[ WP ] Let him sleep . As long as he does n't wake up he still has a job .

The guard held onto my arm. `` Let him sleep,'' he said. `` As long as he does n't wake up, he still has a job.'' 
 
 Humans have known for a long time that a certain kind of sleep unlocks an inner and secret power in their brains. Abstract thinking times a million, I've heard it be described. Now black market doctors and programmers are using unregulated tools to tap into it, and my son became one of their hamsters. 
 
 I sold my house. `` Please take my money,'' I told them. `` Take all of it, I just want my son back.'' But they refuse to release him, saying he has become too important to their research. For a thousand credits, they let me see him. 
 
 He was completely submerged in stasis-fluid. I was allowed to put my nose on the glass of the tank. `` He's gon na age slower,'' the guard said, `` and Lord knows what interesting things he will get to see. Experience, rather.'' 
 
 `` You do n't know what you're putting him through,'' I said. `` How could you?'' 
 
 The guard turned around, and showed me the back of his neck. He had a good-looking port, there. 
 
 `` I hypo-sleep just like him,'' he said. 
 
 `` No you do n't,'' I told him. `` You have him doing it twenty-four hours a day! It'll kill him.'' 
 
 `` He chose to. Doctors say it wo n't.'' 
 
 My son the calculator. My son the abacus. Plotting cyber-terrorism, most likely, or monitoring the stock market. His `` contract'' is for two years, after which the gangsters will supposedly pay him a large sum of money. My guess is that he will become a vegetable long before then. 
 
 To sign up for a `` job'' like that, though, you kind of have to already be one.
