Missing a Beat

In this future, nobody moves. Not really. They sit for nearly all their waking hours. Staring at a screen all the working day. When they get home, they have many screens to stare at, to tell them what to do, and to entertain.

Processed food is designed meticulously to be as delicious and addictive as possible, and it gets more so with every passing year.

Everyone drinks too much alcohol in their downtime. They take too many stimulants to get them through the working hours, which, to deal with rising debt and cost of living, are longer than ever. Energy drinks are dispensed for free in most workplaces.

People have grown flabby. Arteries furred up younger and younger. Strong coffee and intensely caffeinated drinks put more strain than ever on people's hearts. Various pharmaceuticals came with high risk of cardiac problems and blood clots, but they were too lucrative to suppress.

All in all, it was becoming more and more common for people to have heart attacks under thirty-five. Even really healthy people, athletes who headed their field, keeled over regularly, their tickers missing a beat.

Many years ago, the problem of dental disease was solved by simply whipping out people's teeth at twenty-one and replacing them with false ones.

It was only a matter of time, really, until some genius came up with the bright idea: let's do the same with hearts.

They conveniently forgot that this fashion in the dental industry had soon died out. No one gave any thought to why.

It's not quite as insane as it sounds. Heart surgery to correct a problem, emergency life saving procedures... these put more strain on healthcare every year.

A prophylactic treatment was usually straightforward. It could be done while the patient was still young, hale and (pardon me) hearty. It involved almost no risk. That is, compared to an older person, whose heart was already abused, bruised, and on its way out.

Evolution is a slow process, you see. Our food had changed, and we hadn't yet adapted to it. But! Fear not! Science was here to plug the gap.

This is the future Wilson was born into. He'd had his new heart fitted shortly after his twenty first birthday. It could cope with whatever nonsense he threw at it. Energy drinks and no exercise. Heavily processed foods, a diet dripping in fats, sugars, and salt. The mechanical beast whirring away in his chest just kept going, with never a twinge or a complaint.

His Healthwatch-9000 was linked to it, and did a fine job of monitoring his blood pressure, and alerting him if the Heart needed any maintenance. When his cholesterol levels got too high, it triggered a flush of medication from the Heart itself. This medicine went round and swept all his blood vessels clean.

It really was a wonder of technology.

And if his memories of his teen years were surreal in their intensity, well, hadn't that always been the case for everyone?

First loves, first experiences... these were vivid. Feelings threatened to overwhelm. Surely, this is unsustainable, and unseemly for a mature adult. Beautiful those times might be, but better they be shortlived. Enjoy them, and then move on, cauterised and therefore innoculated against such things being so deeply affecting in future.

Then Wilson met Miley. Miley started working at the same company Wilson worked for, in the Marketing department. He imagined it must be tricky for her to get a job doing anything else. Companies liked people who were reliable and industrious. Free spirits, so-called, were flighty and flaky, and not to be depended on.

Still, every company needs a creative or two. They come up with ideas that seem bonkers, but can invigorate a business, if someone is able to channel them in the right way.

Miley was wild, and everything about her advertised this fact, from the ends of her halo of hair, to her quirky, bright-coloured clothes. Her smile was too wide, her laugh too loud, and her eyes too expressive. Rage and love burned hot in her. She was like a mustang turned into a paddock with aged Shetland ponies.

Wilson found all this distasteful. Like most adults he knew, he was more of a beige sort of person. Navy was considered an adventurous choice in suit colour. Miley was well into her twenties, and this childish attitude was odd.

He didn't like Miley, but he was curious about her. It had been so long since he had been curious about anything at all, he was intrigued by his own emotion. He guarded the spark of it, and blew on it very carefully. He did some digging, and found a curious thing: Miley didn't exist. She was a fake.

"Miley?" he called out to her as they were both leaving the office one evening. "Would you like to get a drink?"

Rejection was painted bald on her face. A sneer was taking a run up to her lips, and getting ready to say, "Why would I get a drink with you?"

Wilson didn't care. He would have cared when he was fifteen. He'd have cared very much back then. Asking would have taken a considerable amount of courage, and the spectre of rejection would have hovered, frightening in her doleful inevitability.

But oh! Her twin and opposite, Potential, would have sparkled! She would have put bravery into his veins and whispered possibility in his ear! He would have fizzed with it.

"I don't mean like a date," he said, with the slightest of eye rolls. He didn't want to offend her, because he really did want to talk to her, so he tamped down his response accordingly. Suppressing it came naturally. In fact, it hardly even needed squashing at all. It was a flicker of irritation only, and one he felt oddly removed from. "I just want to talk to you about something."

They went to a nearby pub. It was quiet inside, and gloomy. Wilson bought the drinks. "Could you turn the Juke box up a bit?" he asked, hoping vaguely not to be overheard. A trace of surprise quirked the barmans eyebrows. No one asked for loud music anymore. He shrugged, and turned away to adjust the volume. Wilson nodded his thanks and carried the drinks to where Miley was sitting.

"So," she said, curiosity burning in every line of her body, leaning eagerly forwards. "What do you need to talk to me about?"

Need is a strong word, Wilson thought. Aloud he said, "Well, to start with, what's your real name?"

Disappointment washed over her features. "Oh," she said, sitting up and sipping her wine. "That."

Wilson sipped his cider and waited, mildly expectant.

"Miley is my real name," she said, setting her glass down. "But my parents are a bit... Unconventional. So I didn't get registered in the normal way like other babies. That's all. Legal are aware of it all. All my stuff is getting processed, now. It takes ages though."

She sighed, and took another sip.

"Was that really it? I was hoping for a juicy mystery." Her small grin looked rueful. "I get so bored, you know. All the time."

Wilson couldn't remember the last time he'd felt bored. If anyone had asked, he probably would have said he felt content, or so-so.

"Why didn't you get registered?" Wilson looked at her more intently than he'd looked at anyone in years.

"Nicole is crazy, and Nils is crazy for her," Miley gave a little laugh. "They live off grid. Proper tinfoil hat folks. I lived like that too, while I was growing up. Had to wash mud off our potatoes before we could eat them. Didn't even get vaccinated until I turned eighteen."

"Potatoes?"

"You know. Fries and mash before it's fries and mash." She laughed again. Her smile really did light up the room.

Wilson cradled his little coal of curiosity, and fed it a few more chips of kindling.

"What was it like, growing up like that?" he asked.

This time, when she grinned, all her teeth showed. They were ever so slightly crooked, but it was an endearing smile all the same. Her eyes crinkled and softened.

"Pretty great, actually. Good way for a kid to grow up. I didn't get a mobile phone till I was seventeen. I was always off exploring, or playing..."

Tentative, as if prodding an old wound that he'd never actually checked was healed, Wilson shared some of his childhood memories, as well. Sitting here, reliving them with her, he felt an echo of what he'd felt all those years ago.

There were twin flames now, curiosity and enthusiasm. Wilson was keen, for reasons he couldn't explain, to keep them both alight.

"Let's talk again," he said, and this time there was no sneer, only a warm and open expression, and a sincere, "I'd really like that, actually."

This went on for weeks. Miley told tales of all sorts of adventures she'd had, and not just childhood ones. Even recent ones were strong and bright, sometimes fraught with emotion. They had none of the opaque veneer Wilson's own memories seemed to carry.

One day, Miley didn't show up to work. Wilson asked after her. "Sick," came the offhand response from one of the PAs on the third floor. "She'll be back soon."

When Miley returned, the first thing Wilson noticed was her patchwork jacket had been replaced by a plain black one. Instead of patterned trousers, or a shirt in violent pink or green, she wore a pale woollen dress. It was cinched at the waist by a belt in the same colour. Her leggings were plain, and so were her flat shoes. Her hair was tamed into a bun, and her eyes were empty and dull. She smiled less often, and it never reached her eyes. Her performance suffered at work.

She thought she might get fired over it, and she confided this to Wilson when they met for a drink again. She didn't seem bothered about the drink, or about facing the sack. Ennui drooped over her like a cloak.

"You seem... Different," Wilson said, trying to be polite.

"Got my Heart installed," Miley picked listlessly at a bag of crisps. "Don't think I've bounced back yet."

No, and I don't think you will, thought Wilson. Curiosity satisfied, and enthusiasm extinguished, he finished his pint and left. Miley didn't call after him.