© URASHIMA Hisashi – used by permission
Monday Morning in the Land of Lifetime
by Anne Shimeki
On the very last day of his life, Ken Sato was walking on a beach just down the hill from where his home used to be. The dark waves of the Sea of Okhotsk churned and crashed on the rocks in the distance. Lost in thought, he didn’t notice the seaweed-covered body until he almost tripped over it. The body was male, probably only dead for a day, two at most, yet the features were already impossible to discern. How quickly did dead bodies start to decompose? Ken had no idea. Nobody had seen an actual dead human in over a century. Not officially, at least.
As Ken leaned in closer, he noticed that the corpse wore a handcuff on the left wrist. The other end of the handcuff led to a metal briefcase partially buried in the sand.
Ken hesitated, then reached down and gingerly removed the briefcase from the sand. He brushed away the grit to reveal a name that had been engraved on the front of the case.
It read: Ken Sato.
“Awwww…what!” He was about to let out a string of choice expletives when the dead man’s eyelids fluttered and the left eye opened. The right one was glued shut with a thick layer of seaweed. The ocular nanocamera rotated and focused on Ken’s face recording the biometrics.
He should have never touched that damned briefcase. The moment he did, it activated the message delivery system in the dead man’s circuitry.
“Ken Sato. You’ve been served.”
With its mission now completed, the corpse dissolved and vanished into the sand. Only a pile of seaweed and the briefcase with one dangling handcuff were left behind.
Ken knew what was inside the case but opened it anyway:
The request put forward by the Loyalty to Life Coalition, Family and Friends Division, to delay your 3R date has been granted, effective immediately. A new date will be scheduled pending further review of the case as per Article 6, Section 154, Paragraph 71…You have the right to appeal…legalese, legalese, legalese.
This was not going to be the last day of his life after all.
Ken left the briefcase sitting in the sand and walked back to his vehicle. The aeroglider was the only thing he still owned. In preparation for what was supposed to be his 3R date, his final 3R date, he divested himself of everything else. The house was now a pet donkey sanctuary because apparently the advances in medical science applied only to humans and not their animal companions. And the rest of his possessions? Reduced, reused and recycled to the last atom. Or, so he hoped.
Loyalty to Life folks were getting more and more creative with their tactics to prevent him, and others like him, from peacefully leaving this no-longer-very-mortal plane. But using an engineered corpse for shock value? That was a new low.
Ken called his lawyer.
“Mr. Sato, we’re on it. We filed an automatic appeal. We’ll get you a new date. It may be a couple of decades out, but we’ll push it through as fast as we can.” The lawyer was a sultry 267-year-old woman with a smokey voice. In a world where nicotine and alcohol were no longer deadly, anyone could sound like a raspy addict in need of a new lung. She had taken over his case pro bono, fifty-odd years ago when his previous lawyer decided that representing a 3R client was against his moral principles. Or financial interests. Same difference.
“And the couple that was waiting for your 3R date has been taken off the child permit registry list. I’m so sorry.” Ms. Tanaka disconnected.
Yeah, that’s what he got for trying to do the right thing the right way, Ken thought. Private recycling agreements between people like him and families waiting for a child permit usually worked fine. Someone had to go so a new someone could take their place. But with the life expectancy about to reach four digits and the constitutional sanctity of life, checking out of this world the legal way had become increasingly difficult.
And the illegal way? Ken shrugged. He had tried that before. The medics brought him back every damn time and used the occasions to refurbish or upgrade every part of his body that needed maintenance. Apart from his brain. And his brain was tired. He still remembered the late 21st century when the declining birth rate and the aging population crisis had made Japan the world leader in longevity research. The life tech had later saved humanity from post-war extinction and had kept them alive. And now kept on keeping on them alive.
By the time he reached his vehicle, a rep from 3R was already waiting for him. A holographic banner of “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” fluttered behind her.
“Mr. Sato, we’re here to support you. We’ve been through this before. And we’ll get through this final roadblock, too.”
“That was your spiel the last time,” Ken said.
“Not mine, my predecessor’s,” the woman’s words were dripping with indignation.
Ken looked her up and down. True. This one was not a day older than one hundred. Probably from the last batch of live births, right before when the One Out, One In laws had come into effect. 3R must have been her first job, and not out of conviction, but because it paid well. 3R centers were not exactly the most popular places of employment. In the current climate, it was a miracle they still existed at all. Though if the folks at LoCo had anything to say about it, not for a long.
“Mr. Sato, as with every court mandated postponement, we are obligated to offer you counseling to reconsider your decision,” the rep said.
Ken waved her away. He got in his aeroglider and sped towards the pet donkey sanctuary.
The very last day of his life would have to be rescheduled.
Again.
The End
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