Coulisse

Well, Pulsation is currently on hiatus because I’m in a bit of a writer’s block, so today we’re taking a swing from the usual chapters, and I’m going to write random things, until I feel it’s enough.

This one’s been on my mind for a while. It’s a piece of writing that I’ve had on my flashdrive for a while, so yeah. Here.

“This whole thing is becoming out of hand,” one man sighed. He looked towards his acquaintances sitting around the table. “We need to put a rein on this population problem.”

“Mr. Wickery, if I may suggest,” a stout man said from across the meeting table, “That you look upon the CIA’s proposal.”

Mr. Wickery thought for a moment, then nodded. “What do you have?”

The stout man hopped out of his chair and scuttled towards the front of the room where a large white wall was, a projector facing it. “Lights please,” he said in his small voice. The lights flickered off and he turned the projector on.

The first slide showed a human bloodstream, as if you had been shrunken down to the size of a cell, inside of a vein. But there was something that didn’t belong in the illustration. Something . . . metal looking. It was a very small computer droid, almost a chip.

“The CIA has created a special chip that can track humans, wherever they may be. It is completely disease resistant, water resistant, blood resistant, and so on.” He pushed his glasses farther up onto his nose. “It’s a very small piece of equipment and can so easily be injected into the human body with a needle.”

The second slide came up. A diagram of the chip. It had details and labels, and such things about the technicalities. The man cleared his throat. “This is, um, the chip up close, how it’s made, and such.”

The next slide was a picture of the chip, sticking on the walls of the vein. At the top written in big, black, bold letters was WEEK ONE. Next slide. WEEK TWO. The chip had grown what looked like metal roots, digging into the vein wall. WEEK THREE. More roots had sprouted, digging further into the tissue. Through the next slides were even more pictures of the process. Finally, the small man said, “You see, each person is assigned a chip. All of the chips that get assigned are entered into a computer, so the computer can track the chip.”

Mr. Wickery looked at him with an intent gaze. The man had his full attention now.

“So,” he continued, “We inject this into each person possible by slipping the droid into shot serums. This way, the droids are virtually unavoidable. Soon, we may be slipping the droids into beverages and foods, too. After a few years, we cut off the flow of the droids and sit back to watch. Because the droids reproduce and can be passed down from generation to generation, we won’t need anything else.”

“But how does that help the population problem?” Mr. Wickery asked. “Mr. Stanley, please explain.”

Mr. Stanley nodded his small head and explained, “Yes, I’m glad you asked. See, the droids have a small vial of poison in them. With the simple command of the computer, the vial releases the poison, and the human would be dead within minutes.”

Mr. Wickery raised an eyebrow. “What happens when the people start suspecting something? We don’t want them to know about any of this when their perfectly healthy friends or family suddenly drops dead.”

“What happens?” Mr. Stanley repeated. “Well, that’s when we bring in the replicas of the people poisoned. That, Mr. Wickery, is when we bring in the robots.”