I look around, scratching at my newly implanted bracelet again. It draws attention and I have to make an effort to stop. They all look at me anyway, even with sideway glances.

Of course they do.

Even if some of them were newly implanted too, the bracelet isn't new to them. They're used to it ever since getting into middle school. To me, it's a brain new thing and I can't seem to get used to it. The surgeons had implanted the base in my bones a few weeks ago. It wasn't a painless operation. Usually they did it on young ones for a reason... Working despite the pain had been unpleasant to say the least. After a few days, when the implant was all set and my mind close to blank out, they had added the bracelet itself. Another very NOT painless surgery, emphasis on the 'not' that the nurse had seemingly forgot to speak in between the 'very' and the 'painless' words when he'd explained the thing to me. That second surgery had added a small ring of alloy at first, that endlessly spun around my wrist.

And finally a few days ago the surgeons had decided I had healed enough so they could add the outer circle with all the functionalities.

And here I am, sitting in the post-care/rest room, surrounded by calm children and teenagers glancing at the sole grown up, that's me, being very restless on his seat, waiting for his name to get cleared up from the big screen above us all, scratching again and again at his bracelet even though he'd been clearly told not to.

That last surgery was surprisingly not painful, on the physical plan at least, but it definitely is the worst on the psychological plan.

I still feel like I can take all of the heavy steel off and feel my bare wrist again. I surely want to. Yet I know it ain't ever gonna happen. Once implanted, it is until death parted us... Or unless I loose the arm with it...

I really don't mean to die any soon and I do like my arm where it is.

I'll manage.

My name disappears from the screen's list and I stand up, a bit stiff, walking to the door under the children's stares, and scanning the bracelet with a bit of stress. If the damn thing doesn't work, it means I'll have to walk back to my seat and push the button to call up a nurse and get back to surgery again.

I really don't want that to happen.

The scan makes a single biping sound, my bracelet's screen comes to life briefly and starts showing up my profil before - TA DA! - opening the door.

Congratulation, man : The implant works !

Your skill set has been expanded : you can now open doors.

I smile at my own inner joke, satisfied and yet bitter as I walk out onto the street to take a deep breath of air, seeking a faint sensation of freedom here, buried under a hundred of deck levels from the top of the city and above another hundred of levels from the earth.

It doesn't smell like freedom.

Not with all the buildings, the decks, the alloys, the vehicles, the lights and the noisy crowd.

But with my bracelet now I am - almost - a normal citizen. I can pay for my own food, my own clothes and hygienic products, I can open doors, I can drive a car, communicate through vocal and text channels, take a medical appointment, enter a restaurant, turn on a computer, watch the information feeds, and pay for my own small cup of coffee... finally !

I'm not depending on short termed devices and friends charity anymore.

People glance at me and at the clinic's back door, wondering what's an adult doing there, standing in the middle of the crowd and breaking everyone's pattern as they have to dodge me. I don't really care. I don't know if it's the surgery but I feel off.

I had fought against the bracelet's idea for a long while. It was against everything I had fought and stood for all these years to have a chip set into my bone so that every single data about my localisation, my money use and my body's health could be monitored remotely by the authorities. But I had given up the fight when it had downed on me I didn't have much choice left if I wanted to keep living instead of surviving. And maybe dying.

They know what they're doing with this system.

No bracelet ? No normal life.

And in the end no life at all.

In the span of two years, I hadn't met a single person like me, fighting against their so called « life and security improvement. »

I'd been the only one. People most likely had fought this measure when it had first been imposed on them. But I hadn't been there then.

I feel like a chipped dog now, and I hate it, but I had been sick of the short termed devices breaking up before their official dates, syphoning my bank account, and I had been unable to deal anymore with the endless administrative files to fill in each and every times it happened, almost once every two to three weeks, leaving me unable to feed or enter my apartment for nights and days sometimes.

Now, no more administrative headache, no more trading services to get someone to buy my groceries for me, no more atrocious toothache to endure for lack of healthcare, no more doctor leaving me wailing on a stretcher with a bullet deep into my arm while allegedly verifying my true identity, no more me waiting outside in the rain for someone to open the fucking door to my own apartment's hall.

I may be a chipped dog now, but at least I am a dog who can take shelter inside instead of waiting for its death.

I am a chipped dog with a home, a job, and possibilities.

It will take some time adjusting to it, that's all. I'll be fidgeting with the bracelet until it becomes a part of me. They all did, why wouldn't I ?

I'm scratching it again. My skin's raw and the bitter taste won't leave.

I know I'm trying to convince myself, and right now I'm not doing a good job of it.

I promised I'd live... This wasn't living, it was surviving and it makes quite a difference... Yves taught me that difference...

I close my eyes, forcing myself to stop the scratching. I have to keep moving. Both literally and figuratively. Or I'll end up late.

I lift my face up and take a deep breath before tightening my grip on my backpack to start walking on the busy deck street again, making my way through the crowd out of habit. I know I could take the transports now but I'd rather be moving on my own rather than be locked up inside a metal box without a driver and overwhelmed with busy people. I could drive an individual vehicle too, but I guess after what happened one month ago it'd be better for everyone if I avoided driving here for a little while.

I can't help but stop in front of a commercial center's huge and colorful entry hall. I look up, taking in its four levels of holographic ads and displayed store racks.

What am I gonna buy myself first ?

Clothes ? Furnitures ? Tools ? Music ? I'd practically kill to get my hands on a headset and a playlist. But as I look at the entrance again, at the thick line of people coming in and out I already feel like running away.

Maybe coffee for a start ?

My stomach's growling. I haven't eaten anything yet, the surgery requiring me to be on a strict diet. They could have offered a little something on the way out couldn't they ?

A small cake, a juice or even just a little candy. Is that too much to ask ?

I turn away from the commercial center, focusing on a self-serve coffee machine hidden behind an alcove. I shove my bracelet in front of it and its screen turns on immediately, revealing something that feels a lot like a complex math equation I can't quite comprehend. I nearly feel nauseous.

I want a coffee. Plain, simple, without having one hundred parameters to set beforehand. How much fl oz of milk and how many ounces of sugar was that ? I didn't even know those units actually. I just want a coffee.

Is that too much too ?

I bail out, quite upset and lost, with my still growling stomach accusing me of starving it on purpose now, and fleeing fast under the cynical stares and smirks of a few guys smoking beside the machine.

I try to ignore them.

I WILL manage.

It's only a question of time. It's only been two months since the beginning of the procedure. It's the quickest procedure ever, or so I've been told. It should have taken months.

I have to give myself time.

It will be hard, but it will be okay.

Even if it bothers them or make them laugh. All of them. My colleagues. The commercials. The street passer byes. The children.

I won't hide away or I'll never make it.

I'll give myself the time to adjust and learn even if it keeps reminding them that, somehow, I am not one of them. I can't be. I am an outlander to them. Only an outlander would scratch a bracelet like that and be lost while trying to do any simple transaction, right ?

That's what they think, and yet I am just like them. I was born and raised here. The difference is, for the last few years, I was abroad.

That doesn't help.

That I was abroad as a career soldier, deep into a foreign war, doesn't help my case at all.