It was already noon, and there were still so many bodies to burn. The morgue was overflowing again, and Winston hated his job. He sat outside on hard concrete smoking, the loading dock a brief escape, and watched a meat wagon unloading a fresh batch of dead bastards. Winston inhaled nicotine to calm frayed nerves. The door behind him screeched at being propped open, but he’d been there since the morning before and couldn’t be bothered. Corporate mandated overtime. Fuck his boss, and fuck the door alarm. Hard to get real tobacco anymore, but he paid an obscene amount for his vices. Home-rolled menthol tickled his lungs, he sighed smoke. The ex-wife likened him to a hedonist, and he certainly agreed pleasure was much preferable to the constant dull drone of his life. He almost laughed at the two porters unloading bodies: they were solemn, eyes reverent as they handled taut body bags. Must be new. Not yet ground down by the reality of being glorified taxi drivers for the dead, a cheap imitation of the ferryman delivering more of the poor dead for him to scavenge out shiny bits crow-like for his corporate overlord’s precious bottom line. When they were finished unloading, Winston stubbed his cigarette and went in, kicking the block of wood from the door.

Inside, the corridor was dimly lit. Maintenance delayed again, probably citing budget constraints. His footsteps thudded softly on concrete and he wondered which club he should head to after his shift, neural interface cycling through his favorites as he walked to the locker room. The place carried the stench of sweat and overworked bodies like it was built from them, each ceramic tile faded the dull yellow of used gym socks. Winston knew the auto-cleaner bot could easily scour the whole place, but corporate wasn’t willing to pay the subscription fee for the service anymore, so it collected dust in one of the supply closets like a gaunt effigy of cost-saving cuts to make stock prices go up—for more shareholder debauchery—and the room suffered for it. Winston couldn’t decide if he was in the mood for dancers, dancing, loud music, fighting, fucking, or getting absolutely sloshed. He knew of places that were great for one or two, but none did them all well. Ideally, he’d just find a memory broker that had something that contained everything, but he knew that kind of memory chip was way out of his normal budget. Daydreaming was free, though, and he was well-practiced.

He clanged open his locker, noticed he still had a few days before the monthly usage fee, and pulled a syringe and dark green ampoule from under his spare uniform. He told himself it was only to get through the rest of his shift, to have time to live a life after it was over, but the truth was he loved it. Ten cubic centimeters, a needle slid with practiced ease between soft flesh and optical implant, and he was off. Adrenal glands pumped, digital pupils dilated, heartbeat an erratic symphony. Winston slammed the locker shut, didn’t bother locking it, and stalked to the sink. The seams of the faucet and the drain were crusted with years of mineral deposits and looked as tired as he felt. He spent a few credits to turn on the tap and scrubbed his hands, and tried to ignore the tan line where his ring used to be. A pair of cheap latex gloves hung out of his trouser pockets, and he slid them on. He took several deep breaths, reveled in the drug running its course and how awake he felt. Resigned, he headed into the morgue, prepared to wrench implants from the remains of a dead flesh mall.

He clocked back in through his neural interface so the boss couldn’t cheat him out of pay, and shoved open the double doors. There were five new corpses there on dissecting tables, next to the three he’d been working on before break. One had its chest split open, flesh peeled back in a bone rainbow perched on the precipice, ribs splayed as rotten angel wings wide for the scavenger. Nestled between the grim offerings was the bloodied chrome of a Hayashida ‘Hercules’ Mk.2 artificial heart implant, valves half-connected. Winston grabbed a scalpel and set to severing the rest of the links that held it there. They didn’t perform autopsies, those weren’t for the poor. No profit in it. They were harvesters, no more or less. The dead wouldn’t rest if there was money to be made, and the incinerators weren’t built to handle metal, so Winston’s job was to remove it. The pieces were resold at ‘new’ prices if the company could get away with it, ‘lightly used’ at minimum. No need to waste good chrome, good money. The last connection undone, Winston lifted the metal heart from the chest cavity with a wet squelch. He rinsed it with an overhead adjustable nozzle and set it in the autoclave to clean.

Back to work on the body, he was sad no trace remained of their former life. Winston wondered if they’d been an artist or musician with calluses on some of their fingers, if they’d had any talent, what in the god-forsaken city had sent them on to the afterlife, and what their family thought of what was happening to their remains. He sighed. There were more implants to remove: a jawbone, the optics, the ZenTech neural link system, a left leg that looked like it might have been discounted veteran chrome. An elbow joint, some superficial skin implants, a reinforced tendon, all of them went into the autoclave. Winston knew he’d wind up on a table just like this when he died, no saved wealth for a funeral or any remaining family to cover the cost. He wondered what the harvester that worked on his body would daydream about him and it excited him to think of the life they’d imagine he lived, the stimulant still raging in his bloodstream. While he worked, he stashed the occasional piece in one of the body-free mortuary drawers to sell later. As long as he met the expected quota, no one ever noticed. He suspected the interior security cameras didn’t even work.

When he was done working on the mangled cadaver, he peeled off bloody gloves and dropped them in a can, a few more credits coming out of his account for hazardous disposal, and deposited the newly delivered bodies in drawers for the next shift. He glanced at the two he still had to finish, and knew it was going to be a long day, but he had a trip to make. He put on fresh gloves, transferred the finished one to a mobile cart and wheeled it into the dark. He hadn’t bothered to close everything back up, so the sight he had heading down the hall was ghastly. He hadn’t been gentle, favoring expedience, so the whole thing looked like it had been subjected to an industrial blender. No need to waste time suturing it all closed, no need to be presentable when the meat was going to burn. Thankfully, the drainage system on the embalming table worked and there wasn’t any fluid to slough off in the corridor. Winston crossed a boundary in the middle of the building, wheels click-clacking on the divider, flesh jiggling on the cart. Nothing fell. Small blessings. Didn’t need another charge coming out of his account.

The air grew warm, pungent. The acrid taste when he breathed almost caused him to retch. Ventilation malfunctioning again. Have to deal with it for weeks while corporate dragged their heels. There were wheel tracks worn along the route from heavy traffic. Winston knew he could look up how many bodies had passed through since the place started operating on his optics, but he didn’t give a damn. He wondered about the lives they lived that led them here, not how many tons of ash they amounted to, how many discrete plastic containers made their way to the expansive scrapheap outside the city. He used the cart to bang the crematorium doors open.

“Merde!” Richard spoke with a heavy French accent. “Winston. Look at what they’ve done to me, it’s unforgivable.” He gestured one hand to the furnace door that refused to shut properly, leaking heat and smog and stench into the room. His other hand held a large hoagie with a few bites taken. “I put in a ticket, and they tell me they’ll bring it up at the budget meeting next month.” He had soot on his face, and his eyes sunk into their sockets, dim and gray.

“You’re eating.” Winston couldn’t believe it. The smell. The smoke. The taste of charred corpses couldn’t be good seasoning.

“Of course!” He pretended to be offended. “I’m not some dandy, and I’m definitely not clocking out for lunch when dealing with this,” he said. He looked at Winston and raised an eyebrow. “Why, you want some, chérie?”he laughed.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“Sure. Just help me get this thing into one of your open ovens first,” Winston said. He didn’t take the offer seriously. He eyed the hoagie and cringed.

Richard set the sandwich down and led him to the far end of the room to an incinerator that just finished its cycle. He pulled the ash capsule out of the tray at the bottom of the machine, a life in totality encased in plastic forever and ever. He took it over to a pallet and tossed it with hundreds of others, forgotten until its shipment to the landfill.

“You should come out with me tonight,” Winston offered. He scratched the mole on his face, and wondered if he had the time to shave.

“Some other time,” Richard said.

He walked back to the oven and opened the door. He pulled the table out and they transferred the remains from the mobile cart. The table slid back inside at the press of a button. Richard whistled a childhood tune that sounded like a lullaby as he touched the interface and navigated to the standard cremation service, plastic with no urn, and pressed the ignition. Winston knew it could all be done from his optics, but appreciated him making a show out of it anyway. They watched through the window for a while as the body caught fire. Interesting seeing organics liquefy, no matter how many times Winston had seen it. The flames curled and devoured, smoke and ash in its wake. No ceremony.

“Right,” Richard clapped. “I’m starving.” The stench still hung in the air. Too many bodies to burn not to use the defective furnace. He led them back to the table and sat, splitting the hoagie in half. No hand washing involved, a few credits saved. He handed it to Winston.

“Thanks,” he said. He contemplated throwing it into one of the furnaces. They ate together in silence. It didn’t taste awful. “Two more before sundown,” Winston said, chewing the last bit of food. Too much synth lettuce, not enough spice.

“I’ll be here,” Richard said. “My demesne never stops burning. You know this.”

Winston walked back to the morgue and his two lost guests, a bumper harvest of chrome waiting for his sickle. He got to work. Scalpel for easy access, bone saw when it wasn’t. Rib shears, forceps, enterotome for a rare piece of intestinal chrome. Implant after discount implant removed and autoclaved, blood and loose chunks down the drain; the smell wasn’t strong enough to overcome the burnt hair and skin that seeped into his pores. He stowed whatever he could in his contraband stash. He had an appointment for one of the rare pieces after his shift, and was counting on the payout to finance the evening’s trip: the uppers he’d need to enjoy himself, the strippers, and cheap hardcore memory chips. He carved as fast as he could, rough with the meat but careful with the implants—damage came out of his own pocket. It took him hours, and he knew the sun was setting when he finished because his pick-me-up was fading. Another change of gloves, another fee. He couldn’t leave them on, they’d charge him for sullying anything he touched. As he wheeled the bodies to the crematorium, he triple-checked the meeting location on his neural net. He was nervous. It was the biggest deal he’d ever done, and fucking it up wasn’t an option.

“Final delivery,” he called out. He slammed the two carts through the doors and wheeled to a stop near the table where they ate lunch together. “I’m out of here.”

“I’ll call you if I decide to go out tonight,” Richard said. He jerked out a salute in the fashion of the French Foreign Legion, despite never having served. “Got another hour in this fetid prison, mon ami.”

Winston left as quick as he came, tripping on loose shoelaces, footsteps smacking down the dark hall. The building was sinister when the sun went down; hungry, like the disposal of countless bodies wasn’t enough and it craved ever more. He ran gloved hands over his face. He was losing it. A few more steps, a turn in the hall, the door, and he was back at his locker. He peeled off his uniform, the gloves, tossed it all in the bottom cubby knowing the thing would smell of death tomorrow, but he refused to pay for the wash or shower—they were cheaper at home, and he didn’t have the time. He pulled on gray synth-weave pants and a tattered band shirt, his favorite puncture-resistant coat with a dark hand print on the back—he wasn’t a member of the Black Hands, but repping always kept people from harassing him when he was in a hurry. Dressed, he retrieved a cryo-sealed tube that housed the strangest optical chromeware Winston had ever seen. He regretted selling it, but knew it was too risky to hold onto, and tucked the container in his jacket. He hit the exit and stepped out into the night-noise of the city for the first time in thirty-six hours.

The sound blasted Winston after the stone-silence of the morgue. Above, the monorail hurtled past carrying people and cargo downtown. Advertisements lit up his optics: Tenno Tech’s new lung implants—this version guaranteed not to gum up when exposed to heavy amounts of synth smoke, Stanton Arms had a new energy revolver hitting market, the ‘energy of the future’ brought by Energo Lunar. So. Many. Dick pills. He tuned them out, since deactivating was a subscription he refused on principle, and headed down the walkway past holograms of palm trees—real palms could never survive in such a northern climate. He heard the chatter of pedestrians walking with their optics lit up, smelled a street-side ramen cart that mixed with the piss of the city, saw an NDPD squad car amble by. The buildings towered over the street, drowning it all in neon—Cherenkov radiation, bold red words, vomit yellow. Skyways criss-crossed between megabuildings and aerial vehicles hovered out of the reach of the masses. The meeting place was within walking distance, and Winston hurried. He lamented not taking another ten cc’s before leaving, but knew there was going to be plenty later. He crossed the street between two parked military-surplus humvees, still armored, and headed down an alleyway.

The contact stood halfway down the path with arms clasped behind his back admiring digital graffiti of a melting green demon skull and a bouquet of deep purple prince’s-feather. The ground was wet with drain run-off. The air carried mildew and rotten shoe leather that wrinkled Winston’s nose. He decided he’d had enough raunchy fragrance for at least a week and knew he’d spend the evening immersed in an expensive memory chip, something that tuned up pleasure to a careless degree and eliminated any negatives. Pure, unadulterated fun to cap a shitty day. His old boots splashed to a stop a few paces from the tall man.

“Hey,” Winston called. It was getting harder to keep his eyes open. Uppers before the memory broker, then, or he’d waste money sleeping in the booth. A short stop at home. Simple.

“Present the merchandise,” the man replied. His voice was smooth, high-pitched, made for a men’s choir. He didn’t turn from the hologram. His fingers tapped monotonously on his wrist and they clinked in perfect tempo, synth skin stretched over metal arms. Expensive work. “Credits will come through the net.”

“Sure,” Winston said. He reached in his jacket pocket, gripped the container, and every hair on his body stood on end. The General Sciences Peripheral ‘Fossa’ Mk.1 that smoothed his nervous system short-circuited and he stumbled to his knees, eyes wide and unblinking. The metal slipped from his fingers and rolled on puddles and concrete. A sharp crack, the smell of spent gunpowder, and he was splayed on the ground. His chest became an orchestra of pain, cortisol and adrenaline flooding his tired system. Another crack of thunder, and the contact’s face exploded on the shimmering wall, fading the hologram. Slow, measured steps approached from behind, and Winston strained his neck to witness the guilty party: machine, more than man; military chrome linked to unrecognizable metal. A black revolver smoked at the attacker’s side. He bent, grasped the container in his free hand, and turned to face Winston, who realized he’d been whimpering. There was warmth in his pants, and the stench of piss mixed with his blood. The attacker hadn’t even bothered with synth skin. His implants were raw, powerful, and fully visible. There was no face to speak of, no shred of cosmetic humanity. Malevolent eyes witnessed the sum total of Winston’s life, and judged it lacking. Another retort, and only darkness remained with two more bodies for the harvest, two more to burn.