Under Warranty

Here is the last one for now.

Have you ever felt like the warranty on your body has expired?

Under Warranty

By David John Reichen

“Bringgg . . . !” the doorbell rings at umpteen, way to early in the morning, o’clock.

As I stumble out of bed, put something presentable on and head for the door, to answer it, it rings again.

Persistent Bastard!

You would think that in this day and age of Instant Messaging, E-mail and those annoying telemarketers that leave voice messages on your phone, a guy could at least be allowed to get a decent night’s sleep without being disturbed in the morning.

“All right! I’m coming!” I vent at the cretin’s ringing, knowing fully well that I can’t be heard on the other side of the door.

After a moment, I finally reach the door and gaze through the peep hole to find out who this relentless tormenter is who dares to wake me. Through a blurry mind, since I had just celebrated my birthday the night before and still suffering from its effects, I see one of those bicycle messengers standing in front of the door. He has his arms crossed before him and is bobbing his head up and down, listening to what they call music.

Before he gets a chance to ring the bell again, I open the door and scream at him, “What in the heck do you want?”

He jitters a bit, off balance since he was reaching out to press the button when I opened the door. I smile at him as he gains his balance.

He says, “I have an envelope for a Mr. Elwood Newlan, are you him?”

Taken aback by the fact that anyone would be calling at my door at this hour, by name even, I calm down a bit and answer yes to his question.

He reaches into a pouch that he has hanging on his belt.

I quickly duck out of the doorway, fearing that my life is going to be cut sort. What a thing to happen on the day after your birthday.

“Hey, Guy,” says the messenger of doom, “this is not a gun. It’s just a retina scanner. I just need to make sure that you are who you claim to be.”

What an absurd notion, with the reputation that I have, I would feel sorry for whoever would be trying to impersonate me and say, “wouldn’t a piece of ID, like a licence, be enough?”

“You would think so but the people that contracted me to make this delivery insist on a positive scan before I hand it over to you. They say that it is necessary to do this since it is so easy to fake IDs, even the new holographic ones.”

Seeing no other way of getting rid of this morning’s pest, I lean forward and have him get it over with. The sooner it is done, the sooner I can get back to enjoying my extra day off from work. They insisted on this so that they would not have to hear me groaning about a hangover all day long.

He presses the scanner to my eye and closes the trigger switch. It beeps and he puts the scanner back into the pouch. He then says, “I guess you are who you say you are.”

As he is busily opening up a backpack that he has and takes out an envelope, I ask, “what would happen if the scanner did not beep?”

“I would just ask where the real person was.”

“And what if someone should take the backpack from you, what would happen then?”

“If they managed to get it open somehow, it would blow up, just like the ones terrorists use. The scanner disables the trigger mechanism, if it is not disabled, BOOM!

“It has happened to me once, there were blood and guts flying all over the place. What a mess that ended up being. I wound up in the hospital for a week after that. There was only a trash bag of body parts of the jerk who pulled that stunt. Now, no one takes my backpack after I explain what will happen to them if they force it open without it being disarmed.”

I take the offered envelope and he gets back on his bike and peddles off into the distance, heedless of any of the surrounding traffic.


I close the door, go to the kitchen and make breakfast for myself, sit down at the table and begin eating. As I munch contentedly, I take a closer look at this sign of impending doom that I have received from persons unknown.

The envelope looks innocent enough, your average 10/20 sized one, so that you can put a normal sheet of paper in it with the minimum of folding. The To address was mine but the From address was for a place I knew nothing about, whoever heard of the Akrham Medical Center, of Arkham, Mass. It did however have one of those red urgent, open immediately, time sensitive information, warning labels printed on it.

With a sigh, I open up the envelope, take out the enclosed piece of paper and read what is written on it:



Dear Mr. Elwood Newlan:

The warranty on your body will expire in 7 (SEVEN) days from the receipt of this letter. If you wish to continue with the current level of service that you are enjoying, please go to one of our local offices, in person and alone. You can find out where one of these offices is located in your area by going to our web site (www.newmanenterprises.com) and enter your name, current location, and the enclosed ID Key.

If you do not have Internet access or cannot come on your own to a local office without aid, call our toll-free number listed above. Do not access our web site from a public place, we can track the route you are using to connect your computer to us and you will be blocked if needed.

WARNING: The information contained in this letter is highly confidential and is not to be distributed for any reason. This policy will be strictly enforced.



“This has got to be a joke? Right?” I muss to myself. Do they really think that I would believe such an outrageous statement, a body being under some kind of warranty? Whose leg are they trying to pull anyway?

Having nothing better to do for the day, I log onto the Net and check out their web site. I am shocked by what I don’t see on it, no fancy, flashy stuff, no advanced and enhanced user’s interface, no screaming video advertising their newest products, just an ordinary form to fill out, asking for your name, city, state, and ID Key, just like the letter described.

After a short wait, I have the address and driving instructions to the place that they want me to go to. The location seems familiar to me, so I finish my breakfast, put some clothes on and follow the direction that I had printed out at home.

The directions started from downtown and directed me to drive down Broadway Boulevard. I drive past the Boston Center for the Preforming Arts and the campus of Boston State University. I go over the I-405 overpass and where the street splits into either going back to downtown, I-405, I-5, over the Ross Island bridge that goes across the Willamette River to the east side of town or continue southward, I take Terwilliger Blvd, which eventually lets me go to the top of the nearby hill. As I reach the top of the hill, I realize why the address seemed so familiar to me, next to the upper terminal of the tram line that they finally got working, is the place where I was supposed to go, Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU).

I park the car in the visitor’s lot, enter the lobby and take the elevator to the floor that their office is on, the thirteenth floor. Once the elevator reaches the floor that I want and the door opens, I exit it and step into the floor’s hallway. It seems mostly empty, which is sort of strange for such a busy place as a hospital. I make my way down the hallway and enter the suite where Newman Enterprises has their office, approach the nurse receptionist and say, “hello.”

Hello, Nurse!

“Oh, Hi!” says the cute nurse, standing at the reception desk. “Can I help you?”

“I was wondering if you could explain why I was sent this letter?” I ask, taking out the envelope and handing it to her.

“Sure thing. But first I have to check your eye, security is essential for what we are doing here. You know?”

“What is up with all of these security precautions,” I wonder, as I have my eye scanned again. Whatever they are guarding seems as important as Fort Knox.

She uses the same type of scanner that the bicycle delivery guy used and the scanner beeps for her to. This time I did not duck for cover when she pulled the scanner out from her desk. Something additional happens than just the thing beeping though, on the computer screen next to her, an information window pops up with my name and all sorts of other things on it.

“Yup, you are one of The Few,” she says, as if The Few were something special. She pivots the screen so that I can take a closer look at it. “It’s a good thing you came by, your warranty is about to expire and the grace period has just kicked in.”

“Warranty, grace period?” I asked, still bewildered. “That’s why I’m here. I don’t understand a thing about what you just said. Who would offer a warranty on a body anyway?”

“That’s OK. I get to deal with The Few’s blissful ignorance whenever they come in for the first time. It is all a part of the NDA that their guardians agreed to when they use our service.”

“Guardians? Oh, you mean my parents, right?”

“In a sense, I guess you could call them your parents but legally they are just your guardians,” she answers, leaving me more confused than when I started this conversation. After a pause, while looking at the screen, she continues, “just as I thought, they did leave a personalized message for you in case they could not be here to explain the facts of life to you.”

She taps a few keys on the keyboard and out pops one of those new data cubes, she picks it up, hands it to me and says, “take this cube over there to the viewer and maybe it will better explain what your lot in life is.”

I take the offered cube from her, go and sit down next to the viewer, put the cube into the provided slot, put on the goggles and hit the play button. After the standard test pattern that adjusts the viewer to the persons eyesight and hearing level, I see an image of my recently departed parents.


“Is this thing on?” Pa questioned, looking quizzically in the pickups direction. “I guess so, so here it goes. Son, if you are viewing this message, we are most likely dead and pushing up daisies and you are left on your own to cope with a situation that you know nothing about and is none of your making.”

“Hi, Elly!” interupted Ma, leaning further forward into the pickup’s area and waved.

“Hi, Ma, I miss you,” I think, waving back to her.

“Doesn’t it feel like we are in a spy movie or something? How exciting!” she gushed.

“Come on, Ma, calm down a bit and let’s get this over with so that we can get started in making our new boy, OK?”

“Anyway,” Pa continued, focusing his attention back on the pickup, “your Ma and I could not have kids, something about our genes not making a good match but we still wanted to raise one, to nurture and in a way to spite the government. They went and revised that Inheritance Tax so that only descendants could have all of the money willed to them; otherwise, they would take out half of the money transferred from whoever it was to go, to help pay off that stupid national debt that they keep on increasing.

“Like Hell, we and others thought, who could not have any kids of their own and we, your Ma and I, decided to do something about it. We would rather have our hard earned money go directly to the next generation than to bunch of idiotic bureaucrats that can’t even balance their own checkbooks.

“After being turned down by the assorted legal and otherwise adoption agencies, you can imagine the run on orphaned kids that this would create, and not being able to go the artificial route, the fees the fertility clinics charged went through roofs and your Ma was just too old to bear a young’n such as yourself, we almost lost hope. Believe me, it was not a happy time for either of us, that is, until we found out about Newman Enterprises and the service they offered.

“For a set of fees, they could create a child of our very own, to raise, love and spoil rotten,” Pa said, with a nasty smirk when he got the rotten part of his speech.

“Just like a real baby,” Ma piped in.

“Yes, Ma, just like a real baby,” Pa said, with a sigh.

“I don’t understand all of the techie type things that they were trying to explain to me. Most of it went way over our heads. You might have better luck when you ask them to explain their process to you. What it ends up being is that we get the son we otherwise could never have had.

“If you’re wondering about that extended warranty thingy, you’ll have to ask them about that too. For a small extra fee, they said that they could boost your immune system so that you would not get as sick as a normal kid would, so we took them up on the offer also.

“Sorry to break this news to you like this but the Non-Disclosure Agreement was clear as to what would happen if we decided to blab about what they were up to.”



The message from beyond the grave ends. I take off the goggles and put them aside, brush off a couple of stray tears, take the cube out of the slot, go over to the nurse and hand the cube back to her.

“Here you go,” she says, after taking back the cube and hands me a tissue. “They must have been good parrents,” she adds, sympathetically.

All I can do is nod at her, dabbing at more tears dripping down my cheeks.

After I calm myself a bit, I ask her about this made bussiness that Pa mentioned in the video.

“It’s sort of like the difference between a site built home and manufactured home. Instead of the Papa bits combining within the Mama bits, inside the Mama, to make a baby, we take the Papa bits and the Mama bits and through our pattent pendding process, out pops a brand new baby. If they choose to, we can even add the special feature you have.”

“YOU MEAN, I WAS NOT BORN?” I blurt out. No wonder they kept on getting evasive when I asked them where I came from when I as young. I thought that they were just embaressed to answer that question, so I just stopped asking, especially after that supposed sexual education class they have you take.

“That’s right,” she affirms. “Basically, you were hatched out of a machine instead of being born of womb. You’re still a person though, just like anyone else. Don’t go feeling strange or differnent because of it, you’re normal in everyother way.”

I have heard the phrase before but thought it was only a cliche, I fell the rug being pulled out from under my feet. I look at the nurse, dizzily and mutter a plaintive, “what?”

“Maybe it would be better if I just give you a tour of the place,” she says. She comes to me, takes my hand and leads me out of the office.

I follow her down the hall until we come to the foyer of a laboratory area. We stop before a solid door, she turns to me and says, “remember, what I am going to show you is very secret and should not be told to anyone. Understand?”

I answere, “yes,” and she opens the security door and we step into a compleatly new world.


“ First off, what I do in my office is security screening, to make sure that someone does not pull a fast one on us just for a news story. I also do psychological screening of the prospective guardians.

“After they pass through me, we take them here and take blood samples. We extract the DNA, make a few corrections if either parent has a disabling genetic defect, mix them together to create the genes that will eventually become a new person. This is the main reason why we need to keep all of this a secret.”

“I suppose so, considering that most people would think that your gene tinkering is like you’re playing God here.”

“Exactly.”

We move past the genetics lab to another section and she continues, “here is where we make the babies come alive. We place the eggs that we fertilize with the combined DNA of the parents into these mechanical wombs and they gestate until they are ready to take on a life of their own as new born babies. No birth defects because either of the parents have defective genes nor from environment hazards that the mother is being put in risk of and no premature births either.”

The room is filled with rows of aquarium type things. Some of them are empty, those that are not, have what looks like pods immersed in them, where the developing fetuses are encased. I ask, “why are some of them empty?”

“We are still doing a long term clinical trail on the current brood, so only a few at a time are being used, just to keep us busy until the BIG DAY.”

“How is the brood doing?”

“Ask yourself that one, we are both brood mates,” she giggles. “As far as the researchers can tell, there isn’t a bad apple in the whole bunch, which is much better than the natural way.” She says that last part with contempt, as if nature should get her act together or something.

As we stand there, behind the glass wall separating us from the developing babies, a couple goes through a nearby isolation booth, puts on bunny suits, exits on the other side and goes to one of the pods.

“We encourage the couples to come and interact with their developing babies, play with their kids to be. It helps nurture the bond between the parents and the child. The fetus develops better because of the stimulation it gets too. It’s also fun to watch, see,” she adds, pointing to the two proud parents that are laughing. “Ouch. She’s going to be strong, if that kick was any indication.

“The last stop in the tour is next. If you will follow me,” she says. “It is my favorite part.”

I signal my willingness to follow and we move further along.



We come to a door, she knocks and someone inside answers it. After a moment of hushed words, we are invited into the room to watch what happens next.

The nurse leans to me and explains what is going on, “This is our version of child birth. Unlike the painfully long and messy way that takes nine months to get to, only to end so grossly, with things spewing out all over, the doctor just adds a set of chemicals into the tank. This triggers the placenta to dissolve away, see. What would normally be gushing out of the mommy dissipates and the baby floats to the surface, the doctor takes the baby out of the tank and hands it to the expectant parents. The little kid is then dried off and bundled up, ready to be taken home to love and cherish.

“Oh! Look at that, he has opened his eyes. Isn’t it just like an angel waking up from a nice dream?”

I have to admit, after seeing the normal birthing process on the Health Channel once, this method does seem to have its advantages. The end of birth defects, both the mother and the father being able to lead a normal live while the baby is developing and an easy birthing process may be appealing to those who can use their service. As we head back to the office, leaving the new family to get better acquainted with each other, I wonder about what is really going on here and what it costs to run this sort of operation. After we get back to the office, I ask her about it.

“Let’s see, first there is a charge for the preliminary checks that I do, to try and find out if they really want to use our service or are just a bunch of nosy busybodies.

“Then there is the fee for all of the gene scanning that we do and then the resulting splicing that takes place to create the blueprint for the new baby. We draw the blood right here so that we know who we are getting it from. This prevents someone from trying to make what would end up becoming Hitler’s love child or something, by not using DNA from an unknown source. We process the parents’ genome on a state of the art computer. We then combine the two sets of genes together, preserving genetic diversity. We are not in the business of cloning dictators or anyone else for that matter. The only added thing that we do that nature does not do is that when we find out that either parent has a defective gene, we swap that gene out with one from a set of genes that we know to work fine. By picking from a set, we are still able to preserve diversity.

“Once we have the genes combined, we test it the results on our developmental computer models, to see if there are any nasty surprises that we have overlooked. A separate division offers the genetic screening as a service to the public, a sort of prenatal screening.

“All that is left after that is to run the results through a gene splicer, put the set of genes into an artificial egg, implant the egg in a placental membrane and let nature take its course, that does cost a bit too but the process is guaranteed to produce a breathing, bouncing baby. This is a lot better than going those other routes where you have no control over the end result.”

“With all those fees and charges you’ve just mentioned, this place should be reeling in the dough.”

“You would think that,” she answers, “but it’s not true. All of it costs the parents about as much as the normal adoption agencies charge and certainly a lot less than those high priced supposed fertility clinics that have popped up recently.

“All the bills get paid, on time. We get paid decent wages, enough to afford a few luxuries but nobody drives around in limousines or has a fancy jet to fly around in, unless they save enough to pay for it themselves. Heck, most of the corporate suits drive around in beat up used cars and fly coach when they need to, of all things; they feel that to do otherwise, it would draw too much attention to themselves. They’re like, oh, financial ninjas or something. You could be driving right by them without even noticing that they are running an operation like this.

“It’s like they feel that they are doing this as a service to humanity or something.”

I take a moment to think about what she has just told me and I realize that she has yet to mention a thing about what I came here for, so I ask her, pointblank, about that damned warranty notice they sent me.

“Oh, that. You know how software companies charge you for their anti-virus and privacy software programs for your computer?”

“Yes,” I affirm, quizzically, wondering what a piece of computer software has to with all of this.

“We do the same thing for your body,” she answers, as if such a revelation is just one of those things. “Your appendix, which no one needs anyway, is substituted with a nanotech factory capable of manufacturing antibodies for all of these nasty germs floating around. The fee that covers the extended warranty for this service covers updating the antibody profiles that the nanofactory uses to build the antibodies for whatever is ailing you.”

“So how come, even with this factory inside of me, I still get sick now and then?”

“It is because you are supposed to experience the miseries as well as the joys that life has to offer,” she says, sagely, as if giving me some sort of sermon. “Besides, if you don’t get sick occasionally, you would start acting like you were some sort of superhuman monster, which is something we do not want people to think. You do, however, get well a lot quicker compared to most people, don’t you?”

“That’s right!” I exclaim. “I have yet to miss a day at work because I was sick. Some of the guys at work joke about me being inhuman,” I muss, realizing now that I might have to take a special day off now and then just so that they don’t get to suspisious.

“They are wrong about you being inhuman though, you are more than human. I believe we are the next stage of human development.”

“So what do I do about the warranty? Can I renew it or something and when do I do it?”

“Right now, you are in a grace period, we specify one week so that they realize that it is something that they need to take care of. It is actually two weeks but we don’t tell them that or they will wait until it is too late to get in touch with us. If you go beyond the two-week period, we send someone to drag your ass in here and find out what you’ve decided to do about the warranty.”

“So what do I do to renew it then?”

“That’s simple, log back onto our web site, just the way you did before, it will know that you came in and you will be able to browse our available policies. They are cheaper than most supposed health insurance policies and our’s actually does something for your health. You can even give me your preference and billing information right now and I can fix you up in a flash.”

“I don’t know. You have given me way too much to think about. I would like to go home and think this over for a bit and get back to you later.”

“Fine with me. I do admit that it is a little overwhelming to take in at one time but don’t take too long or we will go and get you back here.”

“There is one thing though that’s been bugging me though.”

“What’s that?”

“How is it that you are able to keep all of this a secret, anyway?”

“We have a very enforceable Non-Disclosure Agreement,” she says, smiling wickedly at me. “Each parent is required to follow it explicitly, this includes not talking to their child about this. What the kids don’t know, they can’t tell anyone else about. Legally, your parents signed one on your behalf so we expect you to honor that agreement too.”


As I leave OHSU’s campus, on top of the hill, I get the feeling that the world is going to be overrun by a bunch of us pod people.

When I get home, I go to my computer and type in my thoughts on what has happened to me. I move the mouse over to the send button, to deliver the E-mail of this to the local newspaper. I hesitate, at the last moment before sending it. All of the sudden, unbidden, I recall the last words that the nurse had said to me as I walked out the door, “It is a new world we are creating here and we will let nothing stop us!”

“Does the world really need to know?” I ask myself, “would humanity be better off not knowing what is going on around them?” I can just imagine the protests, riots and such that would happen if word of this got out.

Instead of clicking on the send button, I hit cancel, committing the E-mail message to the eternal bit bucket it the sky. I then go to their web site, to check out what sort of policies they have to offer . . .





... The ancient Egyptian prophecies became true, upon the return of that messenger of the Other Gods, Nyarlathotep, wave after wave of destruction, war, and death, occurred. At its end, humanity lost its right to live on earth and the remanents were marched off to extinction.

But, all was not lost . . .

... It has been centuries since the ship has left its planet of origin. The planet is now reduced to a wasteland of dust and ash, when its life giving sun expanded to engulf the inner two worlds.

This ship is not the first of its kind to arrive at the planet it is orbiting. One other one had already proceeded it, making the air, water and land suitable for the mothership’s precious cargo to survive on.

As it neared the end of the voyage, the mothership began the development of the beings that are its temporary charges. They have now grown to adulthood and are eager to arrive at their new home.

The ship, from distant light years away, lands softly in a meadow by a stream. It opens its doors, allowing the colonists to step out onto the planet’s surface. It is here that they will begin to create their new world to live in.

Painted on the side of the ship, written in a language long forgotten, is the name of the organization that brought life to this planet, so far away: New Man Enterprises. Underneath the name is their logo, a crowned monkey dressed in yellow robes, a King in Yellow, Ha Nu Man.



“We shall go out to those brooding reefs in the sky and dive down through the black abysses of space. To the myriad stars we shall go. And on the planets that we find there, we shall dwell amidst wonder, and glory, forever”