Holo(Graphic)

Author : Pavelle Wesser

“Stop that,” Steve blinked when Sue snapped his holograph with her new Series 807 Phat Phone.
“Calm down,” she pouted, her lips swollen from their latest Hooker’s Passion Red injection.
“I’m jittery, Sue. The technomed suggested I increase the meds in my morning coffee.”
“The sedatives or amphetamines?” Her blue Lucite eyes questioned.
“Use your brain, Sue.”
“There’s no reason to anymore,” she gazed now at his image floating between them. “I’m impressed by how quickly your holograph develops with this new phone.”
“I shouldn’t have gifted you that,” Steve scowled. “The radioactive component in those images ups your daily dosage.” Steve waved an artificially-enhanced hand through the air.
“Can I give you a sedative without adjusting the coffee maker settings, which I never figured out, anyway?”
“Sure, but you should have learned the settings by now; I gave it to you on the last pseudo-religious holiday.”
“I’ve been holding off telling you this,” Sue winced, “but the technodoc tell me my neurons and synapses are misfiring. I can actually smell my brain cells burning.”
“Really? Jeez, I assumed the smell was coming from the toaster,” Steve sighed, “I just hope you recognize me in a few years.”
He stared at her, noting how much she’d changed from before, with her face now stiff and bloated from the treatments and … What gibberish was she uttering into her Phat Phone?
“Hooma Balooma, Adiva Eureka,” her face lit up as his image whined, “Hasn’t my breakfast been heli-delivered yet?”
“Please stop,” Steve moaned.
“Fine then,” as she stood, his image evaporated. “I’m off to work. Our dinner is being engineered at the lab and will be delivered by courier. See you.”
As she sashayed out the door, Steve admired her slender-sucked waist and implant-induced butt. He’d been too slothful to preserve his youth and had blown off countless procedures. Just this week, he’d meant to get some wrinkles ironed out but …. As the pain returned, he massaged his chest. His should never have cancelled that cardio appointment, but there’d been the work deadline…
#
Before lunch, Sue checked her image in her compact. Her technodoc assured her she could obtain more elaborate features for the right price, ‘right’ being a debatable term. After lunch, she would power-walk in an armored suit through the streets. She had no illusions about how dangerous they were, given her position in a newly-defined social services sector under the auspices of Urban 275. Her job function was unclear, though she considered this irrelevant as long as the grant money kept rolling in. On her way out, she gave her breasts an injection of Bloatabec, though it was an effort for her robotic fingers to operate the syringe.
As she returned from lunch, a message was erupting through her voice box. “This is the division of medical inaction, jurisdiction 361, informing you that your husband has flat-lined. His post-mortem autopsy reveals he missed his cardio appointments, making him fully culpability for this outcome. We here at 361 offer heart-felt condolences. This concludes message number 556, which will be charged to your account. Good day.”
Sue sat down awkwardly on her inflated buttocks and placed her head into her artificially enhanced hands. To her credit, she tried very hard, but her recently-installed Lucite eyes were incapable of dispelling tears.