Topic: A Fate Worse Than Death (Read 178 times)

You're tired of living on Earth. The planet's dying, the mass poverty is soul crushing as you can do nothing to help. While you're not completely homeless, you're close to it. You have a tiny bit to spare because you work a mind-numbing amount of hours to make for basic needs and wants. At least it's not so bad.

 That is until climate change forces you away from home. You look everywhere for relocation. You try your hardest but the pathway you foresee is joining the endless sea of homeless. Risking being treated as a subhuman by so called "civilized" society, you become filled with dread, despair, and hold very little hope for your own future.

 One advertisement appeals to you, an escape from this planet, a new frontier. Somewhere else, in an artificially controlled environment, where the air is fresh and you'll have clean water to drink or your money back!

 You think that's a marvelous deal, so you sell nearly everything you have to take the voyage - not a big deal because you're billed by the gram for transport. You head to a training camp where you meet James.

 James is a cool guy. He tends to know about things, he's friendly, outgoing, and he's a natural leader. James helped you pass a difficult test where you nearly flunked out which led to a strong bonding experience. The training center was great, the people were amazing, the food was much better than the slop from the fast food joints and the water was endless. Your launch went well. James' launch did not, his shuttle was impacted by some space debris. The footage from the Government's sUrveil-INet showed the corporation that produced the space debris was long since defunct. Not a large deal for the corporation, most of that shuttle had no next of kin anyway. A lot of Government Representatives were bribed and/or stakeholders in the corporation. You know the risk when you sign the contract, bad luck, so sad, too bad.

 You arrive on Mars. The first thing they do is hand you an itemized bill. Every milliliter of water you consumed during training was billed at Mars rate. Every ounce of meat you consumed, Mars rate. Mars rate was not a fair rate, there wasn't competition or "choice" for your goods. This is a company town, where you get one choice of vendor, your corporation.

 If you don't like it, pay your bill and buy a ticket to leave. Can't afford a ticket? Work longer hours or have family/friends help. Or just get enhancements to get extra productivity bonuses.

 You do the math, if you live on bare minimum, you can scrape by and not only pay off your debt, but also be able to do minimal work [6 hour shift, 5 days a week] after merely 45 years. Of course, this also assumes 12 hour days, 7 days a week for the next 45 years. Never sick, never tired. You've already signed the paperwork, so be it.

 Three years in before you have your first mistake. You had company over and things led to other things and you lost a few hours of sleep. This caused you to be very tired for your twelve hour shift. You made a mistake, a critical and costly mistake. 5 years. The mistake added 5 years to your debt. You honestly can't believe it... you start to realize the hole isn't just a deep hole, but it can get deeper.

 What choice do you have but to muddle through? To continue the struggle. You know now not to make that mistake. To focus on your efforts and spend less time socializing with others.

 Another 5 years goes by, you catch a flu that infects the entire colony. Everyone's sick for about 3-4 weeks. Of course, when you miss time from work, you either need to find someone to cover your shift or you owe the company for the lost productivity. You gain an additional 10 years of labor from this disease.

 You're tired, your limbs hurt, you want a break. You decide to finally look at those productivity enhancers. You decide to take the best option you can afford, some tool that is installed in your hand. You add 15 years to your debt, but with the productivity gains and benefits, you actually figure you can reduce your overall time spent by about 20 years by hitting those productivity quota goals/bonuses.

 The surgery and recovery is painful and adds another 10 years to your debt; no one mentioned the cost of training, re-gearing, nor the loss of feeling of the old hand. Touch no longer felt human but instead felt like trying to taste a picture, artificial and lacking of realistic sensation.

 You hum along for another 20 years. You wonder about when death is going to come, you realize that you celebrated another birthday, yet you don't feel much older than the day you landed.

 After your private inquiry, you learn that the water contains supplements to help aid life extension of workers, which is part of the reason the price of the water is so high. The nanites in the water was available back on Earth, but it was considered a luxury item, at least back when you were on Earth all those decades ago... where you could feel the breeze on your face and stare up at the sky to feel the warmth of the sun. Here, they merely had artificial lighting in the underground bunker that protected them from radiation shielding. It's been decades since you've seen the natural sun.

 Another 15 years later, your debt grew through a series of unfortunate events. You realize that death won't come naturally and the system is designed to make the debt hole inescapable. You choose the one last free action you have, you decide to stop living.

 You wake up on a table, they revive you from death. They hand you a bill, and they say "due to the dangers you may do to others or yourself, certain freedoms have been restricted". sUrveil-INet is installed and you have a monitor to prevent any unauthorized actions. Thanks to your newly acquired medical debt, you debt hole went from in-escapable to completely collapsing in and the interest payments add more to the debt than what you can possibly pay off.

 Your struggle continues, there is no escape, you are a prisoner forever.