by C. J.
“Okay, Okay, you don’t have to get all snotty. I’m better now. Are we done with the stairs now?”
Yes, go through the door at the end of the hall. I hope you have some good news on that iPad of yours.”
Humberto had planned on replying with a witty comeback, but there was something in Mr. Nondescript’s expressionless face that frightened Humberto, and the witticism died in his throat. He instead turned away from strange ‘n scary man, headed down the hall, reaching the door that once led to a tax assessor’s office. The faded letters on the door read, “ax ass so s,” which gave Humberto the nervous giggles at a highly inopportune moment. He tried to turn the giggles into a coughing fit, but ended up in a choking fit. He opened the door and stumbled into the office spasming and sputtering. When that diminished down to a few snorts Humberto was able to contain himself and observe his surroundings.
“Ahh, circa 1985, bargain basement government décor, how lovely,” he said out loud as he walked around the office. He saw two black, cushioned chairs with overly large buttons that looked like they might stab the unwary in the bottom upon sitting. The chairs had chrome legs curved under the seat, an edgy modern design back in 1985. The chairs faced a white, snap it together desk that looked like it also came from the Reagan era. “Yes, you can’t have the chrome without the matching white tables. Nineteen eighty-five the era of Logan’s Run furniture,” Humberto said to the room. At least he thought he was alone.
However, a figure was standing very quietly along the wall by the door when Humberto made his grand entrance. The figure now clapped softly, “Yes I would generally agree with you, but the government didn’t have to purchase this lovely ensemble,” and waved his hand in the direction of the white and black office suite “It came with the office. The tax assessor, or if you like the ‘ax ass so s’ purchased it for himself. Since it suits our needs for today, we cleaned it up and here it is in all its glory. Amazingly it seems to be nearly indestructible. Too bad they couldn’t come up with something aesthetically pleasing that lasted forever instead of this eyesore.”
“Ahh! Where did you come from?” screeched Humberto.
“I was watching your remarkable entrance from the door. You just failed to see me.”
Humberto regained his composure as the figure walked behind the white snap it together desk and motioned for him to sit in the Logan’s Run chair.
As Humberto sat and powered up his iPad, he snuck a glance at the man behind the desk. He was one of those men who could range in age from 30-45. He was either young or kept very fit, with a lean whippet runner’s physique and a thin, predatory foxy face to match. The man was dressed in what looked like a navy blue Armani suit, a navy shirt, and dark gray tie with tiny little dots or squares or something on it. But the most astonishing thing about him was his eyes. Men never notice people eyes, and especially not other man’s eyes, but Humberto noticed these eyes. They beamed out of this guy’s head like lasers or something. I never knew people had silver eyes, outside of books, but, geez, these are like a hypnotist’s eyes or something.
“So what do you have for me?”
Humberto jumped slightly, “Um, er, yes, well, it’s not good. As you can see, before the formula, the world population was around seven billion 242 million or so people. And looking at the average number of deaths on a random day before the formula, the number would total approximately 71,500 deaths with 173,400 births taking place at the same time and a population growth of 101,900.
This equals one birth every eight seconds, one death every 13 seconds with a net gain of one person every 13 seconds. Here are the top 10 countries with highest populations.” He now showed the boss the screen of his iPad, which read:
China 1, 393,631,584 India,1,267,118,225, USA,322,536,044, Indonesia, 252,757,499, Brazil, 202,002,663, Pakistan,185,077,245, Nigeria,178,425,122
Bangladesh, 158,476,938, Russia, 142,474,404, Japan,127,002,462
“Now, unfortunately for us, and I guess humanity in general, the countries’ with the highest population also mirror the countries’ highest in fruit production. As you can see, China and India produce the most fruit, with Brazil coming in third and the U.S in fourth. Of all the ingredients for an anti-aging serum, it had to be fruit in the most fruitful countries in the world, ha! Sorry. Looking back four years, at the year’s halfway point, in June, there were approximately 27,438, 500 deaths from natural to unnatural causes. Now fast-forward to this year with the formula out there. Let’s estimate generously, and say that 50% of the population shouldn’t be alive due to the formula. That gives us 13,719,250 people that are around that probably shouldn’t be. They should’ve died in the usual ways, war, famine, accidents, murder or just old age, but are still here due to the formula. Now speed forward another six months and, 14 million more people, or possibly even greater numbers than that if the formula can be processed faster or with man-made products, we are talking...”
“Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.”
“Huh?”
“You may know it as Blade Runner.”
“Oh, the Harrison Ford movie. Yes, that was a dark and dismal take on the future. Oh, I get it,” Humberto said.
“The rest of the data is here, I see food, water, housing issues, possibilities of initial losses due to fighting over the product. And the cartels may branch out into this new line of revenue. ‘The curiosity of newly found lifespan.’ What does this mean?”
“Well, people, some people, have found that they aren’t as easily injured as they used to be depending on the formula they have taken, and have become overly bold and taken unnecessary risks.”
“Example?”
“For one, bar wages have increased in brutality and inanity, which has in turn decreased the lifespan of those at the shallower end of the gene pool.”
“You can call an idiot an idiot, and just say that some assholes in a bar are shooting and stabbing each other until one of them goes too far and kills the other one.”
“Yes, that about sums it up.”
“Anything else?”
“People have realized their threshold, so to speak. Wars are longer and noisier. Then there’s the suicide group, those who took the formula and then realized they weren’t fond of living in the first place. They realized extending their life didn’t put any more money in the bank or give them any more friends. Once they realized they have been given more time to be miserable, good night, and lights out. Between the suicides, the moron effect, bar bets, gangs, and mafia types trying to muscle in on the action and bumping each other off in the process, deaths helped us for a while but then tapered off, we are left with lots of births and very few deaths. There was also the initial impact when the ingredients were broadcast to the world. On a positive note, it’s a good thing our government got a handle on it right away and prevented mass hysteria and casualties like the rest of the world.”
There was dead silence as the Boss stared at Humberto with those weird, silvery eyes. “Is that supposed to be funny?”
“Umm, well, I guess it’s one of those things that sounds better in one’s head than it does...”
Boss man leaned back in his chair and roared with laughter. “Did you hear that, Joe? It’s a good thing our government got a handle on it right away. You, you are all right, Fuego.”
“Yes, that first month was quite interesting. Who knew working in a supermarket would suddenly become the most dangerous job on the planet? God, that month or so made the Battle of Berlin look like a tea party.”
Humberto remembered that time. It was as if those Purge movies had come to life. The price of all produce of any kind went sky high. Before armed guards were stationed at grocery and drug stores, people were literally driving into the stores and grabbing any and all fruit and vegetables. Didn’t matter if it was on the list of ingredients or not. For some reason, one image stuck in Humberto’s mind. He remembered watching the news, and seeing footage of a mob overturning a refrigerated truck, and pulling the poor drive
r out, and ransacksing the trailer. On the trailer’s side, there had been a happy looking farmer with a bushel basket in his arms its contents overflowing, presumably onto his shoes. The last image Humberto remembered seeing before the news anchor told viewers the rest of the footage could not be shown due to its extremely graphic nature, was the mob scattered when the not so happy truck driver calmly fired a sawed-off shotgun into the mob of fruit felons.
“Where are the suggestions?” the Boss now asked Humberto.
“Last section. That’s not really my area, but you did ask for my input. Now if you follow any of these, they did not come from me, I want no part of anything that my team suggested.”
“No problem I wasn’t planning on giving you credit for any of this anyway. As far as anyone knows, this meeting never took place, and you never saw me or this place.” With that, he downloaded the information from Humberto’s iPad onto a thumb drive and hit a button on his phone.
Mr. Nondescript returned with a small pail of water and stood by the gleaming white desk.
“I hope there’s nothing important on this iPad,” said the Boss.
“Well, only the information we just discussed and some notes from a few other projects.”
“I hope you backed them up,” the Boss said, and handed the iPad to Mr. Non-Descript.
As Humberto watched, Mr. Nondescript, pried open the iPad with a screwdriver and removed what looked like a CD or DVD, (but Humberto knew was called a “platter,” and was the guts of his iPad.) Mr. Nondescript then took a couple of discs from his pocket and placed the platter from the iPad between the discs.
“Uh, what are those? What are you doing with those watch battery looking things?” Humberto asked.
“Simply degaussing the platters. Just takes a moment.”
Humberto was so fascinated by the whole process he forgot the guy standing in front of him was destroying his nearly brand new iPad.
The Boss shot Mr. Nondescript a meaningful look and tapped his watch. From his pocket, Mr. Nondescript removed what looked like a small file or cordless toothbrush. Man, the guy, had a whole hardware store in his pocket, Humberto thought. Mr. Nondescript then turned on the tool and touched the toothbrush to the platter. A sander! The guy’s sanding my platter! Oh dear Lord, that sounds like bad dialogue from some horribly written porn. That was like Humberto’s whole life, horribly written porn but with hardly any pornographic moments to speak of.
The Boss then stood up, motioned toward the door with his hand, and said, “Shall we? Time is of the essence.”
As Humberto left the room, he could’ve sworn he heard a splash as though a smallish object had just fallen into water.
The Boss lagged behind Humberto for a second to talk into a speaker on his desk. “Well ladies and gentlemen, there you have our partial take on the situation. I will send you his recommendations as well as my own. I hope to hear from the rest of you, and look forward to your input as well since globally we are all in this together.” Murmurs could be heard coming from the box. “I will field any questions in two hours’ time.” With that he, clicked off the speaker and followed Humberto out of the room.
Humberto stopped to catch his breath at the corner of Moldy Street and Run down Avenue, but Mr. Nondescript urged him to continue to the next block where he had been told to park his car. When they reached the lobby of the building, there was no sign of the Boss.
Once safely inside his car, Humberto began to feel himself again. He rolled down his window and felt confident enough to ask Mr. Nondescript when the next meeting would be and if it would again be at this lovely, five-star accommodation.
“We’ll be in touch, keep your cell phone with you at all times. Very doubtful we’ll use the vacant lot as a meet place again.”
“Vacant lot? What do you mean va..?”
But Humberto never finished his sentence for he was interrupted by a massive whumping sound, followed by a wave of dust. When he looked in his rearview mirror, the meet place was no more. Wow, that was amazing, he thought, followed by, the mold is now loose and headed this way. Humberto created his own dust, heading back to the relative safety of his office at seven miles over the speed limit, which was quite reckless for Humberto.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
PENTAGON
Statistics for Population Growth and Behavior Influenced by Outbreaks of Natural and Terroristic Diseases and Pathogens aka SFPGABIBOONATDAP aka Counting Division
HUMBERTO AND HIS ALPHA team had gathered to go over the TOTH ideas. He had given a few to the Boss at the building that was no more, and was told to come up with population reduction incentive ideas. Humberto thought he and his Alpha team were entering a nasty area. An area he really didn’t want to become a part of. One that seemed very reminiscent of a period of time in Germany in the 30’s and 40’s. He briefly wondered just who the Boss reports to and quickly decided he really didn’t want to know. It was better to do the right thing and then get out of Dodge as soon as possible before the shit storm hit.
Humberto cleared his throat, cleaned his glasses furiously on his shirt, and addressed his team. “Alpha team, we live and breathe numbers, we are not used to dealing with people. Being involved in statistics and such, and working as government employees, we are not comfortable dealing with the public. I have always stuck TOTH way in the back of my head as something some unstable bureaucrat put down on paper but would never think of implementing. I have now come to the conclusion that TOTH should never have been thought of at all. I have been told by the man above that we are reaching the Malthusian Catastrophe.”
There was a collective gasp from the group.
“I know it’s something that’s been in the back of our minds this entire time, but the Boss felt that the MC is imminent and we have been tasked to provide ideas. Let’s offer the least likely scenarios that will not end in fatalities and submit them. We are numbers people, not ideas people. We will split up into groups. One group will concentrate on sane ideas to solve this crisis and the other team will submit the least likely to be picked ideas.
“Um, question. When you say ‘least likely scenarios’, exactly what do you mean?’ asked Carl.
“Dumbass answers.”
“Hey, no need to get all snippy, I was just asking for clarification.”
“No, I’m sorry, Carl, I mean we need to submit dumbass answers, the wilder, the better. If you think it’s far-fetched go even further. Remember, most of us were hired based on the expectation that we have no imagination. So think of movies you’ve seen, books, graphic novels, etc. you’ve read, and don’t hesitate to use ideas from them.
“So for example, do you mean something like that reality show “Survivor,” but instead of getting voted off the island, contestants really have to survive the trials, almost like that Hunger Games movie? Hey, that could be another one!” cried Carl.
“Yes, exactly. Good thinking, Carl. That’s what I’m talking about,” Humberto said. “Are you all with me?”
“Yes,” was the united reply from Alpha Team, with the exception of one less enthused member.
A phone call was made, and the Boss man was informed.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
THE BOSS, THEODORE Boston called his team together. The group consisted of one. The only person he trusted with anything this clandestine, profoundly immoral, and world-changing was his right-hand man, Joe Mr. Nondescript as christened by Humberto.
“Joseph, it seems our Alpha team is squeamish when it comes to TOTH.”
Joe nodded. “I thought as much. I sensed Fuego wasn’t an ally at that last meeting.”
“Yes, it seems they get all warm and fuzzy about the human race and don’t see the whole picture. Sometimes you need to trim the fat, and I need people on my side who are willing to save the world by eliminating some people.”
“Some people?” asked Joe
“Well, more than some, I haven’t worked out the numbers yet, but we are on the brink of a Malthusian Catastrophe.”
<
br /> “So soon, sir?”
“Yes, I’m afraid so.”
“I’ve been hoping that nature would help us out. A meteor, God, now that would solve our problems. No muss, no fuss. Wham bam. That would take out just a limited area. Of course too big and we are all gone. We need just the right sized one. Maybe several in strategic spots around the globe. No, that’s probably too complicated. Actually, a nice old-fashioned plague would be a Godsend. The Black Plague, now that was beautiful,” murmured Boston as he rocked back in his chair, folded his arms over his chest, and with a half-smile on his face, recited the following as though telling a child a bedtime story.
“1918 flu epidemic, 30 to 50 million deaths globally, 675,000 in the U.S. alone.”
1958-1961, China, - due to famine, drought, weather, and politics all rolled into one messy disaster, 15 million deaths per the government, and unofficially the numbers were slightly higher, between 20-43 million.
“1346-1353, between 75 and 200 million people died from the Plague, which took out 30-60% of Europe’s population.” The boss suddenly snapped up in his chair and slammed his hands on his desk. Without breaking eye contact with Joe, he added, “That beautiful little plague reduced the world’s population from 450 million to 350-375 million in the 14th century.”
“All we need now is a diseased rat hijacking a meteor,” Joe told the Boss and immediately regretted saying something so ridiculous.
“Exactly. And, that’s why I can always count on you, Joe, you are always in sync with me and the situation at hand.” Boston snapped his fingers. “I need you to get a team together of like-minded individuals such as yourself and start working on Operation TOTH. I want ideas by the end of the week, and things put into action within a month.”
“Within in a month? Um, yes, sir.”
“And Joe.”
“Yes, sir?”
