Just a few years down the road, the new health-care plan is firmly entrenched. A new bill, Ethical Assessment of End-of Life Care, has also been enacted into law. And the authorities are ruthlessly implementing it throughout the land - no more medical resources wasted on the defective and dying, equitable distribution of quality medical care, no more lingering half-lives sustained by expensive machinery. The "thanatos solution" has arrived.

But there are, as always, unexpected ramifications, especially for those who wanted it.

The woman knows her incontinent, disabled father is scheduled for imminent termination. It makes sense for him. But then she learns that her son is afflicted with a terminal condition. And things change.

So this woman will soon learn that there is a far older, wider-reaching Thanatos Solution - one that is usually the only viable solution.