Krishna kumar Mani: SFS1: Science Fiction Short Stories

After the lawyer checked the document over, I signed and was now a multi-millionaire. “Great, Bill. That’s great. Alright, so tomorrow we’ll get to work.”

“I’m still not clear, how exactly do you plan on making so much money with my idea?” “We’re going to take your idea mobile.” “What does that mean?”

“We can turn DNA samples into digital files. I think you know that. What I’m going to do is to make a website and a mobile application so that users can upload their DNA samples and we’ll tell them information about their previous lives. We’ll give out some free information as a teaser, but they’ll have to pay to get the full report. It’ll be fully automated. We’ll have maybe a few technical support guys but it will all be taken care of through the program. Billions of users with cell phones are going to want to do this, Bill.

I thought he was done but had one last thing to tell me. “Tomorrow you’ll begin your work with our computer engineers to help develop the application. All you have to do is answer questions about your research. Leave the computer stuff up to them and the business side of things to me.”

I worked with them as best I could to make the application ready for launch. It creates reports in almost no time at all. They tried to explain the server, mobile apps, something called ‘the cloud,’ SSL, xcode and things I’ve since forgotten. We launched and it took off like wildfire. Most people had heard of us within the first few weeks of launch.

Now the application is one of the the top applications in both iOS and Android. It even competes with Temple Run and Angry birds. I thought this joint venture was the best decision I’d ever made in my life. I had several million dollars in my bank account and my name was so popular that press people followed me around to various locations.

”Your idea seems really great,” started a reporter in his early twenties, “but how do you know that the previous life information is correct?”

“This is not magic,” I said with a smile. “This is science. reports? How else would we generate our process? Maybe a little wizard in a cloak somewhere knows the science. There’s been answers? No, it’s many independent verifications of data generated by our process. We’ve yet to have a false positive.”

“But what is the use?” asked a female interviewer from the back of the crowd. “What stronger purpose can we have in life than to know ourselves? On the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, inscribed are the words “know thyself.” It is that which I seek to allow humanity to do. Of course each person will find a different use for the application. Just yesterday I read about a man who found out his previous incarnation’s family had fallen into poverty and helped them out. Another man helped pay for the education of his previous life’s son. Now that some research papers have been submitted about my invention, in specific how one’s sins affect their next lives, soon the whole world will understand that and the crime rate will decrease. There’s many more examples on our website. I believe we do good work. I think the government knows that too, that’s why we’ve applied for a tax exemption.

“What about the future? Are you researching anything else? Maybe contact with aliens?””No, no, nothing like that,” I laughed. “My days are too filled with counting my piles of gold! Really though, it’s nice to have a few moments to sit back and relax.”

“You’re obviously a great researcher. Every day the world seems more and more violent. Couldn’t you do some research into DNA so that we could remove or change the violent natures of some people?”

I laughed but understood it is a good idea and told:

“You know, that’s a good idea,” I said with a laugh. “I will think on that. I guess I could become a masked avenger in the mean time though? Whatever help I can offer to our law enforcement professionals, I’m all for it.” The press took some photos and left. Early next morning, my intercom rang. It was the security guard.

“There are some detectives out here who want to see you. They say it’s urgent.”

“Tell them I was kidding when I said I’d become a masked superhero. I’ll be right down.”

After a few minutes I entered into the hallway. Three police officers were there.

“Please, come in and have a seat. What can I do for you?” I asked.

“Sorry, Mr. Ambrosone. There’s a warrant out for your arrest.”

“A warrant? What warrant? Do you know who I am?

“Yes, we’re well aware of who you are. Just cooperate and this will go easily for both of us.”

“I don’t understand. What is this warrant for?” “In the past five months, the murder rate has increased dramatically. Usually we can say the murders are related to drugs, or gang activity but we’ve had fifteen murders that we just couldn’t figure out a motive for. Two days ago, we arrested a guy that had tried to kill a taxi driver but the taxi driver stopped him luckily. You see, the thing of it is. The kid who tried to kill the taxi driver was a college student from another city. He came all the way out here to kill this taxi driver, a man who was fifty six and claimed he had never seen this college student before in his life. Now why do you think that was, Mr. Ambrosone?”

“What? Well what does this have to do with me?”

“That college student. Well, he found some information on from your App. It seems that the taxi driver had killed him in his last life. An accident, but that didn’t seem to matter to him. So the college student had tracked him down and tried to get revenge.”

“Well, he shouldn’t have.”

“Anyways, we started looking into the other cases we couldn’t solve. Guess what? Each and every time it was related to that little App of yours. They find out that some guy has killed them or is somehow responsible in some way for their previous death and they go to seek revenge. It’s happening in other cities. It’s all over the world, Bill. You’re the reason these crimes are being committed.”

I had never expected this. I remained silent and went with them.

The court case has drug on for a long time now. And as it progressed, I understood more and more why my patent was rejected. It wasn’t that the technology wasn’t good enough. It was that a patent examiner had hoped I’d be discouraged and never show the work to anyone ever again. The killings didn’t stop after the court case began. If anything, they got worse now that it was public knowledge you could use the application in such a way. Most of the world was against me and wanted to see my product erased from the earth in every way possible.

“Listen. Every invention can have a good and a bad impact. While a gun can be used to kill, it can also be used to protect yourself. The same thing with plutonium. It can either make a nuclear bomb or it can provide heating and electricity to a whole city. We don’t simply ban the invention because it has a bad use. And we certainly don’t punish the creators,” I protested.

The court agreed with me… about guns and nuclear power. Unfortunately they saw not benefit to my technology at all. They decided that it would be banned from that day forward. They ordered the website to be taken offline and to delete all user data. They even penalized me from profiting off of the project and fined me for most of what I had made. The company who I partnered with got off without a fine. They merely said “we just developed it and marketed it. All the rights have always rested with Bill Ambrosone.”

As I left court after the verdict had been read, a familiar reporter pressed forward through the crowd.