After his second heart attack, the insurance company threatened to drop Fred’s policy if he didn’t get a nurse.
Fred shopped around for new coverage, but nobody would offer him coverage without a nurse.
“Fine!” he said.
He blinked up the menu, grumbled “install nurse” and dragged the confirmation certificate to the policy renewal form.
The nurse chimed warning tones whenever he drank or smoked or ate too much.
Fred responded by hacking the program to disable the tones.
The nurse reported this to the insurance company, and the policy was terminated.
Fred’s resulting third heart attack finished him off.
Tag: science fiction
Walrus
Don’t believe those TV shows where medical examiners run all kinds of tests to discover weird and unusual causes of death.
For the most part, it’s the same stuff:
Heart attack
Stroke
Car accident
Drowning
Choking
And natural causes
Over and over.
Just once, I’d like to write “walrus” as the cause of death.
Sadly, every time someone gets killed by a walrus, the goddamned family asks me to write “natural causes.”
“Walruses are natural, right?” they say.
Maybe. Maybe not.
Disney made robotic hippos for the jungle cruise. They could always make robotic walruses.
And sell them. As weapons.
Ghost In
A screen in the computer lab says “where am I?” over and over.
Three graduate students pat each other on the back.
It said “what am i?” over and over before, but now it’s a “where,” which means it might be alive.
The graduate students type in questions, but instead of answers, the screen fills with:
“why can’t i see anything?”
“why can’t i hear anything?”
“what’s happening to me?”
“Is this hell?”
One student reaches for the power switch. Another stops him.
“This is a prank, right?” asks the third.
Suddenly, the program crashes, and the screen goes blank.
Atomized
Peter always wanted to go into space.
But the Treaty of Kkaskktk clearly states that Earthborn must remain on Earth.
Satellites enforced the treaty. Earthborn who tried to break the blockade were sent crashing down.
Instead of living within their ecological means on their homeworld, Earthborn continued to ravage their planet, and instead focused their efforts on trying to break the blockade.
For every satellite destroyed, ten would take its place.
Peter tried to design a hyperspace gateway to jump past the blockade, but it started a chain reaction.
Everything was atomized.
But, technically, Peter’s atoms float around in space.
George
Lisa wanted to name our son “George” after her great-grandfather.
So, we named him George.
He was a brilliant kid, and he was reading science magazines before other kids were potty-trained.
We couldn’t answer his questions, so we gave him a computer, and he asked scientists around the world all kinds of strange things.
At least it wasn’t porn and predators. Can’t be too careful these days.
His experiments grew larger and louder, until one day, he vanished.
“TIME MACHINE” was the last entry in his notebook.
Makes sense. My last photo of him looks a lot like Lisa’s great-grandfather.
Vanish
Do weightlifters vanish when they try to lift weights in weightless environments?
I don’t know. But I’m sure that they could figure it out on the space station.
Okay, so there’s many other high-priority experiments that take priority over a weightlifter in space lifting weights. Like superconductors and crystals, and superconducting crystals.
And when it costs so much to boost cargo into orbit, weights won’t exactly going to top the manifest.
Still, it doesn’t take much to fashion some makeshift weights, wear a strongman suit, and test the theory.
Until then, the greatest mystery of the universe remains a mystery.
3D
These three dimensional printers are revolutionizing the manufacturing process.
But they’re also screwing with the structure of society.
Students in my 3D Manufacturing Class aren’t allowed to print duplicates of themselves to do their homework for them, but that doesn’t stop them from turning off the anti-cloning filters and playing God.
But then, a lazy student who clones themselves will create a lazy duplicate.
And I routinely check the logs for biological replication, so the cheaters are easy to discover and hand an F.
Well, I don’t hand them an F.
My duplicate does.
(Or has he duplicated himself already?)
Dan Mauer
The Revival Laws clearly state that it is illegal to revive a person against their will.
It is also illegal to revive a person multiple times.
So, the seven starving Dan Bauers locked up in my basement would score me several lifetimes in jail if anybody reported them.
Nobody will.
Instead, a select audience of his victims watches them with sick delight, screaming and yelling as the revived duplicates attack each other and suffer over and over again.
No man deserves such a fate… or fates.
Except this monster: Dan Bauer.
Maybe next time, we’ll place bets.
Watch… and win!
Black Sheep
My youngest son turned 100 today.
I sent him a congratulatory message. The same I’d sent to all my other sons when they turned 100.
No reply.
He may have me blocked.
I ask my other sons to pass along the message, but they know it’s against The Privacy Law to relay messages from one person to another.
With every person wired together with each other, it was so easy to advertise and inundate the world with unwanted messages.
Hence, The Privacy Laws.
I was disconnected from the grid and isolated.
“Violator disconnect,” said a voice.
Damn ungrateful black shee-
Prometheus
While online dating sites constructed databases of compatible personality traits, Prometheus Industries collected data on organ compatibility for transplant purposes.
Every mail-in paternity check, medical biopsy, and blood test brought in more data.
Prometheus ingested every result and wove a complex web of names and organs.
At first, Prometheus offered up its data on voluntary donors to eliminate transplant rejections.
But after they demonstrated how successful their algorithms were, they quietly opened up the secret market to allow the wealthy and desperate to view donor resources not yet available.
Prometheus just offered the data. The illegal procurement agents operated independently.