Staying alive

One might expect that being old and assaulted from the outside and inside with pain of enormous magnitude, Marcus might have given in to heart failure. But no, the machine really was smart and its creator had been aware of the risk of possible heart attack and had put in safeguards to keep the heart stimulated via the brain. In short, Marcus had unwittingly guaranteed that he would suffer the full effects of a slow, grim death without the blessed relief of early dispatch.

The machine didn’t even allow lapses into unconsciousness – it was on full power after all!