Copyright (c) 2013 Phyllis Zimbler Miller
All rights reserved.
The day had not been going well for Natalie. Choosing prospective mother and children candidates for her Noah’s Ark project had been more difficult than Natalie had at first considered.
To begin with, nowadays many if not most childhood illnesses were diagnosed online. Mothers could enter a child’s symptoms, get diagnoses ranked by probability, and – after a brief online chat with a medical tech – usually get a prescription sent to the closest pharmacy for the occasional ear infection or other routine childhood illnesses.
Thus only the illnesses that did not fit neatly into online diagnosis parameters resulted in actual doctor office visits. And then, Natalie wondered, should very ill children even be candidates for what she was envisioning?
She did see healthy one-year-olds in her medical practice. An actual visit was mandated at that age to check on any genetic markers that might have been overlooked in pre-natal or post-birth screenings. But given the plan Natalie was concocting, such young children would probably have less of a chance for survival.
At lunch she had tried to catch Harold’s eye, hoping he would walk outside with her to eat in some location that might not have a listening device hidden under a rock or buried inside a tree. But he had seemed to purposely elude her.
Then in mid-afternoon she entered a patient module to see a nine-year-old girl for whom a tetanus shot for a finger cut on a rusty nail had been requested.
The mother, Catherine, explained that she had not wanted to go to an emergency medical station for the shot. Instead she had convinced the gatekeeper of Natalie’s medical group to slip in her daughter Georgette. Catherine had also brought her six-year-old son Malcolm as a tag-along.
Something about Catherine’s face niggled at Natalie. She asked the mother for the ID numbers of both children and, using the scanner Natalie held in one hand, did a quick search in the universal medical records database. Neither child had been seen at any medical facility where Natalie had worked, and she was also pretty sure the mother had not been working at any of those facilities.
“Have we met before?” Natalie asked the mother.
“We haven’t exactly met, but I lived near you in high school.”
“Did we go to the same school?”
The woman shook her head. “But I knew who you were.”
Natalie nodded, reaching out her free hand towards the drawer with the tetanus shot apparatus. The woman stopped Natalie’s hand and placed a small slip of paper in it.
Natalie peered down to read to herself: “Look at the scratch – it wasn’t done by a rusty nail. I used a sterilized needle – only an excuse to see you.”
Natalie jerked her head up and looked at the woman, her daughter, her son. The woman could easily be a government spy – the children may not even be her own. Simply props provided to entrap Natalie.
The woman removed the slip of paper from Natalie’s hand but said nothing.
For the benefit of the room’s recording device Natalie said, “Let me look closely at the scratch. I am not sure a tetanus shot is warranted.”
Natalie picked up the girl’s hand and ran the database scanner over the cut. She dropped the girl’s hand and turned to the mother.
“You were right to bring Georgette in for a doctor to look at her finger,” Natalie said. “Some things cannot be diagnosed online. But there is no need for a shot. As you know, Provisional Government healthcare rules prohibit unnecessary medical services.”
The mother stood. “I understand,” she said.
Then she pressed a second slip of paper into Natalie’s hand. Natalie looked down at the writing: “Could you meet me this evening at 7 at the Richmond children’s park? I’ll have my children with me.”
Natalie hesitated. This could still be a trap – the government checking on her obedience to the group home announcement. But Natalie had to take risks now; tomorrow would be 28 days remaining.
Natalie nodded as the mother again removed the slip of paper from Natalie’s hand and then motioned her children to exist the patient module.
“Thank you, Doctor,” the mother said.
Natalie glanced in the mirror when the mother and her children had left. She noted that her expression looked as if she had seen something quite upsetting.
Well, she had. The future of the world without the family unit. A world in which governments could totally control their citizens.
And after all, at this point Natalie was only risking her own life. The government would remove her children to a group home if she was imprisoned, but the government was planning to do that anyway. Except there was Julie.
Natalie had to grasp at whatever straws might come her way. She would be at the park at 7 that evening.
___
If you enjoy reading about the historical past as well as the imaginative future, see my cold war memoir TALES OF AN AMERICAN OCCUPYING GERMANY here on Wattpad at http://budurl.com/TAonWattpad
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