Complete Atopia Chronicles

Much of the construction of Atopia had been funded by revenues Cognix had derived from these medical breakthroughs, but stress was something different.

After conquering, or at least taming, most of the major diseases, stress was now the biggest killer out there. It had many sources. Sometimes it was just the grind of our environment—noise, pollution, light, advertising, change—but mostly it was the sense of losing control, of not being where we thought we should be or who we should be with. Finding ways to deal with memories under-laid almost all of the solutions.

The human mind had an endless capacity for suspending disbelief, and we’d found this was an effective vector in the fight against stress and anxiety. Some said we were just teaching people to fool themselves, but then again, when were people ever not fooling themselves?

I sighed. Of course, all we could do was supply the tool. How people decided to use it was entirely up to them, despite all the recommendations I could make.

Finally, Hal finished his rambling presentation, and the advertisement started.

“Have you ever wished you were free from the constant bombardment of advertising? Pssionics now makes it possible!” said the extremely attractive young thing featured in our commercial. “Saving the world from the eco–crunch is going to be the best thing you’ve ever done for yourself!”

The meeting was being conducted in Mandarin, but our pssi seamlessly reconstructed everything in whatever language we preferred, even visually translating culturally distinct body language and facial expressions.

Fifty years ago, they’d been predicting we’d all be speaking Chinese by now, but, in the end, the ultimate lingua franca was the machine metadata that intermediated it all—everyone spoke whatever they wanted, and the machines translated for us. Language was just more road kill left behind on our headlong race ahead.

As the advertisement droned on, I couldn’t help feeling some mounting disgust with the way it focused on happiness. Sure it was important, but what exactly was happiness? What we were pushing wasn’t exactly what we were pitching. Soon enough, the ad finished and faded away into the familiar rotating Trident of Atopia.

“So what do you think?” asked our marketing coordinator, Deanna. Still staring at the rotating Trident, my mind was now wandering off into thoughts about the POND results and some odd features of the storm systems coming up the coast at us.

“I liked it,” responded Dr. Hal Granger, nodding ingratiatingly towards our Chinese guests. “I think I’m going to make some slight changes to the empathic feedback.”

“Sounds good,” said Kesselring, here in his first subjective for once. “As I was saying before, all the psychological, neurological and, well, all test results have been compiled and everything is looking good.”

He smiled an unbecoming grin at me. There was a smattering of applause around the table. I raised my eyebrows, but said nothing.

“Patricia?” asked Kesselring, “Anything to add?”

“I liked it, looked wonderful to me,” I said sarcastically. “Who could possibly resist a pitch like that?”

Kesselring’s lips pressed tightly together. “I assume you have something more to say?” he asked.

I paused, struggling, but I couldn’t help myself.

“Look, I’ve got some issues with how this ‘happiness index’ has become such a central barometer of what we’re doing.” I probably shouldn’t have baited Hal, and I was treading on thin ice with the Chinese delegation dialed in today, but the urge was too strong.

“Isn’t happiness the central, single most important thing in a person’s life?” rejoined Hal, assuming a defensive posture.

As he turned to face me, his skin began sporting that revolting smile he loved to use on his EmoShow. To me he looked like a weasel on Prozac. His program was becoming ever more popular as it traded off the Cognix brand, but I had no idea what people saw in him. His ego had long since outstripped his talents.

“I wouldn’t argue with you Hal,” I replied, holding up my hands in mock defense, “but this is supposed to be a serious medical evaluation, not a popularity contest. And knowing about happiness is different than actually creating it.”

“Patricia,” Hal responded in a measured tone, as if I were a guest on his show, “I think you have some issues going on here, some issues beyond this discussion.”

“Don’t try to deflect this,” I snapped.

“Okay fine,” he laughed. Now he was the one with his hands up in mock defense. “I’m just saying maybe you should have a look at your own happiness indices before you go knocking the program.”

He looked at me with raised eyebrows and tried to convey his simple, dishonest frankness to everyone in the room.

“I am happy!” I shot back before I realized what I was doing, my voice louder than intended. I closed my eyes and shook it off, taking a deep breath. Little bastard.

The room fell quiet.

Kesselring rolled his eyes slightly and smiled towards our Chinese guests.