Ascension by Daniel Weisbeck (reading tree .txt) 📕

Ascension program for all humanity's health and security. This is a necessary step to avoid a second epidemic and an unnecessary burden on our health facilities.

Liza had to think about her age. I’m forty-one, she reminded herself. “Am I…do I have to…what the…” Her face drained of colour. How in the hell did the Amendment get changed?

Amendment 10 was initially introduced to extend mandatory immunity testing from seventy-years of age and higher to sixty-years of age. The sudden change to forty made no sense. Citizens in her age group still had a thirty percent chance of positive immunity with repeated gene treatment. No, that can’t be right. She must have misheard the message.

“Rewind and replay announcement,” she commanded her virtual assistant.

Liza leaned into the floating video display listening intently. There it was. They had said, “…forty years of age or older.” She heard it right the first time. Her hands trembled. What does it mean? Of course, she knew what it meant. But asking the question delayed the answer. What it meant was – she would have to go to a clinic within the next two days and be tested for immunity resistance.

“Excuse me, Liza,” interrupted her assistant from the dash of her vehicle. “Dignity requires notification that you have received and opened the message. Would you like to listen to the message now?”

Liza gave her head a little shake and wiped her damp chin with a harsh brush of her hand. Giving a heavy, uncertain sigh, she said, “Open message.”

“Hello, Liza Lee. This is Dignity Services Limited. You have opted to receive treatment and medical information from our clinic through encrypted messaging sent directly to and validated by your virtual assistant. We are sending you this message today regarding your recent visit to one of our facilities. Before we go any further, I would like to remind you that Dignity Service Limited is a fully authorized affiliate of the Sanctuary Government Ascension Program. You can access a copy of our full terms and conditions through your assistant who has been sent the file log with this message.”

The voice continued. “Citizen Lee, we thank you for taking your mandatory FossilFlu virus susceptibility test with Dignity. We are sorry to report that activation of the immunity gene M4 is negative. Your results have been filed with the Department of Health and Population. It is recommended within the governing guidelines, and for the benefit of humanity, you schedule an Ascension as soon as is convenient. Voluntary participation in the Dignity program makes you eligible for the Government’s Friends and Family Grant, so you can rest assured those you are leaving behind will be well taken care of.”

“Voluntary? Right,” Liza scoffed bitterly.

“We understand this is a difficult time. We hope to make this transition as beautiful as possible. There are four packages you can choose from here at Dignity. The first option is fully funded by the Council of the Sanctuary. The next three packages offer a menu of choices for your going away ceremony and final resting compliments. Please call us within the next twenty-four hours to schedule an appointment and discuss your Ascension. If we do not hear from you, we will notify the Department of Health that you have neglected to respond. We are certain we can help you leave with the Dignity you deserve.”

The voice finished to a profound silence. Liza’s shoulders slumped forward as her chin dropped to her chest. It was the result she had expected. No surprise there. Tests across the city were coming back with the same results—negative activation of the synthetic immunity gene. So high were the numbers that the public had become sceptical of the gene cure. Conspiracy theorists claimed the entire program a fake, an excuse to legitimize the Ascension program.

It did not matter either way. Fake or real, the program was supported by the politicians and backed by the public. And the rules were clear. Once you were tagged, you had to comply.

The message from Dignity repeated in her head. “Friends and Family Grant,” Liza whispered in disbelief. “Another bogus government program meant to make us feel better.” Who in the Sanctuary had real family anymore?

Liza, like many women, struggled to get pregnant. Years of intense solar radiation after the Scorch had reduced fertility in both men and women to frighteningly low numbers in the Sanctuary of Asia. So low was the birth rate that the Government was forced to approve a Population Assistance Program allowing extracorporeal pregnancy by growing foetuses outside the human body.

But population growth was the least of the Government’s concerns when the FossilFlu virus returned.

The victim, a fifty-year-old man living alone in Old Town, died within twenty-four hours of contracting the disease. Rats had brought the virus back into the heavily guarded city. Government action was swift. Hospitals went on alert. Entire buildings were converted to emergency medical facilities. Strict lockdowns and curfews ground the Sanctuary city to a halt.

Tensions rose, and soon the public became restless. The Government had to show progress and phase one was a mandatory vaccination scheme. But the new synthetic immunity gene was rushed out under false hopes. When the older generations displayed negative results for gene activation, doubt in the program spread.

Then, to the horror of the public, another infection was reported. Mass panic ensued throughout the walled-in-city. Within days the leaders of the Sanctuary introduced the Ascension program. The highly controversial scheme aimed at removing the most vulnerable in society to ensure a repeat epidemic wouldn’t spread like wildfire through the gated city. The Sanctuary went silently into shock.

“Isn’t it terrible? Asking people to kill themselves,” the citizens would say publicly with exaggerated gasps.

“How did it come to this?” others would answer, offering equally bewildered expressions, all the time, knowing exactly how it had come to this because nobody said anything. Their lack of objection was an agreement, a pact with the Sanctuary leaders to allow Ascension to pass. That is how it happened.

Over time, the daily death tolls became a standard part of news packets. “We honour and thank these dutiful citizens for their sacrifice to humanity,” the announcer would start in a sincere voice. “Two hundred and thirty-one brave citizens have ascended today.”

Day after day, the numbers rolled out, faceless and nameless. Slowly, the counting of the dead became nothing more than noise in the background. Sanctuary life had moved on. Until Amendment 10.

“Did you want to reply to Dignity?” Liza’s assistant asked.

Liza contemplated. Several times she started to respond but cut herself short. Something in her belly was holding her back. Then, that something started rising, becoming a lump in her throat. Her face twisted, and her eye swelled. A tremor shook her body from head to toe. She gripped the edge of the dashboard with white knuckles and let out a long-trumpeted scream until her face turned purple. Inhaling deeply, she released another uncontrollable belting roar and sunk into herself.

A sudden knock on her glass window startled her. Turning to her right, she found a young woman standing outside the vehicle wearing a pinched expression.

“Hello?” the woman said in a semi-muted voice.

Liza shook her head and flipped her hand, telling the stranger to go away. The woman, no older than twenty, with smooth light brown skin, piercing blue eyes, and wearing a clear face mask, refused to leave.

“Please, open your window.”

Liza straightened herself, pulled down on the edges of her white top, and ordered her window to open. She hated herself for agreeing to talk to the woman. The glass purred until the window came to a stop halfway down.

“Are you okay?” the girl asked kindly.

“Do I look okay,” Liza snapped, her voice raspy from screaming.

“Did you just get your results?” the nosy girl pressed on. “It’s okay. You don’t have to do it. We are here to help you.”

“Who are we,” Liza asked bitterly.

“Us,” she pointed to the group of sign-holders, who were all now staring at their exchange. “We run a safe home for those who wish to stay alive.”

“Oh really,” Liza spit the words. “And do you have a cure as well?”

The woman’s face crinkled. “I’m trying to help you. Give you a safe place to live out your life.”

Liza knew what the woman was talking about. Shields, they called them. Buildings for vulnerable citizens who were shut away forever, with no hope of leaving. This was the only alternative to Ascension. Basically, a coffin of a different kind.

Liza’s voice became something even she didn’t recognize – hostile and aggressive. “You know they will come for you.”

The woman snapped her head back. “What?”

“You think because you are young and can bear children, you are safe? They won’t stop until every possible carrier of the disease is gone! That is all of us. Every last human in this godforsaken Sanctuary.”

“That’s not possible. Someone needs to live,” the woman replied, shaking her head as if the thought had never occurred to her before.

“Do they? Why? For what?”

“I think you’re in shock. Why don’t you come and talk to us?”

Just then, three people exited the clinic. A man around fifty-years-old, ghostly-white, was being escorted by two others. They rushed him past the jumping signs and rhythmic shouts of the protestors.

The woman standing outside Liza’s vehicle turned towards the commotion and squinted. A young male protester standing at the barrier’s edge was frantically waving his hand, capturing her attention. With a determined finger, he pointed at the terrified patient, now making his way through the parking lot. The gesture was an explicit instruction to move on from the old woman in the vehicle who was not interested in what they offered. The woman turned back and met Liza’s eyes one last time, a final silent offer to talk.

“Go. Just get out of here,” Liza said and ordered the window to rise.

Running across the lot, the protestor approached the new patient. The old man’s two friends looked horrified at