lights went out. My friends were no longer speaking, I was neither awake nor online. I didn’t know it was 7:34. I didn’t know anything.

At 7:34, the ceiling of Brian’s bedroom lit with a soft green glow. Slowly the glow faded, the ceiling returned to darkness, and Brian and his wife Imelda continued to sleep. Yet another message to be ignored until the time he woke and wanted to decide what was important and what should be discarded. Neither Brian nor Imelda ever woke before 8 a.m., and the message would have to wait until then. But the message, having been sent, fulfilled the requirements that the message should be sent, and so everything was as it should be.

At 8 o’clock, the mobile started to make some actual noise, an ascending chime, which caused Brian to roll over and stab at the little computer. Nine more minutes would be ideal. He would get up and make breakfast for his son, Prince, and get himself off to work.

Nine minutes later, Brian groaned at the sound that was coming out of his mobile. He’d slept well but didn’t want to get up, another day like every other day. Brian’s feet hit the floor, a good solid floor, with a throw rug. His toes squeezed the pile before he put any real weight on his feet—he did this every day—and he was up. Staggered just a bit as the blood rushed down to his legs and bounced back again. He wiped the sleep from his eyes and wandered to the door, leaving his wife snoozing in bed.

In the kitchen, Brian noticed he had his mobile in his hand. He didn’t remember picking it up—an extension of his hand—and looked at it. It was happily displaying facts about how many messages he had missed. No doubt some coupons, a message or two of some great importance to no one at all, and the number of emails that he had received, which he would take care of when he got to work. Brian cleared them all in one swoop. He looked at the mobile. All he saw was the time, and a moving picture of his wife Imelda holding their smiling son, Prince. “Now that’s how a mobile should look,” he smiled.

Prince had heard Brian wander into the kitchen. Perhaps it was a clang of a pot, or the squeak of the refrigerator door. Whatever it was, Prince was up and bounding toward the kitchen. He came busting around the corner, slid on the kitchen tile, bounced off the island and went skittering into Daddy!

“Daddy, Daddy, can we have pancakes today?”

Brian looked down at Prince, at the real excitement in the deep brown of his five-year-old eyes and his mop of dark, every direction, hair. How could he say no? What was wrong with pancakes? Pancakes every day! Prince would love it, and he himself would be enormous, but did that matter? Prince would love it.

“Sure we can,” Brian started, “but why don’t we have some nice fruit first, and maybe a little granola?”

Prince immediately pouted, “Why not pancakes first and then fruit?” It was priceless, that pout, something Brian had never thought he would enjoy so much. He’d never tell Prince that, lest Prince use that on him to get whatever he wanted, but it was adorable, and he felt a warm tugging inside him. If it was the weekend, he would have said yes.

“I don’t know,” Brian said, trying to lead the conversation elsewhere. “I think fruit has to come first, then granola. And then, if you are that hungry, we can have pancakes.” Brian had learned that an outright “no” never got him that far.

The two dark eyes brightened, and the pout disappeared into a big grin. How long this trick was going to work didn’t matter, it had worked today. “Okay little buddy.” Brian picked up his son with both hands, raised him high into the air and carried him over to the table. “You just pull up a chair here, and I will get breakfast on the way.”

Prince struggled into his seat as his father put him down on the chair. The table was just a few inches below his chin. “And then, pancakes?”

“Sure,” Brian said, smiling. He turned away toward the fridge to see what it was he had available for slicing. “Then pancakes.”

Brian took Prince to school. Well, he took Prince downstairs to the carport and put him into a car. The car itself was little more than a chair on wheels with a good stereo system, and a smooth front with a screen where whatever video or movie Prince wanted to watch would appear.

Prince climbed into the car and—obediently or compulsively—snapped the seat belt around his little waist, his dark little fingers seemed to fly as he cinched it around himself. The seat sighed and snuggled around him, keeping him firmly in place. Prince smiled up. “Okay Daddy, off to school.”

Brian spoke directly into the car in a louder voice, “Emerald Valley Elementary.”

Lights flashed within the car. “Calculating route to Emerald Valley Elementary School.”

“Confirmed,” Brian interrupted before the car could ask, “Please confirm destination.” The door started to close. “Have a good day at school, love you,” Brian called to Prince who was busy telling the car what he wanted to view as the door closed.

Brian heard the car lock itself, as a small white bubble encased his child. Very safe. It would whisk him off to school, and before his little Prince knew it, he would be stepping out at the school’s carport. This was going to be a decent day after all. Brian felt good as he headed back to his apartment. He too would have to go to work soon, but it was a good day. Everything felt right.

Milky-eyed rescue technicians pried open what was left of the car to see what was inside. It wasn’t going to be good, but it still had to be opened. The problem was that the car had just failed, some exception had occurred. The car had stopped reporting its place on the road. It never took long before, Wham! But that’s what happened to anything out of control. So, pry it open they must.

Most people didn’t do so well when seeing an accident: the blood, flesh, and bone mangled by machinery and steel. But rescue technicians were programmed for this, and they never see any of it, just go about their work expertly, quickly and without the nasty reactions that might have happened in the olden days, when eyes that couldn’t unsee would have to disentangle the entanglement. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a zombie car, it was carrying a passenger. How it got this far was amazing, but exceptions happen.

The rescue technicians set to work trying to extract the body, reaching into the car, getting their hands bloody as they gripped the bones that they could find and tried to pull the body from the restraint foam. The techs spotted the adapter on the right side of the head and brought forth a reader to hold near the temple.

The screen flashed, “686381KAA418,” and at that moment a message was sent from one computer to another and to Brian Agarwal’s telephone, which he would ignore.

Brian went to work, which was to say he got into his car—his private car. He did not like to take the public cars. They could be dirty. Even though he had just sent Prince to school in a public car, he always checked to ensure there were no unpleasant surprises waiting before he let Prince get in.

Now that almost all cars were self-driving, cars could last for years. Accidents were so rare there were now stories of people having the same car for up to fifteen years, some rumored even more. As long as you relax, sit back, put on a show—if you would like—and let the car do the driving, you were going to be safe and comfortable. Brian usually drew the curtains, so he did not have to see where the car was going or how close he got to other cars. Even with today’s precise engineering, it was hard to watch your car bob and weave through heavy traffic, even with private cars getting priority. It was nerve-wracking to see a car popup inches in front of you, with both cars applying the breaks at the same time. Imelda, however, found it reassuring that the technology worked so well.

The Agarwal’s car was built for four. Well, okay, maybe two and two really small half-people. Brian had managed to talk Imelda into it by saying they would take trips out to the country, and when Prince was a small baby, they had, once, maybe twice. No, actually once. But it was comfortable, and that’s what Brian wanted: a nice comfortable ride to the office and back.

It didn’t take long for the car to get him to the office. He got out and directed it to “Make busy, and park,” which meant that, based on his patterns of usage, it would drive around, or find someplace to park, or both, depending on which actions were least expensive, always returning when it was summoned or needed. Obediently, the car locked itself up and drove away.

Brian took the lift to the third floor. He had a nice view of an old parking lot that almost no one ever used. Who drove? But there were still dumpsters that needed taking out, all the coffee packets, cups, and napkins had to go somewhere, and at 10:36, three days a week, a garbage truck arrived to do just that. For some reason, Brian had never worked out, the building paid for trash removal three times a week; but chose Monday, Thursday and Friday.

From his office he could watch the truck come and dump the trash. If any extra trash fell out, which was the usual case, the garbage collection staff would get out of the truck and pick up the loose papers, broken bits of wood, rotting food and innumerable plastic bags that were sure to be littered around the disposal area.