The eye-machine was unfolding an ultrathin slip to reshape his lens with cool ultraviolet light. The surgery had been performed for over seventy five years. It would, without dryness or foggy vision, correct his nearsightedness to almost perfect 20-20 vision. But, they say, there is a chip which the eye-machine implants underneath the ultrathin slip, and that is how we have medication visions. The obvious answer for skeptics of this theory is that eye-machine surgeries were not mandatory, and to that effect, the theory explained, one third of the American population were just crazy, and the strange hallucinations that projected themselves out of 'zines and mov's were just a side effect of a pathological condition. It could be very serious. And they must speak to one of the nearby gov-zone physicians with a description of these symptoms. But to the him they would say, wasn't he proud of the eye-machines chipping of him? Because aren't the 'zines a lot cooler now?

His med-subscription was very advanced and costly, yet he got them for free from his older cousin Steve, the medicine distributor or med-dibber for short, or professionalman.

Yes, professionalman. That is what he would be calling them from now on. That was what Lisa called them and, well, he supposed if he was going to be a professionalman he should keep calling them med-dibbers. But he would know that he wasn't a real one, and secretly call them professionalmen. Or maybe something of his own fashioning. 'Zine handler? Media mogul?

He learned that word in school, media mogul. They were who had taken over other countries and we were fighting them, absolute mind-fucks they are, or his teacher had said that quietly to another teacher and Barett and his friend had over-heard them.