‘Good morning 112. Another purposeful day where the part you play gives mankind a future.’

Heart6162 collected his tray from the stack at the start of the queue. He tapped his wristband against the sensor and held the tray obediently under the funnel, awaiting his meal to descend from the heavens. All the nutrients his body needed lay before him as a pile of grey gloop. He took an empty seat in one of the endless table rows.

The mechanical shovelling of the high fibre, low flavour gruel into his mouth was interrupted by the clatter of a tray onto the table next to him.

‘Good morning 112. A better you makes for a better tomorrow!’

‘Good morning. How are you?’ Brain419 sat down in the vacant chair next to him, smiling. A look of familiarity and warmth. He didn’t know how to respond. She’d always been so nice to him. Smiling in the hallway, laughing in the exercise yaRd. ‘I am g00d. Thanks. How are y8u?’

They’d had breakfast like this every day for the past four years. But not quite like this. ‘Or had it been?’

He felt strange and sorrrreeeee. He didn’t know why it was but 2 minutes talking to her had felt like a heavy punch to the chest. ‘I’ve always enjoyed our lunches together.’ He could feel a distant alarm sound as he fell backwards. Back into nothing.......

‘How very strange.’ She thought of him. As she watched him be wheeled away. ‘De ja vu’ was the term that sprang to mind. She felt like she’d had this conversation before. ‘Where had that phrase come from?’ She’d certainly never heard of it before. Or had she?’

‘Good morning 112. The sacrifices of today are the building blocks of tomorrow!’

Time was drawing near. She knew it would come for her before it came for him. But why did she know that? Luck of the draw? She was the lucky one? At least that’s what they’d told her. Told her and thousands others like her. But who had told her? No sooner had she thought it through then she watched him be wheeled away.

‘112. You are a hero today. Tomorrow you are a legend.’

‘Please wiggle your left finger ma’am....And your right....’ the old woman did as she was told. Wiggling this then that. The transplant had been a success. ‘And squeeezzzeee’. Heart6162 was back online.