Dates, stats, and sites are all easily refined with a bit of techno-ingenuity, but x-rays aren’t so easy to spoof.
"Maybe I'll get the shots then you just fake convulsions while I rip 'em off Di."
"Why do you keep wanting me to fake a convulsion?"
"Don't know, guess I just like the way you move your hips."
"That I can't fake."
"Really? That’s actually quite gratifying news."
"Alright captain cock proud, how ‘bout you just fake a toothache? Isn't that why they get you x-rayed?"
"Yeah, I guess that's inevitable," answers Simon.
"But how am I going get to keep the shots for later?"
"Ask for a second opinion."
"On a cavity?"
"Sure, why not?"
"Alright…” Simon pauses. He rubs his index finger down the back of her arm and over the round of her elbow. “You know, it’d probably be better if I take care of this on my own. If anything goes wrong, it’d be better if you weren’t on security video with me. Who knows…"
“Okay, I’ll leave you to it. I’ll get a bite and wait for you up the street.” She gives him a soft kiss and eyes him with that look that says, ‘don’t be a fool’. Simon feels a surge of machismo as they part ways. More accurately, he feels both cavalier and boorish instantly. His strut intensifies and his eyes wander.
Fake insurance cards are a dime a dozen. They don't work once they check them out of course, but at least they'll get you in. Most folks hope for a doc's sympathy at that point, but at North General you’ve got to be toothless and out of soup before anyone will give a dime about your dentistry problems.
A strip of boarded storefronts a couple of blocks down from the hospital is pasted with fliers. Each section is a field of white with one colored poster in the center. A different color is interspersed at intervals several yards apart. Simon tries to remember the rhyme "Yellow, mellow, be insured. Red, get med, use the slips the doctors get. Green, get clean without the feds."
Behind the colored fliers are buzzers. Simon feels around on the yellow page until he finds a button. He looks around so as to be sure that no Narcs are lurking, then presses the buzzer. Soon he hears footsteps, the white of an eyeball slips between two white fliers. Bolts roll, knobs turn, fliers rustle, the wall slips open slowly. Soon as Simon can slip inside, it’s closed and bolted. Words are few as cash is exchanged. He has to wait while they print his personalized insurance card fake. Within minutes Simon meets Diana up the street.
North General has always been strange, but never quite like this. There are now an entirely new set of questions to be answered when checking in to the emergency room. In addition to the standard heart conditions, pregnancy, family history and medications there’s an entire section for “transformative symptoms”. The woman at the counter looks Simon over skeptically when he tells her that he’s come to the emergency room for tooth pain.
“You don’t want to just wait and go see your dentist?”
“I’m telling you, it’s really swollen.” Simon argues. “I’m afraid I’ve got an abscess or something.”
“Alright,” she concedes. “Any electrogalvanism?”
“Electro-what?”
“Any sensation of electric shock or are you experiencing a recurring metallic taste?”
“No…” He trails off, really considering the question. Lord knows how many fillings he has. Simon’s first thought is that this is not generally the type of questions you get asked by the receptionist. Usually you have to wait until you get to see the nurse for this kind of interrogation.
“Are you hearing any unusual sounds?” She continues. Now it is Simon’s turn to look skeptical. “Nothing that sounds like you’re overhearing a phone conversation or tuning in between radio stations?” She elaborates.
“No. Is that common?”
“I wouldn’t say common, but…” she gestures toward a guy in the waiting room without the slightest subtlety. “We’re starting to see more of it every day.” The guy doesn’t seem to notice. He’s got his hand to face as he drones into his phone, oblivious to their attention.
Simon decides to check this guy out. He finishes up with his intake then settles in beside him in the waiting room. Once the guy gets off the phone Simon notices a faint echo. He can’t make it out at first, but as he listens, he realizes that it sounds like Brazilian music. The sound seems to be coming from the guy’s face. It gets louder whenever he parts his lips.
Simon tries to peg the receiver. Seems like a buttoned-up type. He’s wearing an off-the-rack sport coat and slacks set in monochrome, both well fitted. His tie is modern with a minimalist sensibility. The shirt looks heavy on starch with expensive cufflinks glistening from the edge of the coat sleeves. He is well pressed, likely an executive. Simon would be willing to wager that this fellow is either in finance or pharmaceuticals.
From the neck down he looks impeccable. Above the collar though, it’s clear he’s not dealing well with his situation. He’s got a week’s growth of stubble and his hair is in disarray. His eyes are deep set and rose veined with sleep deprivation. He mumbles under his breath incomprehensibly then puts the phone to his face and annunciates loudly, “call self”. Simon hears an abbreviate ring before the phone goes to voicemail. “Remember to wear Bluetooth for tomorrow’s meeting.” Simon notices that the music cuts out when he’s got his phone to his face.
The cellphone must have scrambled some of his receptors, Simon decides. Simon imagines thousands of yuppified cellphone junkies all playing Latino radio in unison. In truth the idea is not exactly unpleasant. Maybe hearing some good Chicano jazz might loosen them up. The guy starts mumbling something about the bad reception, too much concrete and steel.
"If you want I could pop an antennae in you." He hadn't expected it to sound malicious, but the violence of the visual might have been too much. Simon feels the weight of a social faux pas slip some acid into his sternum. The guy scoots away a bit nervously. An apology won't change anything now. Simon picks up National Geographic and turns away.
Aion burns across the cover, a dot inside a zoom circle is magnified in a breakout. Inside the magnified circle is an illustration of a machine that looks like a cross between a satellite and a badminton racket with the shuttlecock lodged diagonally in its handle. The headline reads: How we lost Remo 3. Simon flips to the cover story. "Satellites, satellites… unmanned probes, remote controls…junk in space..." The notion of junk satellites floating idle, still receiving transmissions, plants an unfinished idea in him. He can’t quite get his head around how that might be relevant. Simon almost spaces his name when they call for David Acronym but manages to focus in time to get his x-rays taken.
Simon gets taken back to a white room with an old dental x-ray machine mounted on the wall. Other aging beige equipment is stationed in clusters around the room. The technician, a thick woman with a flower-laden lead apron, sits him down and places a heavy silver bib over his chest. As she adjusts the seat, Simon can’t help picturing an assembly line of robotic arms all ready to pin, adjust and screw his head.
She uses the hands of a sailor to jam sharp film packets into his mouth at a variety of uncomfortable angles. Simon finds himself analyzing her meticulously. He’s convinced that she must be changing somehow but is disappointed that he can’t spot any obvious mutations. He can’t refrain from prying. “So, you see a lot of mutants in here these days?”
“Sure, can’t avoid them nowadays.”
“Anything especially interesting?”
“Well, there was a guy in here the other day with a foot growing out of his mouth.”
“What? You serious?”
“Nope, not at all,” she looks down at him with amused eyes and a lopsided grin. Her iris has the subtlest twinkle to it. At first Simon thinks it’s just the sparkle of a smiling eye, but then, as she turns away from him, he notices the subtlest luminescence radiating from her eye sockets. Simon lets the subject go as she wraps up.
By the time he’s finished his session and has navigated his way back to the reception desk they’ve had plenty of time to run a check on his insurance card. As expected, it didn’t hold up. Fortunately, the receptionist is polite enough and assumes it’s just an error of bureaucracy. She agrees to bill him rather than forcing him to fork out the money on the spot.
Simon requests the photos so as to pass his snaps to another doctor. There'll be no charge for the photos to be stored while they decay in the files, but it'll be three-hundred bucks for takeout or delivery. He doesn’t have the funds with him, Simon explains, so he promises to come back with the cash. X-rays shuffle through folder stacks. Like marbles under walnut shells, third shelf up, second cabinet from the left. Simon mumbles, “I'll be back.” Radiology is closed at eight, then, all the meds are in emergency.
There are a few alternative strategies to consider at this point. The first and most obvious choice is to simply come back and try to steal the x-rays by hand. The second option is to go and get some money by selling some identities to his Eastern European friends. The third is to do a little digital recon right here in the hospital where there are likely hundreds of poorly secured systems and wireless networks just waiting to be cracked.
Simon realizes his safest bet is to do what he knows best. He walks out of sight from the receptionist, stations himself around the corner from a waiting room, slings his messenger bag over his knee, and cracks open a tablet. He’s on the network in minutes and has honed in on the radiology fileserver soon after. Sure enough, every x-ray he’s taken is a time stamped file in a folder mapping to what appears to be his patient number. It takes longer to copy the files across the air than it took for Simon to run his entire sortie.
While he’s copying the files Simon decides to do a little further investigation. Uncertain exactly how all the pieces play together to create a legitimate certificate of death he decides to poke around the morgue records. Thankful that the naming conventions map almost perfectly to the directory, he is able to find exactly what he’s looking for in no time. What becomes increasingly evident is that the medical certifier’s credentials are as important as the identity of the deceased. Simon grabs a handful of certificates based on time stamp, careful to cover several days’ worth of records spanning multiple shifts. He pops up a couple of directories looking for any other reference materials that might be useful. Lo and behold he hits the jackpot. There, in pristine PDF format, as clear as day, he finds the CDC published Physicians’ Handbook on Medical Certification of Death. He then jumps over to the HR system and grabs an employee directory and time tables.
It isn’t until he’s shutting down that Simon realizes how easy it would be to harvest untold identities and credit cards out of this honey box. He’s nearly ashamed of himself for not having thought of it sooner. It pains him to think that he may never have the pleasure.
