The Zone: Where Surplus People Are Sent to Die

by M.H. Burton

John Henry Jackson is the last of dying breed, the last of the 700 men and women who once worked at the auto plant where he spent his career. The cars are still rolling off the assembly line, but they are no longer touched by human hands and his is the only human brain required to keep the plant humming. And soon he will be no longer needed. He knows it. He just doesn't know what to do about it. If he doesn't do something soon he will end up in a slave labor camp, or dead, like the 699 who have gone before him. Almost all of them are already dead. Worked to death in the gulags of the brave new human-less system where most of the work, and thinking, is done by robots and computers, or...worse yet, sent to THE ZONE to die, THE ZONE, into which people are dumped with nothing but the shirts on their backs to survive harsh Minnesota winters on what they can scrounge or gather with their bare hands. Few survive their first winter. That's what the wealthy, powerful JOB CREATORS who run this efficient new world want. In this new world of machines and computers few people are needed. No use carrying those who are surplus-get rid of them, get rid of the moochers and freeloaders, those who once worked in the old days when their labor was necessary. Send them to THE ZONE and make sure they don't come back to the gated enclaves the JOB CREATORS call the SECURE AREA. John Henry decides to go willingly to THE ZONE, he doesn't know what he will find there, if he makes it. If he doesn't make it he plans to kill himself, better that than hang on a few more months or years as a slave.

284 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2014