The Last Experience
A science fiction short-story about the cost of a life.
Image by NASA Hubble Space Telescope on Unsplash.
What would you be willing to do, when your life depends on the attention of strangers?
Families crowded the room. One by one, each group stepped up to the composter and in a blink another body disappeared into the darkness. Erik saw his mother and father roll down the conveyor that fed into the composter. He led his little sister by the hand even as silent tears rolled down her cheeks. He lifted her into his arms, covering her hand with his. Together, they pressed the button. The conveyor rolled, and his father was swallowed up by the machine. They pressed it again, and his mother was gone.
Lights flickered in the corridors outside the morgue. Men with torches worked welding plates over the holes in the walls, where atmosphere had recently leaked. Erik found his way blocked on the route home. A whole section was depressurized, so he skirted deeper into the tunnels of the Island. The ship -- their ship -- was all that remained, safe from the impact as it was tucked away safe in the axial bore of the spinning asteroid-world they called the Island.
In the boarding area the crowd was thick as supplies flooded in for repairs and all those that could leave did so. He passed by the Rastafarian who sat cross-legged against a wall, playing his usual songs, a few notes scattered in the guitar’s case. The music stopped as the man’s kind eyes found him.
“Hey Erik,” he called. “Heard what happened to your parents. I’m sorry, kid.”
“Thanks,” Erik mumbled without meaning it.
“If you find yourself desperate for money, come to me,” he said, waving a finger. “but listen… only when you are starving and dying, you understand?”
Erik left the music behind, left the man singing to an audience that did not hear him. He found his airlock and unlocked it with the keycard. Rusting metal doors slid open and he walked down the thin umbilical that stretched towards his ship. His father had only just begun teaching him how to fly, and he didn’t have a license, but it was a haven and a home, even if it was falling to pieces.
In the control room of the makeshift vessel, Erik sank into his father’s seat, cradling his sniffling sister in his arms until she finally fell asleep.
“Here,” Erik laid the packaged rations on the table of their ship’s kitchen. Inside the cramped room, his sister’s head barely poked above the table and her legs dangled in the air. He pulled the string in the package of food and steam billowed out. It smelled good, but inside there was only orange mush.
“Where’s yours?” Debby asked.
“I already ate.”
Erik made sure she ate it all. Debby did not complain, even if she made faces. He wrapped his arm around her and kissed her on the head.
“Don’t leave the ship,” he said on his way out.
He left her playing with her doll and went to the boarding area, where the flow of people was thickest. He held a cardboard sheet above his head: “Looking for work”. The few that even glanced his way sneered with smiles that curled up the corner of their lips. He had seen the same smile on the faces of dock officials that refused to let him fly, on the faces of old friends that suddenly forgot who he was, on the faces of the wealthy that judged his stained clothes. The crowd flowed around him, uncaring, just one more casualty of the collision that took his parents.
It was the way of the Ocean.
When the station’s lights dimmed to a warm yellow he felt
his last scrap of hope lift away.
He remembered the Rastafarian’s words.
He searched for the music.
“You’ve heard of the Experiences,” the Rastafarian said, fingers strumming a tune on the guitar. “You’ve seen the streams. There can be good money in it, if you earn it.”
“What could I do that anyone would pay to experience?” Erik asked, already disappointed.
“That is for you to decide, kid. I did it,” he turned his head, raising the dreads so the scar along his spine was visible. “They pay up front. After that it’s up to you,” his finger waved in the air. “But listen. Don’t go killing yourself for cheap dollars. To that little girl, you are worth more than money.”
“Does it hurt?”
The man chuckled. “Only a bit. Quick and fast. They set everything up, you just need your audience.”
“What did you do to get one?”
“Boy, I was a fool. This,” he tapped the back of his neck. “It was for nothing. I am all that is left. When I am gone, no one will watch my Experience. The money… poof.”
Erik was silent, and the music picked up again, the song echoing down the halls. He left his last dollar in the guitar case.
“Any questions?” the woman behind the counter of the clinic asked, chewing a pen as she typed away at her console.
“No,” Erik replied.
“Fill out these forms.”
She handed him a notepad with a thick set of pages. Erik read them all, signing each page twice. Consent. Rights. Profit sharing. A million things, to shift all risk to him. He handed the papers back.
She stepped from behind the counter and led him down a corridor.
“Remove your shirt and lie here please,” she gestured to the operating table. “Face down.”
Erik did as she instructed. She covered him in disposable sheets, leaving only his spine exposed. Then, he heard the machines whir to life as metal clanked and unfolded.
“You’ll be under for this part,” she said even as she pressed the injector into his arm.
Consciousness bled away.
He woke in a different room, numb and shivering in the cold. Erik tried moving his head and tiny pricks of pain shot from the back of his neck and skull. He ran his hand across it and felt only the smoothness of scar tissue.
There was no one else here, only empty beds. He got up and dressed, opening the single door out and he was back in the reception hall, facing the same woman behind the desk.
“Is it done?” Erik asked.
She flipped her screen towards him and he saw his own vision, the screen mirroring the image smaller and smaller into infinity like mirrors facing each other. Dizzy, he looked away.
“All sensation metrics are within parameters,” the woman stated. “Forty-eight hours will be enough for the fine adjustments. You can start streaming after that.”
“And the payment?”
She handed him an envelope.
It would be enough for a month of docking fees and food.
Now that he’d done it, Erik wasn’t sure what to do.
In the control room of his ship, he watched the screens, linked to the feeds from outside the station. This Island, his home, had been carved out of an asteroid, spinning fast enough for gravity to take hold. It drifted in the currents, bathed in the diffuse yellow light that drowned the Ocean as sunlight reflected off the floating dust. From the glow, asteroids and rocks emerged. Some were large and languid, tumbling slowly. Others flew past like missiles, carving a path across the currents. Accidents were inevitable, accidents like the one that took his parents as rocks crashed into the Island.
He zoomed out from that view, switching instead to the map. Beacons flashed blue: thousands of Islands adrift in the Ocean. The currents drew everything onto themselves, the remnants of an entire system coalescing into a chaotic chain of rock and dust around the sun.
If only he could fly the ship. He could do the same runs his father had, hopping from Island to Island, delivering goods and people for a living. But he was stuck, locked to the station, stacking up fees.
He had to grab attention somehow. Watching the endless dance of the denizens of the Ocean, his tired eyes grew heavy and his mind drifted. The memory arrived with a jolt and he sprang to his feet. He dreamt it, he felt the freedom in his heart, the kind of dream that was so real you could still feel it when awake. The kind that stuck in your mind for years. He raced to his father’s room, still untouched since the accident. There, he found the toolbox.
It was the only message in the ship’s inbox. He almost hit the spam button, but it looked too specific for bait. He searched for the sending company’s name in the station’s records. It was registered. He was running out of time and out of options, and his secret project was far from done. This offer was too good to ignore.
He cut through the endless corridors of the Island, mindless of dark narrow stretches and eyes in the dark. He had nothing they could steal. He found the makeshift clinic near the southern tip of the Island, deep inside the rock.
The reception looked nice and there were even some actual flowers in hydrovases. The counter was hidden behind a thick pane of glass and the man behind it did not look up. Erik tapped the glass.
“What do you want?” the man asked, peering from behind large glasses.
“Received an e-mail about a study,” Erik said.
“Ah, a guinea pig,” the man said with a cold smile. “Fill out these forms, then head inside. Under ages earn double, lucky man.”
Erik stepped into the room beyond. The corridor was bathed in sharp white light, flanked by an endless row of doors on each side. A small screen above the handle read a series of different names. He found his.
The room inside was padded from floor to ceiling and completely empty save for the plastic cup on the floor. He picked it up, looking at the large white pill inside. A sticker read Red Ecstasy.
He swallowed it.
He was jumping. He didn’t know why. Inside the white padded room, he ran in circles. Not enough space. He tried to open the door, but there was no handle. No time. Gotta keep moving. Running. Jumping. Tumbling. Screaming. Singing. Dancing to the sounds of his thudding heart. It was a melody, an orchestra, his fingers danced to beat as he laid on the ceiling. It was ridiculous. Why? He could not hear his laughter. Just meant he had to laugh harder. His eyes stung. The world was tinged in red, swirling currents, the air itself visible. He breathed out, and the air swirled around it. He breathed in, it rushed inside him. He jumped. The air was fire, spreading across his veins. He had to move. Just keep moving. Keep pumping the blood. Red on red, that was the key. Pain, sharp and cutting in his chest. That was the blueness creeping in, tipping the balance. Jump. Run. Don’t stop. Scream the blue out. His legs folded, all blue now. He breathed in. Red. Pain. His heart must have burst, the red spilled all over. He laughed. The lobsters came, swirling the red currents around them. They picked at him with their claws, tearing away red steaks. Blackness spiraled in.
“What the hell was that?” Erik asked, lying on a gurney half naked, a deep pain in his chest.
“Minor heart attack, nothing serious,” the doctor was writing on a tablet, not even looking him in the eye. “The doses might need adjusting. We’ll have to see how the others go.”
“Any compensation for that?
“Treated you for free, didn’t I?” the doctor finally looked up. “If you can walk, then…” he pointed to the door.
Erik’s legs wobbled, still weak and somehow burning. The whole thing blurred in his mind, a red smear. He remembered laughing. He checked his statistics and saw it was all for nothing. Three viewers on his stream. No wonder… who would want to experience a heart attack?
But there were a thousand bucks in his pocket, a comforting weight. He came home with bags filled with groceries. Debby squealed with joy when he handed her a chocolate bar, and suddenly it was all worth it.
That day, they were happy, their bellies were full and they were safe. But as Debby drifted into sleep on his lap, his mind wandered in circles around the same problems. He just had to work faster.
Erik lifted his sister’s head gently, sliding out from under her. He raced down to his parent’s room, which he had turned into his own workshop and studied the piles of junk and the long piece of metal he was in the process of cutting into shape. There was no way around it, he’d have to cannibalize some of the ship’s thrusters to make it work.
Erik stood on the airlock, balanced over the rock ledge as the Island tumbled backwards. One last check, making sure his boots were connected to the board he made, making sure his oxygen was full, a dozen little checks as the viewership climbed into the hundreds. It was not everyday that you saw someone do something so stupid. Outside, the Ocean looked back with endless indifference.
He jumped.
The endless glow of the Ocean swallowed him as he drifted away and the Island was soon lost in the haze. He held the joystick in his right hand. He flipped the switch and pressed down on the button.
Thrusters underneath the board fired.
He flew, barreling into the void, curving upwards. He struggled for control, turning the joystick as his body fought against the acceleration. He swung his legs gently to the side, hunching back as it curved in a gentle arc. This was his dream made real. He was surfing across the emptiness. He screamed at the top of his lungs and gave it full thrust. He was free.
Viewers reached the thousands, climbing by the second. He saw a pair of asteroids emerge from the light, behemoths of clumped rocks growing in all directions, and he blasted towards them.
He aimed for a narrow canyon, a crack running across the rocks. He flew at it full speed, weaving across the channel, perilously close to the rocks. Ahead a mountain loomed with walls that rose sharply. He cut acceleration, flipped the board vertically, and fired again. He rose across the face of the cliff, revealing the deep crater hidden behind it.
He twisted in the air again before firing the thrusters and plunging into the darkness upside down. He skimmed the surface, head inches from the rocks at the bottom of the crater. He burst out of the other side back out into the light, laughing all the while.
Viewers reached the millions. He saw the second asteroid trailing behind and fired towards it. Suddenly he was spinning. Pain, shooting from his leg. He screamed, spinning ever faster.
The thruster sputtered to an end, and he spun out of control. Bending his neck, he managed to look down. His leg was broken, bones bent to the side in an impossible angle. The board was shattered, only a small piece still attached to his right leg, fuel leaking out.
The asteroid ahead loomed ever larger.
Millions lived through him, experiencing each agonizing second.
He thought of Debby.
Smiling, he crashed into the rock.
The End.
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Any and all feedback is welcome, so let me know what you think!
I so wanted him to live.
I don't even know what to say. Dark. On a lighter note though, you created such an interesting world. Very well written.