Advance Detective

John Price AD

My name is John Price AD, and I have to decide if someone lives or dies. That's my only job, that's why I'm here, that's my goddamned raison d'etre, pardon my French.

If this particular person hadn't popped a clot out of his heart and got it lodged in his brain, subsequently wound up on the stroke ward of the local District General with no movement in his right side and not much in the way of consciousness either, I wouldn't be here. Literally.

I can't go and touch this poor bastard, can't hold his hand or shake his shoulder myself, can't try and reach him physically. But I've got a whole shed load of different camera views from my little room, and I can see it's pretty much a hopeless case. He hasn't really woken up, not since he's been brought in. Sometimes his eyes flicker open and stare blankly at the camera on the left – not to the right, I'm not even certain he's really aware of what right means anymore – sometimes he moans or cries. But there isn't much light behind those eyes, that's for sure. They're feeding him by a tube that goes down his nose into his belly, because the muscles in his throat don't work properly anymore, and if he ate anything, half of it would probably wind up in his lungs.

All in all, the guy's in a pretty shitty state, as I say.

But it's a tough call to make, tough as hell.

That's what I'm here for. That's what he wanted, what I wanted.

That's why I was constructed, from his brain twenty years back, when it was young and optimistic, and didn't have a big gaping chunk of necrotic white matter rotting away on one side like a worm in an apple.

It's tough waking up one day and realizing you're not real.

It's even tougher seeing what you've become, and then having to decide whether to pull the plug.