La très catastrophique visite du zoo

Joël Dicker

Description

Beatrice and Fancy Fox had a full day of temple activities scheduled this day. The activity they had scheduled for their midday break in the planned activities was for Fancy Fox to die before moving her Spirit into an android. Afterward, Beatrice and Fancy Fox had an appointment with Lyllia. Fancy Fox was unconcerned with the activity. The reason she picked this busy day for her euthanasia was the medics' report on her mental health. She could undergo an oxygenation procedure that would give her brain another five years, maybe even seven. However, Fancy Fox decided that to die now was the best option because the medic's report indicated this as an optimum time to avoid pain before death. Her body was simply giving out too fast for any brain rejuvenation to really matter; Fancy Fox really did not want to experience unneeded pain. Fancy Fox also wanted to dance at the Prime Minister's Dead Day ball the next evening with the Southern President.
Beatrice had ordered an android for Fancy Fox some months before in anticipation of this event. Fancy Fox had been extensively imaged over her very long and productive life. She wanted to look young, so she had picked the holographic image from her Temple identification badge that represented her body when she was forty years old. Fancy Fox wanted to look young, it is true, but also look as if she were old enough to make informed decisions. The two had been laughing and gossiping about the decision on the chosen image as they signed in before entering the euthanasia room. Beatrice had been teasing Fancy Fox that she should use her graduation hologram from her license ceremony. Fancy Fox was laughing at the idea of perpetually being asked for her identification to travel if her identification reported her age as nineteen.
The two women could share each other's minds, so neither would be surprised by any reaction the other would have to the procedure. Fancy Fox patted her friend's ageless brown android right hand between her wrinkled aged black hands as the time approached for the process of transition from mortal to Spirit.
Fancy Fox just rolled her eyes, still bright green, when Beatrice asked if she would like to share Beatrice's memory unit until Lyllia could help integrate Fancy Fox into a machine. Fancy Fox laughed, [Beatrice, how hard can it be? We have some Spirits who are real klutzes, and they are fine with the new machines.]
When the time came, Fancy Fox hit the red button on the couch exactly the way she hit it when Lumna Naket was executed by the Shaman Court. Fancy Fox took off her hunting suit, folded it, placed her hunting suit in the android's lap, and elevated her naked body to slip into the medical blanket for the dying process to begin. Four needles found two arteries and two veins before the pumps began circulating her blood out of her body. Her body died quickly. Fancy Fox's android had been parked in the corner of the room near the bed sitting on the chair reserved for her spouse. Her android had been delivered and set up by the temple maintenance crew when the time began for the room.
Fancy Fox walked the android over to Beatrice, after putting her hunting suit back on, to sit by Beatrice while the drugs took effect to prepare Fancy Fox's ancient body for recycling. The ancient and aged body finally slid on the bed into the recycler to be turned into nutrients for the hydroponics farms.
Both women sighed and performed the traditional wave of separation together.
Fancy Fox adlibbed, "Goodbye, old friend," as she waved goodbye to her wrinkled body.
Beatrice looked over at her friend and ADC, [Fancy Fox, I have long since ceased to be amazed by anything. I have witnessed many crazy and weird events in twenty plus thousand years, but to have you move from 145-years-old to 40-years-old within one Hansa second has to rank in the top two surprising phenomena I will always remember.]

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