Imitation of Life

From the recorded case files of Dr. Douglas Sirk

For as long as humans have walked the earth, they have sought to fight the last great enemy-death.

It took a long time, but now in 2075, death is becoming a thing of the past. Death, as we once understood it.

Thanks to developments in nanotech and cutting-edge proprietary neuro-cardio-pulse systems, at Vitae Inc., persistent, prolonged heartbeat and continuous brain activity are possible.

Two small but powerful electro-pulse generators are wired into the body, one at the heart and one at the brainstem. Fuelled similarly to electric motors found in modern cars, these pulse generators emit electro shocks when activity in the brain or heart falls to a dangerously low level.

For the last five years, the company has been running trials with test subjects using prototypes of the system, with, admittedly, varying degrees of success. In the beginning, many test subjects, who were medically on their last legs, did not survive past a few short days. Then there was the drone-like DREGS. or Dissociative Registered Sleepers with whom the technology had managed to sustain life, but had left the poor souls as empty vessels.

Some call them DREGS, some call them Zombies. There are various legal issues related to them. Which is why the company has been unable to put them out of their misery.

There are many debates over just how conscious they are. My understanding from tests we conducted in the earliest stages was they had little to no cognitive awareness. They were husks. However, some reports suggest many DREGS have displayed emotional and intellectual responses, though this has been notably simple.

There was an incident redacted from all official documentation, of video footage of a male DREG smiling at his wife and children and greeting them all by name, before he violently turned on them.

Then, there are a select few of the original test subjects who have retained full brain and heart activity and have faced imminent death, and laughed in its face and lived—the jewels of our efforts. Or at least, so I thought.

As one of the company's chief scientists, many NDAs and contract stipulations forbid me from disclosing the downsides. That is why I have heavily encrypted this file.

Most people don't realise it's not just whether there is brain and heart activity. The spark of humanity that makes living people like you and me different from other members of Earth's population is not nearly as easy to replicate.

As with most new forms of technology, the successful candidates initially included the richest, who invested considerable capital in the corporation, and the poorest, who were used as nothing more than lab rats.

Even among the so-called successful candidates, there have been issues, beyond the negatives foreseen when we started down this road of the Gods.

Try as hard as we can to escape from it, death is as much a part of the human experience as life.

When you remove one, you remove a part of what it means to be human.

We discovered that successful candidates whose hearts and brains persisted and who retained cognitive awareness and all their faculties, began to display sociopathic tendencies.

Without death looming over them, they cared less for the sanctity of life and more for their own desires.

They did whatever they wanted, no matter the cost.

Although there is still a spectrum of sorts as to how sociopathic these new forms of humans are, there has been an alarming number who have taken things to the extreme. Shown extreme disregard for their fellow humans.

As many argue, the case against whether they are genuinely sociopathic is whether they are aware, much in the same way as whether the DREGS are fully aware of their existence.

In my experience, the successful candidates are not only fully aware of their lack of a moral code governed by traditional good and evil, but they also respond apathetically to acts that contradict moral right ideals. Self-serving and deluded by their higher status and societal value, they are driven by their lust for anything that betters their lives. Regardless of the cost to anyone else.

Despite their sociopathic personalities, they formed alliances, out of necessity. Eternals or Immortals, as many have started referring to them as, quickly rose through the ranks of the media, government and business.

What was seen as a way of extending and expanding what it meant to be human created a world of philosophical and ethical debates. While some defend the right of the DREGS to exist as living, sentient-adjacent beings, others argue in favour of culling to put them out of their misery.

Further to these debates, the fact remains that when the world's wealthiest have a stake in or are indeed one of the newly created eternals, there is another group of people who do not believe all Immortals should be culled—only the poorest.

Many are opposed to technology, so those "humans" have stated it is merely an 'imitation of life'.

I realise now the error in my ways (I say "my ways" because I only take responsibility for my eagerness and hubris and not of my colleagues. Each man should stand or fall by his own decisions).

I cannot continue serving the greater good of those undeserving of the greater good. This extension of life is an abomination and on par with the worst of human progression, like the splitting of the atom and modern agriculture.

When I saw what the ruling class of Immortals were doing, how they had become a mere reflection of the 1% that has always done what is best for itself—I was appalled and vowed no more would I be part of this travesty.

Why am I recording all this?

That is a long story.

When the technology was first being developed, we had well-meaning intentions and a desire to improve things. However, once we saw the real difference we could make, I admit we gave way to arrogance.

I sought to conquer death. A feat no mortal should ever burden themselves with. With their hubris and lust for gainful dominance, the powers-that-be spurred me along. Encouraged me. Every ethical question raised was answered to the tune of my deluded sense of righteousness.

My son, my flesh and blood, fell on hard times and was living in the backstreets, addicted to hyper-meth, a highly concentrated form that made the kind responsible for the epidemic in the 90s to the 10s look like cough medicine.

I thought that, with the power over life and death that science had given me, I could save him. So, as a lab rat, I submitted him to the program. But I made sure he received the best treatment.

When we first wired him up, it seemed an unmitigated success—he was bright, attentive, more functional than before, if anything. But then came the incident: one of the shocks caused a neurological malfunction, and he shut down. When he woke, something was off. His eyes—empty, disconnected—no longer met mine. He was still breathing, still alive, but there was nothing behind those eyes. The spark was gone and it felt as it he was looking through me, a husk that was once my son. A hollow presence, a reminder of what we had done.

Rather than seeing this as the warning it was. I made excuses and suggested it was due to a childhood issue. The powers-that-be were just happy I was making progress and didn't have much interest in "potentially catastrophic problems". So we/I covered it up, for my sins.

My poor boy.

That is why, it is now my life's work, to right the wrongs of the past. Whether they are living or not, ethical or not, I need to do it.

I’ve taken to hunting them. The immortals, the ones who see themselves as gods. I've used quiet, lethal tools. Military tech for clean kills. Sometimes, my methods are subtler. A poisoned drink, a poisoned word. But it never gets easier. Each life I take, each soul I end, weighs heavily on me. Part of me dies, or that's how it feels. The question haunts me. Are they alive or an imitation of life? Am I ending something that should never have existed in the first place?

If you have found this and decrypted this file, my time is short. They're getting closer. There are too many questions, I've made too many mistakes. I don't know how much longer I can keep running. It's up to you.

My son.

To undo what I have done.

I know I have no right to ask this of you, but I beg you, please stop this. There is still time.

I remember when I first held you in my arms. Your mother was the real hero, of course, but I was so proud to have played my part in bringing you into this world. I think about all your firsts, and then I think about the things I missed because my work took over my life. I was never there for you as I should have been.

In my way, that is what I was doing when I signed you up and encouraged you to enrol in the program. I was blindsided by regret and in my arrogance, thought I could somehow make up for the years I spent ignoring what was happening to you.

I am sorry.

I will always be proud of you, whatever you decide to do with this information.

The very best of me, and anything but an imitation of life.

*

Thanks for reading!

Author's Notes: This is for the Life-Extending Conundrum Challenge, which you can find more about by following the link.

As a fun Easter Egg, the name of the story is a reference to a song by REM, that took inspiration from a film of the same name directed by Douglas Sirk.

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