Sol Datum's Ante-Hell
If you're easily depressed by human nature, don't read the following story.
Today an e-plague killed 7000 people in lower Manhattan. The 4th Dr. Terkle appeared on TV and said, “In times past, when men came to do us violence, we fought them. Today, when technology gives every man the certainty of killing not one, but thousands of those who offend him, the only defense is to offer no offense at all.” I thought he spoke well.
At my building, the nan-sniffer must have picked up something on my coat, because our doorman, Mel, made me sit in the decontamination chamber for 10 minutes. “Can’t take no chance, Mr. Datum, them nonos could be up to who knows what.” Mel calls nanites nonos.
Nanites, they said, would revolutionize the world, and of course they were right, and also wrong. Microscopic robots, nanites can make almost anything out of almost anything. The can knit organs up from the inside, build a car out of a junkyard, synthesize food from waste products, but what they make best of all is death. And so, the 21st Century became the era of the nanite engineered e-plagues – clouds of nanites designed to infect the host and build more of themselves for the next victim.
Fortunately, we’ve got optimists, like the indomitable Dr. Terkle. Did you know that I’ve memorized all 28 speeches of the first Dr. Terkle? In number 18 he said, which I think is the best distillation of his philosophy: “This era of horror masks the greatest opportunity our race has ever seen. At last we are faced with the ultimate choice – eliminate conflict, or perish.”
The other day I was at the public library again. There’s this old guy with one leg. He comes in all the time. He smells sort of funny, but he’s nice to everyone. There’s this sort of anteroom to the library. I like to do my research there. He’s slow, this guy, real slow. So I says “Pick it up grandpa, the books are spoiling.” He looks at me and calls me, well I won’t tell you. Something not very nice. So I kicked his cane. You have to understand, I’m not a mean person, which is why it surprised even me a bit. I was surprised at how easy it was.
Terkerization will not work. The settling of grievances doesn’t address the problem. People don’t need a reason to hate. There’s something perverse in Human nature, I’ve decided. How else can you explain it? I can prove this. It’s not a logical proof, mind you. How could I prove something that’s illogical in its very nature? But it’s provable nonetheless. Terkle has a million converts a day, they say. It doesn’t matter.
My research project was remarkably easy once I decided I was going to do it. All the information is publicly accessible, though admittedly, not all from the same source. The nanite assembler was the easy part. It’s the neurotransmitters that were hard to figure out. I thank a scientific establishment that publishes everything. It turns out you can target a nanite at almost anything. My little e-plague is unique. It seeks out people who don’t hate.
