Story code: ST-000220
Part 3: Cost of Survival
Ten seconds. Nine. Tyler’s thumb hovered over his cracked phone screen. The yellow EMERGENCY MEDICAL OVERRIDE button pulsed like a heartbeat, mocking the fact that Elias currently had none. Tyler’s own haptic band was dead, his termination finalized, his bank account about to be obliterated.
Eight seconds.
Tyler slammed his thumb onto the shattered glass. The app flashed a harsh, bright green: *Guarantor Confirmed. Liability Transferred. Dispatching County EMS. ETA: 14 Minutes.*
Fourteen minutes. Elias wouldn’t last fourteen seconds.
Tyler shoved the phone into his pocket and dropped to his knees beside his coworker. The impact sent a fresh, blinding spike of agony up his bruised shin, but the adrenaline pumping through his chest pushed it aside. He interlocked his fingers, placing the heel of his right hand squarely over the center of Elias’s motionless, high-vis vest.
He pushed down. Hard.
Elias’s sternum yielded with a sickening crunch. Tyler flinched, the tactile horror of breaking a man’s ribs radiating up his arms, but he forced himself to lean into it. *Push hard, push fast.* He recalled the rhythm from a mandatory high school health class a decade ago. He threw his shoulders over his hands, driving his body weight down into the older man’s ribcage. One, two, three, four.
The white overhead drone dropped lower, its rotors whining loudly enough to stir the dust around them. *”Warning,”* the synthetic female voice droned. *”Unauthorized biological interference detected. Step away from the terminated asset. Sanitation is en route.”*
“Shut up!” Tyler screamed between compressions, sweat stinging his eyes. His burned left wrist screamed in protest with every downward thrust. He ignored the throbbing heat, locking his elbows. Elias’s mouth lolls open, a soft, wet whistling sound escaping his pale blue lips as air was mechanically forced out of his collapsing lungs.
Thirty compressions. Tyler leaned down, pinched Elias’s nose, and breathed into his mouth. He tasted stale coffee and the metallic tang of blood. He pulled back, gasping for his own breath, and immediately resumed pumping the chest. One, two, three, four.
The squeal of synthetic rubber tearing against polished concrete echoed down the cross-aisle.
Tyler didn’t stop, keeping his eyes fixed on Elias’s gray face. The high-pitched whine of an electric motor grew deafening, followed instantly by the aggressive slam of a vehicle door.
“Hey! What the hell do you think you’re doing?” a voice barked, echoing sharply off the towering steel shelving.
Tyler caught a flash of movement in his peripheral vision. A man in a spotless white dress shirt beneath a pristine, unblemished safety vest was storming down the aisle. It was Lawson, the Regional Director. Tyler had only ever seen him on the digital orientation screens in the breakroom, smiling benevolently in front of an artificially lit rendering of the warehouse.
“He’s in cardiac arrest!” Tyler shouted, not breaking his frantic rhythm. “I triggered the override! EMS is coming!”
Lawson didn’t look at Elias. He looked at the glowing tablet in his own hand, then at the dead, burned haptic band on Tyler’s wrist. The Director’s face contorted into a mask of pure panic and rage.
“You’re terminated!” Lawson yelled, closing the distance in three rapid, heavy strides. “You have no clearance to touch him! Back away!”
“He’s dying!” Tyler pressed down again. The ribs cracked further.
Lawson lunged. He didn’t call for security. He didn’t wait for the automated drone to enforce the perimeter. The Regional Director grabbed Tyler by the collar of his jacket and the fabric of his shirt, yanking him backward with violent, frantic strength.
Tyler lost his balance, his hands slipping off Elias’s chest. He crashed hard onto the concrete, his bad leg twisting painfully underneath him. He scrambled to push himself back up, his eyes locked on Elias’s still chest. “Let me go! He needs compressions!”
“I said step away!” Lawson screamed. The Director planted a polished leather dress shoe squarely in front of Elias’s body, physically blocking Tyler from reaching him. The tablet in Lawson’s hand was shaking violently. “You are creating a Class A secondary liability incident!”
“What is wrong with you?” Tyler yelled, scrambling to his feet, cradling his burned wrist against his stomach. “If we stop, he dies before the ambulance gets here!”
“That is the protocol!” Lawson roared, his corporate composure completely shattered. He pointed a trembling finger at Elias’s motionless form, his face flushed dark red. “If he dies on company time from a natural cardiac event, it’s a standard severance payout! A flat death benefit! If an unauthorized, terminated worker revives him on our floor with traumatic CPR, OmniLogistics is legally on the hook for his ongoing medical care, permanent disability, and the subsequent workplace injury lawsuit!”
Tyler froze. The ringing in his ears seemed to swallow the mechanical hum of the surrounding warehouse. He looked at Lawson’s heaving chest, then down at Elias, who lay rapidly cooling on the dust-covered floor.
“You want him to die,” Tyler breathed, the realization hitting him like the steel bumper of the transport vehicle. “Your algorithm… it calculates that a corpse is cheaper than a survivor.”
Lawson’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. He glanced up at the white drone hovering ten feet above them, its green laser still painting the scene, its camera recording every single word for the central server. The Regional Director’s arm dropped slowly to his side, the frantic rage vanishing from his face, replaced by a sudden, terrifying pallor as he realized exactly what he had just screamed out loud on the warehouse floor.