>From: cdr@brahms.amd.com (Carl Rigney)
Subject: A Christmas Story
Date: 5 Jan 91 08:56:19 GMT

Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.  This is his story.

Oh, the hell with the third person crap.  My story.  Yeah, I'm Santa
Claus.  Forget that nonsense your parents feed you, that there is no
Santa Claus.  They want to believe that, they desperately want to
believe that, and in their hearts they know better.  In their hearts,
yeah.  Heh.

That none need ever die.  That's the motto of the big corp with the big
heart; you know it, the one that's got its fingers into all the health
services and shouts it to the world.  Everyone Can Live Forever they
shout with joy.  What they don't advertise and everyone knows anyway,
is the fine print: That none (who can afford it) need ever die.  With
the HT-42 immunotailoring factors, organ rejection is one more skeleton
in Big Medicine's closet, like bleeding with leeches and amputating
with axes and hot tar.  Turn off the person's immune system and stick
someone else's heart in, hope it doesn't cough it up or they don't
catch something that'll kill them anyway.  Things are more civilized
now.  Now with proper medical care you can live forever or at least
until your brain wears out and you don't care any more.

But it's expensive.

The ultra-rich hire surrogate wombs to bear little replicas of
themselves, baby brothers and sisters who are promptly pithed and
hormone-pumped into adulthood, ready to lend a helping hand... liver,
whatever.  The less rich must make do with what nature provides.  Put
your cellutype in the big hopper, around and around it spins, and if
you match some poor ex-soul it's your lucky day.  You can volunteer
your own organs, sort of a two for one bargain, but only the truly
desperate take that route.  Sure, you can live without a lung or a
kidney.  You can live without any kidneys at all but you won't enjoy
it.  But even if the organ is attractively priced - and what isn't
attractive compared to death? - the operation is murderously
expensive.  So the rich can live forever, and the poor... well, being
poor is hazardous to your health, that hasn't changed a bit since the
days of leeches and hot tar.  "I'm sorry Mrs. Winston, but I'm afraid
your husband made some unwise career decisions, so your little Kathy's
just going to have to die.  Nothing personal."  Fuck it!  FUCK IT!

Yeah, so I'm a monster.  It's true.  If they catch me I don't intend to
deny it.  Hell, I'm proud of what I've done.  Every morning I wake up,
the mornings I do, I look in the mirror and see the eyes some little
boy's mother looked into when she saw hope for the first time.  I'm a
hero.  A secret hero, that's all.  My little secret.  Heh.

The secret, you see, is that transplants aren't the big deal the
clinics like to say.  Oh, sure, once upon a time they were cutting edge
of the cutting edge; tissue matching, grafts, immune reactions and the
whole rejection pink slip parade.  But war, for all its horrors, has
its benefits too and during the last war but one they found a way of
doing field surgery using "ambient parts" - no need for the fancy
lights & mirrors, just do a rough match, pump in a little miracle drug
and paint to fit.  And when the orbitals got rolling the miracle drug
got ethercheap.  Oh, it's still expensive on the legitimate market
because that keeps profits high.  But if you know how the system works it
isn't hard to get secondary grade, "quality control" lots.  Just as
good as the big boys use and they don't want to know what you want it
for.  Leftover toys from Santa's workshop, you could say.  And the
chillboxes the field surgeons used in the last war; obsolete now and
you can buy them for scrap, get the circuit designs easy enough, a
little rent-a-fab and they're good as new.  Bet you didn't know you
could build a person from the things you find at home.  Well, not
quite.  But close.  The hard part's the skill; getting the grafts clean
so they'll bind even with HealQuik takes some doing, and that's not
something you learn in a correspondence course.

But I got plenty of practice in the war, courtesy of Uncle, where a few
minutes means maybe saving some mother's son a slower doc woulda lost.
The wheels of triage grind mercilessly, and there's only one way to get
to Carnegie Hall, they say.  A lot more guys came home from the jungle
that wouldn't have made it the war before - but every modern war's been
like that.  Pretty soon everyone'll come home.  Well, hell!  Nearly
everyone *did* come home from this one.  One way or another.  "Hey
Soldier, don't think of it as Billy dying so you wouldn't.  Think of it
as you giving your whole body to keep a bit of your buddy alive."

The funny thing is, I'm all original equipment.  Never gone under the
knife, even got my own appendix.  Not that I'm worried; it's smart to
build up credit, have a few contacts - if I need the goods I've got the
tab prepaid, better insurance than most.  I'll never die, not unless I
get sloppy, so sloppy my backup team can't haul me out of the ashes.
I'm not sloppy.  Choose your subjects.  Study them.  Know them.  Do it
quick and do it clean.  Keep it quiet, there's no percentage in letting
people hear about it.  The ones who need to know, they'll find out.
The others would only worry.

The children are the hardest, of course.  You can't put a man's heart
in a boy's chest, uh uh.  And the children are the ones who need it
most, the ones that could have a full life if only... if only.  Some
guy who's 50, already had a life, fucked his lungs up with smoking,
screw him; he knew what he was doing, let him live with his choice,
just don't cough in *my* face, buddy.  But some young couple whose
daughter is going to die and they can't afford the corporate rate,
aren't on a company plan or independently wealthy.  Wasn't that what we
were spilling our guts for, to keep the kids safe?  Safe and warm at
home in their beds, visions of sugarplums dancing through their heads
to a slamming beat.  Kids with a chance.

Yeah, so I've got a list.  The little psychos who pop in & out of, just
waiting until their 18th birthday so the state can finally scream TAG
You're It and slam them on death row, fuckin' waste, they don't
understand.  I understand.  I don't hate them.  No, not hate.  I love
them, even the worst ones, the ones that pour gasoline over their
drunken fathers and set them alight.  Even the fucking mashmallow
roaster, I love him.  Eyes that have seen a sight like that, and you'd
never know to look at them.  There's love in his heart now, too, and
she'll grow up to be a ballerina, maybe, and lungs that laughed at the
dying screams can breath fresh air now.  Ever seen a kid who all his
life has never had a single breath he didn't have to fight for,
struggle for, and all of a sudden he *can* breath, can talk, can even
sing?  Don't call me a monster.  I fucking know better, and so does
the kid.  All of them.

Yeah, I've got a list.  I know who's been naughty and who's been nice.
I'm not just the jolly old gift-bringer, you know.

I'm also the bogeyman.