Compression Sickness

Mack Kowalski coughed up blood that existed in three dimensions simultaneously.

“Stage four compression sickness,” Doc Freeman said, not bothering to sugarcoat it. The free clinic in Sector 7 had seen too many compression workers to pretend anymore. “Your cells are starting to fold. How long you been working the floors?”

“Fifteen years,” Mack wheezed. “Started when compression was just for asteroids. Now look at me.”

His hands flickered between states—solid when he concentrated, translucent when his focus slipped. Chronic exposure to compression fields did things to human tissue. Things the company said were impossible, right up until workers started phasing through floors.

“Corporate offering any compensation?”

Mack laughed, more blood speckling the exam table. “They say compression sickness doesn’t exist. ‘Psychosomatic stress response.’ Meanwhile, half my crew can’t maintain molecular cohesion.”

Doc Freeman had heard it all before. The compression boom had made Mars rich, but the workers who actually ran the machines? They got sick pay if they were lucky, a cheap funeral if they weren’t.

“There’s a new treatment,” Doc said carefully. “Experimental. Black market. Uses compression itself to stabilize the cellular drift.”

“Cost?”

“Three months’ wages.”

“Might as well ask for three years.” Mack stood, his form solidifying through sheer stubborn will. “I’ll take my chances with the drift.”

Outside the clinic, Sector 7 sprawled like a cancer—workers’ housing crammed between compression facilities, the air itself heavy with quantum discharge. Kids played in streets where reality wore thin, their games incorporating casual phase-shifting that would have horrified scientists.

Mack found his crew at Murphy’s—the bar existed at 1:1.5 compression to fit more workers. Everyone inside was slightly out of phase, but the beer was cheap and the company couldn’t monitor folded space.

“Heard about Sanchez?” Rico asked. “Compressed completely last night. Just... folded into nothing.”

“Company’s calling it equipment failure,” Vera spat. “His equipment was fine. His body couldn’t take another shift.”

Mack ordered a beer that tasted like probability. “We need to organize. Proper union, not the company puppet show.”

“With what leverage?” asked Tommy, his three simultaneous forms arguing with each other. “They got a thousand desperate fucks ready to take our jobs. Mars needs compression workers more than it needs us alive.”

But Mack had been thinking. “What if we could prove compression sickness was real? Not just worker testimony—hard data.”

“How?”

“Doc Freeman’s been keeping tissue samples. Every worker who’s come through. Fifteen years of cellular degradation, all documented. We get that to the right people...”

“Company’ll bury it,” Vera said. “Or bury us.”

“Not if we compress it first,” Mack grinned, his teeth existing in too many dimensions. “Send it everywhere at once. Every news feed, every government database, every fucking screen on Mars. Compressed data can’t be stopped—it exists in all states simultaneously.”

The crew exchanged glances. Using the thing that was killing them to fight back had a certain poetry.

“I know a guy,” Rico said finally. “Works data compression. Lost his brother to the sickness. He might help.”

“And I know someone in the Miners’ Parliament,” Tommy added. “AIs don’t get compression sickness. They might broadcast for us.”

Mack raised his multidimensional beer. “To the Compressed Workers Union. We might drift apart, but we stick together.”

They drank, their forms flickering in the compressed space. Outside, the facilities hummed, processing reality at industrial scale. The company executives, safe in their shielded towers, counted profits while workers counted days until their molecules forgot how to hold together.

But revolution, Mack thought, was just another form of compression. Take a lot of anger, squeeze it down until it can’t be contained, then watch it expand.

The executives had no idea what they’d compressed into existence.

Soon enough, they’d find out what happened when the working class reached critical mass.