Immortal Life

Immortal Life

By Stanley Bing

Core Dump

“Okay,” Arthur said. “I wanna take about fifteen minutes to hear all the shit that's fucked up around here. And don't bullshit a bullshitter. I was laying it on people before some of you were born, and that's really saying something.” He looked around the table expectantly.

“Okay, Artie,” said Jerry, very, very respectfully. “We were prepared with some brief material in anticipation of this meeting. We just weren't sure if you'd be interested in the granular stuff.”

“Not too granular,” said Arthur. “Just granular enough.”

“We might as well start with the workforce issue,” said Jerry. “Allie?”

“Here, Jer.” said a young woman, practically baby, maybe only in her mid-fifties, who was standing near the smoked salmon display on the sideboard, sipping on a cup of coffee. She was tall and athletic, wearing a suit much like the one sported by the rest of her cadre except that where they had pinstriped pants, she had a pinstriped skirt that fell just above her knees. Her cranial implant was alabaster white and glowed behind her ear like an illuminated jewel. The only other gender-defining touches were a white silk scarf tied loosely around her throat and the pile of light-blond hair gathered at the top of her head. She was wearing large horn-rimmed glasses, which she pushed to the top of her head as she eagerly took center stage.

“Artie, this is Alessandra Morph, our head of Human and Artificial Resources. “She's going to scare the shit out of you.”

“Better men than she have tried,” said Arthur, and some in the room may have wet themselves, such was the intensity of their mirth.

“That's not much of an introduction, Jerry,” said Morph as she strode forward. She took a position behind the installed podium in the corner just pas the end of the table, and waved her arm in the vague direction of the wall behind her, which immediately disintegrated, turning into a translucent screen. On it were the words “A Workforce in Crisis.” Under that chilling title, a smaller subhead: “The New Employee: Dedicated, Industrious, and Incapable of Independent Thought.” 

Immortal brides. Photo by Elena.

«Well, that's not good,” said Arthur.

“You have no idea.” She stood near the wall that was now a display and let the headline sink in. “The situation is this,” she began. “A significant number of the citizens in Athena have evolved.”

“Evolved?” Arthur was mystified. “You mean... spiritually? Socially?”

“Genetically,” said Morph. There was a brief silence as people chewed, swallowed, and then digested this gristly nugget. “that in itself is not the issue,” Morph continued. “It happens. The circumstances of life change, and people change with it. This, however, appears to be progressing in a way that is unexpected over such a short time frame. And it has implications for the company in both upside and downside.”

A sequence of tedious graphics now accompanied the presentation to give people something to look at, with headlines and bulleted subordinate points.

“There are several factors that contribute to this weird development,” she said. “First, there is almost no functional limit to the age people can attain. People simply... cure unto a very advanced state. More people die in household accidents than die of old age.” There was a general murmur around the table. This was their ultimate fear: to break an artificial limb in a fall down the stairs or electrocute one's head in the shower.