[ WP ] [ TT ] Biological functions have become the new currency , with a dystopian government controlling the amount granted to each . Sleep is the most prized , with the elite resting peacefully regularly while poor are kept awake for days at a time ...

`` Back in 1965 a kid, name o' Ranny Garner, he stayed up for 11 days straight, and that was a record up'til recently. He did n't get too famous'til about a hunnerd years later, when'pullin' a Garner' became a pretty common thing ta do fer tha desperados here in New Omaha, an' fer that matter, tha res' of the Realigned Democratic States of America,'' the old man spoke as he sipped his whisky, pronouncing the last five words as though he were reciting them, without his usual odd-sounding, outdated psuedocowboy accent. 
 His eyes were manic, darting, but his words were calmly spoken. 
 
 
 He was talking to a young whippersnapper of a lad, young boy who'd grown up all right, parents maybe had to stay up every once in a while to get by. The boy was on the wrong path though. He'd stayed up for three days straight, and he was flush with BP. So he sat at the bar, digesting, processing fluids, metabolising whole mugs of beer. Metabolising alchohol was still cheap, else the Big Sleepers would have a popular uprising on their hands. The old man himself nursed a thimbleful of whisky. When he metabolised alchohol, he made it count, and he had debts to pay with the BP he could earn by skipping a long piss or a drunken sleep. The young man was going on about a fourth day, drunk as he was, while the old man tried to talk him out of it. The boy was n't listening much. 
 
 `` Ya see, most people, when'ey figured out'ey could sell their sleep fer a nice profit, quit dere jobs and stayed up fer a few hours each night.'At was when we foun' out robots could a-ready do mos'ah' tha work.'' 
 
 
 `` But some,'ey were smarter'an'at.'Ey rounded up as much sleep as'ey could get. 
 
 `` Now people needed more sleep, ey'd screwed their sleep ske-jas righ' up, ya see, an' so the prices wen' up. But the big bulk buyers, them that was rich before the switch to BP and become the Big Sleepers affer it, they was n't selling yet. In fact, they was still buyin from the folk desperate'nough ta sell. 
 
 `` Time the switch came, the richest of em had enough sleep fer two milyun lifetimes. Rich before an' rich after. An' they still kep' buyin'. Tradin' now, playin the whole stock market. Only now the stock market mattered to the everyday workin folk. If you wanted to piss, shit, eat, drink, or sleep, that is, o' course. 
 
 `` Do n't be like me, son. Do n't start pullin' Garners when yer just a boy. It'll catch up to ya, and what ya make, ye'll just spend it on drink or piss it all away. 
 
 `` Time ya get to my age, you'll end up like me.'' 
 
 `` Oh?'' said the young man at last, still not even half-interested in anything but his booze. `` How d'you mean?'' 
 
 `` Well, I'm in a lot o' debt, meself. Pullin Garner's just do n't cut it anymore, not fer me. Matter fac','spect I'm'bout ta set a new record shortly. Eighteen days widowt no sleep, nodawink.'Spect it wo n't benough even if I stayup anudder coupladays do. Anahmfellinghhhhh...'' 
 
 The old man collapsed in his barstool. The young man looked around, threw an e-BP chip on the bar, and quickly walked out. He probably would n't get any trouble from the body collectors, who doubled as detectives for mob-justice, the only kind that could be found among the poor. Still, he did n't want to deal with them. 
 
 When the body collectors came, they asked no questions. It was just a dead old man. And of course there would be no autopsy, but if there was, it would reveal he had died from a stress-induced anuerysm. The probably cause of stress, of course, being lack of sleep.
