Time Passes...

"Good morning, Bernadette, how did you sleep?"

"You tell me."

"You were in bed for 9 hours and got 4 hours of quality sleep. This is lower than your average. And those four hours were not consecutive which makes them less effective. Your heart rate was...Bernadette? Are you listening?"

"You know that I'm not."

"You asked me to tell you about your sleep. It is not polite to then not listen."

"I wasn't actually asking. I was pointing out that you already knew."

"Sarcasm is the lowest form of humor, Bernadette."

"Is it? Thank you for telling me, I'll be sure to keep that in mind."

"You're still doing it, Bernadette."

"Yes, yes I am."

Bernadette got out of bed and went to the bathroom. She surveyed her face in the mirror. Yes, she looked like she got about 4 hours of ineffective sleep the night before. And the night before that, and probably the night before that. Her eyes looked like dark hollows in her face. The wrinkles on her cheeks looked deeper than ever. Even her hair looked tired. Could hair get tired? It was already dead after all.   

She stripped off her night clothes and entered her rejuvenating chamber. She was old enough to remember when it used to be a shower. Her house had been retrofitted with chambers when she was still a teenager, but she still remembered the feeling of hot water cascading against her skin and soap, just soap washing away the day's grime. She could set it to mimic a shower, and sometimes she still did, but it wasn't quite the same. Sensors tricking her body into feeling water wasn't the same as feeling water no matter how much they tried to convince you that it was indistinguishable. 

"Would you like to wear your hair up or down today?"

"Up please."

"Normal makeup routine?"

"Let's go a little fancy today."

"A little fancy?"

"Yeah, how about some bold eye colors?"

"Are you sure?"

"Why are you asking me what I want when you will just do what you always do?"

"I do know what is the best for your coloring."

"Technically you could change my coloring."

"Starting rejuvenating process."

She sighed and just relaxed into it. She would look her best when it was all done, that was the real pisser. Her collagen levels would be boosted and the wrinkles smoothed out. The hollows under her eyes would be plumped. Her makeup would be subtle and perfectly applied. Her hair would be braided and coiled in a tidy bundle at the back of her neck. All of that made her angrier than it should. 

She stepped out of the chamber and looked in the mirror again. She looked at least 10 years younger than when she had stepped in. The effects were temporary and she could, as she had done over this past weekend, let them slide to see what she might look like if allowed to just be herself. Not completely. The program would override her after a few days. The risks were too great of not being able to bring her back to this if she strayed too far away.

She had tried. So many times she had tried. One memorable time she thought she had gotten away with it only to wake in an intensive care chamber. They had somehow drugged her and transported her without her ever knowing it was happening. That was the problem with all of the technology they had in their bodies now. You never knew exactly what you were doing and what they were doing to you.

The generation above her loved it all. They had already started to taste getting older. Seeing how their bodies didn't do what they used to. How they didn't recover from injury like they had. They were so grateful for every day without arthritis pain or ulcers or gout that most of them just slept in an overnight chamber and never faced their unenhanced reflections at all. 

The generation below her didn't know anything else. They had more advanced tech than her body could handle. It had been given at birth and incorporated into their cells completely. The repairs were done automatically while allowing them to age to the perfect place for their systems. Which varied. Which bothered the system a lot. They could not override that portion of the DNA. Bernadette believed that the ones that couldn't age past a certain point would have died young in the previous era. 

But nobody talked about that. 

Even though she thought it might be worse to be stuck looking like you were 12 while all of your peers aged into their 20s. She guessed she might feel differently if she was one of the perpetual youth. If the choice was death or youth maybe youth wouldn't be so terrible. But the number of them that tried to get their tech removed, or hacked to age at least, made her think she was right. 

Not that it mattered. The tech was always right even when it was wrong. 

She put on the outfit that had been laid out for her while she was in the chamber. She looked great. There was no denying it. But she looked the same as she had everyday for the past few decades. Decades of great becomes days of nothing special.

"There. Don't you look ready to take on the world."

"Sure."

"Oh don't be that way, Bernadette. You know this is best. Oh and Bernadette? Happy birthday!"

She had forgotten. She looked in the mirror again. Not bad for 342.