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    Jackpack City
    Jackpack City
    Jackpack City
    Ebook31 pages24 minutes

    Jackpack City

    By Nicholas Stillman

    5/5

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    About this ebook

    Enter a dystopian city boiling over with mindless meat—hard science fiction zombies led by a modern-day necromancer. Anti-caregiver Brian becomes an underground entrepreneur, profiteering from the runaway healthcare schemes that criminalize natural death. Does his crude and ingenious invention, a life-extending jackpack, lead masses of misshapen patients to freedom or enslavement? Driven vengeful by sustaining the clients he hates, Brian sics them on the accursed city, its authorities, and the whole bloated system.

    Brian's twisted reenvisioning of life and death will leave you either horrifyingly in agreement or fearful of medicine forever. In "Jackpack City" only the hardest of the hard science fiction creates the gruesomest medical nightmare you can imagine. Get it now and entangle yourself in this trainwreck future of our health system.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNicholas Stillman
    Release dateNov 25, 2015
    ISBN9781519986443
    Jackpack City
    Author

    Nicholas Stillman

    Nicholas Stillman writes dark but entertaining science fiction. His weekly short stories and collections aim for variety and novelty with fun and thought-provoking twists. They often branch into dystopia, crime, horror, medical fiction, black comedy, romance, adventure, adult, and the completely new. Some of Stillman’s themes include civilizational collapse, addictions of the future, medicine in space, dark psychology, and the terrifying fate of our healthcare. Stillman offers monthly free short stories at StillmanSciFi.com. Get yourself free, easily accessible short stories for life--the perfect way for any science fiction fan to spend time on commutes or at home.

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      Book preview

      Jackpack City - Nicholas Stillman

      Brian invented the jackpack in 2028. It held all the attachments that decorated patients in their final months: intravenous and feeding bags, their lines and battery-powered pumps, surgical drains, an oxygen tank, and even Foley catheters and collection bags. A new pump came out which moved urine against gravity, intended for hospital use only. The jackpack simply crammed everything into a manageable, portable box worn on the back. Some of Brian’s clients had hunchbacks, but his 3D printer could build a custom-fit casing for anyone. He broke many laws to extend clients’ lives and mobility, and none of them knew his last name.

      One law, though, made Brian’s business possible: the Open Exit policy. Since 2026, doctors could no longer label patients certified and force them to stay hospitalized. The moral crusaders had whined their loudest about patients’ rights. Any patient now, even the most confused or delirious, could walk, wheel, or crawl outside. And they did, in mass. And Brian slipped his business card to the shamblers who didn’t die or get picked up by family. He had the tubes and bags needed for them to live outside the system. They’d call for a jackpack or die in the streets.

      They died with a jackpack too, but it took damned long. Commuters preferred patients to fall over quickly and closer to the hospital. Everyone knew the government had to cut spending, and Open Exit kicked the can to the moon. But then Brian appeared and turned the city streets and parks into psych wards without walls. The health system kept all its pet humans alive past age 100, and Brain’s invention stretched the decline further.

      Because of him, citizens had to dodge even more patients lying or shuffling in the streets. When the police collected the dead ones, they often took the jackpacks for their great grandparents to use. Other entrepreneurs had probably started selling by now. They’d never fill the demand. While waiting in his van, Brian wondered about the

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