Boomerang

Today I went and got chipped. Twice. 

I’m sixteen. I go to a private highschool, and I work at the ice cream shop down the street from the public library. I write book reports that get published to a website pretty regularly. And I get A’s and B’s when I’m paying attention. 

My name is Alessandra, which was a special hell to spell in second grade. It’s ‘Ales-sandra!’ followed by a sigh when my mom’s mad at me. It’s ‘Lessy’ to my friends. It’s ‘Alice’ or ‘Miss Wonderland’ to my followers. It’s also ‘Dr. Javier’, to my fourth period History teacher. He thinks he’s funny.

About the ‘chipping’. My family is in uproar. They fussed less when I stole that bike, cried many less tears about my septum, and I haven’t even shown them my tattoo. I wouldn’t say I’m a perfect poster girl, but I can sort of pass as a family success. Which makes this a big deal. This reaction blew all the previous so far out of the water. 

It always begins with fear, curiosity. Everybody wanders to you, questions your actions. The better you are, the harder it is to take, at first. Little siblings glare at you with envy, older siblings with disdain or pride. Either way, you pull their eyes. Then they get angry. Your family will remind you of every single precept built over your life until all the words have woven a cage. Then they lock that cage up, throw a towel over the whole situation, and try to forget about it.

This time was different.

‘Chipping’ is different. Way different from marking up your skin, from turning your lips full and red or wearing crop-tops.  When they asked me for an explanation, all I said was “I got bored.” “I was curious.”

In adult words, I guess that’s adjacent to, “throwing a tantrum” maybe, or “pissed off”. Both of those carry connotations that are just so unseemly, though. I wasn’t wailing or crying when I did the install. Maybe I cursed a bit…  Even then I wasn’t so angry, either. At least not yet. 

It’s like Newton’s Law. For every illogical thing you do, comes a horde of concerned people. Your whole family will cluck around you like mad hens, a consistent Why? Why? Why? 

At least half of my family members had their theories already. ‘Attention-seeking after that awful breakup you went through.’ Uh-huh, sure. ‘She’s looking for a way to stand out!’ Could be. ‘She’s trying too hard to fit in with this new crowd.’ You just contradicted yourself, but maybe.

I’ve been saying “chipped”, but they’re just experimental implants. I’m of the opinion that chipping sounds cooler, like I’m living in some sort of Neo-Tokyo. You know, awash in the buzzing glow of neon lighting and surveillance robots. That’d be cooler than me walking downtown somewhere in the States, 2017, forty-eight hours later confessing that I played lab rat for a bunch of geeks. 

The influence to go get implants was from a story I heard on the radio, sitting in the backseat on the drive home. Something about the way they described those people got to me.

I feel like you’d expect that kind of person to be a mad scientist. But all of them just sounded…  normal. 

One guy’s name was Jen. He’d just graduated highschool, and was hoping to become an engineer. Over the radio you could hear the smile in his voice. He sounded nervous, fidgety, but as he walked the host around the studio he spoke with passion. For his work, and for people. Every little step the studio collectively took was full of details and stories that he and the rest of the studio had woven together. 

As the interviewer had bent down over a leather chair not so different from a dentists’, Jen launched into an explanation of a patient that had once sat there. It all felt so human. Here, in the corner of the windowsill, they’d talked about bringing back life to a man’s hand. A prosthetic that sensed thoughts. Repairing eyesight. Enhancing it, even. The interviewer and interviewee moved into where the instruments were kept. There they’d talked about linking to people’s nerves, their brains, building on the biology of humanity. It more than caught my attention that they always tested these early editions on themselves, knowing the risk. As if chipping yourself was a noble cause, a martyrdom. 

A few weeks later all the commotion from my family died down. 

‘Course, they still eyed my neck sometimes when I passed, like they’d catch the implant rejecting. Their piercing eyes would maybe cajole the sliver of metal to burst out in a cascade of beeping lights.

Or something like that.

After school, I hung out with my friend Choi, who’s named “study buddy 🖕” in my phone. I met her when I joined, awkward and arrogant, and she’d just moved to the States. We kept each other in our circles, as different as we were. Over the years, we taught each other a thing or two about fashion, and both agreed we couldn’t figure out the math teacher’s drawl.

When I finally got ahold of her that week, she had dyed her hair yet again. This time, it was a sea-green that didn’t match her eyes or anything she was wearing, really. Her new snake bites hung a little weird. She looked half-perfect, and half a mess. I was watching her, out of the corner of my eye. Choi was slumped on the park bench, glaring at her phone screen like it proposed to her. So it caught me off guard when she asked loudly;

“What do they do?”

Swallowing my shock that she would dare ask at all, I looked towards the park. A swallow was hopping around the base of a nearby tree. “What does what do?”

She did not try to hide her annoyance one bit. “Your implants. Your chips.” And before I could mumble out ‘what chips?’ she added, “Lessy, you’re a real bad liar.”

I crossed my arms over the railing, leaning my full weight on it. “You’re the first person that’s asked.”

“You serious?” 

I don’t respond to that: she knows I am. I kept looking out. She in turn kept her eyes trained on me as I watch the birds. There are two of them now. They’re flying around each other with beaks pointed, chasing themselves in circles in the air. 

Choi lifted up something square to her face and briefly I worry she’s taking a picture of me. Then I hear the tear of foil.

…It’s a Kit Kat, that she bit open with her teeth. Classic. She catches my eye over my shoulder and holds out the other piece. “Want some?”

I shake my head no.

“One went in my arm, the other in my neck. Like that.” I said, and then tapped both places, lightly marking them out with my fingers. She raises an eyebrow. “Did it hurt?”

I snort. “Yeah, duh. They had to cut me open to do–” I make a gesture with my hands. “–all that.” She shrugs, eyes closed for a second, as she enjoys the rest of the Kit Kat. 

“You still didn’t tell me what your implants do.”

“Oh. Well, the one in my neck helps reinforce my breathing so that I can run for a long time without running out of breath. It keeps pushing oxygen to the lungs.” The words roll off my tongue the exact same way I’d heard them from the workers. “They thought maybe someday this’ll be used on patients who have serious diseases. So they can breathe easy like you and I do.”

She nodded, a slow tilt of her head up and down. “Nice, nice, I see. And what about the… arm one? Is that where it was?”

“Yeah,” I say, lifting my arm up to show her. We look at it under the late afternoon light. The sun glowed red, turning my shallower skin see-through. It reveals the tiny stitches, the little bulge of metal underneath my skin. “This one’s supposed to make your grip stronger, I guess.” That explanation sounds equally fabricated, but it’s the truth. “I d– I got it done in my catching hand.”

“Kind of cheating, isn’t it?” Choi quipped, and I rolled my eyes so hard I felt like they’d roll into my skull. It makes her giggle.

“Shut up.”

“Coach Randy is not gonna like that one.” She said. Her hands are in the pockets of her overalls now, as she leans back into the rotted wood of the bench. The Kit Kat wrapper sits next to her, pushed around by a light breeze.

“It could also end up just making my grip really tight.” I added as I look out again. She sighs behind me, like an old man. “That’d suck. What’d it cost?”

“It was free.”

I feel her eyes on my back as I say that, like they just sprung open. It makes me wince, because I know what’s coming next. “There’s no way something like that was free.”

My head sinks down a little lower than my shoulders. “It came with a bit of a catch, yeah.’’

“How bad?” she immediately asks and I grimace. 

“I-could-kick-the-bucket bad?”

Her eyes grow wider. “Kick-the-bucket like you could die?”

I shrug.

“Alessandra!”

Great, she sounds like my mom now. “The problem is that one of these implants is set to expire in the next thirty five years.” I start to explain, fumbling for sensible words as I go. “And I’m not even sure if the studio I went to will still be around by the time that happens. They were small, and already struggling to hash things together to keep it open.”

Choi is standing up now, walking to my side. Her hand touches my shoulder. “Can’t a doctor just take it out?”

For the first time since this all started, shame starts to burn my cheeks. It feels odd. “Because it was like a homebrew operation, there’s no sure way to tell.” If a doctor even cared enough to see me about that.

“So what you’re saying is..”

The park fell oddly silent.  I waited for a bird to warble, or a cricket to chirp, anything, but all I heard was the rush of wind against the tall grass.

Choi spoke up after a moment, hand now firmly on my shoulder instead of just ghosting it. “You know, your parents and family aren’t wrong to be upset about you. That is kinda irresponsible. Not kinda, very.”

“I know,” I say, without disguising the face I pull at her trying to mother me. “It wasn’t a death wish. I did it because I wanted to feel something new. For the thrill.”

She drops her hand. “I never really took you as that kind of person. And I still don’t think it was a smart choice, but if it’s the one you made, I’ll try and support you in it.”

I shrug. “Thanks, but don’t feel obligated to. Most people don’t stay friends after highschool anyways.”

She’s grinning now. I get a sharp elbow to my side. “Most people don’t get chipped at age sixteen. What is that supposed to mean? We won’t be hanging out before your implant goes kaput?”

“It’s a possibility?”

“You’re ridiculous.” Choi says, leaning against the railing with me. “Look, I’m not going to pretend that I like this. But now that we have a timeframe, you should make the most of it. Stop sitting under your parents’ thumb like you’re perfect and you don’t care. Do more things like this.”

When I look at her, she shakes her head. “I mean, don’t act complacent. Get out of your little cozy box. This should be a fresh start, now that you know you could apparently electroshock to death any day. See what you can do now.”

I turn to face her, and she’s smiling at me, tapping two fingers to the side of her neck. “Hey, maybe I’ll get one too.” she jokes.

“…Thanks. Thanks, and don’t.”