The System

"I got three 7's in an hour. It was humiliating. I don't even know why I bother going there anymore."

It was the morning after, and my roommate and longtime friend Mark was having one of those mornings that people like him have. You know the type – even the good things in life always have a cloud inside the silver lining. I wonder how they get through the day sometimes. Seriously, if life is so bad here on Earth, go live on another planet or something.

But he won't, of course. He'd rather stay here and try to drag me down with him.

This particular morning he was fuming over our trip to the Mingle Zone the previous night. He's the one who insists on going – hey, I have a girlfriend – and he's the one who almost always comes home disappointed and despondent.

This morning it was because of the 7's – shorthand for "Forget it" – and as he scrolled through last night's data on his Compatibility Transponder, it was clear he was not going to get over this easily.

Mark insists he goes to the MIngle Zone looking for a 1, but he and I and everyone else know that single people – men and women both – go there looking for a 2, or at least a 3. Because they're lonely, and because they think they can turn that 2 or 3 into a 1. Which almost never happens, but hey, a boy can dream, right?

***

Mark and I are young – still on the spry side of 120 – but we're old enough to remember when people met people at parties and bars and such places. They stood around and drank alcohol (remember alcohol?) and listened to music or watched sports on big-screen televisions (remember televisions?), and if they were lucky they found a quiet place to talk and tell each other lies and maybe decided to see each other again.

It was a sweet and quaint system, sure, but change happens, and change is good, right? And just like we don't need alcohol or television anymore, neither do we have to endure those clumsy first moments of an outdated concept like courtship.

We owe it all to Dr. Henry Halifax, of course, the man who invented the Compatibility Transponder. It doesn't eliminate all the mystery – my girlfriend started out as a 3 – but it does eliminate a lot of the futile BS that once complicated our lives.

And for the most part, people are grateful. Whether you're in Indianapolis or Istanbul, you can step into a Mixed Zone and know right away what kind of future you might have with the girl or boy who catches your eye, whether it's a plump Indiana farm girl or a dark, mysterious young Turk.

It's better. Really, it is.

***

The Compatibility Index
© Dr. Henry Halifax, QpD, 2017
1 - The answer is Yes, Now and Forever.
2 - The answer is Yes, for Tonight.
3 - Maybe. Link me and we'll See. (a)
4 - Sorry, taken. But the answer might have been Yes under different Circumstances.
5 - Maybe. Link me and we'll See. (b)
6 - The answer is No, not Now.
7 - The answer is No, not Now, not Ever.
(a) - compatibility score of 51% or higher
(b) - compatibility score of 49% or lower

***

No one is sure which Dr. Halifax figured out first – defining the basic chemical and emotional reactions that people have to one another, or the technology that translates those reactions into electronic data.

But where would we be without him?

It was a fortuitous discovery for the good doctor, too, of course. Even when the World Congress stepped in a demanded that the Transponders be made available to every adult human, regardless of financial status ….

***

"I want to talk to someone. I want to ask questions. What if that stupid Transponder is wrong?"

That's Mark again, talking crazy.

Alone

In the dream, he was in a boat with his family: his son and daughter, his brother and sisters, his mother and father. He sat in the bow in the sunshine with his children as the long wooden boat cut through frothy waves in blue-green water.

Above the noise of the motor and the sound of the sea, they talked about his plan to live with his children on a deserted island. He felt no concern for their safety or well-being; he knew they would be cared for. It was a simple plan and he felt strongly about it. He could sense that his son and daughter were frightened by the idea, but they sat steadfastly by his side and bravely said how much they wanted to do this, too.

His family tried to persuade him not to go. His mother, a decade dead in real life but young and pretty in the boat, told him there would be no food on the island. His father, ageless, smoked a pipe and talked about the difficulty of building shelter without any tools. His brother drove the boat, and his sisters looked sad and told him he could not do this, they would miss him too much.

When they arrived at the island and his brother beached the boat, the front end broke away and separated, leaving him and his son and his daughter sitting on the wooden bench in the bow as it settled onto the pristine white sand as the rest of the boat drifted backward into the churning surf. He could not see the island behind him, only the sand beneath his dangling feet, the surf, and the boat drifting away. "We could go back home and eat first," his daughter said, and then she began to cry. His son wondered aloud if there were wild animals on the island.

"Come back," he called to his family, and they did, silently, and the boat reconnected to the bow and become whole again. As his brother gunned the motor and cut a wide arc through the bright water, sending a rooster tail of white spume high into the air, as his son and daughter huddled near him, as he saw the smiles on the faces of his mother and sisters, he looked back at the island and knew this was wrong.

He should have stayed, alone. Going to the island was not the mistake; his error had been taking the children with him.

"Take me back," he thought, but when he tried to tell them, he could not speak. He looked at the island and tried again, but there was no sound other than the roar of the motor and the rhythmic surge of the boat slicing through the sea. His mouth moved but the words remained trapped and silent in his throat.

No one on the boat looked at him.