Optimization of Production

Quality vs quantity? This cliched squabble transcends worlds and across time.

So which is more important?

Quality, replied the impassioned artisan, the detail and care I put into every product makes it flawless and irreplaceable. You will know the value of quality work when you see it. A cheaper option will be no match.

Quantity, replied the general, give me a hundred working M4 Shermans and I’ll show you how easily your fine-tuned technological innovations gets blown to smithereens.

“The reality is” replied I “they’re both necessary, a good balance of both is important."

“Now the sentimentality of a product however" I continued " that's the truly useless aspect to value."

“Neither high in quality and beautiful, or functional and replaceable, you keep around a useless knick-knack hand made by a dear friend, or child or mother."

The tied up doctor finally spoke up, “Listen, that’s great, good for you, you're above it all, but I really don’t know what all this is about. I know you’re under a lot of pressure, for old time’s sake could you just-”

His body betrays him, I see him grab his own hands to stop their shaking.

I cut him off curtly

“Unlike the other two however, the time for sentimentality has passed.”

I reach behind his neck and unclasp his necklace, rather, the chain that fastens a heart shaped locket to it. He flinches back, his eyes pleading, searching desperately for sympathy? Compassion? Pity? I steady his shoulders with a hand.

“Your assistant saw you fiddling with this the other day. Curiosity got the better of him, that’s why I’m here.”

He closes his eyes, lip trembling.

"Right." He whispers

The game is up, he knows my discretion alone won’t save him anymore.

I struggle with the clasp, finally it opens, inside is a picture of a teen, about 15 years of age with rich scarlet eyes.

Too old, I thought to myself, far too old.

“Perimeter secured” A voice announces from the radio on my hip

As the men rush around me with the acrid air. I call them back.

“I’ll walk you in,” I decide, “for old times sake right?”

“Very kind of you.” he scoffs as he composes himself.

“I’m very sorry, Graham.”

“I can tell that you are not, and it is what it is”

I really hate that phrase, I decided. It is what what is? Just a meaningless string of platitudes. That and the self righteous snarky idiot stumbling ahead of me who said it, head held high while tripping over his own chains.

“Why did you do it? I mean not the saving your kid part that’s pretty obvious, why update the picture?” I asked.

“I don’t know.” He replies “I was proud of him, it grounded me, kept me motivated. They’re still people you know, even if you make them in a little factory and stamp your little codes on them.”

He continues

“When he was born, I think I finally knew what it meant to love something so much, that you would give up everything for just one more day, one more moment together, one last glimpse of their smiling face, one last- ”

All right, that's enough of that.

“We’re here, get in” I tell him.

The structure towers before us, transport tubes linked together by hubs. There is not enough even ground for a more conventional method of travel any longer.

The door to the structure opens on to a simple platform. The other men get on ahead of us.

“Extraction complete.” I radio in “He is on the way to be re-imaged.”

The door closes behind him as the mechanisms churn.

Imagine proudly displaying incriminating evidence on your chest 24/7. I scoff to myself. Sentimentality, reducing such a capable man to such incompetence.

I just stand there for a while, watching my dear friend get carried off through the vast network, groaning and creaking, to have his brilliance ported onto a chip.

As I wait for the results, memories come flooding, breaking through the levees of my carefully organized thoughts. I am a hypocrite, I think to myself as the tidal wave washes over my psyche.

Complete despair, Unconditional domination, and almost,



Total Annihilation.

As genome editing finally caught up to man kind’s god complex, a new kind of arms race began as we all try to figure out how to murder each other better, but this time, a little more fundamental to our very souls.

Petitions, protests, beautiful speeches about what it means to be human popped up everywhere. For the first time, we all agreed on something. Well almost all of us.

While the saps joined hand in hand, as one race, the human race! Fighting together against the modifications and commodification of our genes.

Progress trudged on silently, unhindered in the less ethically inclined, darker and more pragmatic corners of humanity.

Then one day, another first, as we got intimately inundated with this very imperialist definition of progress.

Carnage as colossus super soldiers, powerful, awe inspiring and most importantly bulletproof, stormed our bases, ripped our armies apart, shooting down our fighter jets with nothing more than a well aimed toss.

On the other side, huge vicious, primal masses of bodies, humanoids that reached adulthood in mere months and weeks devastated and overwhelmed our city centers with sheer numbers.

Then near the end when the doomsayers were in full swing embracing the end of the world, getting dragged out of their bunkers during raids crying for the rapture.

More progress.

Dr. Graham cracked the code on immunity to ionizing radiation, and this war ended somewhat similarly to the last one. But this time, complete nuclear devastation rained from the heavens, as our people eked out survival among the craters, mutually assured destruction was fortunately less mutual than we thought it was going to be.

Hailed as saviors, splitting image of American exceptionalism. The geneticist doctor, his physicist wife, an entire graduating class worth of PhDs between them.

And their proudest and first successful creation, their beautiful son, his eyes a deep crimson, a defect? The hallmark of a perfect human? Who knows.

We finally submitted our entry to the genetic arms race and we now knew better than to be nostalgic towards the process of natural evolution.

Today there is a nearly insurmountable lead between us and our competitors. But just often enough they remind us they’re still there. Haphazard attempts at obtaining the doctor’s genetic cocktail, their only chance to quite literally steal back their spot in this race. Before another of their generation succumbs to the hazards of a nuclear wasteland.

Trying to keep genetic material secret is an almost impossible task, imagine every person in your god-forsaken country is walking around hemorrhaging the national security equivalent of the nuclear launch codes every time they get so much as a paper cut.

The newer generations of enhancements have a built- in self destruct button. At the time of death, or after cellular material is extracted outside of the human body, total cellular apoptosis is triggered.

However, the earliest prototypes were very resistant to this new update.

Those had to be disposed of and incinerated, to prevent their bodies from spilling their sweet life giving secret to the wrong people.

The doctor’s child was included as he was the very first. He was around 7 when this was decided.

I turned the heart shaped locket over in my hands, nostalgia, I thought to myself, how dangerous.

“It’s time, Doctor Graham has finished processing.” I turn at the voice, a vial is handed to me by one of the faceless men. Ah yes, my favorite part, the memory goo.

The label on it says 50 gigabyte out of 1.5 petabyte.

Ha! I laughed to myself only 1.5 petabytes? Small brained idiot. The laugh catches in my throat as I remember. I attach the vial to the port at the base of my neck

Seizure inducing flashes, a cacophony of sounds, images, scents, voices.

There was I, no him, 8 years of secrets, subterfuge, intrigue.

I open my eyes, shaking, drenched in sweat, head pounding, and victorious. He’s been a very busy man.

“Insurgents located” I call in, “I’ll send over the details on the way.”

The locket pops open as muscle memory guides me to the correct indent. Inside, the picture of the boy who is years older than the day I saw him burn, and an almost imperceptible tapping knob.

Morse code, another throwback.

Then, I key in the combination dots and dashes calling for Dr Graham’s rescue.

Lastly, I start to prepare for the disposal of another round of obsolete products.