Sacrifice: A Dystopian Short Story

Isaac glances down at his pale, ghostly hands, at the fingers that have never swung a hammer - peruses the contents of the sterile white office within which he was seated, sweeping his gaze across the diplomas stacked on the wall - peers outside the window at the faceless masses striding with purpose and efficiency to and from their places of production. For a moment stretched into a quiet infinity, he manages to studiously look at anything that wasn't the black-and-white film on the oak desk before him.

"Mr. Winston, I know this must be deeply emotional for you. But we need to discuss next steps."

Millimeter by millimeter, he drags his gaze away from the window and meets the eyes of the white-coated physician sitting across the desk from him.

"What next steps are there to discuss, Doctor? I told you - even before I went for the X-ray - whatever treatment you think is best is the one I want. Doesn't matter how much it hurts, I can take it."

The doctor breaks eye contact, and before he hesitantly pronounces the sentence, Isaac knows instantly that things were somehow, inexplicably, worse than he had thought.

"I'm afraid it isn't that simple. The tumor's taken over the whole left middle lobe and some of the heart wall - and the metabolic scan indicated metastatic tumors all over your body. No surgeon will touch the tumor, they'd rip out a chunk of your heart and kill you just trying. And our default chemotherapies won't phase a lung cancer this advanced."

"Yeah, but Doctor - what about all those cutting-edge therapies they talk about on the news, the anti-cancer viruses and nanorobots and all that? My niece just had a clot somewhere in her head broken up by nanoparticles - there's not anything like that for this?"

"There are advanced treatments for lung cancer... but I'm afraid, Mr. Winston, that you haven't been approved for any of them."

"... Come again?"

But even as he speaks, Isaac's heart sinks. A part of him - that unconscious reptile mind that can feel danger, can sense death's coming - it begs him to flee.

"I've run your situation through every model I could find, Mr. Winston - I've changed every variable, seen every outcome. But no matter what I do, Mr. Winston, the situation is the same. The genetic characteristics of this cancer, and the degree of its spread, are just too unfavorable. In no scenario does your remission last more than a year, and we have to treat again - and again - and again, until even in the best scenario you've passed away within five years."

"Doctor... The computer doesn't know me. I'll fight it - I can survive this. I'm not a quitter, I'm not one to give up - just give me the treatment and let's go from there."

"Mr. Winston - Isaac - I'm not authorized to treat you, unfortunately. The numbers are just too unfavorable - the weighted averages of all your simulated productivity scores are clear. As of thirty minutes ago, your total remaining potential productivity is lower than the cost of your treatment. It's just not cost-effective..."

The doctor drones on, but Isaac isn't listening anymore. He's looking around for an exit - but he knows it's pointless.

"... You're a human productivity analyst yourself, Mr. Winston. Surely you understand that the only way our society can function - with plenty for everyone, nobody going hungry in the streets, a roof over everyone's head - the only way this all functions is for individuals to produce more than they consume. It's the guiding principle of our society - a principle you've helped enforce since the beginning. How many people have you quite literally written off, Mr. Winston?"

The doctor's gaze is unfocused - he's talking more for the sake of filling the air than to soothe Isaac at this point. It wouldn't have mattered - the lizard brain understood thirty seconds ago that Isaac won't be leaving this room alive, and now the mammalian brain, the limbic system and its trillions of emotional circuits, come to acceptance, and Isaac for the first time begins to feel true fear.

"... Why, the consumption of energy and materials that would power all five rounds of tumor phage treatments would feed a dozen children for a year! Meanwhile, your total remaining potential productivity - the maximal averaged sum of all that you could produce, derived from millions of simulations and scenarios? You wouldn't even produce enough for a single round, let alone all five and the return visits when the tumors come back. The numbers just don't work out, Isaac. It's not cost-effective to treat you - I'm sorry."

The primate brain, his centers of thought, of planning, of cognition, try to buy time.

"So that's it, then? I come here, and all you have to offer me is a death sentence, no treatment, and a car ride home?"

The doctor smiled sadly.

"Mr. Winston - who said you were going home?"

And finally, just like that - Isaac is aware, down to the very core of his being, that he is going to die. No ifs, ands, or buts. He will not live out the hour. He begins to tremble, to vibrate like a strummed chord.

"At least let me say goodbye to them. To my wife. My kids, damn you. That's all I'm asking."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Winston. The modeling simulations indicate that your visiting them, at this stage, would result in a net productivity decrease of the whole familial unit to below break-even consumption levels. Grief is a powerful sapper of energy, and statistically, we would expect their grief to be increased threefold if they see you in person beforehand. It just wouldn't do to have that, Mr. Winston."

It isn't until now that the tears begin.

"My children - Goddamn your productivity modeling, they're my flesh and blood! Is there anything left of you that feels? Let me see them!"

The lizard brain snaps, taking control for an instant - in his mind's eye, Isaac sees himself leap up. He takes the doctor by the throat, and strangulates him. He watches the life go out of the good doctor's eyes ever so slowly, and he reaches for the keycard that will unlock every door in this hospital, and he sprints out, crying freedom to the air, and he finds his family and they flee, somewhere, anywhere that isn't here.

In the second instant, the anti-violence implant hardwired into Isaac's amygdala fires a gentle electrical pulse. Before the neurons in his cortex can communicate the exact motions needed to leap up, the angle and positioning of the hands that will most efficiently cut off the doctor's brain circulation - he is paralyzed from the neck down.

"I'd like to thank you for your service to this nation, and to say that I am terribly sorry that it had to come to this, Mr. Winston."

As the doctor stands up, two burly men in matching dark grey jumpsuits enter and take hold of Isaac, dragging him out of the chair and forcing him onto his knees. The doctor draws a #15 scalpel out of his sleeve and comes to Isaac's side - and hesitates.

"Any last words, Mr. Winston?"

He babbles - something, anything - a torrent of words flowing out, as if by some miracle he could overwhelm them, flood them, talk the scalpel out of his hand. The doctor lets it stream out for a few seconds, more out of curiosity than any sympathy, and then resumes his duties.

"By the power invested in me over life and death by the Democratic Republic of Oceania, I hereby pronounce this man, Isaac Winston, guilty of future overconsumption, for which the crime is recycling. Hear me and witness!"

The massive guards reply in unison.

"We witness your sentence."

Isaac is desperately begging for a chance to increase his productivity - talk of starving himself, depriving himself of the lavatories, working like a slave chained to his desk - when the blade opens his jugular. As he slumps to the floor, life leaves him - the last words on his lips, a final plea for life in the form of a way to increase processing efficiency of architects' productivity scores by another half a point.

---

Rebecca is seated at her desk, anxiously awaiting Isaac's call. Instead, she is pinged with a notification - a package at her door. She activates the doorcam, zooms in on the box - it's addressed to the Winston family, from the Democratic Republic of Oceania. Heart in her throat, she activates the maildrone - it rolls out from a hidden panel on the bottom of the front door, gently lifts the package in its arms, and rolls back into the house to unbox it. Inside, there is a shiny white urn, with black lettering carved into the side.

On May 23rd, 253 ATF (After The Founding), Isaac Winston was recycled. The following is an itemized list of his final production:

• His brain was donated to the National Institute for Glioblastoma, in order to facilitate the search for a cure.
• His liver was donated to a veteran of the Second Australasian Conflict suffering from PTSD-induced alcoholism, to grant her a second chance at a productive life.
• Much of his organic matter, including his adenocarcinoma, was recycled as fertilizer, and will be used to grow approximately three acres of crops, feeding thirty children for a month.
• His skeletal material was harvested in matrix form, and will be used in conjunction with donor-derived stem cells to regenerate approximately twenty lost limbs for Warsaw Front veterans.
• The remainder of his material, with the exception of his skull, was harvested and will be reduced to base amino acids, fatty acids, and simple sugars, with the intent of conversion into animal feed at a later date.
• His skull was cremated, and the ashes are presented here as a memento of a proud citizen of our fine nation, who we dearly thank for his loyal service to the cause of production.

The Democratic Republic of Oceania sincerely thanks you and your family for your understanding and your sacrifice, and wishes you well.

Rebecca sits back, numb. There are no words to say. Dimly, she registers a notification displayed via her ocular implant - her hourly potential productivity dropping at a dramatic rate. She almost cannot bring herself to care - until she recalls that, due to Isaac's lack of productivity recently, the family will not eat next week if she cannot meet her daily target. She stops - permits herself a moment for tears, hating herself for tallying up each individual teardrop's impact on her productivity - and then ever so slowly begins to tap at her keyboard, processing a blur of human productivity reports, one by one.

A nearby explosion knocks out the local power station - sabotage by the Unproductive, no doubt - and leaves Rebecca unable to work for a terrifying thirty minutes. She scrambles back into the program as soon as she can, processing ever faster.

She almost makes it.