Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-35711173-20181001004513

This came after another long and frustrating time at work.

I had considered categories reality, Space, Science andComputers/Internet.

Your reviews would be much appreciated as always.

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“We would have caught it if you came in for your quarterly cancer screening,” Dr. Goldstein said to Joseph Honda. “With your DNA and your radiation exposure from so much space flight, you knew you were at high risk.” “I was occupied with corporate matters.” “Four years skipped isn’t you were too busy, and you ignored every recommendation to reduce your risk factors. You didn’t want to know.” “Four years to you, three months out of sleeper capsules to me. When you’re in the capsule, and they decide they need you to go to Io or Mercury, you wake up there.” He buried his rage, knowing he was only 69 but looked over a hundred. “What is done is done. How long do I have?” Doctor Goldstein shook his head and studied Joe’s 3D body scan. “When you are in the sleeper capsules, your body doesn’t repair your radiation damage. Once or twice in a lifetime is safe, but you have five different forms of cancer, including stage four pancreatic, aggressive glioblastoma in your brain, liver cancer, and skin melanomas. We can give you a new liver and pancreas, but the cancers have metastasized throughout your body.” “That doesn’t answer the question. How much time?” “With replacement parts, maybe a year.” “How long until everything turns to shit?” The doctor sighed. “Joe, I wouldn’t tell anyone else, but you are something that belongs in another century. My guess is five months, longer with high dose chemotherapy. But …” Joe had seen far too many co-workers go through chemo for space radiation-induced cancer. Death would be better. “Thank you for your honesty, doctor.” He thought about his life as he flew home. He had devoted 45 years to InterCorp’s mining and manufacturing complexes around the solar system. Raquel had cheated on him since the first time he went off-world, and both Samira and Joanne loathed him as an absentee father. Joe had no hope of living with Jesus or being an honored ancestor. Only believe in what could be proven was his motto. Before he landed at home, he made his decision. He would buy his eternal rest in Heaven. Once he decided, he felt completely and utterly detached from it and everything around him. Joe considered trying to get the family together and then discarded the idea. He was a stranger to both his daughters and Raquel might sue to prevent him from using what she saw as her money.

Joe reached for a hidden flask in his car and poured himself a stiff drink before setting the autopilot for home. As he took a second during the flight, he wondered how everything had turned to shit. Raquel separated from him years ago but Joe was never on Earth long enough to divorce, and his own children hated him. He had hoped for a happy retirement. This damn cancer had cheated him. He thought about his parents. Both were only in their 90‘s. They wouldn’t understand someone so young paying to commit suicide. How could he explain the indignity of incurable cancer? His grandparents would unite in telling him how he was robbing the gods. The olds and their religions. No, it was his life and his afterlife. Nothing would change that. Joe lived by himself. His apartment was in a good building, but it was only 40 square meters. As often as he was away from Earth, he had wondered if he needed that much. Soon, he wouldn’t need anything. He sat at the desk that doubled as his dining room table and checked his bank balance. Using his 75% corporate discount, he purchased the Vaults of Eternal Bliss, Osmium Class. Eight-way redundant storage on at least six different worlds and unlimited transfer between locations. He transferred the funds and recorded messages of explanation for his daughters and to his parents. The sooner he went, the less time cancer had to eat his brain. Even before he made it to the spaceport, his boss messaged to tell him to cancel everything and prepare another mission. He replied “We will talk tomorrow,” smiling in the irony. By then, he would be gone forever. One last spaceflight, a quick suborbital hop to the intake center in Dakar. During the trip, he looked at all the different environments they offered. He spent decades as the company troubleshooter, building InterCorp’s mining and manufacturing stations. Finally, he would feel the earth between his toes, smell the air and look up at the sunshine. The Vault’s offices were in a wing at Hopital de Saint-Louis. After a mountain of forms, he changed into a hospital gown, and they put him on a gurney. The anesthesiologist gave Joe a quick shot, and his existence faded away. Suddenly, he was standing. The world looked like a cartoon. Everything was in ugly, garish colors. There were no subtleties. Joe couldn’t smell anything, but he heard the deep throbbing of heavy machinery. Robots of various sizes and shapes filled the room. Bins of parts lined the walls behind them. Quantity on hand and description information appeared for each storage location Joe looked at. When he examined himself, he saw that his arms were Kelly Green tubes. He wasn’t wearing a Kelly Green outfit. His entire body was Kelly Green. A number had been painted on his barrel chest, 83F439F7. He rolled around the warehouse he had woken in, wondering where to find the complaint department. All the brochures said he would be alive and at his peak of youth and strength. This wasn’t what he bought. A door opened behind him, and a white service robot rolled in. “Move it, 39F7. We got a power failure at the diamond wafer fabrication factory. It’s stopped processor chip production.”

“What is this?” “Titan. Hespirat mining complex. Now get moving.” “I paid to be in the Vaults of Eternal Bliss, Osmium Class. Where is the complaint department?” “That’s rich! The complaint department. If I could laugh, I’d be busting a gut. That number on your chest, what do you think it means?” Joe looked at it. “The serial number for the robot?” “No. It’s your number. You are 83F439F7. No matter how fancy you were before, you are now nothing but a tool to be used up and discarded in the service of Big Mother and InterCorp profitability. Do you understand that?” This had to be a nightmare, a malfunction in his brain as he transferred to virtuality or a glitch at the intake center. He wondered how to send a message back to InterCorp headquarters on Earth. The white bot stopped and turned around as if it were looking Joe straight in the eye. “Get this clear, 39F7. This is not a nightmare. You are not here by mistake. This is your virtual eternity, running as a subroutine on the Master Control Computer. Yes, Mother can hear your thoughts, and she told me to tell you.” Joe was shocked. Couldn’t he even feel sorry for himself? “Mother says no. Wrong thinking is punishable by death or worse. You’re getting away with a warning because you are new. Move it. That wafer plant being inoperative is hurting production.” He wondered how to kill himself by venting the power couplings through his processor. “Mother has told me what you’re thinking. It won’t work. You aren’t in your bot. You are inside Mother. That bot can melt in a smelter and Mother will just transfer you elsewhere.” There was no sun. He didn’t even have toes. What could be worse than this? “You don’t want to find out. Do you know what Mother did to the last person that made her mad? She made him the control subroutine for a hydraulic press. No seeing, no hearing, no talking to anyone else, nothing but stamping by reflex every time one sensor says a blank is in place. He wanted his thoughts. Now he has them, completely alone.” Big, red letters flashed inside his head. “LISTEN TO HIM.” They silently rolled the rest of the way. It took Joe six hours to localize and then bypass the failed section. As soon as he restored power, the other bot said “New orders. The hull casting kiln in ship fabrication is producing distorted sections. Hurry. Let’s go, let’s go, Macht Schnell, davai, davai.” “What? Can’t we take a break?” “Why? Are you hungry? Are you tired?” Joe knew he would never be hungry or tired again and would never, ever have another break. 