Disease

Buy Originals

Historical science fiction by Iván Molina

Buy Originals

Iván Molina

The doctor seated behind the desk placed my file on a metal tray. His face showed fatigue and annoyance. He remained silent for almost a minute; afterwards he looked directly into my eyes and said with a deep voice:

“I don’t understand why you didn’t simply wait a bit longer.”

“I can’t stand to live anymore.”

“The same excuse as always.”

“Is there something that….?”

“Nothing, except to be patient; next time, do it properly: don’t buy generics.”

Deeply sad, dejected, I left the office, went down the stairs, and walked away as fast as I could from the main building of the New York Institute for a Safe Death (NYISD).

*

With the invention of Renovator in 2065, human history changed unexpectedly. Designed as an intelligent serum, the substance not only prevented aging but immunized against every type of disease. From then on, men and women achieved three long-held dreams: immortality, eternal youth (aging stopped at 24) and perfect health. Of course, it was still possible to die in an accident, by homicide or by suicide; but because of the extraordinary information that the product could automatically store in each cell, the deceased could be recuperated through cloning, with all its memories intact.

The vertiginous commercialization of the serum immediately led to the bankruptcy of the traditional and powerful medical, pharmaceutical and insurance companies. Funeral homes closed, and death as a cause of marital dissolution sanctioned by religion disappeared. The concept of widowhood was suppressed as a category of civil status. Graveyards soon became museums and the leaders of the main religions began to adjust their preaching to the new situation. They defined the world transformed by Renovator as an initial and necessary stage to reach full Paradise in the future.

Despite early enthusiasm for the product, ten years after it was placed in the market it was obvious that there was an urgent need to restructure other areas of the human experience. The first and main one consisted of prohibiting new births, at least until the colonies on Venus, Mars and other planets and moons in the Solar System could be made ready to absorb extra population. This decision meant the collapse of the school system and activities linked to the needs of children and youth. Also, with the disappearance of insurance costs and retirement funds, real wages were increased; but workers were forced to work forever, because although they tried to save, they could never accumulate enough retirement savings to live for eternity.

At the beginning of the 22nd Century, an increase in dissatisfaction was visible in the repeated attempt of thousands of people to bring their life to an end. Some achieved it through different suicide techniques, which meant they had to destroy absolutely each and every one of their cells. The authorities answered this challenge by declaring death illegal; anyone who attempted to commit suicide would be sentenced to 25 years in prison. To enhance the effectiveness of such a measure, in 2124 it was stated that, from then on, it would be mandatory to extract one drop of blood per month, so nobody could destroy himself unpunished.

Like the owl of Minerva, criminalization of death was approved when strong pressure already existed against the move. Throughout the planet, in the streets of the main cities, popular mobilizations multiplied demanding that death be enshrined as a human right. Alternative preachers and politicians seeking support joined the chorus of voices, as did networks of intellectuals who denounced the psychological damages produced by the unendurable enjoyment of life. The decisive argument in favor of death was provided by the techno-economists of MIT2: with the population failing to renew itself, the capacity for scientific innovation tended to decline. A profound economic crisis was predicted by 2150.

*

On May 31, 2132 Luca Fragomeno, an Italian neo-mercantilist philosopher, published an article in Le Monde Solaire that proposed a practical solution to the profound problems created by the success of Renovator. Above all, to die must be something legal and subject to market forces. For that reason it was crucial to give people the right to disappear, not by accident, crime or suicide, but as a simple and plain commercial transaction. “Access to one’s own death”, according to this distinguished European academic, “should be no different than buying a silk tie, an elegant suit or a pair of shoes”.

Although the philosopher didn’t explain the operative conditions of his proposal, others did and within a few years a new industry developed based on the commercialization of the process of dying. The system was organized in two phases. The first one consisted in buying the right to die. A payment plan was designed for that purpose by which workers could, after thirty years, have enough resources to pay for the right to be free from life. The high cost of the plan was justified on the grounds that the reactivation of birth made necessary huge investments in diverse areas, especially in education.

Three months after the permit was dispatched, a person was authorized to acquire a form of expiring. The second phase of the process was not an easy one. The corporations that controlled the market took advantage, establishing excessive prices for the best ways of dying. Fast deaths with no pain, in particular euthanasia and assisted heart attack, were only at the reach of the Solar System’s wealthy. The rest of the population, according to its level of income, had to agree to buy a disease that could last months or years (the less time it took, the higher the cost) before the patient came to an end.
The companies justified the high prices due to the investment they made to produce a new generation of diseases capable of destroying the defensive codes programmed by Renovator, but the injustice was evident. According to research done in 2169 by the State of the Planet Project, workers with lower wages should contribute around another thirty years, after having acquired the right to die, to buy a terminal illness. Even then, they could barely afford to buy a classic Parkinson’s, a traditional leprosy, a basic tuberculosis or a slow-acting prostate or breast cancer. All of these diseases took up to decades to kill them (the duration aggravated by the fact they could only have a sick leave in the terminal phase).

In that context, small and medium size pharmaceutical producers expanded. Many of these companies were of Caribbean or Asian origin. They started to create generic diseases at very low costs. The main trouble with these products was the lack of a warranty, and their frequent failure. In spite of the risks, they inevitably became popular. Threatened by these “unfair practices”, corporations pressured the authorities to outlaw their commercial adversaries. Simultaneously, they initiated an intense campaign inside medical and public health institutions, now in charge of administering death, to recommend to the population that they buy only certified originals.

*

Sophia was waiting for me in Central Park. She only had to look at my face to know the answer. Two centuries before, in the same place, we would have seemed like two youngsters in love preparing for the ritual of caresses and kisses, while trees looked the other way. But we were over 120 years old, and the only thing we wanted was to rest, finally.

“And now what?”

“Start all over.”

I said it with a resigned tone of voice that could not completely hide my frustration. I had just lost a decade of savings purchasing an executive-class double pneumonia that had me at death’s doorstep for almost a week but, in the end, didn’t kill me. Returning to my job as a city inspector was all I had in my immediate future.

“Let’s go.”

“In a bit.”

I hugged Sophia, and for a moment I imagined everything was different. Instead of being a commodity subject to the up’s and down’s of market forces, death once more was life’s last essential and precious domain.

Translated by J. L. Vargas and Steven Palmer

Iván Molina is a Costa Rican historian and science fiction writer. He is coauthor of Stuffing the Ballot Box. Fraud, Electoral Reform, and Democratization in Costa Rica (Cambridge, 2002), and coeditor of The Costa Rica Reader. History, Culture, Politics (Durham and London, 2004).

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