Per 
for the Cupid Contest 2021…
"What's next in the pile?"
Dr. Gifts ran his finger down the manifesto on the desk beside him.
"The creepy clown doll with the pink ruffles."
Dr. Gentle delicately used a pair of tongs to lift the doll from the box and place it amidst the array of sensors and pentagrams.
The last man on Earth, trapped as an immortal, desperately seeking to lose a game of chess
The garbage truck rolled its way through the morning haze that can only come from a continuous spread of suburban city three hundred miles across. Gerry and Nick listened to the dated rock music drifting from the cabin- immortality had given Jon the worst taste in music- as they meandered past piles of garbage and half-collapsed shacks. Gerry and Nick's bright neon vests clashed with the dull tones of the rusted buildings, and the upbeat tunes clashed with the sombre silence of the deep poverty around them. The truck slowed to another regular stop, and the men dropped carelessly from the back to load stinking bags into the back. Grey bags smelling of used diapers, black bags stinking of rotted food, and clear bags full of pink blobs of meat. They tossed them all in, and moved from stop to stop chatting about the football from the previous night.
"Hey!"
Gerry glanced up as the figure ran towards them, out of breath, face half obscured by a hood. He looked like he had been chasing them for a few blocks- though he would have to be a hell of a sprinter to do so.
The man motioned towards the back of the truck. "There's a bag in there. I want it."
"Fuck off."
"I'll pay you."
Nick's eyes darted up at the stranger as he pulled a few notes from a pocket deep within his clothes. Gerry shrugged and held out his hand.
"Be quick about it."
The man passed them the wad of cash- it wasn't a miserly amount for a garbage collector to receive- and began to dig through the back of the truck. He quickly found what he was looking for- a clear bag full of pink meat?- and passed them another wad of notes.
"I wasn't here, right?"
Gerry grinned, raised his hand to tip a non-existent hat to the stranger, and watched him wander off into the maze of alleyways. He would think of him exactly twice more; first as he spent some of his share on some flowers for the wife, and then upon spending more on beer for himself, and then consigned him to being just another unimportant oddity of an uncaring ageless world.
Jye lugged his load back home, taking care to meander and loop around a few times where he knew there wasn't cameras, ensuring he wasn't being followed. It was getting riskier to keep this up- he'd almost been spotted last time, and the lack of a consistent schedule from Fendrel and Dain made it even harder to take his prizes. Chasing the garbage truck was easier and safer than taking them from under the cameras, but if they went under the compactor…
He pushed his thumb against a scanner to let himself inside, blinking as the fluorescent lights flickered on, then took the bag over to a large tank in his spare room. He carefully slipped the already stinking contents into the warm liquid, taking care to space them out and give them room to float, then went and manually bolted the steel bars across his door.
Officer Morales perked up slightly as the radio flickered and dispatch sent through a fresh set of instructions, but otherwise kept most of her attention on her bagel. She hadn't had a break in sixteen hours and by *God* she was going to take this one. Next to her, Officer Parker took down an address in his notebook.
Morales pushed the last of the bagel into her mouth. "What've we got?"
"B and E at an electronics place."
"Ugh, again? That's three since yesterday."
"You think it could be a pattern?"
"Knowing this city? I doubt it."
Officers Morales and Parker turned down their car down another identical side street. There was no need to bother with a siren- no one would give way to the police anyway these days, and their old engine wasn't built for speed anyway. So much for 'West Virginia's Finest'.
The shopkeeper stood anxiously outside his store. The left side of his face was a mess- an old gaping wound that evidently hadn't been enough to incapacitate him and he had then lacked the funds to get fixed up properly. Morales thought she could see some bone poking out in there. The right side was scruffily bearded and malnourished. He waved them over as they pulled up.
"I found it when I got in this morning. Back door was forced open."
Parker picked around the store, mentally noting the dusty piles of unsold screens, phones, and tablets. "Doesn't look like much is missing."
"Mostly the cables and wiring. They damn near cleaned me out. And all of my switches, too."
Parker glanced up at Morales. The other two stores had been the same- leaving the obviously valuable gear in favour of scrap DIY materials.
Morales carefully took the man's statement, taking his name and every detail of the missing goods that she could muster. She offered her sympathy, and assured him that she'd do all she could to get to the bottom of the case.
Then their radio squawked about some stabbing three blocks down, and then there was a three car collision an hour after that, and then some idiot tried throwing themselves off a tall roof and only made a mess of themselves for their trouble, and the little robbery mostly got forgotten in the mess that was life without death.
She could only dream.
Krešimira Kovačević stood next to her mother. She did not move, though the writhing mass of maggots set into her flesh did that for her. Her heart no longer beat, and her eyes no longer saw. Krešimira could feel only pity for what remained of her mother.
She could hear footsteps behind her, and then her father's hand clamped down on her shoulder. Krešimira turned to look at him. He was wearing aviators.
Excerpt from A Failure of Economics? by Dr. H. Lawson, pub. Academic Press, 2065
One of the questions most commonly asked in relation to the Omega-K event, at least in medical circles, is why didn't we see proper advances in prosthetic technology along with the rest of the medical field? The paradigm change which came with September 2020 enabled previously impossible surgeries to be completed, and no-one doubts the rumours of the immense illegal market for stolen bodies operating across the world, but few are yet to present a logical solution as to why the market for full body prosthetic replacements is still yet to properly develop.
The solution, paradoxically, might lie in those miraculous medical advances.
It is an established economic principle that demand warrants supply, and carefully marketed supply can generate demand. However, technological development does not always follow such principles. Technological development requires the investment of great deals of money in the promise of having the best possible product at the end. It is not for nothing that much technological development came from the military, where their almost inexhaustible coffers are an unbridled boon for creative scientists. In other markets, one requires individuals willing to pay excessively for the shiniest new technologies, which in turn finances the further development of the technology, which enables it to eventually become cost effective for the average population. VCRs and DVDs, the civilian Internet, online fund transfers and AR and VR technologies, for example, were all hugely expensive when first developed, and only became cheaper because an initial market were willing to pay for an experience which nothing else could match (and in all of those cases, it was pornography).
But what of the case where the technology being developed is not the best possible option?
During the Age of Hedonism, medical advances were explosive. Transplanting, cloning, and reconstruction through stem cell implantation all improved by leaps and bounds, with wealthy clients seeking a comfortable immortality willing to invest heavily to ensure that their quality of life would not be diminished. These sciences all have something in common- they retain flesh.
Prosthetic technologies are seen as secondary to this. Why would one invest in an inferior limb of plastic and titanium when you could have a real one with full sensory input and locomotion? With the convenience of investment into flesh sciences, the market drive for prosthetic replacements wasn't there. Why invest into plastic when people would pay far more for real biology, which was also easier to develop?
Thus, despite there being an incredibly vast market for affordable prosthetic bodies for those who real ones are failing them, the technology is only recently making progress towards the necessary standard, and without thanks to titans of industry. Most of the developments for the working class have come from the working class, with a few talented individuals operating for altruism rather than profit providing the development needed to enable true immortality for everyone.
Item #: SCP-4XXXX
Object Class: Euclid
Special Containment Procedures: The block of land surrounding SCP-4XXX has been purchased by the Foundation, with fences erected along the borders of the property. Security personnel patrol the borders the property, with the use of Class-A and Class-C amnestics authorised for individuals who breach the perimeter.
Entry to SCP-4XXX is strictly forbidden without the express written permission of at least three Level-4 researchers. Individuals granted permission to enter are required to abide by all anti-paradox protocols applicable to SCP-4XXX (see Addendum 4XXX-1).
Description: SCP-4XXX is an abandoned shopping mall, located in ██████, █████. It is two storeys tall, covers an area of 0.22 square kilometers, and contains 145 distinct shops. Externally, the building appears to be derelict and run-down. Internally, the building is well maintained, and is comprised of a multitude of distinct architectural styles.
There are effectively no external windows in SCP-4XXX. Glass windows that would normally offer a view of the outside are tinted to the point of opaquity, and demonstrate resilience far beyond what would be normal of glass. All external doors are automatic, and will not stay open for a period of time longer than 12 seconds.
The internal environment of SCP-4XXX exists in a continuous and perfect time loop, lasting exactly one hour. SCP-4XXX demonstrates a number of features suggesting its anomaly was intentionally created, with clocks that lack an hour hand, bin chutes that drop to an inaccessible location, automated flushing toilets, and two janitors (designated SCP-4XXX-A and -B) distinct from every other person within the anomaly.
At any given time, SCP-4XXX contains between 298 and 334 people, comprised of a population of 87 distinct individuals. The population fluctuates as individuals enter and exit the premises across the hour, with most individuals staying within for several hours, and a small subsection of the population having multiple distinct visitations.
| Individual Designation | Name | Description | Entrance, exit and duration of stay |
|---|---|---|---|
| SCP-4XXX-A | -unknown- | Janitor | (Does not enter or exit, instead performs a perfect loop) |
| SCP-4XXX-B | -unknown- | Janitor | (Does not enter or exit, instead performs a perfect loop) |
| SCP-4XXX-01 | Jan Adrians | SCP MTF Agent | 0043-0021 (98 minutes) |
| SCP-4XXX-02 | Henry Gibbs | SCP MTF Agent | 0043-0021 (98 minutes) |
| SCP-4XXX-03 | Annette Verne | SCP MTF Agent | 0043-0021 (98 minutes) |
| SCP-4XXX-04 | Peter Roberts | SCP MTF Agent | 0043-0058 (15 minutes), 0011-0021 (70 minutes) |
| SCP-4XXX-05 | Dr. Eleanor Gentle | SCP Level-3 Researcher | 0054-0054 (240 minutes) |
| SCP-4XXX-06 | Dr. Horatio Gifts | SCP Level-3 Researcher | 0054-0055 (241 minutes) |
| SCP-4XXX-07 | Jasper Ignatius | Civilian nurse | |
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