Still Human?

When the CEO of MegaHealth corp. made the announcement that they had developed a new medical procedure that could make people immortal, the public reception was mixed. Many were understandably skeptical, myself included. The late-night talk show hosts and pundits certainly had a field day with the idea, and the public at large quickly dismissed the revelation. It was several months before the whispers started circulating that they had actually pulled it off; several more months passed before the videos started popping up online.

The first video to hit social media showed a man, apparently shot in the gut, when his body pushed the slug back out through the wound and his skin started knitting itself back together. The comments were incredulous, and everyone assumed it was – admittedly high quality – CGI effects. The video went viral across multiple platforms, and the man in the video went around doing interviews and swearing it was legit. Nobody believed him of course.

Then, another video went viral. It started as a slideshow, a series of pictures showing a frail, sickly young woman, and followed her through her childhood. Hospital gowns and IV stands, gurneys, injections, all showing her battle with cancer, until the newest photos were displayed. These showed a vibrant looking teenager in seemingly perfect health. No longer gaunt and near death, she looked radiant. As the slideshow concluded, it switched to an actual video of the same girl walking out of the hospital; then skipping down a sidewalk; then doing clumsy cartwheels on someone’s lawn as her parents looked on with a mixture of relief, awe, and disbelief.

Martin Tomlinson, the CEO of MegaHealth, held a press conference shortly after the second video hit ‘viral’ status. He claimed that dozens of individuals had successfully made it through the human trials of their procedure, including (notably) several cancer patients, and that hundreds more have had the procedure since. While he did not outright verify that the individuals from the viral videos were in either group – “patient confidentiality” and all – it was clearly implied. In the weeks that followed, public interest in this miraculous procedure exploded. It’s no surprise that almost everyone wants to live forever, apparently. Just as surprisingly, the cost for this treatment instantly priced out everyone who was not a multi-millionaire.

Immediately celebrities, CEOs, politicians, and all manner of rich and powerful people were lining up to get the procedure and going public about how great they feel, how amazing is MegaHealth, and everyone should get the treatment right away! Mr. Tomlinson and the company investors became billionaires overnight, and it was not long before a clear separation divided the masses. Well, even clearer than ever, anyways. The elites who could afford the procedure stood on one side, and everybody else on the other. “Terminals,” they called us. It was less than a year before the first immortality doctrine was passed into law, governing the right to give birth. The lawmakers passed it off as ‘necessary to prevent overpopulation,’ since having some percentage of the populace unable to die could lead to ‘unintended consequences’ if everyone were allowed to procreate at will.

Conservative religious groups were furious of course, and for the first time they stood arm-in-arm with the liberal-minded folks who were enraged at the discrimination. Soon, however, new laws were passed to keep the terminals in line. Protests were outlawed. Dissidents were arrested and quietly disappeared. Law enforcement was given sweeping power to detain anyone determined to be a ‘menace to the public order.’ Nationwide curfews were set, and all methods of communication were recorded and monitored. The AI algorithms that were once used largely for frivolous purposes were redirected to analyzing the deluge of seized communications data, leading to yet more arrests.

Four years after the initial announcement, to the day, Congress voted unanimously to suspend the Constitution indefinitely. Protesting had already been outlawed, but now free speech and all ‘guaranteed rights’ had been completely eviscerated. Without due process protections, government thugs could burst into any home at any time, for any reason. And they did. Six months after that, it was determined that, in the interest of the public good, all terminal citizens would be moved into government monitored communities, overseen by regional governors selected for their loyalty. We were allowed to work, and we were still encouraged to consume, of course. As long as we continued to crank the gears and keep the system in motion, kept our heads down and continued to generate more for the elite, then we could get on with our government mandated lives.

At first, some considered fleeing to other countries to seek asylum. That hope was short-lived, however; so many other countries fell to the same sinister machinations, and the few democracies that remained had to seal off their borders or else become overwhelmed. As it was, that only provided a brief respite, as the neighboring superpowers consumed them one by one.

Small pockets of resistance cropped up, but held no chance against the public stability squads, commandeered by undying squad leaders and the merciless enforcers vying for their own immortality promotion. Government control over the media made sure that the general public heard nothing about them except that any insurrections were brutally and instantaneously ended anyway. The elites sought to kill hope itself, and by most metrics, it appeared they were accomplishing their goals.

In my prior life, before everything went to Hell, I was not particularly courageous, or motivated. I worked, I consumed, I fed the money machine like everyone else, and I didn’t make any waves. Like so many other terminals, I was appalled when basic civil liberties were swept away, but I still shrugged and adapted to the new normal. What else was I supposed to do? Apathy was the most effective weapon employed against us, and most of us held that knife to our own throats as we all shrugged and adapted to the new lives we were given. To adapt the perhaps prophetic First they Came, when they came for the dissidents, I did not speak out, because I was not a dissident. Nor when they came for the sick, nor for the ‘disabled.’ No surprise, then, that they came for the rest of us eventually.

So we slogged along, accepting our station with scarcely a whimper of complaint. In many ways, my day-to-day life was no different than before. I would go to work, come home, buy things I didn’t need, watch things I didn’t care about. The biggest change was that occasionally someone I knew would come down with some illness, and sometimes I never saw them again after that. After a year and a dozen disappearances, even that did not register any more. The blade of apathy bit ever deeper, and I couldn’t even be bothered to clean up the blood.

Existing on autopilot, subsisting on my meticulously curated indifference, I barely even thought about the immortals now. Somewhere in the recesses of my mind, I must surely have registered the simmering despair of those around me, however my gut reaction was still exclusively consternation when Alex whispered into my ear the words that would echo deafeningly into an uncertain future. “I can’t take it anymore. We’re fighting back, and we need you.”

At first, I was sure I must have misheard him. I looked around the kitchen to ensure we were out of earshot of the rest of the staff, then glanced over my shoulder to ask him to repeat what he’d said. My mouth froze partway open and croaked the beginning of my request for clarification, when I saw his face – really saw it – for the first time, maybe ever. Sweat beaded on his brow not entirely caused by the heat of the kitchen; his sapphire eyes made slight furtive movements, darting about. His breath trembled slightly enough to be overlooked by anyone swimming in apathy, but now that my eyes were open, I couldn’t possibly miss it.

“Jack, I’m taking five,” I called out to the other prep cook, not waiting for his acknowledgement. Glancing about again, I led Alex to the walk-in cooler and pulled the door to behind me. As I turned to face him fully, his composure disintegrated and he leaned against my chest, sobbing. Still reeling from the shock, both of his declaration and my own sudden clarity, I simply put my arms around his shoulders and let him bawl into my apron.

When he was able to regain some degree of composure he pulled back and looked up into my eyes. “I couldn’t believe it when they came in and took Kelley. It wasn’t anything serious, the doctor said a few days of bed rest should be enough, but then… then…” More tears streamed down Alex’s face and his breath hitched on every other word, “the government goons showed up, shoved me to the floor and pinned me there, and within minutes… I was alone.” I could feel a tightening in my chest as Alex told me about that night; I could see the raw pain in his face and hear it in his voice, even as his visage hardened with his resolve. “We’re going to find a way to end them, to fix all this, and we need you.”

I stood there, stunned, as I processed everything he’d just laid on me. For the first time, maybe ever, I could feel the knife’s edge at my throat, could smell the blood of my indifference, and considered a future that was more than aimlessly drifting. Hope crept from the depths of my being to duel the terror of what Alex was actually proposing. I gave a slight nod as I steeled my resolve, and listened intently as he laid out the plan he and the other dozen or so dissidents had worked out. A sense of calm settled over me as I soaked it in, the fact that I was now one of those dissidents shuffled to the recesses of my consciousness. There was a very real prospect that all of us would die that very night, and I discovered that I was ok with that; death was always my destiny anyway. Now, for the first time, I considered the possibility that my life – and my death – could mean something. Now all that was left was to find out how immortal these monsters really were.