No Data Available

Her son and daughter-in-law bought her a Light Healer xi because it could do better at her personal care, but mostly she suspected because it saved them the bother. It was an innovative artefact that allowed them to boast to their friends, a conversational icebreaker at their dinner parties. Everyone they knew was frustrated by a mentally or physically challenged relative; or an aging frail parent; or a maturing maiden aunt. With all the technology available at their homes and in their workspaces, the Light Healer with all its’ whizz- bang and wow- inducing features made perfect sense.

Maeve tried to look through her own rose-coloured glasses at first.

With the Light Healer xi along for the ride I’ll be invited to the gourmet dinner parties and the fancy picnics.

It turned out to be no to the picnics.

I was only ever invited to a dinner party on his birthday anyway, she thought

As she discovered the Light Healer was a risk management system too: it had a whole data base for quantifying and detailing injurious environments to the elderly or disabled. Though she would have loved to watch the children play its’ data was proof that parks with active children were a dangerous place for anyone over sixty; on emotional injury when one was deprived of the presence of youngsters it provided the message: no data available. It was a strange experience to feel jealous of the androids that supervised children. Day care androids were in addition the only ones with hair.

At least I can smirk at the bad job the manufacturer has done on the wigs created for them.

A tear slipped down even as she rubbed anti-wrinkle cream into her face, and the android observed this physical manifestation.

Maeve filled her days with reading, knitting, baking, treadmill walking, and sending the Android, which she had christened ‘LH’ and sometimes called heal to herself, to deliver the baking to various of her old friends. After a few months, her friends stopped sending a response to this service; there were no more handwritten notes or video calls where she might see them carrying trays with teapots and baked goods onto their outdoor decks; just a message of ‘thank you’ which was delivered in the android’s deceptively life-like Cambridge accent. There were times when she felt like she was living with an over-tired Prince William.

None of the introductory literature mentioned the most annoying trait of the Light Bearer xi. All the literature was focused on its’ main strength: the ability to read the patient it was programmed for to provide health monitoring and maintenance.

It never asks permission, Maeve thought, it just sends its laser technology pulsing through or over a body any darn time it likes.

She could feel beads of moisture on her brow as she thought about it, and carefully checked the fastener on the bathroom door. She thought about the third day she’d owned it and how grateful she had been for a skin check for any pre-cancerous blemishes. She had been seated on her bed thinking about which floral dress to pop on when it pushed open the bedroom door and emitting a pulsing sound that made her head vibrate, scanned her upper body and limbs. LH had diagnosed and removed two skin tags, an atypical mole from her back, and a growth from her right forearm. The Android had doctored her back wounds, and then led her through the steps for dressing the wound on her right forearm.

This instruction and participation with the wound on her arm were part of its’ encouraging an emphasis on self-care protocol which also caused it to instruct her to go twice around Ellis Park situated 2 blocks from her house at exactly 2.45 pm each afternoon. Its’ risk data led it to judge that Children of Primary School Age at play posed a risk to someone of her vintage.

Vintage has connotations of fine wine, while ‘old’ had connotations of perfectly useless, she thought.

She came to the bathroom often now just to think in peace. The android’s reading system struggled to penetrate the solid Oak door her late husband, JB, had installed during his complete renovation of the bathroom. He had annexed an outdated laundry with a window which allowed winter sun and reduced its’ utility to a single washer-dryer combo unit, and a small basin. He had installed a large spa bath with wide steps up to its’ sunken lip and double shower units over the narrow end; a large rectangular atrium with its’ own fine spray watering system for the ferns including etched glass panels; the most delightful oak cupboards with matching towel racks; added a wooden toilet seat and a new cistern to the old john; and tiled from floor to ceiling in a pattern of three white vertical tile rows to one black. With two full length dressing mirrors on the wall opposite the spa, the room felt five stars, while the rest of the apartment was, at best, worthy of three stars.

She was seated on the wooden lid of the toilet right now. The android’s system only allowed it to know where she was in the room, and it wasn’t able to give her an accurate health scan through the thick oak door. It had already made a suppositional report to base: she might have a UTI, and/or bowel issues. She needed to act because they would send out a robotic technician to update the android system sooner, rather than later.

The shadow appearing under the door was static, then began to move left. Her place was small, so she presumed the android was going to the kitchen to finish checking the jam. There had been strategy behind commencing to make large quantities of jam. She managed enough mix for thirty jars of 400 g to give away, and more to be dropped off at the hospital auxiliary shop.

Bonus: if I need it that trip will take the android around fifty minutes. There is no way it would want me inside a hospital without an appointment.

The jam project had triggered a data base check by the android. The conclusion was that it was hazardous for her to make jam in her own kitchen. Another health check had been triggered; this one for diabetes: was it wise for her to eat even the smallest quantity of jam? She laughed to herself, Had it ever been wise to eat jam? The right jam was just delicious, a concept an android could never grasp, except as scientific data about a combination of certain hormones.

She waited. This morning at breakfast, the android had indicated it would make the jam. The efficiency with which it prepared apricots and plums made her gasp. After a while she had shut herself in the bathroom and turned on the bath taps. Into its’ large space she poured a cup of wool wash, a cup of purple treatment shampoo; and as she had found in the freezer two old banana milk pops her grandchild hadn’t consumed, added them in the hope of clogging a circuit.

May as well melt those in there. Dairy is meant to be bad for most things these days.

She wanted nothing in herself right now but icy desperation and important observations.

I hope this works.

She saw the shadow again. The android was already processing new data: her running the bath but remaining on the toilet was not usual behaviour.

I hate its flippin’ mental health checks so I’m glad the doors locked against its’ endless questions, she thought.

She stripped off her clothes and placed them in the washing machine before slipping into the bath. ICK! Never mind I can shower later.

Her hands trembled and her neck tensed as she splashed around in the spa bath. She was not in the mood to hold any happy memories from when JB was alive.

Would the android wonder why she hadn’t switched on the pump?

She shimmied backwards to a position furthest from the door, keeping one eye on the gap beneath the door for any shadow of the android. Then she remembered she hadn’t unlocked the door.

Darn!

The android’s shadow was stationary in the middle of the gap under the solid oak door. She needed it to get occupied in the kitchen. Quieting her breath and meditating on an orchid that graced the window end of the atrium; she focused on sounds and details she couldn’t afford to miss. The pounding of her heart slowed. Its’ shadow was still there. She crouched in the bath and splashed around a bit. The piercing whiteness of a laser scan flashed across, turning the shadow under the door into a solid outline of the android’s feet.

It must be time now for the plum jam to be poured into the sterilised jars.

The shadow moved left. She waited for ten seconds until she heard the faint clang of metal on metal. Carefully she got out of the spa, and tiptoeing across the two bathmats she laid down reached the door and unlocked it.

The android could probably laser a hole right through the door any time its’ data justified such an action. Does my plan have a prayer of succeeding? JB would be proud of me for trying.

Opening the bathroom linen storage, she pulled out a large bath sheet and folded it lengthways until it measured about 15 cm across and left it hanging on the towel rail closest to the bath. She figured a little leverage might be needed even if she already had the advantage of the android’s slight instability on hard, smooth surfaces. On the way back she removed the bath mats, making a messy mound by throwing them into one corner. Climbing into the bath again she reached for the folded bath sheet. Between the two shower outlets at the narrow end of the spa was a wooden rack for towels and other items. It had been empty for a while but now she placed the folded bath sheet over it. She lifted one end and forced the fabric between the steel rack and the wooden shelf it enclosed. She tested it by crouching and pulling down as hard as she could. It might hold long enough to lasso and unbalance LH.

Every plan is risky.

She positioned herself at the farthest point from the door and waited. The water was now lukewarm, and the melted milk pop was beginning to congeal on the surface. She waited. Feeling she rubbed the goose pimples appearing on her upper arms vigorously. The patterns of moisture on the walls of the atrium, looking like a veil of lace over the fishbone ferns, fascinated her. She could hear the twittering of sparrows outside the window. The kitchen window must have been opened by the android because the sound of metal on tile was more distinct now. The android was moving.

There was the shadow under the door again. Splashing around, she moaned long and low. The door opened a crack, a few seconds passed in which she heard a drip splash from the basin tap. The door was pushed fully open, and the android came onto the tiled bathroom floor.

“Are you OK?”

OK sounded so strange in LH’s Cambridge accent. It was programmed to be as effective as possible at being an acceptable local human.

She flopped back in the water, trying her best to look like she had no control over her limbs when her muscles were taut. The android climbed awkwardly onto the lower step of the spa, while her pantomime continued. Maeve flopped her head back, eyes closed, flailing her arms like she was in a fit. A distinct thud against the lip of the spa gave her only a millisecond’s warning of the wave.

Her eyes were open and her head about 10 centimetres above the water when the android’s swan dive emptied a third of the water. A deluge of her strange bath went up her nostrils: she was sure there was a piece of rehydrated banana up her left nostril. She sat up fully and gasping, scrambled out of the bath. Her lower limbs were tingling, and she felt light-headed. She’d gotten enough grasp on the now sodden bath sheet to have dragged it to the edge with her. Throwing it over the android in case it needed the weight, she stepped on the lower step. There she encountered the spilled patch of wool wash which had contributed to the android’s demise.

“Whoa,” she yelled, as she careered through the open-door space and placing her contaminated foot on the metal carpet stripping slipped enough to find herself on her hands and knees on the living room carpet. She knelt there panting, afraid the android might recover. There was silence except for dripping, and she sniffed, my that jam smells wonderful.

I need a tissue.

She rose slowly to her feet, testing everything the old-fashioned way. Through her bedroom door she could see her fluffy white bathrobe over the end of her blue quilt-covered bed. Walking slowly, she went and put it on. Despite the stickiness she felt so much better.

A clattering and hissing sound could be heard from the bathroom. Looking back through her bedroom door the android appeared opposite in the bathroom doorway. A string of garbled sounds came from its’ torso, and it wobbled about. It toppled like a felled tree onto the carpet.

She went closer. Putting her hands on her hips she inspected it. There was congealed milk pop behind its’ left ear device.

Oh, I’m going to have a hell of a job getting out the door with boxes of jam with the darn thing lying there. Could another bath sheet help?

The tech base station, attached to the back of her favourite ornament, began to beep with the signal it used to contact the android.

Already?

The End.