Death Fantasy *Working Fiction*

It’s been 100 years since I made the decision to become a cyborg. The world was different then. The Earth’s destruction was imminent, so an army of scientists and intellectuals from all disciplines became cyborgs in order to save the planet. We needed more time to continue our work to save the planet and the human race. Back then, the thought was to save the top brains in humanity, to increase our literal brain power and longevity. We were successful. We saved the earth and life was allowed to continue. Ironic now that the crisis to save humanity is over, I’m no longer strictly human. Ironic that we became cyborgs to buy more time, and now we have nothing but time.

That was what I told myself anyway. I’ve had so much time to think about it and become honest with myself. The truth was that I was selfish. I was afraid of death. It was the largest unknown in my structured, logical, scientific world. There was no way to solve the riddle. I never told my colleagues as for them death was a definite ending, but it still terrified me. I jumped at the chance to prolong my own life without considering what that would mean.

Now, death is a business. We never considered that by giving ourselves quasi-immortality, we changed what it means to die. Glamorous “Death Fantasies” are sold in shop windows like vacations. You can book a sort-of travel agent to arrange your exit journey from this life.

“Sleep Peacefully, Forever,” reads a poster I pass by on the street, a photo of a comforta-ble-looking woman snug in a bed underneath the words. Her eyes are closed and a small smile creeps across her lips. Another ad boasts a tragic movie star scenario, with marabou feathers and a “drug overdose.” A third is geared towards those who crave adventure. It depicts a high speed chase and fiery car crash. Whatever you choose, it’s your experience. The real sell, however, is that death is now available pain and fear free. Funerals are bon voyage parties to the afterlife. They’re no longer sad affairs but rather joyous send-offs in which the “traveller” is headed to, as Peter Pan put it, the last great adventure. Death has become a final thrill, and a profitable business.

For me, the fear of dying I once held has long since dissipated, and not due to synthetic emotion blockers programmed into my cyborg brain. A seemingly endless amount of time has stripped life of any sense of agency for me. The code we haven’t cracked, of course, still is what comes after. This is the question that swirls around my mind. Glittering, commercialized flashes of death bring it to the forefront often.

So here I stand on the street, a thousand thoughts for the last one hundred years running through my head. We’ve been through the apocalypse and back. Rebuilt the planet and with it society. I feel like my work here on this plane is done. I was part of history and now history will remark a peaceful period in which I am incredibly… bored. I feel I have contributed everything I can to the science of the living. So, I’ve turned my research to a new focus…

I was about to tear myself away from the shop window – Sweet Surrenders as it was called – and head back to my lab. But something caught my eye and I wandered inside. The next-great-adventure agent smiled at me.

“Hello,” she said, “how may I assist you with your voyage to The Beyond?”

“Well, actually, I was picturing something quiet and dignified. Something I could do at home?”

“Yes, of course! The Comfort Sleep collection would be just the ticket. Here, let me show you the demonstration. You just plug into your ear-port like that, and then take this pill for your bio-organics. The program will then shut down your cyber self while giving you the sensation of falling asleep. Completely painless and peaceful. How does that sound?”

A few minutes later I had dished out for the package and was back in my lab.

“Tess – are you for real?! I can’t believe you bought a package,” my assistant Tank said when I arrived and showed him my purchase.

“Look Tank. The world is saved, and we go on. When being alive is ongoing, death is a choice rather than an inevitability. I think it’s time I chose. The thing is, I no longer have the de-sire to learn or grow on Earth. But what if… you could come back?”

“You know that kind of experiment is illegal.”

“But why? We’ve reached so many other amazing feats – why isn’t it time to invest some serious research into the exploration of our minds and souls after we die?! Imagine if you could see the Next Plane and come back with proof!” I was getting excited now. I had actually been working on this puzzle for some time, without telling Tank. I was finally feeling inspired again, and making the purchase at Sweet Surrenders was the last piece of equipment I needed.

“Sure, but Tess, you’re forgetting the very real possibility, no, probability, that there’s nothing after at all. Not to mention ‘proof’ would destroy millions of people’s core belief sys-tems, communities, and basically send the whole world into chaos.” He had a point. There were laws about this kind of experiments for the aforementioned reasons. People liked their peaceful lives. But boredom had sent me into a frenzied madness and the question of what comes after consumed me. I was doing it, with or without him, and I told him as much.

Tank got up paced away from me, running his fingers through his hair. “This is crazy. lf you’re ready to make your journey I support you, but I don’t know if I can be part of trying to bring you back. No one who has tried has been able to return their body and retain their… hu-manness.”

“I know it’s risky,” I say, “Maybe there isn’t something more. But I need to know, be-cause, maybe, there is.”

“Why don’t you join the Space Explorers if life on Earth bores you?”

Sigh. “Because, that’s life isn’t what interests me anymore. It’s too…possible.”

I had started pulling back curtains to reveal mathematical equations and research. I was hooking myself up to a gurney. Tank looked at me, his mouth hung open.

“All you’ve got to do is, pull this switch at exactly one hour past death. I’m going to put my body into a sleep state. I’ve created a program to override the Sweet Surrenders software. It should follow me on my journey. And if there’s something out there… the data should transmit to this screen.”

“And your body? How are you going to reanimate that?”

“The switch should jolt enough electricity into my circuitry to bring me back to life. I’ve hooked myself up to IVs here so the organic parts of my body shouldn’t die. And if it doesn’t work… I’m okay with it.”

He looked at me with a serious caring in his eyes. “You’re going to go then and there’s no stopping you, huh?”

“Nope. And if I don’t make it back, well, it’ll look just like a normal Death Fantasy. Ei-ther way, at least I’ll know for myself what happens when we die.” I’d already taken the pill while he was pacing. I lay down and plugged the software into my ear port.

“Well. I guess, god speed Tess. I’ll see when I see you,” Tank has succumbed to my stubbornness, as I knew he would.

I nod. “Thanks Tank. Thank you for all the years of working by my side. I’m ready.”

He presses GO.