(no subject)
A brief bit of writing I did based on an idea I got at work.
Critique at will.
I am dying. No two ways around it and probably in the next six or eight hours, too. Shit. At some point, they'd whisked me away from the Austech Hive hospital I'd been laid up in for the last three weeks and deposited me here, a Hospice in an arcology on one of the south islands. NZEnviro's, I think. I can never tell the stylized logos apart. I suppose, though, that's why I was never immersed in the corporate life. Or life in general. I'm not saying that to be melodramatic, but rather because it's true. I was - still am, for a little while longer - a Mourner. People paid me - generally before they died, although there was one time when a Construct wired me the cash to attend it's shell's interment up the Well - to mourn their passing in a way that was more genuine than they thought they'd get from the Unpaids. For the most part, they were right; few people with the money to hire a Mourner had the people in their lives to legitimately mourn their passing.
I got here at three in the morning. It's eight, now. Going to dump my last moments to the School's network for posterity. When I die, the last bit of me, of my life and death, will be sent somewhere out to the Archipelago, where the School keeps it's data havens and accessed by kids too young to appreciate it.
There's movement at the door to the room; a man with a flat MidState Coalition accent is yelling at one of the uniformly pretty nurses - barely 160cm tall, with bright brown eyes, a slightly upturned nose and pink cheeks, bought with no expense spared from the Japanese for NZTech, no doubt - I'd yet to see. He pushed past her and stared dumbly at me. There was no doubt he wasn't here to just see me.
He held a thick black briefcase, the kind you'd see in the hands of a ACU office-rat trying to recapture the glory days of Old King Eddie, and was wearing a black suit coat cut too large for him and trousers too short. Like he just came off of some soy-truck out in the middle of the Oklahoma fields. Impressive. The nurse pushed her way past him and looked at him, then me, then back.
"Uh... Sir," he began, like the words were in a foreign language, "I'm, uh-"
"You can't be in here, sir!" interrupted the nurse - she had green TasGlobal eyes, but otherwise was the standard form for one of these places - "Mr. Jones is very ill and can't take any visitors."
"But," said the boy, taking his eyes off me for a moment, "He's... he's my..."
I barked a laugh and covered it with a hacking cough. The cancers eating my insides had that one great advantage. The nurse looked at me and adjusted the drip of whatever morphine derivative they were pumping me with and I waved her away.
"Let me talk to him," I said. Jesus. My voice sounded like it was a hundred metres away. Not much longer now.
The nurse looked at him, then me, and nodded. "I'll be outside. Ring if you need me, Mr. Jones."
I leered at her - or tried to - and nodded. "I will, don't you worry."
She smiled politely - of course - and retreated, leaving me alone with him.
"You, uh, you don't know me," he began, the Coalition accent slipping, almost imperceptibly, to an Up-Well drawl. "But I'm... Well, my name is-"
"I know who you are," I rasped at him. Shit, that took more out of me than I thought. "Why are you here?"
It took him a second to recover, to assure himself I hadn't made him. "My mother found out about you on the News Link a few weeks ago. She was looking through the list of Decliners."
I coughed again and spat a wad of my lung into a cup nearby. He was a better researcher than I thought. Near twenty five years ago, I Mourned a man who's sixth wife was obsessed with cancer patients who declined cellular replacement and rejuvenant procedures. Told her I met her husband at a Decliner meeting, that I'd been diagnosed with leukaemia just a few months earlier. The same thing that killed her husband and netted her three quarters of a billion in liquid assets. She asked that I spend the night with her and I obliged. Later in my career, I would never do that - people mourn in their own ways, but sex with the widow or widower just makes you a replacement - but back then I was young and she was even younger than me, and so damned pretty, in that leggy, blonde, MidState kind of way.
Impressive.
"Did she now?" I asked, and hacked another gobbet of life out of me. "I very highly doubt that. I don't even know who she is."
"You do. Her name's Elizabeth Wright; you knew her husband, Davis. Went to the same Decliner Support Group as him."
"Ah," I gasped. And gasped again. This wasn't going to be pleasant. "And?"
"And you're... Well, you're my father, sir, and..."
I cackled and shook my head. "Not possible, boy," I whispered. "Your 'mom' didn't know my name." I gasped and continued, "But you're good at research. Damned good at making a story." Another gasp. Field of vision getting narrow. Darker. Shit. He needs pointers.
He looked hurt and angry. I cackled again. "She found out," he said, coldly. "She ran a DNA test on me and compared it to your public sample. She figured you were a Mourner when you disappeared the next morning. When I was ten, she sent me Up-Well for school."
I nodded and strained my eyes to make him out clearly. He was reaching into the case. Probably show me a picture of her to make the act complete. Nice touch.
He's saying something. Can't really hear what. Sound of blood rushing. Gasping now. Still gasping, but harder now. Good. That means it's almost over. Last spark will send all the info out. Die with duty fulfilled.
He has something in hand. Out from briefcase. A gun? Silly. Too far. Never supposed to kill a dying man. Warmth all over me. Didn't shoot me. Can't see anymore. That's all. Sending to the haven.
***
Alarms went off in the trademarked TasGlobal chirrup as the man placed the heavy black pistol back into the briefcase. The nurse ran into the room, and bent over the corpse in the bed.
"What in the hell went on here?" she asked as frantically beat at the sparking machinery arrayed around the bed. "How did everything fail at once?"
The man shrugged and shook his head. "No idea, ma'am," he replied as he turned and walked out of the room.
Three hours later, on a shuttle up to the L2 Colony, the man sent a two-word coded signal to an unlisted receiver in the MidState Coalition - "It's done" - and smiled as an account he had at the L1 Colony registered a deposit.
EDIT: Missed a (rather important) word up there and did some clarifications. Thanks to zandrellia for catching that!
Critique at will.
I am dying. No two ways around it and probably in the next six or eight hours, too. Shit. At some point, they'd whisked me away from the Austech Hive hospital I'd been laid up in for the last three weeks and deposited me here, a Hospice in an arcology on one of the south islands. NZEnviro's, I think. I can never tell the stylized logos apart. I suppose, though, that's why I was never immersed in the corporate life. Or life in general. I'm not saying that to be melodramatic, but rather because it's true. I was - still am, for a little while longer - a Mourner. People paid me - generally before they died, although there was one time when a Construct wired me the cash to attend it's shell's interment up the Well - to mourn their passing in a way that was more genuine than they thought they'd get from the Unpaids. For the most part, they were right; few people with the money to hire a Mourner had the people in their lives to legitimately mourn their passing.
I got here at three in the morning. It's eight, now. Going to dump my last moments to the School's network for posterity. When I die, the last bit of me, of my life and death, will be sent somewhere out to the Archipelago, where the School keeps it's data havens and accessed by kids too young to appreciate it.
There's movement at the door to the room; a man with a flat MidState Coalition accent is yelling at one of the uniformly pretty nurses - barely 160cm tall, with bright brown eyes, a slightly upturned nose and pink cheeks, bought with no expense spared from the Japanese for NZTech, no doubt - I'd yet to see. He pushed past her and stared dumbly at me. There was no doubt he wasn't here to just see me.
He held a thick black briefcase, the kind you'd see in the hands of a ACU office-rat trying to recapture the glory days of Old King Eddie, and was wearing a black suit coat cut too large for him and trousers too short. Like he just came off of some soy-truck out in the middle of the Oklahoma fields. Impressive. The nurse pushed her way past him and looked at him, then me, then back.
"Uh... Sir," he began, like the words were in a foreign language, "I'm, uh-"
"You can't be in here, sir!" interrupted the nurse - she had green TasGlobal eyes, but otherwise was the standard form for one of these places - "Mr. Jones is very ill and can't take any visitors."
"But," said the boy, taking his eyes off me for a moment, "He's... he's my..."
I barked a laugh and covered it with a hacking cough. The cancers eating my insides had that one great advantage. The nurse looked at me and adjusted the drip of whatever morphine derivative they were pumping me with and I waved her away.
"Let me talk to him," I said. Jesus. My voice sounded like it was a hundred metres away. Not much longer now.
The nurse looked at him, then me, and nodded. "I'll be outside. Ring if you need me, Mr. Jones."
I leered at her - or tried to - and nodded. "I will, don't you worry."
She smiled politely - of course - and retreated, leaving me alone with him.
"You, uh, you don't know me," he began, the Coalition accent slipping, almost imperceptibly, to an Up-Well drawl. "But I'm... Well, my name is-"
"I know who you are," I rasped at him. Shit, that took more out of me than I thought. "Why are you here?"
It took him a second to recover, to assure himself I hadn't made him. "My mother found out about you on the News Link a few weeks ago. She was looking through the list of Decliners."
I coughed again and spat a wad of my lung into a cup nearby. He was a better researcher than I thought. Near twenty five years ago, I Mourned a man who's sixth wife was obsessed with cancer patients who declined cellular replacement and rejuvenant procedures. Told her I met her husband at a Decliner meeting, that I'd been diagnosed with leukaemia just a few months earlier. The same thing that killed her husband and netted her three quarters of a billion in liquid assets. She asked that I spend the night with her and I obliged. Later in my career, I would never do that - people mourn in their own ways, but sex with the widow or widower just makes you a replacement - but back then I was young and she was even younger than me, and so damned pretty, in that leggy, blonde, MidState kind of way.
Impressive.
"Did she now?" I asked, and hacked another gobbet of life out of me. "I very highly doubt that. I don't even know who she is."
"You do. Her name's Elizabeth Wright; you knew her husband, Davis. Went to the same Decliner Support Group as him."
"Ah," I gasped. And gasped again. This wasn't going to be pleasant. "And?"
"And you're... Well, you're my father, sir, and..."
I cackled and shook my head. "Not possible, boy," I whispered. "Your 'mom' didn't know my name." I gasped and continued, "But you're good at research. Damned good at making a story." Another gasp. Field of vision getting narrow. Darker. Shit. He needs pointers.
He looked hurt and angry. I cackled again. "She found out," he said, coldly. "She ran a DNA test on me and compared it to your public sample. She figured you were a Mourner when you disappeared the next morning. When I was ten, she sent me Up-Well for school."
I nodded and strained my eyes to make him out clearly. He was reaching into the case. Probably show me a picture of her to make the act complete. Nice touch.
He's saying something. Can't really hear what. Sound of blood rushing. Gasping now. Still gasping, but harder now. Good. That means it's almost over. Last spark will send all the info out. Die with duty fulfilled.
He has something in hand. Out from briefcase. A gun? Silly. Too far. Never supposed to kill a dying man. Warmth all over me. Didn't shoot me. Can't see anymore. That's all. Sending to the haven.
***
Alarms went off in the trademarked TasGlobal chirrup as the man placed the heavy black pistol back into the briefcase. The nurse ran into the room, and bent over the corpse in the bed.
"What in the hell went on here?" she asked as frantically beat at the sparking machinery arrayed around the bed. "How did everything fail at once?"
The man shrugged and shook his head. "No idea, ma'am," he replied as he turned and walked out of the room.
Three hours later, on a shuttle up to the L2 Colony, the man sent a two-word coded signal to an unlisted receiver in the MidState Coalition - "It's done" - and smiled as an account he had at the L1 Colony registered a deposit.
EDIT: Missed a (rather important) word up there and did some clarifications. Thanks to zandrellia for catching that!