In the wake of gerrymandering and Crosscheck voter invalidation, the United States government has finally become a full-on evangelical theocracy, enacting biblical punishments for all transgressions. They’ve also adopted the non-evangelical notion of “purgatory” out of a sense of expediency and necessity.
When you’re arrested for any non-mortal sin– or even if you give confession for those sins– you can be put into suspended animation to serve your “purgatory time” immediately. This helps alleviate overpopulation, and there’s a political component, in that those in suspended animation are unable to vote. Those offenders with views opposing the government / church face a much higher rate of purgatorial punishment.
I’m a freedom fighter, looking to illegally resurrect a purgatory-dweller. I drive a small hovercraft / antigravity ship– it’s car-sized, more like a skiff or a convertible. It can fly up, down, sideways, upside down– the floorboards are always “down,” gravitationally. There isn’t a top on it, but a top would be unnecessary, as global warming has forced all the cities into massive walled-off domes. I continue my search, deep into the archives full of glass coffins packed with those who are suspended in purgatory. They go on and on and on, for miles.
Also I have the unique ability to travel back in time, exactly one year from whenever I choose to exercise the ability. Once I’ve done so, I have to live forward in real-time, and cannot skip ahead.
If I fuck things up too much and change or damage the timeline too drastically, the shadows will come for me.
I’m in love with the purgatory-dweller for whom I search. She’s a fierce political activist, and can rally dissent magnificently.
I keep searching.