Birthday

“Alright, I’m heading to the center,” Brady said.

Okay,” Mary returned. “Don’t forget your hat.”

It was promising to be a sunny, hot July day, and she always worried about him burning his head and getting skin cancer. Tom lifted it from the nail next to the door, the only thing on the bare walls of their 225-square-foot Section 8 housing.

Tom pulled the door closed and locked it. He had a twenty-minute walk ahead of him, a thought he laughed at.

“Guess they forgot about us old folk when they planned these 15-minute towns,” he chuckled.

It was his 72nd birthday, and he had to get the only license he needed since the Treaty of Albuquerque, ending World War III, became effective over five years before. They had stripped his and Mary’s driving privileges when they confiscated their gas-operated vehicles, so having a First Amendment permit was all that Tom needed.

Mary had her First Amendment ‘R’ license for reading as she did not like writing. She had just renewed hers four months ago.

Only two people were ahead of Tom when he took his number, 2854, and sat down. It would be another half hour before being flashed on the overhead screen.

“Hello,” the brown-haired, blue-eyed dark-skinned woman sitting behind the counter said as he approached. “Please, have a seat.”

Brady did.

“What can I do for you today, Mr. Brady?” she asked.

Facial recognition was everywhere, so it didn’t surprise him that she should know his name before he even had a chance to speak. The idea still gulled him.

“I need to renew my First Amendment ‘W’ license,” he said.

“Very well,” the woman said. “Please plug in your handheld device.”

Tom pulled it from his pocket and hooked it to the chord that sprouted from the desk. The device once called a cell phone, beeped and flashed twice.

“Thank you, Mr. Brady,” the woman said.

He said nothing.

“Is everything current?” she asked as she turned her screen around.

Tom looked it over before answering, “Yes, it is.”

The woman was far too polite for his liking and had not engaged in small talk. That alerted Tom that the woman was an artificially intelligent humanoid, commonly called a Synth.

She tapped away on her keyboard before looking at him and saying, “Our records indicate that you have not published any work in the past five years. Is this correct?”

“Yes, it is,” Brady answered. “I journal just for myself and not for the public.”

The Synth typed more into her keyboard before stating, “I’m sorry, but we cannot reissue you a ‘W’ license because you have not published anything to SkyNet for over one-thousand-eight-hundred and twenty-five days.”

“But I’ve never had to publish anything before,” he said.

“The law was altered on Thursday, January one of this year,” she said.

“I wasn’t aware of that,” Brady said.

“It was in the news,” the Synth stated.

His face turned red with anger, but he avoided saying what he was thinking, an obscenity-laced invective costing him a fine of 25 Ameros, the new cyber money created after the United States merged with Mexico and Canada.

“I don’t watch the news or listen to that silly radio you guys gave me, in fact, I don’t even have Internet or a screen,” Brady commented.

“I am very sorry,” the Synth said.

“Is there any way I can get a waiver, so I can get something published and get my license?” he asked.

“We do not issue waivers, Mr. Brady,” she said.

“God, I wish it would stop with the mister,” Brady thought.

“So how can I get my license?” he asked.

“You have to publish something to the SkyNet,” she said.

“But I have to have a license to do that,” he argued.

She looked at him blankly, then asked, “Is there anything else I can help you with?”

“No,” Brady said, rising from his seat.

As he started for the door, the Synth said, “Happy birthday, Brady.”

He took his time walking home.

Halfway there, it occurred to him that the Synth had called him Brady and excluded the mister.

“Holy shit, now they can read minds,” Brady thought as he felt a cold wave race through his body.

When he unlocked the front door, he hung up his hat.

“So how’d it go?” Mary asked.

“It went great,” Brady lied, kissing her forehead before sitting in his chair and staring at the blank wall, in front of himself.