“Do you need any help reading it?” Kaitlyn asked, leaning over his shoulder. The attendant handed the card over, wished them a good day in a bored tone, and turned to the next person in line. There was a soft whir, and the lights on the front of the machine flashed, and then a little slip of cardstock spat out the side. When Travis took his hand back, he couldn’t even see the wound in the pad of his finger. There was a tiny prick of a needle, then the cool swipe of an antibacterial wipe. He didn’t hesitate, stuck his finger right in the hole. Derrick went first, then Kaitlyn, and then it was Travis’s turn. It looked like something out of Star Trek. The machine itself was nothing special, a silver-grey box with a few blinking lights and a hole in the center, just big enough to fit someone’s finger. The line went quickly it wasn’t a long test. A lot of people going past were looking shaken and uncertain, or, in rare cases, calm, at peace. There was a big banner above the doors, proclaiming “Machine of Death! Find out how you die!”Ī lot of people standing in line were laughing and goofing around, treating it like a big joke. They all piled into their foster mom’s silver hatchback and drove to the mall, where a line stretched almost to the parking lot. Travis went with two of his foster siblings Kaitlyn, who was the only one who could drive, and Derrick, who slept in the bunk below Travis’s. Anyone who paid could get the test.īack then, no one realized just what a bit of forewarning would do to the world. But back then, when the machines first came out, no one cared. Children aren’t allowed to get told so early-the test can be done, but it’s put in their medical file until they’re sixteen (in some states, even later than that). It’s not possible now, of course, with all the laws and regulations that have been put in place. Travis has known since he was nine years old that he’s going to die in an explosion. “It’s not the end that I fear with each breath It’s life that scares me to death.” -Rise Against, “Rumors Of My Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated”

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