World Wars Inc.

A Sci-Fi Story

“We have every single data point.”

“But-”

“Every. Single. Datapoint.”

He wasn’t even flinching. He spoke through his teeth. He’d done this a thousand times before.

She scoffed, half-rose from her seat. Her face crumpled. She turned around and ran out. That icy building — beautifully-designed, modern, but chilling, all white and dark gray and sharp corners. Gray imitations of plants in bulbous black vases.

She ran down the quiet, sunny city street, cars honking faintly in the distance. It didn’t matter; none of it mattered. She ran faster until she got to her shitty building, shakily inserting the key and entering the cement-scented staircase. Four flights. She slammed the door behind her upon entering her one-bedroom apartment. She’d been so proud, a one-bedroom in Brooklyn!

“AGGGHHHH!” She screamed, vase smashing against the opposite wall. “Ahhhhhhhhhhh”

She wailed.

He was handsome is the thing. Perfectly trimmed sharp beard. Nose all sharp edges. Deep brown eyes that she could’ve liked. What was he, 28? 29? She’d read online that he’d studied at Princeton. The sick fuck. He didn’t even finish school when he came up with his idea.

She frantically typed into her computer. Within minutes, her condo was on the market. It’d been intended as a long-term rental investment property, located a few states over in some beautiful bumblefuck town with tidy streets and sun peeking through the alive trees. ALIVE. “Uggghhhhhhhh,” she groaned. She groaned again and smashed her hands into her forehead. “Ugh ugh ugh ugh” WHY why Why.

He was a millionaire. She had $15K in savings. Once the house sold, she’d have $90K more, $40K of that her original investment in the down payment less than a year ago.

She was so young!

She thought she’d make over $100K in profit. She probably could’ve. HE could’ve told her that. Actually, he didn’t deal in What Ifs, only in Definites. That’s what it said on the building, “We Deal in Definites.”

The computer made a ding. Someone had already bitten on the rental property. “I’ve got 20 more years,” the instant message on the real estate website read. 20 MORE YEARS. Her face crumpled again and she fell backward into her desk chair. Her desk chair where she’d spent thousands of hours. Her desk chair where she’d earned thousands of dollars.

2 years left. That’s what he’d told her: 2. Years. Left. She’d done her best in school, at work, in her relationships, in her life.

None of it mattered anymore or…all of it mattered…she just couldn’t decide. She closed her eyes, inhaled through her nose, exhaled through her mouth. Remembered what had made her go there in the first place: Curiosity. “When will I die?” It’s the question that haunts every human being, and it was now packaged into a neat little startup: WWID?, Inc. Tagline: “We Deal in Definites.”

She started hysterically laughing. “Their tagline should be, ‘We Deal in DEATHinites.’” She thought to herself. “It’s not funny,” she mumbled while laughing even harder. “It’s not even a good one,” Haha… Hahaha. She’d always had a habit of laughing at terrible things. A knee-jerk reaction when she saw an undoubtedly fatal car crash or heard about someone passing away.

We Deal in Definites.

He’d invented an Artificial Intelligence that was able to gather every single data point in the world at a given time but only for one specific purpose: To tell people when they were going to die. It knew her biological makeup. It knew where her car was parked, and every car in the whole entire world. It knew where a little girl was running across the street in a small village in China. Some sort of Particles Analysis With Real-Time Refreshing. She didn’t give a shit — she’d glimpsed the press release in her online research. She’d studied Communications. She wasn’t a scientist. The stuff was way over her head, but what she knew was that it had been proven true time and time again. Three million, five hundred eight thousand, nine hundred twenty-three times to be exact. Twenty-four. Twenty-five. Twenty-six. She snapped her computer closed, the view of WWID?, Inc.’s Accurate Death Counter™️ burned into her brain.

She inhaled. Exhaled, long. 1,051,152 minutes left.