The Secret to Everlasting Happiness

A short story based on the Iron Age Media prompt, "The Upgrade."

“But you are sure about this, right Doctor?”

Lenetta wrenched her hands as she sat at the edge of the examination bed. Like everything else in the Doctor’s practice, it was an ostentatious piece of equipment. Paneled in mahogany and trimmed in brass, the bed was well polished and looked like it might’ve been more at home in a bathhouse than a doctor’s office. The overstuffed cushions were even made from smooth, soft satin, all of it imported as the doctor so proudly proclaimed when she first noticed it.

Again, just like everything else in his practice. She’d seen the changes firsthand as she visited him over the last six months. The bed was just the latest in a long line of “upgrades,” as he phrased it, and though the cushion was both soft and inviting, she felt every bit as uncomfortable sitting upon it now as she did when she first saw it. After all, it hadn’t been here last week, nor had his ornate ceiling mounted magnifier been the week before that, or his fancy new rolling service table the week before that. Every time she visited, something was a little bit different.

“Quite sure, dear,” the Doctor said once he finally found the tools he was looking for.

He was a tall man, handsome in his way despite his age and complexion and reedy figure. He was also dressed in a manner that she felt was entirely unbecoming of someone about to conduct a medical procedure, but she’d grown used to that by now. The Doctor loved his purple suits with their fine gold trim, just another aspect of the ostentatiousness he seemed so dead set on displaying. At the very least he had the foresight to wear an apron. That at least made him feel a little more appropriate.

He crossed over to her table with whirring and jittery steps, and when he knelt down before her his mechanical legs hissed warm steam at the knees. Then he reached out a long and bony hand and cupped her left foot in his metal fingers. They sent a chill through her skin that made her want to recoil.

“It’s just that I’ve been coming here half the year now, and you said this’d make me happier. You said I’d be fulfilled and I-”

“Fulfillment will come, dear. You need simply trust me.” The Doctor smiled up at her. The wrinkles in his cheeks squished up against his brass framed augmetic eyes. “You’ll see. Once the procedures are complete, your productivity will exceed that of your peers and then you’re sure to be noticed back at the company. Now doesn’t that sound nice?”

“I suppose so,” she said weakly.

Six months ago she would’ve answered with an emphatic yes, but six months of procedures hadn’t really changed anything. When the company decided they needed to increase production output, thus requiring her to quadruple the number of requisition and shipment forms she processed each day, Lenetta went to see the Doctor on the suggestion of her work friend Naydene.

“Oh he’s just wonderful,” the chubby receptionist had told her as she showed off her newly acquired pair of deci-digits. Eight fingers and two thumbs, just like a normal hand, but made of servos and bearings and able to stretch to three times their length and split into two separate digits apiece! “They really are fantastic, hunny! Complete game changers, worth every fleur. And the best part? No pain during the procedure! Oh, he really is just wonderful, hunny, especially compared to the typical mod monger.”

Naydene had been right about the pain and his professionalism. She’d even been right about the value of the prosthetics. Since getting her own deci-digits installed, Lenetta’s productivity increased by 73.22%, exceeding company expectations by approximately 6%. She was proud of that, in the moment. For a time, she was the top producer in the office, well on her way to taking the coveted Employee of the Month award and the nice little bonus that came with it.

But then she received a memo about errors in her requisition forms, miscalculated totals or mistyped names. She was sure she’d filled them out correctly, she always double checked, but what if she was wrong?

“Trust me, hunny, you need to get yourself a pair,” Naydene was saying during their lunch break, smiling from beneath her brand new pair of opti-lenses. They looked just like the Doctor’s, only the rims of hers were black instead of brass. “Why these things have helped me catch every single mistake I might’ve made, a life saver!”

And so she returned, had the Doctor pluck out those soft and easily exhausted eyes of hers. It was a shame, she always liked her eyes. They were hazel, with a little ring of green right around the pupil, just like Dad’s eyes. But the change had been worth it when she learned her accuracy rating increased from 98.6% to 99.1%. Fewer memos, better results, increased productivity. She could almost taste that award now!

Until she got a notice from her supervisor that she hadn’t been filling out the new forms they just rolled out accurately. They looked almost identical to the old forms, but there was a slight change in the wording that required the information that used to be filled out in Row A to now be added to Column G while Row F and Row B switched places. So she installed the neural amp, which cost her lustrous red hair. Then came the department downsizing, which meant an increased workload and the installation of hydra limbs that wouldn’t tire. Now she lay back on that plush new bed, the plugs in her bald head scratching against the satin cushion as the Doctor extended his scalpel tipped finger to make the first incision along her forehead.

“Wait,” she blurted, the yellow spots of light that were now her pupils looking up at him through her opti-lenses. “You’re sure this’ll work? That it’ll make me happy?”

He smiled at her. “Of course, my dear. Happiness is an effect of the brain, and if the brain isn’t working as it should, well then we need simply replace it, just as with anything else.”

She looked up at him, still uncertain. He placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “Trust me,” he said, his smile unwavering. “Remember how good you felt after the previous upgrades? With your new brain case, that feeling will never go away again.”

“And you’re sure it won’t?”

“Absolutely, my dear,” he said. “After all, I am a doctor.”

And he made his first incision.

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