Cured

Beep. BEEP. Be-BEEp. "Your health is UNSTABLE." announced the medical bot. "Please visit a medical center immediately."

I sighed and leaned back in my chair. "You can leave now, J4. Please inform my family about my condition."

The bot rotated it small spherical body towards the door. "Have a nice day, ALLY." it said in its tinny voice, and closed the door behind it.

I blew out another breath. This disease that I lived with was so troubling. Technically, I could die at any moment if any of my mechanical body parts failed.

When I was 3 years old, my parents noticed that I had no hair whatsoever, my fingernails wouldn't grow properly, my skin was almost transparent, and I would not blink. I was bounced around several hospitals before one doctor finally identified my problem as GD13, an extremely rare genetic disease which only had 2 documented cases. He told us that I would most likely die by a year because my skin would never get thicker, and if I got an injury, I would bleed to death. There was apparently no cure.

However, my parents refused to let the matter go. They went through hospital after hospital, insisting for the best doctors, arguing that the technology was advanced enough that there should be some sort of cure.

Finally, after a harrowing 3 years of traveling across the whole globe, fearing for my life, we found a hospital. One thing was very different about this hospital, though: there was not a single human being in the building. The doctors, nurses, counselors, therapists, everyone was a robot. There were robots that performed surgeries, gave advice to worried parents, looked through historical records for possible disease cures.

At first, my parents were doubtful, but gradually, after talking to many different robots and being shown how things worked, they decided that this was where I would be cured. So the big job began. Similar genetic diseases and their cures were researched. The family genetic record was scoured for faults. Robots were sent to my place of birth to check for any problems in the environment. I was fed special meals, swallowed hundreds of pills, went through X-rays and body scanning operations daily, and had my saliva and urine examined and scanned to see how I would grow to be in x number of years, if I were a normal child.

A whole year of waiting and taking an endless number of medical tests passed until one of the tech operating robots informed my parents that I was ready to have a few operations. First, I got a skin transplant. My thin, translucent skin was replaced by a flexible layer of sensitive DermoGlass, which was normally used in RoboKids, robots modeled after human children made for parents that didn't want their kids to be human. This would prevent my skin from breaking so that I wouldn't lose any blood. Then a flood of keratinocytes was injected into various parts of my body to produce a sufficient amount of keratin for my hair and nails to grow, and my kidney and thyroid were replaced by mechanical ones to keep my hair and nails healthy. I was instructed to use eye drops once per hour to keep my eyes from drying out due to lack of blinking.

At the age of 10, I was allowed to go out and live as normally as possible. My family was given a medical bot to check on my health every once in a while, which they kept in very good shape, like they did with our housekeeping bots. Overjoyed but unsure of what to do, I just did what my parents arranged for me: I lived in Home Building J with my family, went to school in School Building J, ate normal food, and made friends. Unfortunately, my new friends were addicted to recreating the "junk food" of past centuries, which they had read about in hidden 300-year-old books that we had dug up on treasure hunts and found absolutely fascinating. They would take the perfect, healthy, engineered foods we had available and mix and mash them together to try and make a hamburger, for example.

When I was 12, eating one of these "experiments" caused the blood to clog in my mechanical kidney. When I wasn't able to go to the bathroom for 2 days and got very sick, my panicked parents rushed me to the hospital again, where I went through several surgeries to get my kidney fixed. During this process I lost too much blood than I was supposed to, and I had to stay in the hospital, recuperating, for the next 3 years. Today was the day when I was finally allowed to go back home.

The door creaked open and my older brother, Ray, crept in. "Ally? J4 just told me your health is unstable. You're... um... are you feeling okay?"

"Ray, you know that my health has been unstable for pretty much my whole life. I'm used to it. But if anyone is mentally unstable here-" I poked my brother's chest teasingly. "It's you, Ray."

Ray laughed and settled comfortably on one arm of the chair. "Well, I'm getting an official operator license in a month, which means I am going to be an official independent adult in a month. So I am definitely NOT unstable."

Ray was 17, the age when teenagers became adults and could get a proper job. Ray was going to be an OPO, Official Program Operator. He would be responsible for getting the people in Home Building J, where the families with last names starting with J (including us) lived, where they wanted. He would be sitting in a tiny compartment inside an enormous building the size of Home Buildings A through N put together, tapping icons and buttons on screens on all four sides. Each icon represented a place, and each button represented a person. A mistake could send someone to the DoctoRobot Laboratories instead of the Library of Technological Advances of the 24th Century (which was not really a library because everything was on-screen).

A knock on the door frame jolted me out of my thoughts. My mom stood outside, a grim look on her face. "Ray, Ally, sorry to interrupt. But... the doctors at the hospital just received the medical information from J4. Your life, Ally-" My mom stared straight at me. "-your life is in danger."

Ray was the one who jumped up. "Mom, what are you saying? Ally's perfectly fine, Mom. Look at her!"

My mom ignored Ray and locked eyes with me once more. I took a deep breath and asked, "Mom... what's going to happen?"

My mother sighed. "Ally, the doctor robot said that you can't take any more operations. You're weak enough after that surgery. You can either take the chance, die slowly, or let-" She choked. Tears welled up in her eyes.

I finished her sentence quietly. "Let the doctors shut down my body, right?" My mother nodded slowly. I looked at Ray. He was tense, his eyes unseeing. I noticed that my dad had appeared in the doorway, watching. His eyes were pleading but what were they asking?

I considered my options. I knew that I didn't want to die slowly, but I didn't really want to take chances. What if that didn't work? What if my family got their hopes up, but they found out that the cure had failed? And I didn't want to live the rest of my life worrying whether or not I would die soon.

I turned to my mother. "I'll let them shut me down." My mother's face slackened. I heard a sharp intake of breath from the doorway.

"NO!" Ray suddenly stomped his foot on the floor.

"Ray-"

"No, no, no, NO! I won't let them take you away! You're my little sister, I've known you all my life! I won't- I won't let them kill you!" Ray spat the word 'kill' out like poison.

"Ray," I whispered. "They're not going to kill me, Ray. I choose to do this." I walked over to him and squeezed him tight. "You are my extremely annoying, childish, almost grown-up older brother, Ray," I choked. "I'm sorry."

Ray hugged me back. "I'm sorry, too." He whispered. Tears coursed down his face. At that moment, I wished I could cry.

A cough from the doorway. My dad, tears also pouring down his face, asked, "Shall-shall we?"

I walked over and took his hand. My mom and brother behind us, I left the house and closed the door behind me, never to see it again.

Author's Note

First sci-fi I wrote! Not so good, huh? Tell me what you think, what can I fix?

Reviews

[Serge Wlodarski]

One thing you should fix: "During this process I lost too much blood than I was supposed to"

I would replace "too much" with "more".

[flyingfree]

Oops! Sorry, yes I should. Thanks!

[Serge Wlodarski]

Good story, I enjoyed it. You should do more scifi.