Special Delivery

Osayi was speeding through the dark streets on her hover bike. The sprawling metropolis seemed to grow upwards and outwards with every passing day. As a courier, she was one of the few people with an intimate knowledge of the shape of the city, but everyday there was something new to surprise her. She swerved to avoid boy as she drove by the tenth floor of an apartment block in the residential district. He was chasing a butterfly and his safety bubble elongated around him as he moved through the window and into the air, so there was no way she could have hurt him. Driving hazards rarely meant a risk of injury nowadays, but they certainly had the potential to jeopardise her punctuality.

Excellence in all aspects of her work motivated Osayi. It was the reason that she decided to take on the courier role. As a cybernetic engineer, she could have stopped at just developing the implants. She did not have to deliver them or install them, but she wanted to ensure that from creation to implantation, there were no slip-ups. Her husband called her a perfectionist. Perhaps she was, but the work was too important for mistakes, too important for miscommunications and things being lost in handovers.

She could see the pink and purple neon lights of Uromi coming into view. She reviewed the patient’s dossier via her holo glasses. Abele, an elderly woman, had fallen over and suffered a brain injury. Her memory and control of motor activity had begun to deteriorate, so the neural implant Osayi had crafted was needed to restore her cognitive functioning. The old woman’s building was within sight. It was a tall building in the centre of the city, like all elderly living facilities. Osayi could hear the sound of music as she made her way up to the parking bay on the roof. They were having a party. She smiled. Soon the Abele would have her implant in and be back partying with her friends.