a conversation with sponsors | flynn [94th]

Flynn Garner.

”You are looking healthy and rosy-cheeked, Mr Garner.” Says an Ai personal assistant, the same technology as Haven that is used in Fenwick’s hospital back home. The AI is not the first mention how I am supposedly glowing. With the misery of last year. They are surprised to see me at all.

”It is uh-Doctor Garner actually.”

”The only doctor here is me.” A meeting with Dr Edgar Cushing is the first item on day two’s agenda of sponsorship events, something formal in the mix of photoshoots and own a victor for an hour social events. All I have been told is that he is a clinical genetics specialist and is so clearly full of himself.”I am not sure if you have been told, but I actually got my doctorate from District’s Six’s college a few years ago…” Dr Cushing is shaking his head as he leads us from the reception area into a fresh bright laboratory.

”What they teach you in that District is amateur work.”

”We are the medicine District…” The asshole is still shaking his head, he is probably only ten years older than I am. This is talk I expect from a grey bearded wise old bastard, not someone so young like this.

”The District’s medicine, here in the Capitol is the real Panem medicine. You can’t deny that your technology is basic, even after Fenwick’s funding. We pawn your greatest and leave you with the scraps.”

”You have not seen how many lives are saved every day in the hospitals!” I snap, this man is a real test to my calming tablet weaning. Moon has done so well to keep me off them for three days.

”You are there to keep the Districts alive. The real innovation is seen in the Capitol and I have brought you here to demonstrate that.”

I imitate his shaking head; my arms are crossed. The room is filled with high-tech machines and lacking in the familiar apparatus that I am used to seeing in laboratories. ”If you are wanting change my eyes so that they change color based on my mood, it is a no. Sorry but I am not into that.”

”I do not meddle in that cosmetic nonsense, only real science is practiced here.” The doctor taps the glass on a touchscreen computer. Wires hook up the computer to a specimen bottle and this is just the strangest set up I have ever seen. I don’t budge from the edge of the desk I am leant against, arms still crossed against my chest. ”And what real science is that?”

The doctor sniggers. And that makes me cringe. The Capitol has a strange way of doing things. They all think they are the antagonist or protagonist of their own story, and I am just the side-character that they can book whenever they want. If this guy is going to claim to be a revolutionary mad scientist, then I am writing myself out of his book.

Then he gets closer to me. Too close. His face is just centimeters from mine but it is his hand that moves closer. It flicks my prosthetic hearing aid, and my arms drop from their crossed comfort. ”A shame you are walking around with that junk. NERVAlink could do so much better for you,” he does not just leave it there with the insult. A hair is plucked from the back of my ear and the man is back at his computer before I can rub the side of my head. ”You have already left so much DNA in my laboratory, I just wanted to be theatrical.”

”And why do you need my DNA?” I stand behind the man’s shoulder, looking at a loading screen that pulls up an old image of the thirteen-year-old boy that first graced the Capitol. ”They really need to update your photograph.” Then the screen flashes data, most of it not even my years of study can translate. ”My work is in the testing phase but it will change Panem, for the better. Imagine a test at birth that can determine a patient’s entire medical future. There will be no need for a medical history. It can test the likelihood of a patient having a cardiological disease later in life or a neurological condition. It can even determine their life expectancy, to the month.”

”And what happens to the patients that have a poor ‘medical future?’”

”They live a different life.”

”This does not sound morally right.”

”Morally right? I thought you would like my idea. Imagine the reaping pool being filled with those with an already determined low life expectancy. It would be no loss, those with better outcomes will live on!”

”No, this is not right.” I back up, away from the computer. Here I am, a side-character to a mad scientist. This is the same ideology as my grandpa but on a different route, the idea of a perfect human but a different way of doing it.

”Do you not want to know your life expectancy, Mr Garner? It is right here on this database.”

”No I do not." I say, backing out of the door, the only thing outside is the Ai. Nobody is stopping me from ending this appointment early. ”And it is Doctor Garner!”