Cal-troll
The CaloTrolls
The Calor-Trolls
Calontrol
CaloTron

2050:

Due to recent improvements in scaling-up cryogenic preservation methods, cryo-service providers (CSPs) have succeeded in nearly satisfying popular demand. Accordingly, the price of “Waiting” has dropped significantly. Waiting has now become an extremely popular alternative to suicide among the young and old alike.

Early economic analyses of the costs of offering such services had indicated that the longer a client wished to Wait, the more expensive the service must be. In fact, choosing to Wait for more than fifty, or even one hundred years, was prohibitively expensive to most individuals who showed interest.

As it turned out, Gene Rush was only able to afford to Wait for 35 years. To be honest, he did not really want to Wait for hundreds of years like everyone else seemed to. His fantasy did not involve waking up in some unfathomable society, driven by invisible technology explained with incomprehensible languages.

After spending much of his savings on a new wardrobe, Gene did not have the luxury of Waiting that long anyway.

“I'm sorry sir, we just don't carry your size anymore,” the salesman apologized. “You'll have to try Mr. Plus in Bandhal. I think they have 127s there.”

Gene cursed the fact that Newmerica had converted to the metric system. Actually, he thought, he was cursed to be born in 2013, so that his waist size seemingly ballooned from 42 inches to 107 centimeters on his 15th birthday. When did his Waiting begin? He couldn't remember. Not soon enough. He could hardly wait to Wait, he thought sarcastically. He just hoped 35 years would be enough. Something was wrong

[Notes: Cryogenic companies and government in cahoots, reduce population. They promise that cryogenics reduces weight, and so hundreds of thousands of people opt to Wait, instead of enduring this life of overweightness on an overpopulated planet. Propaganda promote Waiting, and chastise the overweight.

Special chemicals or minerals required for cryogenics..thus some raw materials companies in on the scheme?

Government in future treats calories like a Controlled Substance.]

2085:

Gene was famished. Or at least, that's how he felt. He had never actually been famished. He'd never gone more than a few waking hours without eating. Well, there was that one night when Amy led him away from the camp cabins into the woods after all their counselors had fallen asleep. He didn't eat that night.

God that seems so long ago. I wonder what Amy is doing now? What was it, fifteen years ago? No, it was fifty years ago. God, fifty years. Amy could be dead by now.

Probably not. Who knows, maybe she Waited, too.

Gene climbed out of his “ship”. It was hard to leave. Not because he was sore or uncomfortable, he realized, but because it was safe. Safe in his little pod. There was no one watching him, no one asking if he needed any help. No one to think about. He felt surprisingly limbre, however. Climbing out of the small compartment was not physically difficult. It did amplify the chorus of hunger pangs from his gut into his brain. He would have to go exploring.

He looked out into the dim hallway that his room opened into, and did not see a whisper of life. Many doors, but no movement. Wasn't there supposed to be an attendant? A team of doctors? Somebody to greet him?

No, that's right, he didn't need anyone. He remembered, this is one of the many reasons he chose to Wait. The process was so streamlined, no one needed to tend to the “ships”. Fully automated cocoons, they kept their cargo safe, asleep, and alive, slowly conditioning them into fit, wakeful states by the end of the alotted time. He could wake up and move about as he pleased in the new world he'd awoken into. His new future.

Of course, some people paid good money for a guarantee that attendants would be present at their awakening. Servants explaining the world to them once they awoke. How their favorite football team was doing, who was president, a brief history of the world while they had been Waiting.

But Gene wanted to cherish his anonymity, his ignorance. He Waited to escape, and god damnit that's what he aimed to do. But now as the hunger clawed at the scratching post of his stomach, he knew he was doomed to engage his new world...if for nothing else than to mine for raw materials.

Gene passed a glass window in a door that must have lead down another hallway of Waiting Rooms. Shocked, he looked behind him to see who was following him.

No one there. Gene stared at his reflection in the glass. It really worked. By god, it worked!

Gene was elated to see his deflated body. A body he could stand to stare at. This feeling didn't last long, as the hunger cat shred it to pieces. Gene began to long for disembowelment.

Soon, he reached what seemed to be an exit. Were he not so transformed or maddened by hunger, he might have lingered longer or even pondered turning around. But he could not wait any longer.

Thrusting open the door, Gene walked out into a muggy, cloudy day in the future.

Gene immediately noticed the people. There were none! This part of Newladelphia had been a bustling metropolis in the days before he began to Wait. Gene noticed a few distant individuals walking down a few distant streets. There were no vehicles parked in the streets, but dozens of “Parking” signs littered the tall, monolithic buildings that Gene noticed next. Besides these skyscrapers, the only other buildings that Gene saw were restaurants. Dozens and dozens of restaurants. They all advertised themselves as “Tasty!”, “Flavorful!”, which megaphoned his gut's screams, not to mention his lingering distrust of public spaces.

Pacing down the sidewalk, he finally noticed a little empty room that could've been a laundromat. Only this little shop contained nothing but vending machines, filled with a cornucopia of strange treats and foods. Gene recognized a few shapes and without another thought, threw the door open and ran inside. Through the mist of euphoria his brain kicked in, and realized he would need some cash.

Looking around frantically, he saw a gleam in the corner, and rejoiced when he realized it was probably a coin. It was large and surprisingly light, featuring the Newmerica logo, which brought him some strange comfort. When he put the coin into a vending machine's coin slot, the box of delights sprung to life, with rotating lights and rapid-fire rearrangement of the items inside. The new arrangement seemed to display only those snacks that his coin could afford, and Gene appreciated this celebration of his limited funds.

Looking through his options more closely, and more frenetically, Gene was confused and angry.

“What the hell is a Diet Hot Dog?” he muttered to himself. Or so he thought.

“A diet hot dog is a delicious lattice of flavor molecules and odor materials,” the machine replied in a pleasant female voice, “ scientifically designed to immerse you in the experience of a delicious, beefy, hot dog.”

[Self-sustenance outlawed...

Lactation outlawed...

Any un-monitored, un-supervised generation or consumption of calories – Outlawed...]

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