Vampires and Slaves

Third, Drs. Kolff, Haas, Abel — and other great minds… never got dialysis to work. The papers, conferences, public announcements, and Google searches are all a deception. Machines with membranes are unable to replace what your kidneys do. They will not keep you alive if your kidneys fail. You need a more radical treatment to stay alive.

Fortunately, Drs. C, G, K, and other great minds _did_ get dialysis working. It appears to work the same as I described above. Same catheter and needles. Same schedule issues. Same result: unwanted things are removed from your body through your blood.

But this successful version of dialysis does not use a bunch of membranes. It uses a bunch of ‘ me ’ .

I died while at Amasa. But I was brought back as something more useful than I was. And I am not the first. All the dialysis clinics throughout the world have at least one of me per shift. We process all those patients’ blood during our shift. We enable those patients to live normal lives outside that clinic. But we don’t live normal lives outside the clinic. We don’t live at all.

VAMPIRES AND SLAVES

I set up a morning meeting — with Grace at Cafe Boronne. It is a Friday, so the cafe is open. Since Covid, it has been closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, which is inconvenient since I enjoy coffee after my dialysis sessions, and Monday is the first session of the week. Dialysis takes up 15+ hours a week of my daylight hours, so the remaining time is very scheduled by me… apparently even

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‘manically’ scheduled… like this is my last day on earth. Rhythms like coffee keep this innate mania a bit in check.

“How have you been doing Grace? I know Martha took over after you ‘went on’, and your kids were going to Priori, but I don’t know what you have been up to since then. Are you still living off Alpine?”

“Yes. Still there. The kids are grown, but we like the house, and it is good for entertaining.

I am the angel investor for several companies, and the gaming and VR spaces are doing really well. I also represent the 13th district, so that takes a bit of time. “

“Sounds exciting. Can I pitch a public benefit to you as state senator?”

“I agreed to meet, and you are very transparent, so clearly ‘ yes ’ . “

“I want to end homelessness. I believe this will save and improve lives. And the newly housed will be able to contribute much more effectively to the local economy … maybe even as gamers” .

I say the last part with a smile. Grace has been in the game industry for decades. Never seemed to match her professionalism and personality to me, but people have layers.

April

Dr. A comes by — after I get on the transplant list.

“Congratulations Mr. Fussell”

“Please, ‘Mark’. And not ‘Mr. Mark’, which seems to be very popular among the RNs”

“Ok. Mark. You are now on ‘the list’… and I am here to discuss it with you.

You appear to be mentally stable under stress & significant unknowns, are willing to do what the doctors tell you to do, and are a generally productive (even slightly ‘manic’) individual. These were the prime considerations that we used to put you on that list.”

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“I assume that and my general health”

“Yes. Kind of.

The list I am talking about is a different list. The liver transplant list is just a ‘cover’. You are now on the hemodialysis list.”

“Isn’t that just for my kidney functions until I get a transplant? I thought I was already getting dialysis?”

“You are and aren’t. This will take a bit of imagination and acceptance on your part. Please keep any open mind for a few minutes”

“Ok, I will try to hold off my questions for a bit”

“You were admitted to Amasa ICU on March 28th. A day later, you passed. ”

“Passed what?”

“No. Passed. Passed away. You never woke up from the ammonia spike.”

“I seem pretty awake”

“Yes, you are now awake… but not alive. On March 29th, Amasa decided you were a good candidate for the hemodialysis program. So you were moved to ‘V5’ and were brought back.”

“I am ‘back’ but not alive?”

“You are something different. Informally we call you Vampires. But you aren’t much like the myth. The core characteristic is that you need human blood: you get the ‘nutrients’ you need to continue functioning from blood.”

“That does sound very vampiric”

“Yes, but in exchange you purify the blood similarly to a kidney. When you are hooked to a dialysis machine, you get other peoples’ blood, purify it, and return it to them.”

“O….K….”

“You do ‘net’ take some blood, but not a lot from any one person. And you can handle a higher flow rate than the patients, so in four hours, you can process the blood of a dozen people. If you

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take about 10-percent, you drain only about a half a liter from each person. And we can give that back as saline without the patient being harmed.”

“O…. K….”

“So, as long as you do dialysis, you can function between sessions. And by doing dialysis, you enable a dozen people to live”

“O…. K…. That sounds very fair and pretty logical. Except the ‘you are dead’ part. I don’t feel dead. The machines say I am alive. The tests say I am alive. I act like I am alive.”

“Yes. The machines and tests are lying. Try not to breathe for a bit”

“Like… hold my breath?”

“Yes, hold your breath… until you _need_ to breathe”

Now

“Well, that is a small and simple task”

“I realize it is not, but I just want California to follow in Berkeley’s footsteps and not prevent homeless from using public/government lands to live. We will do our best to get them off it, but on their own terms. We could use money for that, but that is a different pitch.”

“So you want me to vote for bill 2022-0401?”

“Yes, along with as many of your friends as possible”

“Ok. I will work on it. And will call you if I need some details.”

“Call, and I will come ASAP. Thank you.”

April

30 minutes later — I give in and start talking. “I don’t need to breathe? Except to talk?”

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“It may mentally help you talk, but you don’t need to do it for that either. It appears you communicate through suggestion. More by visual contact than anything else. There may be some telepathy involved. Either we don’t understand it yet, or it is above my pay grade.”

“You don’t understand the ‘things’ you are using to keep people alive? That is keeping tens of thousands — ”

“hundreds of thousands ”

“Ok. Hundreds of thousands of people alive. So there are tens of thousands of vampires wandering around?”

“Yes”

“And you don’t understand them?”

“Yes: we don’t understand them. But they appear to be pretty ‘human’. So possibly somewhat safer than AI. You have seen the Matrix?”

“Well, that went badly for humanity, but rampaging vampires doesn’t seem very good either.”

“No, but we do test you and decide whether to go forward”

“Where backwards is to kill me?”

“Possibly… but living dead don’t have many rights … including the right to complain.”

“So I am a slave?”

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