Born Again

By Jon Griffin

Betrayal isn't always bad. Sometimes it can lead exactly where you need to be. But then again, maybe not.

 

In the year 2113, the population is out of control, and anyone reaching their twenty-ninth birthday is being "recycled." So, the minute Jeff turns twenty-eight, he knows his time is coming to an end.

 

Does he run away? Plead for mercy? Fight back? No. Jeff just wants to get laid. Fortunately for him, there are clubs for that, clubs specifically for those whose clocks are ticking down to the minute where they voluntarily walk into a recycling chamber.

 

When he meets Tanya and she says she wants to shag a thirty-year-old, well, let's say his military training kicks in. But not in the way you think. This is bigger. Life changing. Dangerous, as in real death. In a single night, he'll learn how badly his world is broken. And if he can fix it.

 

If you like Logan's Run, you'll love Born Again. The new science fiction novella from Jon Griffin.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mayuli Press
• Release date: Apr 6, 2021
• ISBN: 9781393934677

Jon Griffin

Born in Los Angeles Jon Griffin has lived in many places and many countries. He enjoys writing books in many genres and especially loves hanging out with his family and traveling the globe to visit old friends and make new ones.

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Born Again

Jon Griffin

Mayuli Press

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Born Again

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Born Again

Jeff stood in the long line outside the three-story building. The neon-styled LED sign read 29, then flickered and changed to 28.5, which was the name of the place. The bar was packed as always, just like all the other 28.5s in the chain at hundreds of locations across the country.

It had become so popular that they had to institute a proof of age policy: only those older than twenty-eight were allowed to enter. But even that had failed to keep up with the crowds drawn to the establishments, and rumor had it that the owners would soon open another chain called 28.75, where only those truly in the final days before their twenty-ninth birthday would be granted admittance.

It was the third time that week that Jeff had gone there, and he was feeling edgy. There were only three days left till his twenty-ninth birthday and ensuing rebirth, and he still hadn’t gotten laid. Time was seriously running out. Once he was reborn, it would be a long time before he would get the chance for some action.

There was debate amongst those approaching rebirth, whether this was the worst part of becoming a baby again. Opinion seemed to be divided amongst those who thought the worst was shitting yourself, having to relearn to walk and talk, and the philosophers who complained that your beingness was dissolved in the process of rebirth.

Jeff wasn’t thinking about any of that deep stuff at the moment. He just wanted to get his wick wet so that he wouldn’t turn twenty-nine still a virgin.

As the line edged slowly closer to the double-doors that leaked the thumping bass of dance music, one of the bouncers saw Jeff. They were friends from school, and the brawny guy lifted his hand as he recognized his old buddy.

Luckily, Jeff had been nice to him and once even helped him with an essay, though Jeff couldn’t remember what the subject of it was. School was like a vestigial limb from a time when people needed to be trained to do jobs in the workforce. Now that the workforce was almost entirely robotic, no training was needed, and whatever was learned was quickly forgotten due to lack of use.

As the country’s talk shows constantly complained, today’s generation of reborns were aimless and ignorant, a state that some of them had claimed as a badge of pride, calling themselves the new AI.

The school friend waved Jeff to the front of the line and patted him on the back. Hey, buddy, how you doing?

I’m here aren’t I, Jeff muttered, trying to remember the guy’s name without luck. On the bright side, he probably couldn’t remember Jeff’s name either. Name’s were about as useful as job skills when you went back to year zero before you hit thirty.

Looking for a hookup, eh? How much time you got left?

Three days.

Jeff’s friend whistled. That’s cutting it close.

I’ve never seen human bouncers here before. I thought they used robots.

Market research told ‘em that people like the human touch, so they hired a bunch of us the other day.

And they pay you credits?

The big guy guffawed. Hell, no. They let us in before we turn twenty-eight, and drinks are free.

Jeff felt a flash of jealousy, wondering how much sex his friend had been getting because of his job. He forced himself to smile. Sweet. Wish they had been doing that when I was twenty-six.

The friend smiled and unhooked the velvet rope, indicating for Jeff to enter. You know it. Now, get in there and get some action, will ya?

I’ll try.

Don’t try too hard.

Jeff laughed nervously and pushed through the doors, leaving behind his friend and a crowd of complaining patrons, jealous of Jeff’s seeming privilege. Inside, the bar was packed, but the loud music was strictly for the street.

Patrons weren’t here to blow out their eardrums or dance. Everyone was on a mission to get fucked and/or fucked up before they ran out of time. Loud music was a hindrance to the kind of breathless, transactional conversation that required.

Inside was crowded but well organized into a series of stations serving the desires of the clientele. On a table along the wall were robotic dispensaries of mind-altering drugs, for those who had missed out on drug experimentation in their adolescence. Nearby, in a hermetically sealed, well-ventilated room, others were chain-smoking. After all, they were about to retire this particular set of lungs, no point in keeping them pink any longer.

By far, the most popular area was the sex bar. Although the exact reason for the bar was made clear by the flashing LED signs that advertised the bar’s purpose in words and lurid images, the prevailing decorum was to pretend otherwise. Blasé was in these days, and desperate youth, coming to the end of their current life, acted as though they had an eternity to get what they wanted.

An elaborate game of coy innuendo and feigned disinterest was necessary to get you what you desired more than continued life itself. If you got lucky, there was a capsule hotel attached to the bar where you could rent by the hour. Those who were not averse to commitment could take their chosen partner home, though with only limited time left in this body, very few chose this over the potential to bed multiple lovers in one night with the aid of erectile and clitoral stimulants.

On previous nights, Jeff had tried his luck in the smoking and drugs section of the bar. He’d read in a sub-reddit that the best lays never went to the sex bar, which was just too obvious. If you wanted to prove that you were really blasé, you pretended that sex didn’t even interest you.

It was