For Your Own Safety
GenCare Walk-In Clinic, Sector 23-BK-125, NYC 21221109.1422
“Doc, it’s so weird – been a month and this mosquito bite hasn’t gone away.”
“That’s not a mosquito bite.”
“What do you mean? I saw the f-er bite me.”
“It wasn’t a mosquito, Quinn. It was a Genica Cognidea mosquito drone.”
“A Coggy?”
“Yep. Must’ve heard something you said. That welt is a chip, not mosquito spit.”
“Well, get it out.”
“Can’t. If I try to grab it, it’ll swim further into you. You don’t want that.”
“Cripes. What’s it doing?”
“Reading your thoughts now for your own safety. So be careful what you wish for. Also, you might get a buzzing in your head if you start getting angry.”
“But I swear, I can’t remember the last time I said a feelbad. What gives?”
“The NYCPD’s latest Monthly Feelbad and Makesad Lists went grid around the time of your bite. We’re authorized here by Identity Oversight to extract data from the chip, so we’ll see what it picked up. You gotta keep it in for another 3 weeks, though, by the size of the welt. The swelling will go away and the chip will make its way to your bladder when it knows you’re not a threat.”
“Such a drag. Why can’t we just think what we want?”
“Careful. Sometimes even just thinking about free thinking will earn you an extra week or two under observation. All depends on what words triggered the Coggy to bite you.”
“Level with me, Doc. Am I screwed here? I don’t have enough influence-credits to hire a non-AI lawyer.”
“Look, Coggies sometimes bite for homonyms. There was a case where the system heard ‘I’m snowed in’ as ‘I’m Snowden.’ It all comes out in the wash. Now let’s scan this puppy…”