Selene looked at the ad. It hovered before her like a squirrel on crack flashing and flickering as though it wanted to cause some reaction from her other than dismissal and had the tenacity of a pitbull with lockjaw. She hesitated from mentally squashing it like a too slow, too bold mosquito.
Emotions? That word struck her as odd. What were emotions? Why would anyone buy something unknown?
She dismissed the impeding ad and continued on her way. Her continued experience remained uneventful save for that one ad. She decided it was not worth her time and attempted to memetically purge the ad from her mind. Music. Videos. Immersives. She was less than successful.
The ad's memes and bling must have been too well crafted to simply dismiss.
She linked and unpacked what emotions were. Observed what others thought of them, the old arguments for and against. She observed old movies and how people reacted with annotations to show what emotions were being displayed at different times.
Odd. Emotions seemed like a double edged sword. It could bring great boons and great pain. It could cripple a person and give them hope and strength beyond the rational. They made experience seem to be far more intense.
She could easily grasp why people would not want them. She might see why some might want them. She was not one. She ended the quest for information. She needed to be elsewhere and off she went.
Again she encountered the ad. She hesitated and dismissed it.
Later, she connected to the service's information depot. Cached available to anyone in electronic form was the company information. The company assured the addition of emotions was temporary. There was an end then. She had plenty of down time accumulated. It might broaden her experience and allow her to participate in her job and society better, she reasoned, if she had those intense experiences. To no longer be bounded by the unemotional nut shell as it were.
The price, while high, almost $10k, was only the equivalent of an average worker's weekly pay. So be it. She would go.
Lying down in the medical facility, the doctor stated she would be fine and asked her one last time if she was sure she wanted the procedure. The experience was not for everyone. She affirmed one last time. After she had, the doctor told her it was the legal requirement in 2155 to do so for all citizens. He warned her she would lose the ability to see for a moment followed by a sense of pressure, once the procedure began and not to panic. She acknowledged she was ready.
The world went black.
The sense of pressure was immense, almost intolerable. It hurt! It hurt! She was going to be crushed.
She couldn't breathe! He hadn't said anything about not being able to breathe!
A sensation rose. And rose. It gripped her. Crushed her internally just like a the external sensation was doing. She knew what it was. She was panicking. Panic! What a sensation! What an emotion!
Then there was a bright light. Her vision was returning. Blurred, she couldn't focus. She felt weak. The panic was compounded by confusion. She didn't feel right. Feel...
Then there was a sharp pain. Damn, doctors! Resentment. Anger. They never warned about that sort of thing. Marveling about anger and resentment! Wow!
Then she saw a doctor. Not her doctor. Everything looked distorted. Well, emotions were said to do that.
She spoke, thunderously loud, but not to her! And she understood. And screamed.
"Congratulations, Mr and Mrs Thompson. It's a girl."
And, then, she began to forget.
Dawn on Jefferson didn't get that many hits. Interesting. I thought I'd try this.
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