Required Weekly Programming

The clock struck 5:20 pm as Stephen had just arrived home from his job at the solar field. It had been a long hot day out in the sun tuning up and lubricating tilt motors. His arthritic right hand grabbed a beer out of the fridge, cracked it open and raised it to his lips. He took a long sip followed by a sigh of refreshment as he stared out the kitchen window at his small overgrown back yard.

Stephen doesn’t complain about his job. The two fields he pridefully works on with 3 other mechanics are about fifty years old and haven’t yet been retrofitted to the new system. In the more modern system, robotic maintenance mechanics run on a track system below the tilt motors. They have the full capabilities to service all components of the system. This has completely eliminated the need for human workers and their limitations. The retrofit is scheduled for a year or two from now and until then Stephen and his coworkers remain employed.

“Steve, you gonna come sit down?” Stephen’s wife Andrea calls to him from the living room, breaking his gaze.

After finishing off the first Miller High Life and grabbing a second out of the fridge, Stephen takes a stiff, sore walk to his favorite recliner chair in the living room. He takes a seat, raises his Champagne of Beers toward his wife in celebratory fashion. Holding her glass at the stem, she sloshes it towards him with a crooked smile. Andrea is enjoying her third pour from a bag of “White Table Wine” since she arrived home from her grueling shift as a battery technician.

The robotic forklifts that transport batteries from solar generators to the backs of transport units and back aren't quite advanced enough to disconnect and reconnect the cables yet. That is where Andrea comes in, chasing 15-20 forklifts moving trailer sized batteries for her entire shift. The job is very taxing, like her husband’s, but both of them feel fortunate to have remained employed for as long as they have. They don’t know what they’re going to do when they’re both inevitably replaced and they lose their income, but they try not to think about it.

The couple sat silently as they sometimes do, enjoying the way the libations silenced their minds for a few moments until a gentle crescendo of wind chimes brought them to attention. It's not always wind chimes. Sometimes it's birds or relaxing piano music or whatever else the operating system calculates is best to bring the individuals to attention while not causing too much anxiety.

The couple each took one more swig of their respective drinks and set them down, putting their arms by their sides . “Happy Monday, Citizens of the Unified States of America. In just one moment, your required weekly programming will commence. Please take your seats. If operating non-autonomous vehicles or machinery, please stop in a safe manner as we prepare to begin the messaging in sixty seconds.”

Stephen and Andrea know the programming probably isn’t good for them, but they can’t remember why. Before the implants, when it only played on the TV, it was much easier to ignore. They would often let it play in the background while not really paying too much attention to it. Nowadays, ever since implants went widespread, that doesn’t really work. Stephen and Andrea, as well as most others, decided that the path of least resistance through life at this point was to stop caring. These days, they just get a little numb beforehand, and relax.

As the content of the required weekly programming began to pixelate over their actual field of vision a loud “Thud, Thud, Thud” came from the screen door outside their kitchen. “Who in the-?” Stephen started as the inter-cerebral messaging began to de-pixelate and the inside of his home came back into view. A second “Thud, Thud, Thud” came from the door. Andrea manually switched off her implant to quickly run to the door to pull back the curtain and see who could possibly be at their door right now while everyone is supposed to be getting their mind pumped, as she and Stephen call it.

It was Haylie, Stephen’s ex wife. “Open up! Please!” Haylie says as she continued rapping on the door. By now Stephen has manually switched off his implant and stood up from his seat to see what was going on. Andrea opened the door and Haylie entered. Andrea asks, “why aren’t you at home now? Come take a seat and turn that fucking chip on. Don’t you know by now that you can’t just be skipping these things?”

“Because I need Stephen to see this," Haylie replies as she and Stephen lock eyes before his are quickly distracted and pulled toward her neck, where he sees the familiar heart-shaped locket that he gave her so many hears ago.

“See what?” Andrea asks frantically, at this point, still concerned that the three of them would be cited for non-compliance.

As the words left Andrea’s mouth and Stephen’s eyes were still fixed on the locket that his ex-wife hadn’t worn since they separated, Haylie pulled a small revolver out of her purse. She put it to her temple and pulled the trigger without any hesitation. With an incredible bang, she was lifeless, collapsing onto the kitchen floor. Both Andrea and Stephen were immediately filled with horror, which quickly shifted to sorrow as they collapsed to the floor in tears, Stephen shuffling to the lifeless body of the mother of his children.

So many questions filled his mind as he held her limp, bleeding body in his hands. Was this my fault? Should I have known she was depressed? Well – more depressed than anyone else? This has to be my fault. Should I have known she was suicidal? How could I have stopped this? Why didn’t her implant stop this? What will happen to my children? My children. Our children. This will add so much hardship to their lives.

More thoughts of despair continued to fly through his mind in rapid succession, but not twenty seconds later, an elongated ping rang in his head. The silent, yet ever so loud default tone that gives citizens warning that they are about to be cited by the Unified States Program Compliance Authority was hard to ignore.

Despite the mix of horror, grief, questioning and disbelief that the couple was experiencing at this moment, required means required. They returned to their seats and each of them switched off the manual override. Their planes of vision began to de-pixelate along with their emotions as the required programming overrode their 5 senses.