Discarded Colony by V.M. Gunn Read Free Book Online Page A

afar as his captors had been generous enough to freeze him in liquefied carbon for his transport from Earth. However, he expected that it was enormous like the ones he had worked on before all of this happened. Giant floating islands, built using impossibly light yet strong metals and polymers, fused with genetic qualities which blended man-made structure and organic plants and fibers. They were so immense that they generated their own atmospheres and blue skies.
    When they were first made possible by breakthroughs in all areas of biotechnology and engineering a half-century ago humans imagined space resorts, "Las Vegas style oases and Amazon Jungles in space" as one famous headline put it. Everyone thought that they would further supplant human space colonies on the Moon and Mars, not to mention revitalize aging space outposts built with obsolete ‘dirty’ technology, with a new level of feasibility and cost effectiveness never seen before. To a certain extent that happened, but as had been evidenced over the course of history, perverted and greedy bodies prevented any chance of a utopian outcome. So many islands had instead been built for use as military commands, ships and, of course, prisons.
    He did not know how many people were confined to this place. He assumed, given the numbering that there were roughly ten thousand plots; numbered 0000 to 9999. Although, he had never seen more than 100 prisoners together at one time. Even that only happened on the rare occasions when they were allowed to congregate together for briefings, showering or signing contracts for consensual intercourse. So far he had never bothered with the latter bizarre practice, but given that the majority of his counterparts were hollow looking men all seemingly begging for death as he, it was not exactly the type of atmosphere that inspired romance. He wondered why they even bothered.
    Everyone that was brought to this terrible place had a death sentence. Not one imposed by the government for breaking some type of law. This death sentence was the form of an incurable sickness that would slowly break down each cell in his body until all of his hair, skin and digits fell off and his body decomposed so badly that he could no longer work. He, like all the others here had acute radiation poisoning that had been deemed by the Earth’s government as "incurable and dangerous." The laws of 2157 stated that when a citizen was diagnosed with such a level of the disease that they would not be taken care of by the already overburdened medical systems. It had been centuries since most types of socialist-style health care systems were abolished as most countries now invested 90-95% of their budgets into military and space expansion projects. Health care, therefore, was only available to the 'Tier One' citizens that could afford it. But even then, if someone contracted anything terminal or contagious such as this poising it was considered an instant death sentence. On Earth, on top of being immediately isolated, patients were given one to two weeks to live. He could swear that he'd been in this place for over a month already.
     
    As he wiped the sweat off his forehead, he thought back to the fateful day when he took an unplanned blood test requested by his employer. He should have never done it; he was not legally obliged to deliver it without the presence of his physician. People had warned him of stories that now parallel his. As soon as his implants communicated any sign of radiation poisoning the authorities were notified. Then, before he knew it, he was here.
    "This is no life," he thought to himself. "I would rather be a decomposing corpse underneath this soil... fertilizer for these plants." He didn’t know how long he had left, but it wasn’t a lot of time. In his former life, he had always been a competitive person and someone that would often brag that he’d "never lost a game of anything" in his life. Here, however, his health was slowly getting