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Prisoner #104536

Bernie was really old, but he still only looked like 80. Of course that was ironic, because that was only ten years older than he was when he landed in the clink. But that had been so long ago, that no one really remembered when it was.

Of course, it was only boredom that prompted Bernie to volunteer for the life extension research (by Life Extension Advance Protocol, i.e. - LEAP^tm) Most prisoners on a life sentence wouldn’t dream of such things. Why extend your life in the slammer, when it wasn’t much of a life?

But Bernie went along with it, just for change in routine. Plus he wasn’t really a lifer, just a 150-year sentence. So, it was somehow different.

Then again, being in jail hardly mattered anymore. In some cases it was the safest place to be. There were only about 30 guys left in the Longoria unit. And no real guards. The prison was mostly self-sufficient. You had to be.

They had their own garden and shop. And some etherbusinesses. A lot of guys came back and asked to be let back in. In the latter days they had taken to interviewing (and usually rejecting) people who wanted to get back in. It wasn’t easy. And if your sentence was up, you had to leave.

The miracle, of course, was that the prison grounds enclosed a natural spring, and even though there was a sulphur flavor at times, they were safe during the water wars, and even made some money selling the stuff. Of course they called it medicinal, but people at the gates fought over it, stink or no.

Bernie was big in the news back in 2009, when he lost some money, actually billions, for many people. But people hardly cared about that stuff anymore.

First of all, in 2159 a billion dollars would buy you a small metacar. And the shrunken continents, loss of most of the ice on both poles, plus desertification of 80% of the dry land that was left had made Bernie’s little Ponzi scheme rip-off the least of people’s worries.

And with all of the upheavals in the United States section of the Swiss Neutral Administrative Takeover, (SNAT.usa) the life extension research records got lost.

So no one remembered that Bernie was 220 years old

On the other hand the AutoSysAdmin knew when your sentence was up, and so he was about to be freed. It was ironic, too, that he still had bearer bonds that were now now worth 100 billion stashed in a safety deposit box in a little town in the Poconos.

He still had dreams of Florida, even though there was little left of the actual Florida.

Plus, even if you are 80 years old (or at least look it), you can still get girls if you have money. Really amazing girls, if you have really amazing money. And even though 100 billion wasn’t a lot of money anymore, he knew how to get more. Bernie was good with money. Other people’s money.

He was still dreaming of girls, and his billions, however diminished, when June 29, 2159 came around and he walked out of the prison, only to fall down dead, only 200 yards outside the compound.

No one really knew why. But three years later, when inmate #238782, Bennie Kingdom’s cleaner virus accidently erased the Longoria nanofiles for the years 2015-50, this entry went blank:

Inmate #104536, FirstName Bernie, LastName Madoff, Medical Protocol LEAP^tm 2.16, Special Time limitation = length of sentence, startcode 6.29.2009, endcode 6.29.2159.