The Lifespan Ration Notice slid under the door of unit 302 at 4 a.m. On the thin, stiff photo-paper, vivid red numerals were stamped: 5,475 days. 15 years. Jinwoo picked the notice up off the floor. The cool touch of the paper reached his fingertips. From the next room came the sound of someone groaning. Three years ago, after cancer was conquered, the government began using a quantum simulation algorithm to calculate every citizen's biological life expectancy and to manage it as a national resource. Disease had vanished, but death had now become a public duty, a matter of waiting one's turn. 15 years. That was his brother's share. Jinwoo opened the door and went to the next room. His brother, Minjun, sat by the window, staring into the darkness at a cup of tea gone cold. Minjun's share was 8 years less than Jinwoo's. His brother had already shoved his own notice into the trash.
"Take it. Add my share to yours and you'll get to live 20 years, at least."
Minjun said it without turning around. There was no feeling in his voice. Jinwoo looked at his brother's back. The shoulder blades jutted out, gaunt. He crushed the notice in his fist. The system advertised that it allowed no errors. The ration algorithm analyzed each individual's genetic data, lifestyle habits, and medical history in increments of 0.0001 seconds to assign a lifespan. But Jinwoo knew: every calculation needs a starting point. And that starting point was data entered by human hands. Jinwoo was an assistant data analyst at the Control Center. Every night, his job was to erase the little scraps of log data the system had failed to process.
Jinwoo switched on the old terminal in the corner of the living room. The screen glowed blue and filled the room with light. He entered his brother's unique identification number. Tens of thousands of variables came pouring out. Diet, sleep patterns, heart-rate variability, stress index. Jinwoo opened the 'stress index' field in his brother's data. Three years ago, in the days right after their parents died in the accident, his brother's stress readings had drifted out of the normal range. The algorithm had classified those readings as a 'long-term factor of unfitness for survival' and shaved his lifespan down. With trembling hands, Jinwoo worked the keyboard. Instead of deleting his brother's past stress logs, he reclassified them as a 'voluntary data donation for medical research.' Delete data and the algorithm detects the discrepancy; hand it off to another category and it is left abandoned in the system's blind spot.
Jinwoo's fingers did not stop. The number 15 years blinked. He accessed the formula that computed his brother's life expectancy. Complex expressions were tangled together. Beside a variable called 'Survival Probability Weight' was written the number 0.85. Change it to 1.0 and his brother's lifespan would automatically be recalculated. Jinwoo held his breath. He had only 300 seconds before the system's surveillance net, the Verification Node, kicked in. He pressed the modify button. The screen flashed red. [WARNING: Abnormal modification of a computation variable detected.] Jinwoo looked out the window. The city's neon signs shone coldly. Millions of people were rationed their share this way and waited for death. He seized the terminal again. To lock the modified data in permanently, he needed approval from a subordinate node. Using the administrator privileges he held, Jinwoo forced the subordinate node's response into a 'manual approval' state.
The number on the screen changed from 5,475 to 10,950. 30 years. The time his brother could live had doubled. Cold sweat ran down Jinwoo's forehead. In that instant, a dull thud came from his brother's room. Minjun had collapsed on the floor. Jinwoo rushed to him. His brother's breathing was thin and irregular. The ration system monitored the body's condition in real time. Had the flesh reached its limit before the news that his lifespan had grown could reach his biochip? Jinwoo took his brother's hand. The skin was dry as paper.
"Why. . did you do this."
His brother forced the words out. Instead of answering, Jinwoo gripped his hand tight. The terminal's warning tone kept ringing through the living room. 10,950. It would take the system an hour at most to correct this discrepancy. Jinwoo helped his brother up and sat him in a chair. He took out his own notice and laid it beside his brother's. He needed to overlay his own share onto his brother's. It was data manipulation disguised as the legitimate procedure of a 'lifespan transfer.' But the system held firm to one principle: once a lifespan was allocated, it was never reclaimed. Exploiting that loophole, Jinwoo built a path to 'transmit' his own lifespan into his brother's account.
The screen turned blue again. [Transfer complete. Remaining lifespan: 0 days.] Jinwoo looked at his own hands. He had the illusion that his fingertips were faintly turning transparent. No—this had to be a hallucination. But the weight of his body had changed. He looked at his brother's face. Life was beginning to return to Minjun's eyes. The algorithm had recognized the updated biometric data and sent a recovery signal.
"Jinwoo, you. ."
His brother couldn't finish the sentence. Jinwoo sank deep into his chair. It was almost time for the Control Center to make contact. The moment the system detected a discrepancy, it froze the account at once. Jinwoo cut the power to the terminal. The room drowned in perfect darkness. Outside, a mechanical siren announced the coming of dawn. Jinwoo closed his eyes. He couldn't tell whether what he'd given his brother was time, or merely a stay of execution. The system was exquisite, as always, and the human being, as always, had stolen his own share from the cracks in it. His brother's breathing returned, steady and even. Jinwoo felt his own heartbeat slowing, little by little. One minute, two minutes. The longer time passed, the heavier his body grew—yet, strangely, his heart felt light. He rested his hand on the arm of the chair. The cold touch of the metal climbed up through his skin. It occurred to him that this might be the last sensation he would ever feel. Beyond the window, the light was slowly brightening. The final page of his rationed remainder of life was turning.
The front door was torn brutally from its frame. The Control Center's security agents burst in less than 10 minutes after Jinwoo had closed his eyes. A mechanical flash grenade scorched the living room white, and without opening his eyes Jinwoo felt that fierce light drive through his retinas. The sound of the agents' boots pounding the floor was precise and cold, like a countdown to death. Minjun struggled to lift himself off the floor, but the newly injected 15 years of lifespan needed time to synchronize fully with his body. With a trembling hand, he clutched at the hem of Jinwoo's clothes.
"Data Analyst No. 302—you are under arrest for unauthorized use of administrator privileges and for compromising the integrity of the system."
A voice threaded with machine tones filled the room. One of the agents clamped a cold restraint around Jinwoo's wrist. The instant the restraint met his skin, a system-sync alarm sounded. Remaining lifespan: 0 days. The system had already classified Jinwoo as an 'extinguished object.' The one who was meant to die was alive, and the one who had been dying had deceived the system and prolonged his life. From the algorithm's point of view this was the most abhorrent of discrepancies, an error that absolutely had to be corrected.
Even as he was dragged away, Jinwoo watched Minjun. In Minjun's eyes, alongside the terror, some unnameable emotion wavered. Whether it was a brother's grief, or revulsion at the 30 years of time now forced upon him, there was no telling. A faint smile touched the corners of Jinwoo's mouth. He knew. What he had done tonight was not merely to transfer a lifespan. He had forced the word 'sacrifice' into the logic of the system. A variable that could not be calculated—inefficient data like love, like devotion—had been written into the system's log. Even if he was about to vanish, this error would remain somewhere within the system like a brand, and at the next Lifespan Ration it would leave its trace without fail.
The agents didn't spare Minjun so much as a glance. His lifespan data had already been restored to 'normal' within the system. To them Minjun was now a man of no value whatsoever, just an ordinary citizen who had to dutifully spend out his rationed time. From the corridor down which he was being dragged, Jinwoo looked out the window. Dawn was breaking. The city's artificial sun rose at exactly the same brightness as yesterday, but to Jinwoo it was the most dazzling sight in the world. In the instant before his heart stopped, he recalled the last dissonance his existence had struck among the vast gears of the system. It sounded a little like metal scraping metal, and a little like a sigh someone exhales in the midst of pain.
Just before he was loaded into the dark transport vehicle, Jinwoo leaned his head against the cold metal wall. A sensation came over him, as though the weight of his body had vanished entirely. Now there was no more time to be rationed, no more numbers to be allotted. He drew a deep breath. The cold dawn air stabbed through his lungs and passed on. This is the last sensation. The final signals his brain sent began to take his sight, then his hearing, and at last even his sense of touch. With the last of his strength Jinwoo clenched his fist, then opened it. He could feel the fine beads of sweat gathered in his palm cooling in the cold air. He closed his eyes and imagined the 30 years his brother would go on to live. That time had not been given by the system—it was a whole, untouched freedom, a gift Jinwoo had carved out of his own life. In the moment before he let go of consciousness, Jinwoo fixed his attention on the sensation of the restraint's cold metal biting into his wrist. It was viciously cold, and yet, paradoxically, it was the last warmth—proof that he was still a part of this world. Slowly his hand slipped, and with a soft thud fell to the floor of the vehicle.
