Contact Tracing

We saw what the health professions wanted from us for Covid. What would they demand if a truly nasty bug came along?

Photo by Jarin Dominguez on Unsplash

Mary broke off the kiss just long enough to say, “Don’t get too close.”

“I won’t,” promised Charlie.

That let her relax enough to enjoy the kisses, and what Charlie was doing under her shirt.

She squeaked as he leaned too hard on her thigh. The boy muttered, “Sorry,” and shifted, sitting down on the car seat and pulling her into his lap.

Mary’s phone chimed.

“Oh, shit,” she said. She shoved him away and pulled it out of her purse. “Oh, dammit. You triggered an alert!”

Charlie held up his hands in surrender. “I’m sorry! I though we had enough room. I didn’t mean to.”

“You flipping idiot. Now my parents are getting a notification. They’re going to know exactly what we were doing!”

“Sorry. I was trying to keep minimum distance. And we separated right away.”

“As if that matters. Dammit. I wish we lived in the old days when kids could have privacy.”

“Me, too,” said Charlie. After a few moments went by without her saying anything more, he said, “Want me to drive you home?”

“Yeah.”

At her house Mary relented enough to give Charlie a brief good night kiss.

Her parents were in bed, fortunately. They wouldn’t see the notification message until morning.

Mary decided to take a shower. Not that it would wash away the shame of her business being told to the world, but it would make her feel better.

As she was rinsing, she reached down and pinched herself. She could feel it, the chip implanted when she was thirteen. It was mandatory for everyone, though there were a few people still evading it at the cost of never receiving medical treatment.

When the airborne plagues of the 2020s were succeeded by the more contagious and lethal venereal ones of the 2030s, the government decided doing contact tracing by asking people wasn’t good enough. So a crash R&D program produced RFID-enabled chips which could be implanted in people’s genitals and announce by radio when another chip came within two or three inches.

Despite widespread protests, many people obtained chips at the earliest opportunity. Being “chipped” was a major filter in dating services. Those who refused chips frequently found themselves only able to fool around with each other, which limited the spread of the lethal venereal diseases.

Mary had been taught all that in school. She knew the reasons. She just didn’t like it.

---

In the morning she made some oatmeal and brought it to the breakfast table. Her parents were already sitting there, eating high roughage cereal and scanning the news on their tablets.

“Good morning,” said her mother. Her father gave her a smile.

She sat down. “So, you probably received a notification about me last night.”

They nodded.

“We were just kissing! I swear! Kissing, that’s all.”

They weren’t shocked. Her mother smiled for an instant.

“A one second contact isn’t something we worry about,” said her father. “That could be dancing, or a crowded elevator, or some other accident. If it was five minutes, we might leap to conclusions.”

“Oh.” Mary swallowed a spoonful of oatmeal. Could she have brazened it out and never mentioned it? No, it would have kept worrying at her. Better to have it out.

“Charlie was at the Regency-theme dance, wasn’t he?” asked her mother. “He seems like a good guy.”

“He is. He’s a great neo-waltzer.” Of course her parents had checked the name on the notification. They’d probably pulled Charlie’s chip record, too. “Dammit, why can’t those records be private? We shouldn’t have anybody be able to pull up everyone’s records.”

Her mother shrugged. “We tried that, dear. The first decade of the chips, only authorized medical and police facilities were allowed to check the records.”

Mary swallowed more oatmeal. “That’s sensible. I’d be okay with that. Why’d they change it?”

“Too many people wanted to steal the info,” said her father. “Nurses checking on their dates. Reporters wanting info on politicians. Cops curious about celebrities. And hackers wanting the whole database.”

“There was a lot of that?”

Both parents laughed. “Oh, yes,” said her father. “Millions of people had their records stolen. Almost everyone elected to national office. There was a guy who ran for president and pundits said he’d lose because no one cared enough about him to steal his chip records.”

Her mother shoved her cereal bowl away. “The worst was that church. Some hacker revealed the records. There was lots of adultery going on. There were so many murders the congregation dissolved.”

“The pastor was killed, too,” add her father. “Six months after that the database was made available to anyone providing an acceptable reason. A few years later they gave up and just made it public.”

“Just because of some murders over adultery?”

“Mmmm. I think there were a lot of politicians who figured if their personal lives were being made public, everyone else should have to suffer. But that’s not the official reason.”

Mary sighed. That part had been skipped over in her classes. The school mostly used them as a chance to show pictures of Peruvian Crotchrot and Godavari Boils. “Well, at least the public health people can’t make us get our mouths chipped. That would be hell.”

Another attempt to mandate that had been voted down by Congress two months ago.

Her parents exchanged a look. “Well, actually, we are lip chipped,” said her mother. At Mary’s outraged glare she added, “It’s a little extra reassurance.”

“We all like to have some assurance if we can get it,” said her father. “Did you ever pull Charlie’s chip record?”

She turned beet red. “Yeah.”

Mary took her half-full oatmeal bowl to the sink to rinse down the disposal.

---

Next Friday Charlie picked Mary up for a date. He’d bought tickets to the latest slasher flick, but she didn’t look like she was in the mood for horror. She dropped into the shotgun seat of his car, crossed her arms, and stared at her feet.

“You okay?” asked Charlie.

“No. I’m an idiot.”

“I think you’re smart. Smarter than me.” Hopefully that would cheer her up a little.

The car went a few more miles down the road before she reacted.

Mary looked up at the roof of the car. “If I was smart, I wouldn’t have pulled my parents’ chip records so I could make a point about privacy. I am an idiot.”

“Bad?” he asked.

“Horrible! I wish I didn’t know but I’m never going to be able to forget it.”

“How about I take you for a drive in the country?”

“Sure.”

He set the car on a course to the lakes. Part of him was burning with curiosity, but the smarter part of him knew there were many, many reasons he shouldn’t ask.

“Did your parents give you shit about the notification? I’m still sorry about that.”

“No, they were all understanding and supportive. I just hate the whole world knowing what we’ve been doing.”

“Totally. The school connection graph was already updated with us. Pisses me off.”

That made Mary sit up and look at him. “Wait, are they putting us in that tangle?”

“No, no. We’re off to the side with the other couples.”

She relaxed. “Okay. That’s not that bad. Did your parents hassle you about it?”

Charlie shook his head. “My mom didn’t say anything. And my dad’s a jerk.”

He hoped she wouldn’t ask for his father’s exact words. The old man had a primitive take on romance.

A few more miles went by quietly.

“I really wish I wasn’t such an idiot,” said Mary.

“Somebody needs to invent some brain bleach so we can forget stuff like that.”

That drew a laugh from her. Good. He tried to think of a way to distract her some more.

“Hey, my scout troop is doing a campout for beginners next month. Want to spend a weekend in the woods with us? I have a solo tent I can loan you.”

She shifted in the seat to face him. “Maybe. What all are you going to do out there?”

Charlie talked about camping, hiking, and cooking over open fires until they reached one of the park pavilions by the lake. He parked and took an item from the car trunk.

It was a warm night. Mary didn’t hesitate when he led her over to one of the park benches facing the lake.

“I thought we could watch the Moon for a bit.”

She leaned against him on the bench. “Yeah. But it’d be more romantic if it was a full moon.”

The crescent hovering over the lake was almost hair thin. The moon would be new tomorrow.

“There’s something we can see now we can’t see then.”

Charlie took a pair of binoculars out of the case he’d brought from the car. He showed her how to adjust the focus and zoom in. Then he walked around the bench to stand behind her and guide her view.

“Okay. Start at the top of the crescent Moon. Scan straight down to about halfway to the center. Then zoom in.”

Mary followed the directions, concentrating hard on the unfamiliar controls. “Hey! There’s a dot. A dot of light!”

He grinned. “Yep. That’s the base under construction in Aristillus crater. Maybe in a few years we could go there. That’s a place we could have some real privacy.”

“Oh, God, I’d love that.” She let the binoculars hang from their strap around her neck and tilted her head back to look at him.

Charlie said, “And by the way, there’s enough concrete in the back of this bench to block radio waves.”

He leaned down and pressed his lips to hers. Mary reached up. Her hands gripped his shoulders, holding him close as he could be with the bench between them.

If you’re interested in more of Karl K. Gallagher’s stories, check out his novels on Amazon and Audible.