Aardvark Posted June 22, 2003 Report Share Posted June 22, 2003 "Mrs Feldman, the doctor will see you now" Anita Feldman had been waiting an hour with her son for the good doctor to see her. His silence had been unnerving her, ever since she found the three year old next to the power junction, apparently lifeless. Not being experienced in the medical profession herself, she did what most people did these days, which was to book into a medical centre. That had been a week ago. Her son had been kept in chronostasis until now, the rules of the establishment barring all forms of temporal technology within 5 klicks of the building. She rose and made her way to the doctor, an attendant helping her move her son. "Take a seat, Mrs Feldman." the Doctor began, "So how has young David been lately?" "Thankyou, Doctor. He's been your average 3 year old, I suppose. His curiosity about the world hasn't abated just yet and I'm afraid that could be why I'm here." "So what seems to be the problem, Mrs Feldman?" "Well, a week ago, I was just realigning the communications matrix atop our home when I heard a scream. I raced down to find my son like this next to a power junction. Ooooh, I don't know what's wrong, I've never seen him like this before." "Well, let me take a look at him." The doctor lifted the boy's shirt and pressed a stethoscope to his chest and listened. He occasionally gave comments like "Breathe in", which young David ignored. Then he shone a torch into David's eyes, ears and down his throat. Finally, he took a small wand and ran it over David's scalp. "Well," began the doctor, "more testing needs to be done, but I'm fairly sure your son is suffering from an advanced case of death." "Oh no! Not death! Can anything be done?" "Relax, Mrs Feldman. just leave your boy with us, we'll do all we can. Now, due to the various cutbacks we've faced since the Human-Galgo war broke out. you may be waiting anything from a month to a year before we can fit him in for revitalising therapy, but he will be kept in perfect condition in the new cryostasis units we did manage to procure last budget. Or, if you like, you can take him home and we'll give you a call when a chamber becomes free." "Well, I think leaving him here would be the best option. Who knows? Someone may just cancel their vitalising treatment." The two adults chuckled at this. Ever since scientists had overcome human mortality, the megawealthy and powerful had monopolised the new vitalisation chambers, ensuring they never have to suffer the inconvenience of old age. Although recent laws had been passed recently on the new technology, giving preference to the deceased, no one was in any hurry to crackdown on queuejumpers and the hospitals, after facing numerous cutbacks due to the various military actions undertaken against the various sentient lifeforms mankind had encountered in it's exploration of space, medical centres were being run like corporations just to keep their highly trained doctors from enlisting and becoming field medics. But the government, in one of it's few sane decisions, voted unanimously to keep medical centres under bureaucratic control. Although this did mean having to justify new neural-reconstruction equipment purchases to mindless suits behind desks, it did also mean that the common man had access to healthcare. Of course, the term common man was commonly understood to mean one of the 8 billion common men and women who were registered on the Earth Central Databases, which cruelly excluded some 30 billion men and women, living either in poverty, in exile or independently, either on earth or on other planets colonised by mankind, from receiving the latest in medical advancements. Although, once more, it was a case of if you didn't have a 20 digit ID code, a 7 digit cheque would more than suffice. Thus, the various dictators, autocrats and madmen who, using old or stolen money, had managed to set themselves up as ruler of their own island nations, continents or, in rare cases which were kept brutally suppressed in human media, planets or entire systems. Two attendants entered the Doctor's office and carried the cadaver away. Always careful of handling the deceased in front of friends and family, most attendants who had to deal with the dead would drop the act upon reaching the restricted zones surrounding the vitality chambers. Hell, they knew no matter what they did, it would all be repaired later on. Well, anything short of total incineration. Which none would ever dream of doing to a chunk of fresh meat. No one wanted to carry a dead weight all the way over to garbage disposal, anyway. When they reached the restricted zone, the placed the former David into a long tube, where he floated a little, before slowly being sucked in. Mechanical arms removed all his clothes, depositing them in a locksafe which was encoded with the DNA of the Feldman line, then scrubbed every inch of his flesh with hard bristle brushes. After 9000 glorious years of civilisation, mankind had never topped a good scrubbing as the preferred method of cleaning flesh. Continuing down, more machines poked, prodded, scraped and jabbed the body, taking samples and assessing the damage. The entire body was then scanned with various EM rays, until a computer recreation of David's body could be formed for further study. At the end of the tube, ex-David was dropped into a coffin-esque glass chamber, which quickly filled with a blue gelatin substance. The chamber was sealed tight, then inserted into an alcove in the wall. One of the human attendants sealed the alcove closed, then entered a long string of numbers in a keypad on the door. Inside, the gelatinous substance chilled and partially solidified, dropping the temperature of the cadaver to well below freezing, but keeping it's fluids from crystallising through various shifts in pressure. Another worker entered the details about the new corpse into the databank. Name: David Luthor Feldman Height: 1.13 M Weight 48 Kg Time/Date of Birth: 18:01 21/11/3326 Time/Date of Death: 11:32 18/12/3329 Cause of Death: Severe Neural Trauma Sidenotes: Damage to respiratory system, nervous system, muscular system all conform to severe electroshock. Previous injuries include muscular sprain and light dermal trauma. Cause unknown. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Portrait of Zool Posted June 22, 2003 Report Share Posted June 22, 2003 Excellent! Reads like a combination story outline and setting background for a gripping novel, though the ending ties it all together as a complete vignette. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Archaneus Posted June 22, 2003 Report Share Posted June 22, 2003 You have a true grasp of social ramifications of this form of technology. Great job. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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