AfterLife Vignettes

The very first draft of book 1 included little interludes between each main plot chapter that helped to flesh out the world of AfterLife. These vignettes played with perspective and were meant to explain some key concepts without shoving them down the readers throat in exposition. Unfortunately, everyone hated them. Well, not the vignettes themselves, but the way the broke up the flow of the book. And OK, some of them were just weird.

Here is the first one, which was originally placed in the book just after the Tilly arrives at Mirada Gateway Station the first time.

Karen tabbed through status screens. Fashions on Babylon were going through a phase where flowing, draped silks were all the rage. The old Earth silk worms and their mulberry food source had adapted well to the conditions on the temperate planet rich in oxygen. The high gravity had initially been a problem, but gene editing had toughened up the little bugs. The mature moths did not last long, but they only need a few hours to breed new batches of the spinning worms that had been a cornerstone of ancient civilizations for thousands of years. 

No matter how hardy the bugs were, though, the ranchers couldn’t simply increase silk production overnight to meet the demand. The scarcity was making demand soar even higher. 1st Lifers loved the perceived exclusivity and decadence of sporting a silk kaftan by a popular designer. Never mind that silk had been readily available and affordable before the surge. By the time the hunger was sated, everyone would have one of the stupid fabric confections and the silk market would crash. AfterLife would simply shunt any excess into industrial applications. The strong fiber had many uses beyond clothing. 

Right now, Karen had to shift more and more drones to silk production. Position changes were always tricky. Many of Karen’s drones had already been cross-trained and could switch over quickly, but not all. The new ones needed instruction which meant assigning trainers to oversee 5,000 workers, which further reduced productivity as she had to take the trainers from production. 

Someone should just tell the living, “no” from time to time.  

Karen chuckled to herself at that thought. In 1st Life her job, her vocation had been showing young people that there were no limits to what they could do. She had been a teacher and guidance counselor.

After reanimation as an atype, Karen had experienced many shocks, the sheer number of undead in the galaxy, all the work that was done out of sight of living humans, and how many teachers there were among the undead, specifically among the high-functioning. It turned out what AfterLife really needed was people who could manage other people. Set tasks, answer questions, provide instructions, and guide the drones through indecision crises when they (hopefully) rarely occurred. Former educators came with relevant training and experience. Karen had to admit, drones were far easier to work with than teenagers, though she missed the novelty and enthusiasm of children.

In 1st Life teaching was one of the most common vocations. There was always a certain portion of the population who were drawn to young minds. They enjoyed mentoring, helping emerging humans find their way in life. In the 2nd Life early educators where in great demand. The ability to wrangle tiny fragile humans was directly transferable to the trusting and obedient drones. Teachers were also well represented among those who took out mortgages. AfterLife offered generous payments for short contracts if one pursued a teaching vocation.

Karen remembered the earnest young faces that came to her office for counseling.

…

She would start out with the most basic question. “So, she would ask, “have you decided between vocation or avocation?” 

Some squirmed in their chairs, some had brought detailed plans with timelines and charts, some struggled with their own desires and pressure from family.

“Well, I’m thinking of University, but my parents say I should do things while I’m young, travel, try out avocations. They say there is always time for work later if that’s what I want.”

“It’s very true,” Karen would say, “Your first couple of decades as an adult are a great time to try things out and find your passion.”

“Yeah, I just don’t know. Should I take out a small loan and try a few things or a bigger one and do a real thorough exploration? I mean, I don’t want to burn through a bunch of credit too fast, but it would be a shame to miss out on something because I was being stingy.”

“Well, there are lots of mortgage options. There are some flexible equity loans that give you access to a line of credit and you just take out what you need as you go. If you pick up some avocations, that will factor into future withdrawals. You can get years refunded if you achieve minimum proficiency in the top tier pursuits. I can get you an appointment with Steven, our AfterLife counselor, if you’d like. He’ll have the list of the most desirable areas, you could take out a small chunk and prioritize trying some of those out and see how it goes. As I recall, you enjoy game-making? That’s pretty high on the avocation list.”

…

She’d had thousands of session like that one. Helping young people set up a plan for their entry into adult life. Looking around the factory she wondered, were any of her students here working the spinners or the looms? She knew the balance of her workers had avocations in arts or crafts, things that involved using hands and tools to create. The drones she supervised had excellent eyes for flaws. They seemed to enjoy the repetitive work. Standing at a remove, there was something pleasing in the way the factories worked, so precisely and in step. Karen rarely took time to appreciate what they did here. It was noble in its way, but not at all what she had had in mind when she took out the mortgage to pay for her studies. What would 1st Life Karen have thought if she knew that a lifetime spent guiding young things to find their bliss, would make her well-qualified to mass produce high fashion?

Her tablet dinged. There was a flag on spinning line 93. A worker was experiencing a cortisol spike and looked near to a indecision incident. She tapped his icon, activating the camera on his tablet, it currently was aimed at the ceiling and seemed to be moving in a back and forth motion. “Jacques,” she said pulling his name from the data onscreen, “what seems to be the problem?”