RoboNomics

Chapter 70 - 2016

"Andrea Anderson, at thirty seven years of age you are in possession of 88% of your optimal health." 

The rabbit-faced android has just delivered the bio-medical tracker under the skin of my arm. "Congratulations. The New Rome Health System will continue to monitor your health. Thank you for your patronage." 

It turns away and exits without another word.

"What did that...rabbit...thing...just say about it?" Asks Austin.

"The system?" Rupert says. "It is known as the New Rome Health Network. It is comprised of this hospital and a group of smaller clinics scattered throughout the city for convenience. You own this system, in fact, Ms. Anderson."

"I...own a hospital?"

"A health system," he corrects me. "Now, if you'll follow me." We exit the small room and head down the hall, Rupert in the lead.

Austin looks around as we walk. "Why is it so small?"

"Most of the system's work is done off site. Remote patient care and observation. All that. Here we are." 

We stop in the middle of a hallway.

Rupert taps the wall and it disappears, replaced by a set of windows that look into a wide room with white walls. In the middle is an operating table. 

Over it are several machines that hang from the ceiling. Each has a set of eight arms each with a different gold implement at the end.

"This is an operating room," Rupert explains. "They are not often used since according to the system's programming invasive treatments are most expensive and so the least desired. The system will only send a patient here when every other alternative has been explored. As you can see, there are almost never wait times."

"Why not?" I ask. "Why--"

"Tests can be run much faster by the machines. Decision trees executed in a twinkling by the AI."

"It sounds like you've had a healthy helping of the Kool-Aid," I put in with a chuckle.

Rupert blinks rapidly at me for a moment. The corners of his mouth turn down. It's as if I'm about to be sent to the corner for a time out.

"I spent most of my career with your father," he explains. "Every brilliant idea that came out of R&D, every obstacle and ingenious workaround -- it was my job to be an expert in all of these."

I bow my head at being chastised.

This place is so..." Austin's voice trails off as he glances around at the spotless surroundings. "It's like they thought of everything. I guess I'm really not needed anymore, am I?"

#

"The people who are here deserve to be here," Robert Newhouse assures me confidently.

"And you're basing that on what, the fact that they have money?" I snap back.

We're sitting in a cafe together, at a table next to the windows. Two of the best seats in the place, they look out onto the Piazza della Rotonda. We have a view of a reproduction Pantheon, with a reproduction Fontana del Pantheon standing out in front of it.

My first day in New Rome has been surreal. After the hospital, Rupert loaded the three of us into an automated car. 

But it's not like the automated trucks back on Earth, that looked like old trucks with a driver sitting and reading placidly behind the wheel in case something went wrong. Instead, the cars in New Rome are more like moving lounges. They're semi-circular black pods lacking front seats.