Thanatos: Stories

Death has been conquered, and aging as well, along with hunger, disease and poverty. Worldbrain, an artificial intelligence, through proxies known as Citybrains, governs everything, the mechs under its control tending to all the mundane chores, never going on strike, never needing health benefits, freeing the people for a life of leisure, to pursue their pleasures as they wish. Even the weather has been tamed.

Eternal life and youth, with no challenges, no goals, no risks, no surprises.

Paradise?

After you've done everything there is to be done, and are still faced with a life eternal, what is left?

"Been there, done that," became the people's watchwords.

Naturally, people suffering from terminal ennui do find a way out. It becomes so common it is called "making an Exit."

Which is a problem.

Not that suicide is illegal. It isn't. There are few social taboos. Mass mental illness? Not really. The people who do it aren't depressed. They're simply bored to death.

Literally.

The problem is that suicide can be inconvenient, disrupting the smooth operation of society. There are bodies to be disposed of, loose ends to tie up, and people are sometimes inconsiderate enough to choose a particularly messy or problematic method. A plunge from a highrise balcony, for example, usually has a negative impact on traffic, if you'll pardon the pun, and may even result in colateral damage. So does throwing ones-self under a people mover.

But consider; a world where no one dies, save for the rare accident. The instinct to procreate remains, offering each new maturing generation the unique experience of raising a new person. Doing that once or twice is usually enough, but even so, as each succeeding generation matures they create another. People start to accumulate like empty soda bottles.

After analyzing the two problems, suicide and overpopulation, Worldbrain concluded that suicide was a logical way to offset population growth. Computations showed that in time a static population would be established as departures matched arrivals.

But what about the disruptions? Suicides draw crowds, before the act if the intention is made public in advance, and after the fact for the more ghoulishly inclined. Hard core voyeurs even link to a suicide as it happens, through The Feed, the global peer-to-peer network, to experience it live, so to speak.

Worldbrain decided that what was needed was a way to avoid the awkward consequences, to provide a tidier end. Not being the creative sort, Worldbrain put the problem to the people. Naturally, some entrepreneurial soul came up with the solution, a new franchised service.

EXITS was born.

Choose your method, let EXITS handle the messy, inconvenient details -- it's a one-stop shop. And, for those so inclined, clients can share their experience with voyeurs.