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Lucy A. Snyder studied to become a biologist, trained to become a journalist, and now provides tech support for a university that has an extreme troll problem. Her work has appeared in a wide variety of print and electronic publications, including Strange Horizons, Farthing, Masques V, Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, Chiaroscuro, and The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Her short story collection Sparks and Shadows is due out in 2007. Visit her website. D.E. Christman’s art has been featured in galleries, art shows, magazines, book covers, and websites that specialize in the macabre and strange. He is a full time artist and web and graphics designer. He lives in Philadelphia with his lovely wife Stephanie, his son Andrew, and the monkey on his back called coffee. You can see more of his work at his website. |
Business Insourcing Offers Life After Death Atlanta, GA—The zombie insourcing movement is revolutionizing the U.S. healthcare industry. “Medical costs and insurance premiums have been rising 10-20% every year, and over 50 million consumers don’t have health coverage” says Ed Rudge, Outreach Director for Cybermantic Staffing Solutions Inc. “That means that a whole lot of consumers are going to default on their medical bills. “In the past, all an ethical doctor could do was to sell unpaid accounts to a collection agency. And a lot of doctors just aren’t good at insisting on payment if the patient dies.” Rudge says that cybermancy has created solutions that benefit both families and the medical industry. “When an uninsured patient is circling the drain, CSS pays a small fee to the hospital or attending physician so we can come in to speak to the families,” he says. “We show them their projected bill and tell them they have two options. First option is their loved one dies. Second option is they sign their loved ones to a post-mortem labor contract, the bill goes away, and they get to see their loved ones on Sundays. “Our corporate priests visit the patient shortly before death and perform a ritual to download the soul and its memories into a duppy jar,” says Rudge. “We’ll raise the body, preserve it, and install the operating system. The soul can express itself through the OS via our proprietary software. It gives the zombloyee and their family the sense that they still have an intact personality and free will, but our programming controls all their on-the-job behaviors.” Rudge explained that after a patient’s corpse has been reanimated, CSS contracts with employers who pay $3-$4 per hour for the undead employee’s work. Families get 15%, and the rest is divided between CSS and the physicians and hospitals that were owed money at the time of the patient’s death.
Rudge estimates that most undead workers should be physically sound for ten years or so. “Hospitals tell us ten years is the magic number to get most bills paid off, so our cyberspiritual experts have been working hard to guarantee that our zombloyees will hold up under extended physical labor conditions. A call center drone should last much, much longer.” 50-year-old CSS Contractee #1542A, who goes by the name “Chip,” expressed dismay over his wife’s decision to sign his corpse over to the company. “I say, this zombie business... utter bollocks,” Chip says haltingly, taking a break from his 16-hour dishwashing shift to snack on a bucket of cow brains. “I was in a coma... not dead yet! Now I’m in hot water all day... this plastic skin bloody well itches. I want my solicitor... can’t work the phone. Gggggaaaargh.” Despite similar complaints of deceptive recruiting, many terminally ill patients and people in dangerous lines of work are signing contracts with CSS and other labor supply companies. “Hell yeah, I signed when the Infinity Labor guy visited our platoon,” says Marine Corporal Lance Pike. Pike, a 19-year-old West Virginia native, says that Infinity has recently signed an exclusive contract with the Defense Department. “He was offering us $10,000 sign-on bonuses,” explains Pike. “I figure, shoot, my woman back home can sure use the cash, and if I take one for the team in Iraq, Infinity will get me back on the front lines with my buddies.” Pike’s Infinity Labor recruiter, Rusty Tiburon, praises the young Marine’s decision and hopes other servicemen and women will follow suit. “Now that we have the technology, it’s downright un-American to just lay there and rot when you could be doing your part for the nation’s economy.” Next: Managers need brains, but what if they’re too tasty?  |
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