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Each Tuesday, rather than a POSSIBLY
IRRITATING ESSAY, I'd like to both challenge you and lend a helping hand. I
generate more speculative and teen story ideas than I can ever use. My family
rolls its collective eyes when I say, "Hang on a second! I just have to
write down this idea..." Here, I'll include the initial inspiration
(quote, website, podcast, etc.) and then a thought or two that came to mind.
These will simply be seeds -- plant, nurture, fertilize, chemically treat,
irradiate, test or stress them as you see fit. I only ask if you let me know if
anything comes of them.
Current Event: “While
natural evolution has its limits, it has perfected its designs over millions of
years while artificial, human-induced evolution would occur much quicker. Any
useful augmentations without apparent drawbacks would soon be extremely
commonplace, potentially creating a disastrous outcome for the entire species
if a critical flaw is suddenly discovered.”
Ji-woo Changkoachai shook her head, floating away from the bulkhead
of High Perth. She’d surrendered to the fashion on the space station months
ago, so she no longer looked like an animated whirlwind. Instead, her hair was as
short as it could be to both define her sense of femininity and stay out of her
mouth. She didn’t notice at the moment. She said, “Nature made changes slowly
to see if there were any hidden traps in altered genetic code…”
Praset Oh rolled
his eyes. He’d oriented himself so that he was at ninety-degrees from her perceived
vertical. He did it when he wanted to disconcert people.
She ignored him,
saying, “By making the leap you and your crazy team is planning…”
He lifted both
hands, managing to be both placating and obscene at the same time. He said, “Remember, Dr. Changkoachai, all ideas have a safe hearing
in this…”
Her gesture was unambiguous.
“That’s recycled trash, Engineer Oh. Your self-righteous, passive-aggressive
pandering stopped working on me two months ago when I saw you visegrip the Appropriations
Committee into giving you what they’d already refused, by doing an artistic job
of guilting them. But I have no morality, Oh. I don’t think there’s any reason
to feel guilt. I can, however level rational judgement against procedures that
would lead to disaster for the entire of Humanity.”
“That is absolutely
true, Doctor. That you…”
“‘…equate yourself
with Humanity,’” she laughed at him. “Saw you coming from three orbits away, Oh.
You hate that you’ve met your match.” His condescending demeanor cracked for an
instant with an irritated crinkle of the skin between his eyes and a thinning of
his lips. He reoriented himself to face her, took a breath and opened his mouth,
his finger coming up in his signature lecture pose. She cut him off, “You’re
not talking about tweaking the Human genome, Oh. You’re talking about making a
robot then integrating Human cell structures and re-designed organs into it.”
She snorted, “Besides, it’s already been done.”
“It has not…” his
face was outraged embarrassment.
“In the
imagination of late 20th Century fiction writers of a television
program invented the concept they called The Borg. You’ve done nothing new
here, Oh. The 20th Century primitives beat you to it!”
“They did nothing of
the sort! I have developed…”
“They eventually imagined
nanomachine modification of existing biological material,” she smirked, “in
situ even.”
“Why you…”
She held up her
hands, mimicking his previous gesture, “Now, now, Oh. Remember, colleague, all
ideas have a safe hearing in this space.” She smiled as Oh opened his mouth to
rant on, his face suffused in anger. “You’ll get what you want, Praset, and you’ll
get your ‘borg’. But I predict they’ll turn on you before long.” She pushed
herself free of his glare, and accelerated along the ring.
He didn’t think
she heard, “But before they turn on me, Doctor, I’ll make sure they turn on you…”
He actually laughed stereotypically.
Ji-woo muttered, “And
I’ll be ready for them, idiot.”
Names: ♀ Korea, Thailand;
♂ Thailand, Korea
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