Security ... think about it!
We "artificial people" are totally vulnerable to the pass-through metal detectors. They give you an authentic-looking little card at the hospital with dates and surgeons which you are to present to the appropriate authority before you pass through. They won't even look at it — nor should they. It could be counterfeit, after all. But at least it might be a clue that you don't have to be held at gunpoint through the ordeal. As the machine gongs you as a potential master assassin, the feds swarm — just like on the docks in Gloucester. "Please do not move, sir. Step over here." A series of humiliating pats, rolldowns, wandings and scrutiny ensues. Humiliating, because everyone who passes by looks at you as a pathetic troublemaker — which, of course, I am. But I am not a hijacker! "Mommy, is he a bad man?" a little girl asks as I sit in the glass cage in front of every passing passenger. "Don't look, dear," she answers. When he asks me if these are my shoes, I say, "No, those are," and touch my boots on the table. Omigod, I thought they were going to arrest me right then and there. "Sir, you have violated federal regulations. We will now have to rescreen everything in sequence."