A Dead Man is a person who has the monetary luxury of keeping themselves in a semi-vital state after their body has otherwise deceased. This practice began in the late 1970s with the advent of Room-Temperature Cryogenics (R.T.C), a technology that was at that time, and still is, exceedingly costly.
When a person, usually a billionaire or heir to a conglomerate, who has procured the R.T.C. treatment passes away, they are placed in a Chainer and incubated for up to twelve months, after which time they are released into society. Unlike a Cyborg Janitor, a Dead Man is unbound to obligatory labor and completely autonomous. They cannot, however, move at any noticeable rate or communicate in any meaningful way. As such, they tend to remain in singular locations for long periods of time. These “incubationary periods” can last up to five weeks, before the R.T.C. has synthesized enough sATP to procure movement. During this “active period” a Dead Man may travel many hundreds of meters in any random direction, until sATP levels have been depleted, at which point the incubationary period resumes.
After the passage of the DMPA in 1981, Dead Men receive the same rights as any other citizen, with the additional protection of immunity from trespassing. Because of this, Dead Men can travel from place to place freely, and may spend considerable time in private residences of strangers or in highly public places like university lunch rooms or parks.