By J. L. Thurston

MY RESPIRATOR BEEPS, BRINGING ME DOWN TO REALITY. Through fatigue, I had finally found peace long enough to relax and let my mind wander. It’s been days since I’ve felt calm enough to space out. Maybe it’s the delicate blue paint on the walls, or the screens on the ceiling playing video of blue skies dotted with white fluffy clouds. It’s a sky I’ve never seen but my dad used to tell me he’d imagined shapes in the clouds when he was a boy. This blue and white sky is alien to me but I find it beautiful.

Another beep. I’ll have to recharge it soon. Certainly there’s a charging station here. I haven’t looked around much, though I’ve been here three hours. Because of the ion storm I had to arrive two and a half hours before opening or risk not being able to come at all. Now that I’ve been let inside beyond the lead lined atrium walls, I should get up and check the place out.

If my dad were here, he’d explore with me. Even when his lungs were failing him, he always found enjoyment in wandering. In the end, he’d wander with just his eyes and a National Geographic.

“See, Aiden?” he’d say, landing a finger on a fading photo of a lion or zebra. “These used to be everywhere in Africa.”

We buried him with a stuffed lion. He was so fascinated by things he’d remember from childhood. Fascinated might not be the right word. He was… Well, he missed those things. He missed the days of breathing. Of free water. When people weren’t going broke just so they could afford to give their children a drink. He missed lying down outside and watching the sky drift by.

I wear his respirator. Mine broke in school one day. I spent three hours in class knowing that unfiltered air was entering my lungs. It tasted terrible. The headache was worse. When my father saw me come home with only a rag over my face he didn’t hesitate. He took off his respirator and put it on me.

He spent days convincing my mom it was going to be okay. We couldn’t afford a new one and it would be weeks before mine could be fixed.

“What are we going to do? Move into a Breathe-Rite?” he asked the final question that sent my mom away in tears.

A Breathe-Rite. An apartment building with filtered air. Sealed off from the radiation and the toxins people like me are exposed to every day. People don’t have to wear respirators in those places. They can actually take them off. They even have Breathe-Rite schools. But the people who can afford to live there are beyond wealthy. They waste air and water because it doesn’t mean much to them. They have all they’ll ever need. For now.

And my parents went without for so long, saving every penny they could. For me. For today. For FreeBot.

I thought a place like this would have filtered air, but the orange signs with the black lungs and the big X tell me to keep my respirator on. It beeps again. I need to charge it.

Standing and stretching, I feel a deep-bone ache. My legs hardly want to move. I leave the lobby and head in the direction of the food court. It’s been closed indefinitely due to supplies, but the area is open and friendly. The blue walls are interrupted by large plants protected inside humidity domes. I let myself admire a particularly leafy one labeled ‘fern.’ My dad would have known it’s name on sight.

At last, I locate a green pillar with a lightning bolt decal. The charging station costs $80 per watt. I unlock my phone and check the account. I barely have enough for a half charge.

He missed the days of breathing. Of free water. When people weren’t going broke just so they could afford to give their children a drink. He missed lying down outside and watching the sky drift by.

As I plug the black cord of my respirator into the outlet and swipe my card, I realize it must seem stupid to charge up a respirator for only a few more hours of use. I’m a client here, after all, and I won’t even need a respirator soon. But my appointment isn’t until nine, and I don’t feel like spending three hours breathing garbage air and suffering a headache. Plus, I’ve opted to be an organ donor. My lungs have minimal damage and could help someone. Someone like my dad. He needed lungs and none were available. But he would have refused a donor, anyway. Saving the money for me. For today. He died for this. And that is why I feel like such a coward.

I don’t want this. I’m too afraid. I don’t think this is the answer for the human race. I don’t want us all to suffer and die, but it is our fault we live in a destroyed world.

They call people my age the Last Generation. There are kids younger than us, but they are few. Babies don’t survive the way they used to. Water and air is so expensive, most people can’t afford to keep their children alive. I’m apart of the Last Generation. I’m fifteen.

My parents are gone. Dad died of respiratory failure because he lived without a respirator for three weeks while mine was being repaired. Mom starved to death. I was almost in my grave until a harvest brought bread back to the circulation. But it won’t last. Those who can breathe can’t eat, and those who can eat can’t breathe. Unless you’re rich.

Before Mom died, she told me the money was for me to take to FreeBot. Because of my age, I’d be accepted quickly. Out of respect for her, I went. I think I didn’t expect FreeBot to work me in so soon. I’m not a child of important people. I have an average IQ. There’s nothing special about me. But they need people to come. People who can afford it. Or the human race will die.

For Mom, for Dad, I signed the contract. I paid FreeBot all the money my parents had died saving. For them, I sit in the main floor of this beautiful building waiting for nine o’clock. Waiting for my consciousness to be transferred into a robot.

They promised the procedure is painless. They promise a fifty percent chance of success. I’ll fall asleep, and if everything works, I’ll wake up with a robot body.

Robots don’t need water or air. They don’t need sustenance. Humans won’t be living things anymore. They’ll be able to get passed their resource-devouring tendencies and fix the world. Maybe they can bring back zebras and lions. FreeBot was a dream come true for some, an answer for others.

I don’t know if I believe in a soul, but I do know that this — whatever I am, whatever it is that makes me, me — will die today at nine. In my place will be a silicone and metal thing with my memories and thought patterns.

Something like me will walk this earth forever with all others who could afford the transformation. Those robots will be the new human race. But me, the real me, will die peacefully today. I won’t die of dehydration, or starvation, or suffocation. And that’s a kindness, really.

My mind has slipped away again. Pretty soon, I might be able to finally fall asleep. I glance at the clock. It’s nearly time. I walk around until I find my suite number. A woman at the desk takes my name and card with a big, white smile. I can see the seam around her face where the battery attaches. I want to ask her if she likes being a robot, but I don’t.

Another robot human leads me into the suite. It isn’t what I expected, but I guess I didn’t know what to expect. My little robot me is lying on a bed. A fake Aiden. I’m told to lie on the bed next to it. Electrodes are attached. It takes too long. My heart is hammering and I clench my jaw to avoid vomiting stomach acid.

The human robot makes an empathetic face. He tells me not to be afraid. I want to tell him he’s a robot turning people into robots, but I can’t speak. He won’t care, anyway. I paid for this experience. It’s still better than the way Dad died, gasping and choking. It’s better than Mom’s death, the way she couldn’t even move to relieve herself.

I feel the stab of the needle in my arm. It doesn’t really hurt, but it startles me. I only feel the shock for a moment, the sudden coolness filling my body. I cling to every last sensation, memorizing what living feels like. Hands unsnap my respirator from my face, but my breathing is so shallow I can’t even taste the air anymore.

Light fades, the sensations disappear. I close my eyes and see a lion on the cover of a National Geographic.

“See, Aiden,” my dad says.

I smile at him. “I know.”