Accessing the Future: A Disability-Themed Anthology of Speculative Fiction by Joyce Chng, Nicolette Barischoff, A.C. Buchanan, Sarah Pinsker Page B
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had been a sound like that after the bomb took me out, I’m pretty sure. I can’t ignore it, not entirely, but I roll my shoulders back and concentrate on shopping. I fill a basket with apples, sweet potatoes, onions, cooking oil, tin foil, frozen chicken, cereal. As it gets heavier, I start to feel my stitches. In the dairy aisle, I reach for eggs, then glance to my right and drop the carton.
“Excuse me,” I say to the teenage boy standing near the milk, stepping around the mess I’ve made. “But is that a Pilot implant?”
He looks at me uncertainly, then nods, one hand on the refrigerator door.
“How do you have one?” And where did you get it? And when? And why? I stick to one question, but he’s still eyeing me.
“Look,” I say. “I have one too. I’m just curious where you got yours?” And how. And why. I start turning my head so he can see mine, then remember that it’s off, and finish with an awkward gesture in its general direction.
“At the Neural Implantation Center in Bethesda. BNL. I thought that was the only place in the area.”
“I’m not local—Army.”
He smiles then. “Oh, cool. My dad is Air Force.”
I smile back and echo him. “Cool. So are you part of another test group?”
“I don’t know what you mean. I got it from my parents.”
“Cool,” I say again. “What kind of disabilities do you have, if you don’t mind my asking?”
He’s put off. “Why do you think I’ve got problems? It was a Christmas present, that’s all. It lets me play video games while I listen to lessons. Lots of kids have them at my school.”
“Cool,” I say for the third time, knowing I sound stupid. I move off with what I hope is a friendly wave.
I don’t have a phone, so I have to wait until I get back to the apartment to look up what he’s talking about. Balkenhol has opened a Neural Implantation Center. Pilots for the masses, or at least the masses that can afford them. I watch a video, then search for articles. My tablet reads them to me while I make dinner, taking my anger out on the sweet potatoes, dicing them into hash.
How can they think this is a good idea? The technology isn’t fully tested yet. Or maybe it is, and I’ve just missed all the news while I was deployed. It looks like they’re becoming a fad in private schools. The price tag is steep, as much as a good used car.
A separate page, buried several clicks deep, explains that the battery lasts about five years, and the only way to replace it is to replace the whole unit, though the leads stay in place. There’s no price listed for the battery replacement procedure, but I’m guessing it’s not cheap. You’re theirs by the time you need it; you’ll pay anything. Or maybe they haven’t priced it yet since most of their commercial clients are only in their first year of implantation. I want to call Balkenhol, but I don’t want to draw attention to myself if they’re still deciding whether to turn mine back on.
I’m not sure why I’m so furious. Is it the for-profit bit? The fact that they used me as a guinea pig and now they’re satisfied enough with how it works to market it for mass consumption? That they want to leave mine off when they’re stuffing them into the heads of anybody who can pay? I see how delicately everything is balanced. If I had been five years younger, if I couldn’t have signed for myself, the Pilot wouldn’t be for me. It would be for some rich kid with the same diagnoses I had and parents who could afford to upgrade his brain. Or anybody with money, with no diagnoses at all, who wanted an edge in school or business. I was cheap labor, some poor lab rat who’d gotten lucky for a while.
I check my bank balance, which is depressingly low. The automatic withdrawals for Granddad’s nursing home eat most of my paycheck. There isn’t anything I could go without to pay for the procedure, and I don’t have anything worth selling other than the Pilot.
New dreams that night: I’m
“Excuse me,” I say to the teenage boy standing near the milk, stepping around the mess I’ve made. “But is that a Pilot implant?”
He looks at me uncertainly, then nods, one hand on the refrigerator door.
“How do you have one?” And where did you get it? And when? And why? I stick to one question, but he’s still eyeing me.
“Look,” I say. “I have one too. I’m just curious where you got yours?” And how. And why. I start turning my head so he can see mine, then remember that it’s off, and finish with an awkward gesture in its general direction.
“At the Neural Implantation Center in Bethesda. BNL. I thought that was the only place in the area.”
“I’m not local—Army.”
He smiles then. “Oh, cool. My dad is Air Force.”
I smile back and echo him. “Cool. So are you part of another test group?”
“I don’t know what you mean. I got it from my parents.”
“Cool,” I say again. “What kind of disabilities do you have, if you don’t mind my asking?”
He’s put off. “Why do you think I’ve got problems? It was a Christmas present, that’s all. It lets me play video games while I listen to lessons. Lots of kids have them at my school.”
“Cool,” I say for the third time, knowing I sound stupid. I move off with what I hope is a friendly wave.
I don’t have a phone, so I have to wait until I get back to the apartment to look up what he’s talking about. Balkenhol has opened a Neural Implantation Center. Pilots for the masses, or at least the masses that can afford them. I watch a video, then search for articles. My tablet reads them to me while I make dinner, taking my anger out on the sweet potatoes, dicing them into hash.
How can they think this is a good idea? The technology isn’t fully tested yet. Or maybe it is, and I’ve just missed all the news while I was deployed. It looks like they’re becoming a fad in private schools. The price tag is steep, as much as a good used car.
A separate page, buried several clicks deep, explains that the battery lasts about five years, and the only way to replace it is to replace the whole unit, though the leads stay in place. There’s no price listed for the battery replacement procedure, but I’m guessing it’s not cheap. You’re theirs by the time you need it; you’ll pay anything. Or maybe they haven’t priced it yet since most of their commercial clients are only in their first year of implantation. I want to call Balkenhol, but I don’t want to draw attention to myself if they’re still deciding whether to turn mine back on.
I’m not sure why I’m so furious. Is it the for-profit bit? The fact that they used me as a guinea pig and now they’re satisfied enough with how it works to market it for mass consumption? That they want to leave mine off when they’re stuffing them into the heads of anybody who can pay? I see how delicately everything is balanced. If I had been five years younger, if I couldn’t have signed for myself, the Pilot wouldn’t be for me. It would be for some rich kid with the same diagnoses I had and parents who could afford to upgrade his brain. Or anybody with money, with no diagnoses at all, who wanted an edge in school or business. I was cheap labor, some poor lab rat who’d gotten lucky for a while.
I check my bank balance, which is depressingly low. The automatic withdrawals for Granddad’s nursing home eat most of my paycheck. There isn’t anything I could go without to pay for the procedure, and I don’t have anything worth selling other than the Pilot.
New dreams that night: I’m
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