Commander of Life

My fingers stretch, the skin molding into smooth lines and then back again into spidery wrinkles. Fatigue has settled into the smaller joints near the pinky and so I massage them with extra attention. These hands—I have always said--are the perfect metaphor for myself as a human being.

Before the plague and years before I had aged into intellectual maturity, my hands had been soft and uncalloused, though stained with multitudinous pigments of paint. I was an insufferable lad, then, focused more on capturing the portraitures of the many women who traversed my bed than in finding a vocation in which the requisite was to place attention on anyone outside of myself.

When the plague hit and the numbers of women interested in my particular brand of selfishness declined, my passions begrudgingly rerouted themselves. My hands became instruments for surgery and my chaotic and needy mind settled into a new rhythm; precision and poise became my new drug of choice – this one not only societally acceptable but also formally revered.

“Paging Dr. Robert Kyro. Last delivery of the night. Room 121. Umbilical hernia. Stat.”

While taking an extra moment to complete my disinfection ritual, I verbally confirm my assignment over the hospital coms. “Dr. Kyro speaking. Nearing completion of last Designotomy. ETA to next delivery is three minutes.”

I give an extra tug on that stubborn pinky as I wash it. My team is capable; they will keep the mother comfortable until I get there.

When I do finally arrive, mother’s eyes are wide, redness leaking from pupil to canthus, but she is calm. She throws no bothersome questions at me, though I do catch the whiff of anticipation in the air.

I deal with the hernia in record time before pulling her baby from its cozy cavern. Soft brown curls stick to an oblong rosy head. Mom cradles her as if a glass object.

I hold the DTD wand over her. The head of the Designotomy Transcommunal Data chip will scan the infant for any newly acquired health information. The results will populate themselves across a screen I have pivoted so that only I can see. In the center, data runs at imperceptible speeds, cross-referencing the infant’s current bodily state with data received during in-vitro, and then again against all health records of her parents across their lifetimes.

In a few moments, this data stream will converge into a single number. This number will be her Longevity Date: the age at which she will die.

Mom is doing superbly well by not rushing me for the response, but her breath is bated.

I begin the Designotomy, inserting a pale microchip into the infant’s veins, barely perceptible under the skin.

I glance back at my monitor.

The best plan of action is to tell it to her straight. No fan-fair. No beating around the bush.

No undue sympathy, either.

“Thirty-one.”

“Ttth-thirty-one-one?” You sure?

“Yes, ma’am.”

Mom’s eyes begin to well. I can see the images flashing across her mind’s eye—all those things her child will never get to do. She’ll never have grandchildren. Never see retirement. Will she find the love of her life and get married in time? Will she be able to birth a child? Find her passion? Or will it all be ended far too soon?

Mom nods her head and sheds a single tear. “Okay. T-th-thank you, Doctor.”

My team really is good.

****

It’s the weekend for me; finally, my time off. I crack my hands. How many DTD’s have the three of us done together? I kept track, once, in the beginning.

It was an honor, then.

When the plagues first started, not only did people have the common diseases to contend with, but contracting newer and more destructive DNA-altering viruses became the norm. A number of factors went into predicting at what age they would be contracted, but in all cases, the results were the same: afflictions that crippled the host in the most gruesome of ways...

Blood pooling from the eyes. Scabs that wouldn't heal. Pain in the muscles as if the whole body was on fire.

The mind and body begging for relief...

Just a few of those cases and society agreed: no one wanted to live long enough to experience that kind of suffering.

No one.

That was when the greatest mathematicians in the world converged to produce a solution. In time, they came up with the DTD--a chip with an embedded algorithm that predicted--to astounding accuracy--the age at which an individual would be most likely to suffer from disease. Taking into account his or her unique genetic markers, the Longevity Date—or reasonable date of death--was determined. A few days prior to that date, the microchip would unleash a poison into the bloodstream of the host, and a quick and painless death would follow.

What resulted was a society in which physical suffering became nearly obsolete. And so too, went the fear and anxiety of a once-ambivalent death. As a result, the economy boomed like never before. Pharmaceuticals and insurance agencies—once the country’s most flagrant agents of corruption—had little ground to exert their undue power. Routine health care became accessible for all. Universal taxes redistributed wealth that was once unjustly hoarded by the elite. And an “Enjoyably-Livable” wage was established, which placed everyone in the middle class or above.

With such changes, social divides vanished into thin air. Race, color, ethnicity, gender, sex, sexuality, disability---all issues predicated on the acknowledgment that someone, somewhere, was getting more than their fair share of goods and privileges and thereby diminishing our ability to get ours--- was no longer a concern.

We were, finally and truly, equal. The Constitution—once just an ideal—had finally become a truth. Every person was not only granted but given the three pillars of a happy and full existence: an assured and healthy life, financial stability, and social equality.

It was a gift.

I wonder if my child, Mya, will follow my path in administering it. At the tender age of nine, she has already shown great skill with her hands. She tends a beautiful garden and whittles intricate figures out of sticks.

I may be premature in wishing it for her. But her Longevity Date reads 45. She will see nearly 25 years of work--assuming no freak accident takes her first. That leaves plenty of time to become a surgeon.

Unfortunately, the buzzer on my belt interrupts the two of us from starting our usual breakfast rituals of french toast and jam.

“Back to work?” Mya asks. She tugs at my DTD badge. We both know that to be a surgeon is to be dedicated to duty. Furthermore, these days, emergency calls come few and far between.

It must be urgent.

I give her a parting kiss on the head. My wife does not look up from her coffee as she yells, “Have fuuun!”

***

Back at the hospital, my coworkers are fawning over our new case. Dr Grenlee, the supervisor of our wing, breaks it down for me.

The patient is Drew Douglass, a young motorcyclist, age 20. His Longevity Date reads age 41, so presumably, he has half of his life yet to live. The issue lies with the gaping hole in his chest where a steel pipe protrudes several inches. Mercifully, the pipe missed a main artery, but witnesses say he was rendered unconscious upon impact. Surgery, then, will be extremely dangerous for him, compounded by the coma and any anesthetics we will need to give him. Rousing him after will prove doubly difficult, if even possible at all.

“The odds?” I ask.

“Low risk of seizure but 80% chance of heart attack. 20% success rate for revival. If he survives that, in-hospital PT for at least six months with partial to complete lower paralysis.”

It’s a grim prognosis.

“You know what I would do,” he says.

I have one more question. “Did his tox screens come back yet?”

“Oxy and alcohol. Level .23.”

“And the culpable party?”

“Him--Definitively. Bystanders were all extremely lucky.”

I nod. “Alright, then.”

He points at the monitor. “The verdict?”

It’s an easy one to come to.

I connect his microchip to the DTD system. Authorization comes first, then the password, then the directive.

Patient: Drew Douglass.

Action and Override: Cessation, Age 21.

Dr. Grenlee doesn’t bother to stay.

A few minutes after the cessation of Drew’s heartbeat, I refresh the DTD system.

I pull up my name. I pull up Dr. Grenlee and a few other employees I know well. None of our Longevity numbers have changed either. I peruse my mind for other options. The only other dates I have memorized are those of my daughter and my wife.

I pull them up next.

Beside Mya’s name is a new number: 48.

I feel a surge of ruthless and unreasonable pride.

For years now I have been recognized as a talented surgeon. But today, I have become an equally notable father.

Most fathers give their children life in only one way.

But I have given her life in two.

***

Once home, I offer my family the good news.

Mya’s young mind is not yet able to digest the magnitude of the situation, but my wife blushes. “Three more years, I just can’t believe it! What disease was eradicated today?”

My wife, like the rest of the population outside of the inner circle of DTD doctors, doesn’t know the real reason behind her daughter’s newly-increased lifespan. She, like the rest, believes that Longevity Dates increase due to medical advancements or scientific research just now confirming the end of illnesses that once rendered us terminal.

She cannot know that the expansion of life ultimately comes down to math—to the DTD algorithm—and to those privileged enough to wield it.

In the algorithm, every life holds weight. Every life is a factor in an intricate and ever-expanding sequence of numbers and probabilities. When one number is removed from that algorithm, the sequence has no choice but to recalibrate itself. To redistribute.

Due to an ethical clause inserted a decade ago, Longevity Dates are only ever allowed to grow. Or cease entirely---as was the case for Drew.

As my wife and I begin to prep our celebratory salmon dinner, I weigh the boning knife in my hands. My wife looks up at me with her pleasant, fair smile. Just a few inches down, at her neck, are three freckles that form a perfect triangle. There was once a time where I kissed them passionately. Now, I only see a vulnerable layer of skin and the jugular vein underneath.

My hands twitch as I imagine the glowing screen of the DTD monitor.

Elizabeth Kyro.

Cessation, Age 39.

I hastily grab a few cherries for our appetizer and busy myself with the task of slicing them. Elizabeth enjoys them in bites, as do I.

Suddenly, the knife glances off of a pit and embeds itself with force into my pinky. The pain is sharp and disorienting. In the convoluted mirror of the kitchen sink, the image swirls. I cannot tell what is blood, what is juice, and where my hands and fingers begin and end underneath.

In this heady state, I look again to my wife. To her soft neck. Up to her eyes. And back again.

I know what needs to be done.

I pull the knife from its meaty folds and lift it high in the air.

My wife gasps.

The numbers materialize again. My wife’s. My child’s. My own.

And then I slam the knife downward into the deep flesh of my palm.

The feeling is excruciatingly painful.

And odd.

And strangely beautiful.

I am no commander of life, anymore.