The people who had killed themselves eight hours before were suspended in space over a chasm that ran between criminality on one side and victimhood on the other.
I participated in the Interpol/Helix session from my hotel room. The Helix Inspection Agency had called the AR meeting after determining that this event was something in which they should be involved. Clearly, a crime had been perpetrated against the highest value of our society—the very sanctity of life! Even though no one was sure exactly what the crime was, there was a general expectation that they would figure that out shortly to everyone’s satisfaction.
“Those involved,” the Interpol communications officer told us, came from twenty-five different countries, and all belonged to the Sukunabikona Medical Conclave, or Sukunabikona Admedistration, as it was more commonly called. The means by which they had killed themselves were varied:
<list:item>
<i: scissors>
<i: chopsticks>
<i: jumping off buildings>
<i: hanging themselves>
<i: cutting their wrists>
<i: chain saw>
<i: table knife>
</list>
And numerous other ways besides. It all made for a very impressive list of recipes for self-destruction.
The chain saw had been a guy in forest management. He had been in the middle of work and went from sawing through a tree to sawing off his own head. The one with the chopsticks had, in the middle of a meal, driven one chopstick through an eyeball and then twisted it around and around for good measure. It made sense that eating utensils took a prominent role in the list, since in every single confirmed case, the “involved” had simply picked up the nearest potentially lethal item they could find and gone for it.
<list:dialogue>
<d: Say, I could probably push this pin through my carotid artery.>
<d: My, this chain saw would be perfect for cutting off my head!>
<d: Huh, you think if I drove the chopsticks through my eye I could reach my brain?>
<d: Hmm, I daresay that rope is perfect for hanging oneself!>
</list>
As far as Cian’s method went, she was strictly by the book.
“This event is clearly an act of terrorism against admedistrative society!” the Helix agent next to me was saying. He was a senior inspector assigned to monitor elections in some war-torn hinterland. Of course, I say “next to me” but that was merely where the AR conferencing system had placed him. In reality, I was sitting all alone on my hotel room bed, talking to people who weren’t even there. If anyone had walked in and seen me they would have thought I had gone mad.
<boredom>
An act of terrorism. How perfect.
It was the kind of statement that sounded meaningful while being utterly pointless. You might even call it a waste of time, but in our lifeist society where harmony was valued above all else, no one smirked or shook their heads at my neighbor’s blatant grab for attention. Instead, they all nodded and muttered their agreement that yes, that had been a most insightful statement. They had to.
That was how you did things as an adult.
</boredom>
Maybe it was because I had seen one of my old friends become “involved” right before my eyes that this whole meeting felt like a charade. I didn’t have time to sit here listening to all these people blow smoke up each other’s asses. I waited the minimum amount of time necessary to not seem rude, then asked what condition those involved were in now.
The Interpol agent turned toward me. “All those who did not immediately die have fallen into a deep comalike state. At present, not one is available for questioning as to motives.”
“What about WatchMe?”
The question came from the Helix agent who had just been spouting off about terrorism. The Interpol agent turned, politely smiling at the man’s ignorance. “Though it is not widely known, WatchMe does not monitor the brain’s condition.”
“Really?” the agent asked, looking at me for some reason.
“Yes,” the Interpol agent said. “WatchMe cannot penetrate the blood-brain barrier. Apologies in advance if you already know this, but the blood-brain barrier is a feature in the body that limits the circulation of materials between tissue fluids—such as blood—and the brain. The barrier is there to protect the brain and spinal column from potentially dangerous substances, and no scientist has been able to develop a medicule able to pass through. Basically, it’s a blind spot in the system.”
“Doesn’t the blood-brain barrier work like a filter? Why can’t they just make a medicule smaller than the holes in the net?”
“Actually, the barrier is not like a net. Though in fact it was believed to be for quite some time. A century ago, the popular theory was that anything with a molecular mass of, oh, 500ì or less would be able to pass through, but that theory has since been entirely refuted. As it turns out, certain kinds of material, no matter what their size, cannot pass through the blood-brain barrier, while rather large molecules can pass through if they are needed by the brain. In other words, size doesn’t matter. The blood-brain barrier isn’t a mindless filter, it’s a highly attenuated and complex selection organ.”
The man looked down at his lap. “I see.”
I smiled. This was about the closest thing to a smackdown I was likely to see in one of these meetings.
“Though the numbers are small, there are a handful of instances every year of people with WatchMe installed dying of brain tumors and otherwise preventable hemorrhages. The brain is the last sanctum of the body, you might say. The only place where WatchMe’s eyes cannot go. That is, most of the brain. Because the pituitary gland and pineal gland deal with hormones, we can access them.
“Of course, we are doing what we can to monitor the coma patients externally via electronic scanning, though that falls far short of nano-level resolution,” the Interpol officer explained. “That said, only eight hours have passed since the…outbreak. We have, at present, no confirmation of any brain abnormalities in those affected, but it is still quite early in the day, so to speak.”
I saw Prime Inspector Os Cara Stauffenberg stand. She was probably still in her pink tent in the Sahara. For a second, I felt like she might be glaring at me, but I was too busy ignoring her to see.
Would Cian have killed herself if Prime hadn’t sent me packing from the Sahara? Would Cian really have stuck a knife into her own throat if I hadn’t been sent back to Japan to go to lunch with her and watch her do it?
Or would she have done it anyway, with a knife she was using to cut tomatoes in her own kitchen?
<memory>
Want to fill a bathroom with poison gas? Beyond easy.
</memory>
Hadn’t Miach said something like that?
<maxim>
Every person holds within themselves the potential to take another’s life.
</maxim>
I’ve got the power.
I could kill someone.
Even myself.
Each of us holds within us the power to destroy something important.
Had Cian killed herself, after a thirteen-year delay, just to truly understand the meaning of Miach’s words for herself? Was I to be the only one left behind?
“In two hours from now at a general emergency meeting of WHO in Geneva, I will be addressing all admedistrations and telling them that this, this chaos, is evidence of a full-on attack against lifeism,” Prime announced.