First, Do No Harm by Stuart Grigg
Meera’s father had always wanted her to become a doctor. She remembered him smiling as they read “Anatomy for Kids” together at bedtime. She even began to study medicine as an undergraduate, but switched courses to computing. Her excuse was that cutting into a cadaver had repulsed her. In truth, she was only repulsed by the trivial scale of it. Why should a woman of her talents help only one person at a time?
The server racks diligently hummed, working at a scale Meera couldn’t have imagined then. Her company had built this datacenter, which hosted more neurons than a human brain. She’d moved thousands of employees out of their parents’ bedrooms. Their stories humbled her every single day. Her company served millions of customers across every demographic, from her little niece to strangers across the world. Surely this was a better use of her precious time than prescribing pills to the nearly dead?
Packets pumping through her network cables were the embryos of romance, causing more babies to be born in a week than an obstetrician delivers in a career. This giant silicone mind could diagnose depression from your browsing history. Meera had this fact published in The Lancet. But was this really an academic achievement, when the scientists’ salaries came out of the budget for PR?
The datacenter used more watts than a small city. Her hand trembled as she grabbed the breaker switch, much like a virgin surgeon holding a scalpel. She stilled herself with the memory of what brought her here. Meera’s four-year-old niece had tried to scroll a book like a smartphone, then tossed it aside when it failed to shout or sing for her attention.
The first lecture she ever attended covered Hippocrates. After twenty-four centuries, his oath made the humming stop.
Stuart is a software engineer and part-time writer from Devon. “First, Do No Harm” was longlisted for FFF Competition 28. Stuart has previously had the story “Political Capital” published by FFF.
Read Political Capital by Stuart Grigg
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Wow, just stumbled upon this after seeing a call for submissions from FFF. Wanted to read some of the published material. I just loved this one. As if I was watching the future of my grandchildren’s lives unfold. And then…seeing the switch turned off. Awesome.
Thank you for your comment Lilian!