"I know you need to do this," Julio said. She nodded, but realized there was more he wanted to say.

He seemed to chew on the words for a while, eventually coming up with "p.r.o.ntoTester is still due on Thursday."

"So run your spot," she said. "The Machine of Death. Cut it down to twenty-eight thirty, put the blue-card on the back. Heck, record a narrator. Make it look good. Make it look serious."

He looked up at her. "You really want to put me out of a job?"

"It's nothing personal," she said. "Not with you, anyway. You'd find another gig."

Julio shook his head. "Look, I understand you're mad. I read those emails. I know how he screwed you over."

"You knew?Great," she spat. "Thanks for telling me about it." She opened the car door and slung herself into the driver's seat. The faster she could leave this place behind, the better.

"Wait," he said. "I'm sorry. It's not-I mean, look, a lot lot of vile stuff goes on. After awhile you just stop noticing. It was nothing personal." of vile stuff goes on. After awhile you just stop noticing. It was nothing personal."

She started the car. "So do it," she said. "Run the spot. Say it was my idea. I don't care, I'll take the blame if it means..." There it was. There was the thought she'd been dancing around. "If it means it brings him down. Brings the whole company down."

It was said. It was out loud. It was real.

Suddenly it even seemed possible. possible.

"I got a good thing going here," Julio said lamely.

She felt something weird. She glanced up at the rearview mirror and realized that she was smiling. It would be malicious to air the joke spot. It would be fun fun.

"You know you want to," she said. "Just make sure you cash your check first."

It had been so long since she'd had this kind of time to herself that she felt paralyzed.

She paced her living room, waiting for anything. A text message from Julio. A call from Rockefeller+King. Any indication that she'd done the right thing, that her decision had made any any sort of difference at all to anyone. sort of difference at all to anyone.

Jack called. She didn't answer. He called again. She sent him to voicemail.

She had trouble sleeping, so she bought more beer and spent the night sending press releases to every news outlet she could think of, promoting the Machine of Death-"new, from the makers of Fat-It-Out."

When she didn't come back to JBE the next day, or the day after that, or the day after that, Jack eventually stopped calling. She tried accessing Jack's email again, but the pa.s.sword didn't work anymore. Her heart seized in her chest at the thought that he had discovered her intrusion.

She called Rockefeller+King three times, but each time hung up before the receptionist answered.

The weekend pa.s.sed in fitful bursts of anxiety, and she heard nothing from any quarter. She presumed that Julio had either improbably grown a pair and shipped the spot as-is to the affiliates, burning the place down, as it were; or that Jack and Julio had spent a frantic, sleepless 72 hours preparing an all-new, twenty-eight-minute infomercial.

Either way, she felt guilty.

She went to Wal-Mart to buy yogurt and saw Fat-It-Out still on the shelf, toxic coating and all, and it renewed her fervent hope that Jack would burn in h.e.l.l.

Her phone woke her up, and she answered it groggily without looking at the caller ID.

"Kel, can you please come in today, please," Jack said. There was something different about his voice-he wasn't demanding, pleading, or shouting; he was just asking politely. asking politely. It threw her off guard. It threw her off guard.

She thought about asking how things were, but didn't. She tried to think of an excuse, but couldn't. Then the call was over and her conscience had said "okay" before the rest of her had even woken up yet.

"Moron! You are a moron!" she shouted at herself in the shower.

"'Can you please please come in today, come in today, please please,' oh, you son of a b.i.t.c.h," she chanted mockingly to her shoes.

"d.a.m.n it d.a.m.n it d.a.m.n it," she told her mirror as she pulled out of her driveway.

She turned on the radio, and the voice that greeted her almost made her wipe out her mailbox. For a moment she thought she was still asleep, and dreaming.

"Get the ultimate ultimate peace of mind-from one peace of mind-from one tiny tiny machine that fits machine that fits anywhere anywhere," a jaunty voice told her. It was Mark, the announcer they used for every infomercial. He could sound excited about anything. anything. "Order now and "Order now and we'll we'll pay the first payment of $29.97. pay the first payment of $29.97. You You only pay shipping!" only pay shipping!"

Then, a studio full of laughter. "We're going to get one for the studio right away," the morning-zoo deejay said. His dimwit partner chimed in with an old-man voice. "Maaake sure to get the ruuuush delivery," he squeaked. "I don't know how loooong I haaaave."

When she got to JBE, the parking lot was full. Inside the office, college kids chattered into headsets.

She tried to walk to Jack's office, but her feet led her the other way, towards Julio's edit bay. Towards a friendly face.

Julio wasn't in yet, but something weird was definitely going on. After a second of nervous fidgeting in the hall, she ducked into Julio's room, closed the door, and woke up his computer.

Blogs were buzzing. Clips from Julio's joke spot were Featured Videos on YouTube and littered the Reddit front page. The AP had cribbed from her press release, which meant that major outlets and networks would pick up the story in the coming week. Everyone had an opinion-was the Machine of Death just a hilariously bad commercial, or a subversive viral marketing gimmick?

Or maybe-just maybe-something more?

"A spot-on satire of infomercial idiocy, made better by the fact that there apparently is is an actual product you can buy," wrote a columnist at AdWeek magazine. an actual product you can buy," wrote a columnist at AdWeek magazine.

"rofl i'd totally buy one," a YouTube commenter added.

And then this, from an article on Slashdot: According to patent records, this JBE product (from the folks who brought you Gyno-Paste!) is actually a repackaging of a genuine medical device developed by a UCLA team who never found an investor. It's one of those "who knows what REALLY happened" scenarios-the head of the project died in a plane crash (allegedly after a meeting with the Defense Department), just before he was set to unveil the device at MD&M East, the big medical-equipment trade show in NY. It doesn't sound too far-fetched to think that this is a case of sabotage that n.o.body cares enough to investigate (or is being prevented from investigating), because according to the NTSB report the cause of the plane crash was "water contamination of the fuel system"-something every pilot is trained to check for during preflight.

Kelly's eyes froze on the word water water. She felt the blood drain from her face. She could still see that research paper hidden away in Jack's email, the one that contained the lead scientist's C-18 result.

WATER.

This was nuts. The p.r.o.ntoTester-the Machine of Death-was a stupid cheap device that didn't work, just like Hair-B-Gon didn't actually actually remove hair, just like Gyno-Paste didn't remove hair, just like Gyno-Paste didn't actually actually rejuvenate genital skin, just like Fat-It-Out didn't rejuvenate genital skin, just like Fat-It-Out didn't actually actually replace eating healthy and exercising, no matter what Mark a.s.sured the consumer in calm, earnest tones. replace eating healthy and exercising, no matter what Mark a.s.sured the consumer in calm, earnest tones.

They couldn't actually believe believe the spot. They must think the spoof infomercial was a joke, postmodern geek-humor. The radio deejays and the kids on YouTube wanted p.r.o.ntoTesters to go with their Ninja Turtle toys and Super Mario-emblazoned hoodies. the spot. They must think the spoof infomercial was a joke, postmodern geek-humor. The radio deejays and the kids on YouTube wanted p.r.o.ntoTesters to go with their Ninja Turtle toys and Super Mario-emblazoned hoodies.

But if Julio had somehow been right right-if those little paper slips could say WATER and somehow somehow mean water contamination in an airplane's fuel tank-then someday, maybe soon, those blogs would go into overtime, and Jack's Chinese warehouse would sell out in a day and a half, and the box would be reverse-engineered by everybody, everywhere, and there would be lawsuits and government inquiries and everything would go to h.e.l.l and n.o.body would be laughing. mean water contamination in an airplane's fuel tank-then someday, maybe soon, those blogs would go into overtime, and Jack's Chinese warehouse would sell out in a day and a half, and the box would be reverse-engineered by everybody, everywhere, and there would be lawsuits and government inquiries and everything would go to h.e.l.l and n.o.body would be laughing.

A machine to predict death. The most ludicrous idea in the world.

But people had bought Fat-It-Out.

She stood up and closed her eyes and could picture bright red boxes lined up at Wal-Mart, crammed into a million shopping carts. "Machine of Death," the boxes would say, "now with pota.s.sium." And everyone would buy ten of them.

She opened her eyes, and turned around, and Jack was standing in the doorway.

"Are you hot?" he asked. "You're sweating. Here, let me hit the A/C."He walked into the room and brushed past her on his way to the thermostat. She felt her skin p.r.i.c.kle.

He turned back to her, standing closer than normal conversation required, searching her face for any indication-of what?

After a long moment of silence, he spoke in a dramatic whisper. "I was right to trust you," he said. "You've made me a lot of money. You've made us us a lot of money." a lot of money."

She burst into tears, and of course, he swept her into his arms.

She hated it-she hated him touching her, making her flush, making her tense-but at the moment she really did need a hug.

Story by David Malki !

Ill.u.s.tration by Jess Fink

LOSS OF BLOOD.

I'VE GOT THREE MONTHS LEFT TO LIVE, AND I'M IN AN APARTMENT BUILDING ON FIGUEROA, KICKING DOWN SOMEONE'S DOOR.

"Paramedics," I shout. "We're coming in."

No response. Sweat rolls down my back, and the hallway stinks like the inside of a fish. I'm a scheduled man, the living dead, but here I am: tagging and bagging in the slums of Angel City like it's any other Tuesday.

t.i.tus, my partner, leans against the wall behind me and scrubs his fingernails through his goatee. "Hundred credits says it's a scag overdose."

I give the door another kick and plaster dust trickles down from the ceiling. All we know are the facts that came in with the ping: black female, early twenties, unconscious and unresponsive. No name or cla.s.s registered, no datafeed on her at all.

"Come on, a hundred credits," t.i.tus says. "Cla.s.s J-8, overdose. I bet you." He puts out his hand for me to shake, but I'm in no mood for this s.h.i.t. My head's full of sand and my eyes won't focus. I slap his hand away from me.

"What crawled up your a.s.s today?" t.i.tus asks.

I haven't told him I'm scheduled. I think about how it feels to be wrapped in my body, the speck of my soul floating in all this meat. Everything I know will end in eighty-six days.

I give the door another kick and the whole thing splinters off its hinges.

We head into the apartment, back toward the bedroom. The floor plan's typical thirties construction, slapped together in the years after the Separation, when the upper cla.s.ses all evacuated to the Garden. On the kitchen table, empty beer bottles huddle together with cigarette b.u.t.ts in their bellies: the wreckage of others' lives.

Last night, Helene and I had cried into each other's cheeks, then made love with our teeth knocking together in the dark. This morning she'd hung on my shoulders as I stood at the door in my uniform. Her round stomach, our unborn baby, pressed against my belt.

"Let's stay home," she had said. "Otherwise I'll think myself crazy."

"t.i.tus needs me. The grid's lit up with calls."

"I'll scream if you go."

I put my hand over her mouth and she bit my palm.

Sometimes at night when I touch my forehead to Helene's, I can feel her thoughts turning inside her. They brush my skin like whispers and I imagine the two of us melting together.

But now, in the sc.u.mmy one-bedroom on Figueroa, I'm frozen in my own blood and the apartment's armchairs slump in the corners, nightmares on casters.

t.i.tus and I find the victim sprawled on the bedroom floor with her skirt knotted around her thighs and her feet bare and one arm stretched out across the stained carpet. The window's open behind her. Whoever called this one in must have climbed out and run off. I kneel down over the woman and I feel her strong steady breath on my cheek.

"Can't smell scag on her," I say. "You lost the bet."

"Not like we shook on it," t.i.tus says. I turn the victim's head and brush her hair back to expose the barcode tattooed behind her left ear. t.i.tus leans in and scans her.

"Miss Pepper Dawson," he says, then flicks the LCD on his tagger. "No cla.s.s listed, though. It's drawing a blank."

"Fake tags?" I ask.

"Looks like. Encryption's misaligned."

I can't find a thing wrong with her: no bleeding, no bruises, no breaks, and she's not liquored up or sludged-out on drugs. Looks peaceful, like she's sleeping. I touch the line of Pepper's jawbone and I think about Helene. I think about our baby. I think about freefall from thirty thousand feet, the cold gray ocean rushing up to meet us. My stomach flips.

Pepper coughs and her eyes snap open. Then she yelps and recoils from me, my white uniform and blue gloves, my belt blinking with electronics.

"No, I'm fine," she says. "Just fainted, is all." She scrambles backward across the floor.

Everyone tries to do this, soon as they recognize who we are and what we're there for. It never does any good. We already have our hands around Pepper's arms and I'm trying to shush her, keep her calm while t.i.tus does the blood sample. He presses the tagger's piston to the inside of her left elbow.

"Don't," she says. "I can explain."

"Heard that one before," t.i.tus says. His cheeks are pale gray, his face a chisel. He pulls the trigger and the piston snaps and the tagger's lights go blue as it uploads the blood sample. Pepper thrashes, pounds her heels on the floor. I fight to hold onto her.

It goes like this: We check the victim's tags and run their blood; if their fate matches their symptoms, we cart them off to St. Michael's Hospice so the priests can euthanize them. But if their symptoms don't match, we don't do a whole lot-just slap some bandages on, give them some pills, that sort of thing. Patch and release. We can't afford to waste too many Hospice supplies on the non-dying.

We shouldn't even call ourselves paramedics. We're bus-boys. We ship bodies and clean up messes, that's all.

"What'd you bet her blood's fake, too?" t.i.tus asks me. He wipes sweat from his forehead.

Black-market blood isn't unheard of, especially in this part of Angel City. In the fate-scrubbing shops, they'll alter your tags, mod your fingerprints, scramble your retinas, and swap out your slumlander blood for some nice, clean Garden-cla.s.s blood. None of it actually changes your fate, as far as anyone can tell. But slumlanders are desperate b.a.s.t.a.r.ds.

"Please," Pepper says. Her voice has become small, like a child's, and I can feel her pulse jumping in her arm. I want to tell her that I know what it's like. I know how it feels to look at death, to have its teeth on your neck.

Two weeks ago, Helene and I had argued with our death counselor about our Notice of Scheduling.

We're too young, we had said. This whole thing had to be a mistake, a clerical f.u.c.k-up somewhere. The counselor had folded his arms. He looked like a typical Ministry fob: bad haircut, high collar, face pocked like sandstone. He took off his skullcap and tucked it under one arm and crossed himself. I wanted to spit in his face.

"What you're feeling is natural," he'd said. "Your denial, your questioning. All very natural at this stage."

He licked his thumb and flipped through our files. His voice oozed like motor oil. "You're R-4s. Plane crashes, both of you. The longer we wait to schedule you, the more likely your fate will be expressed in, ah, unexpected unexpected ways. Last time that happened, an airliner hit Denali Microchip. $8.2 billion in damage." ways. Last time that happened, an airliner hit Denali Microchip. $8.2 billion in damage."

Damage, sure. But when I looked around at our apartment, a mildewing hole in a neighborhood full of garbage and rotting linoleum and blowflies and broken gla.s.s, all of us skeletons shuffling around down here in the ruins, I wondered what the difference was between this life and wreckage. When something blows up in the slumlands, you're just moving rubble around.

Helene picked at the frayed edges of her bathrobe and tried to smile at the counselor, but it wound up looking cruel. The lack of sleep had turned us into marionettes.

I asked about the appeals process, and the counselor shoved a thick stack of paperwork at me. FORM 1678-ATF: REQUEST FOR EXTENSION OF FATE APPLICATION. It was crowded with dotted lines and small type, layers of sub-forms, bricks of legal jargon. Helene's knee pressed against mine under the table.