Works · Short fiction
15 Minutes
15 minutes
In a near future where machines can replace every part of the human body in fifteen minutes and humanity is promised immortality, two scientists who helped sell the dream discover what is hidden inside the new bodies.
Synopsis
After a probe reveals that the Sun will die far sooner than expected, the world spirals into riots, mass suicides, a new Ebola strain and the edge of a third world war. The United States calms it with the “Great Project for Human Immortality”: android organs and limbs that can replace almost any part of the body. In the cities, hospitals have become automated “shops” where a tube scans you and fixes you in fifteen minutes.
Song Tae-il, a Korean astrophysicist turned science writer, worked on the probe and on the American propaganda team that sold the project to the world. His friend Tony, an American psychiatrist on the android team, was shot in the leg by a protester and became one of the first androids himself. Now Tony is in Korea as a visiting professor, and over tequila in a basement bar in Daejeon he tells Tae-il what he has learned about the chips inside every artificial body.
Interleaved with their conversations is the anonymous monologue of someone who keeps a gun and cannot bring himself to pull the trigger. In a world where no one can die, the story asks whether a body you no longer own is still yours, and who decides when your fifteen minutes are up.
Why it works on screen
- Prescient near-future SF written in 2014: pandemics, bio-surveillance, android bodies.
- A conspiracy thriller told through a two-man friendship, with a twist ending.
From the opening
“Input your ID card:”
Tae-il pulled the ID card from inside his shirt with the ease of habit and slid it into the slot marked “Insert” next to the tube. It was summer, but the machine felt cool to the touch. A message on the monitor asked him to select a language. He chose “Korean,” at the top of the list.
Social Security No. #1821092-213-342134. Name: Song Tae-il. Age: 36. Sex: Male. Blood type: A, Rh+. Mongoloid. Nationality: Republic of Korea. Occupation: Analyst. Is the above information correct?
Tae-il pressed the YES button with his finger. “Please wait a moment.” A moment would probably mean a little over two minutes. There were no other customers in the shop. It was an ordinary-sized shop with five tubes. When the door of a tube slowly opened, Tae-il stepped inside. A green light swept slowly over him from the tips of his toes to the top of his head. A laser was scanning his body. Fifteen minutes later Tae-il came out of the tube, fixed his hair in the mirror and left the shop. Inside, the owner in a white coat was idly reading a newspaper.
Outside the shop window the street was quiet. The day was hot and humid besides, and Tae-il frowned without meaning to. He rolled up his shirtsleeves, trying for the roll-up style, but they kept slipping down. After two or three tries, thoroughly irritated, he just shoved them up. He reached into his bag, fumbling for the headache pills that had to be in there somewhere. A police officer in an alloy suit, fully armed with an automatic weapon, was mechanically making his rounds. Turning his head, Tae-il met the eyes of the white man in the white coat who had been reading the newspaper. The owner of the shop was Tae-il's friend, Tony.
Translated from the Korean.