The Last Breath
Everyone these days was looking for a new high. London’s scene had become tired ever since the money moved in and all the good drugs moved out. Only those with the means of deciding not to go dancing were allowed into the clubs. SoHo’s Euphoria was no different. What had once been a thriving spot with lines around the block to get in, was now reduced to offering group discounts where wonderbras got in for free. As the club scene itself was gasping its last, the growth team at Red Star saw an opportunity. They had an inexhaustible supply of human biological capital, harvested from their partnership with the Nimbus airline, and from which they were able to extract the city’s newest, and most potent narcotic, the last breaths of dying humans. Collated and packaged into neatly designed, palm-sized aerosols, the rave kids called them stoppers, even though their brand name was really Exhalation. Upon inhaling the concentrated breath of a hundred deceased plane passengers, the subject would receive an enormous rush of adrenaline, more potent than anything seen before, and which heightened the pounding music around them, giving them the stamina and fortitude to be able to party for days. Euphoria was the first to openly offer it at the door.
Red Star were always looking to optimize on as much natural resource as possible. In Exhalation they’d found themselves in the street drug market, and in an arms race with a criminal underground who had the resources to outspend them with violence. Red Star’s enterprise expanded to ever-more potent products, especially focused on the breath of those who died screaming, which proved especially popular with the local industrial goth kids looking to stay up all night. Exhalation even became a recreational drug for the wealthy. It would give a corporate employee the edge over a competitor looking to climb the ladder. It afforded the eager and ambitious the resources to work harder and achieve more. Over time, organizations would enter into partnerships with Red Star in order to ensure maximum productivity, especially in the run-up to the holidays. Humans were finally afforded the opportunity to compete with digital drones, and found to be able to maintain productivity if the stoppers kept coming.
As these employees rose in the ranks, fueled by an ability to go harder and longer on any task set before them, soon it was Exhalation who wasn’t just running the country’s prominent industry, they also began to have aspiration towards politics. Increasing demands on supply were satisfied by continuing to feed the market data returned each day into Red Star’s generative program AeroAdvise, which ensured a constant supply of passengers’ breath to meet the needs of the market. No-one who took Exhalation knew or cared where the drug came from and what it was made of. All they knew was what it could do for them. Airlines were kept beyond suspicion, and any hint of questioning from the public was disappeared as soon as it was surfaced. All the public knew was that if they could get their hands on one of the small capsules, their prayers would be answered. They’d be able to experience the euphoria of the best night out of their lives, as much as get the promotion they’d always wanted. All it took was a sharp press on the capsule’s valve and a deep inhalation to start the process. No-one cared that what they were consuming were the dying gasps of humans starved for oxygen, who were being harvested as part of a much larger effort to recycle human waste. Legislation and endorsement were rampant in support of the productivity it generated, and the growth team inside of Red Star were hailed as visionaries.
That is, until Red Star began to cut their product with the dying breath of animals.
