The Immortal Quota

The letter arrived on Maya's seventeenth birthday, which was either the most wonderful coincidence in human history or the most terrible - though given the Immortal Selection Committee's fondness for dramatic timing, she rather suspected the latter. The envelope bore the distinctive silver seal that made grown adults weep with either joy or despair, depending on whether it contained congratulations or condolences.

"Well?" asked her mother, hovering with the sort of anxious energy typically reserved for parents watching their children take final exams or perform in school plays. Though this was rather more consequential than either, involving as it did the small matter of living forever versus the considerably more common alternative of aging, dying, and becoming compost.

Maya opened the envelope with hands that trembled only slightly - a remarkable display of composure, considering that the contents would determine whether she had roughly sixty years left to live or several million. The Committee had thoughtfully printed the results in large, friendly letters, as if announcing eternal life were no more significant than acceptance to university.

"Congratulations," she read aloud. "You have been selected for the Immortality Program. Please report to Processing Center Seven tomorrow at 9 AM sharp. Tardiness will result in forfeiture of your slot and immediate reassignment to Mortality Track B."

Her mother burst into tears - whether of joy or terror remained unclear, though Maya suspected it was probably both. The neighbors would be positively insufferable once word got out. Mrs. Chen next door had been practically vibrating with competitive energy since her own daughter had been passed over last spring, and the Immortal Quota of three per district meant Maya's selection was someone else's devastating disappointment.

The mathematics were elegantly simple and brutally unfair: every year, exactly 30,000 seventeen-year-olds worldwide received the injection that would stop their cellular aging at its peak moment. Everyone else got a lovely consolation letter thanking them for their participation in the selection process and wishing them well in their "traditional life journey" - bureaucratic language for growing old and dying like humans had been doing for millennia before science had made mortality optional for the lucky few.

Maya's phone buzzed incessantly - news traveled fast in a world where immortality was announced via mail service. Congratulations mixed with barely concealed envy from friends who were trying very hard to be happy for her while simultaneously calculating their own dwindling odds for next year's quota.

But mixed among the well-wishes were messages of a different sort. Anonymous numbers. Terse warnings. "They're coming." "Run." "Trust no one." Which seemed rather dramatic, though Maya supposed that when one had just been granted eternal life, drama was perhaps inevitable.

The first attempt came during lunch.

Maya had been examining her immortality paperwork (a surprisingly thick stack that included dietary recommendations, exercise requirements, and stern warnings about the psychological challenges of watching everyone you know eventually die) when someone bumped into her table at the café. Just a clumsy accident - except for the syringe that clattered to the floor, its needle glinting with something that probably wasn't vitamins.

The woman apologized profusely and hurried away before Maya could get a proper look at her face. But not before Maya noticed the small pin on her jacket: a skull with wings, the symbol of the Mortal Liberation Front. A group that believed immortality should belong to everyone or no one - and had developed creative ways of ensuring the latter outcome when the former proved impossible.

The second attempt was more direct. Someone had broken into her house while she was at school, though they'd been disappointingly subtle about it - no dramatic ransacking, just the sort of careful searching that suggested professional interest in her continued mortality. They'd left behind a note tucked under her pillow: "The quota is a lie. They choose who lives and who dies. Join us or join them."

Which was rather philosophical for a death threat, Maya thought. Though she supposed people facing eternal mortality had time to craft their ultimatums with proper dramatic weight.

Her mother suggested calling the police, though the police had developed a curious tendency to be unavailable whenever immortality-related crimes occurred. The Immortal Protection Division, meanwhile, had assured her that such incidents were "vanishingly rare" and "nothing to worry about" - though they'd said this while posting armed guards outside her school, which rather undermined their reassurances.

Maya found herself in the peculiar position of being simultaneously the luckiest and most endangered teenager in her district. Tomorrow she would receive the injection that would make her biologically seventeen forever - assuming, of course, that she lived long enough to reach the appointment.

She sat in her bedroom that evening, surrounded by immortality paperwork and anonymous threats, watching the sun set on what might be either her last day of mortality or her last day of breathing. The irony was almost beautiful in its completeness: granted eternal life, she had perhaps twelve hours left to enjoy it.

Her phone buzzed one final time. A new number, a simple message: "Door. Now."

Maya looked toward her bedroom window, then at the packet of immortality pills she was supposed to begin taking immediately. Outside, footsteps approached with the careful rhythm of people who had all the time in the world to get their job done properly.

She pocketed the pills, grabbed her jacket, and headed for the back door, wondering if immortality was worth living long enough to experience.