Amygdala Hijack - A Genetic Engineering Sci-Fi Story of Impending Dystopia

EP. 27 - THE WANING

IT WAS A CHILLY, gray Saturday morning in Cambridge. Peter was suddenly rocked from his sleep by the sound of distant explosions. He curled up beneath the comforter, wishing it was not true.

"Got to pee badly. I'll dig a hole."

Jumping from his cot, he picked up a small shovel in a storage bucket by the water heater. Walking into the basement at the back door of the house, he started digging a two-foot deep hole in the hard dirt.

"I can't figure out why they never concreted this basement," he grunted. "I bet the builder never envisioned one of the last humans on Earth would be holed-up in this house, digging a self-made toilet. This place may get raunchy. Thank heaven there's a door to the basement."

Once his business was done, he peeked out the front, back, and side windows. It was quiet, and there was no evidence of additional traffic on the street beyond his visitor encounter the prior day. After ensuring his immediate safety in the surrounds, he returned to his garage and logged-on.

The few headlines he found were surreal: 'Billions Dead from Plague and Variants.' 'Nuclear Weapons and Nerve Toxins Deployed Overseas.' 'Nuclear Plant Meltdowns Imminent.' 'Geedee Jumping Blamed for Worldwide Crisis.' 'Armageddons at Micron Scale.' 'Global Mech Revolt Continues – Nobody's Safe.'

Peter shut his eyes and pondered, "Why are the mechs still alive? They shouldn't be immune to these agents, right? Unless, of course, they were the creators. But that would take massive, secretive efforts – and it's only been two months since the obelisk hit. Of course, they may have been planning it all beforehand. The obelisk might be a convenient ploy to advance their cause and wreak havoc, fear, and confusion among the other competing factions. Stu's theory."

He looked away from the headlines. "No, no, I'm thinking too much. Mechs are usually not the sharpest tacks in the box unless they're doing chip augments. But I could see that, too – chipper mechs, armed with total knowledge, instant brilliance. Interconnected to their quantum computers, like BioEthel indicated. Locked-in to a mandate, unable to stop what was being broadcast and repeated within their AI-driven code. Tech gone evil."

Plunking away again at the keyboard, he found more recent articles on the obelisk and its origins.

"Postulates here," he mouthed, "the carvings might have been constructed with technology only a few years advanced from known capabilities. I wonder if a chipper mech could have developed a machine or lasers or another tech to do this? I mean, why can't you carve or print a platinum-gold alloy to the nano level if you currently do that with silicon? It's just a minor shift. What the hell? I can't resolve that question."

As the morning wore on, he continued to sift through the remaining news feeds, scanning for new posts of pictures from international sources since most of the English-speaking media had quieted substantially.

Death was everywhere, and it didn't stop at humans. Birds, fish, and virtually any large-scale animal life form were in jeopardy.

"Plants?" he wondered while reading aloud. "There's no evidence yet of geedee tech jumping to plants, though that could be a matter of time given the interplay of geedee variables across many species."

The weight of the news and recent days finally pressed down on him. He fell onto his cot and sobbed into the comforter.

"I shall be next," he lamented, "from a dead bird that falls on the roof, a drop of water, or a breath of air."

Suddenly it dawned on him. At this rate of death and disruption, nobody might hear the podcasts if played on their planned dates: Brokers on Wednesday, Hats on Friday, then Stoicholic the following Wednesday.